Campaigners Jonathan Moberley and Susanna Kow. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
Campaigners decry Angela Rayner’s backing for Brick Lane project that has only 11 affordable homes
A £500m redevelopment of the Truman Brewery estate in Brick Lane, east London, has been approved, clearing the way for the construction of a datacentre, offices and apartments despite opposition from Tower Hamlets council and local campaign groups.
The housing secretary, Angela Rayner, made the decision in a letter issued on her behalf last week by the housing minister Matthew Pennycook, rejecting demands from the council and campaigners for for the site to be used for hundreds of homes instead.
The Save Brick Lane coalition, made up of nine groups opposed to the project, said their “community should not be expected to accept a noisy, energy-intensive development that consumes a significant amount of power”.
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One person who works in the area said: “We don’t need it … Brick Lane is the heart of community, there’s already been so much change and adding a datacentre will just be another bad change.”
Deputy Labour Party Leader Angela Rayner calls for police to kill and harass innocent people. dizzy ” … should not be elected to high office …” ed: Perhaps I shoud have been more precise and said “appointed” instead of elected. I think that the meaning is clear and I certainly didn’t mean for a few months.
Solidarity with Palestine should never be a crime.
Andy Burnham must urgently dismantle the authoritarian assault on protest rights created by Keir Starmer’s government, the Scottish Greens have said.
The call follows reports that over 100 people outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court were arrested after peacefully expressing opposition to the genocide in Gaza.
It comes less than a week after far-right demonstrators in Glasgow performed Nazi salutes and became involved in violence and intimidation, where 15 arrests were made.
“There is something profoundly wrong when people peacefully opposing genocide are immediately surrounded, detained and treated like terrorists, while men performing Nazi salutes during violent far-right disorder can walk away and wait to see whether the police eventually knock on their doors.
“People holding signs and expressing an opinion were arrested en masse. Meanwhile, self-declared Nazis were seemingly allowed to perform fascist salutes in public, intimidate people and cause fear and alarm, and then leave the scene.
“The law must be enforced consistently and proportionately. It cannot be used as an authoritarian weapon against peaceful campaigners while organised fascist thugs spread hatred and intimidation on our streets.
“Keir Starmer did his part in creating this shameful mess by abusing terrorism legislation to criminalise conscience, solidarity and peaceful dissent.”
Maggie added:
“Protest is not terrorism, and opposing genocide is not a crime.
“This will be one of Andy Burnham’s earliest and most important tests as Prime Minister. He must decide whether he will defend Starmer’s authoritarian legacy or begin undoing it.
“His government should end the prosecutions of peaceful protesters and undertake an urgent review of how counter-terrorism and public-order laws are being used against political dissent.”
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
I mentioned a short time ago that I needed to write a piece on terrorism. This is the first published draft, it may well change.
I decided to publish a piece on terrorism while Anne Widdicombe murder featured prominently in the UK press. Anne Widdicombe was a well-known UK politician who like many Reform politicians had transferred her allegiances from the Conservative Party to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party plc. An intolerant bigot, it’s unclear whether she was immigration and justice spokesperson for the Reform party plc when she was violently murdered by a 28 year old man repeatedly wielding a hammer.
The London Metropolitan Police lead on terrorism policing in the UK. An alleged possible terrorism connection allowed the transfer of the investigation from the regional Devon and Cornwall Police force to the Metropolitan police.
Normal people understand terrorism as being about using bombs to kill people indiscriminately. This is actually very difficult to do because – I suggest that by definition you have to be divorced from normal life, mentally ill to do this – and what we find instead is that nutters attack and kill people using knives, etc.
Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’.
In UK, terrorism is defined as attempting to influence the government. It follows that political activists engaging in the democratic process are terrorists – including myself wanting government action addressing climate change, disagreeing with fossil fuel exploitation in the North Sea, objecting to and wanting and end to UK’s complicity in Israel’s genocide for colonial expansion. I have a long history of UK police treating me as a suspected terrorist and interfering in my life for my actions as a political activist.
But this is selective of course. Super rich proprietors of newspapers Rupert Murdoch, Lord Rothermere, etc not only attempt to influence the government but no way are these cnuts regarded as terrorists when they are the de-facto the weilders of power. These are cnuts who support Israel’s genocide and deride climate activists as eco-zealots, etc.
As I said earlier, people understand that terrorism is about people indiscriminately killing the public using bombs. This is what Israel is doing with the UK government complicit in it’s actions. This intolerant Fascist government instead accuses people damaging arms factories complicit in genocide, painting military planes, painting banks or retired vicars and other pensioners holding signs with words banned by the government of terrorism.
Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
A view of the area following an Israeli airstrike targeting the medicine warehouse at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and the surrounding tent camp in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Palestine on August 01, 2026. [Moiz Salhi – Anadolu Agency]
Gaza’s Health Ministry warned Saturday that the enclave’s medical system is rapidly approaching collapse after Israeli forces destroyed a drug warehouse at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, amid severe shortages of medicines and medical supplies, Anadolu reports.
Earlier Saturday, the ministry said the Israeli army destroyed two warehouses containing essential medicines and medical supplies and severely damaged two others in strikes on storage facilities at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.
Munir Al-Bursh, director general of Gaza’s Health Ministry, told Anadolu that Israeli attacks were no longer limited to patients, medical staff and hospitals but had expanded to include medicine warehouses.
“The Israeli occupation targeted the drug warehouse of the kidney department behind the outpatient building at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after prior notification, completely destroying it,” he said.
Al-Bursh said the strike came as Gaza’s health sector was already facing a 51% shortage of essential medicines and a 59% shortage of medical consumables, while 22.5% of laboratory equipment is out of service because of a lack of spare parts.
He described the attack as “a direct blow to what remains of the lifeline inside hospitals.”
Al-Bursh warned that the destruction of the warehouse would deepen the humanitarian crisis, accelerate the collapse of the healthcare system and deprive thousands of patients of their basic right to treatment.
“The war here is not only targeting buildings, but also medicine, treatment and people’s chance to stay alive,” he said.
He called for the protection of medicine warehouses and medical supplies in Gaza under international humanitarian law, which prohibits attacks on medical facilities and supplies designated for civilian treatment.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is one of the few remaining operational government hospitals in Gaza after widespread destruction of the territory’s health infrastructure during Israel’s military campaign, which began on Oct. 8, 2023.
The hospital has repeatedly come under Israeli attack during the war, sustaining damage to its buildings and resulting in casualties among patients and medical staff.
The latest strike comes as Israel continues its blockade of Gaza, according to Palestinian authorities. Israel has failed to fulfill its obligations under the ceasefire agreement that took effect on Oct. 10, 2025, including reopening crossings and allowing agreed levels of humanitarian, food and medical aid into the enclave.
According to Palestinian health authorities, more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 174,000 injured since October 2023, while about 90% of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has been destroyed. The United Nations estimates reconstruction costs at around $70 billion.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The Israeli and German flags are shown in front of the German parliament building in Berlin. [Photo via Getty Images]
A German court ruled that comparing Israel to the Nazi regime is not a criminal offense, the legal website beck online reported, Anadolu reports.
In the case, in several Instagram posts, a user had compared the actions of the state of Israel to the methods of the Nazi regime—and in doing so used the Nazi swastika and the Nazi party flag.
Citing her right to freedom of speech, a higher regional court in the southwestern city of Zweibruckem has acquitted her of any wrongdoing, according to the report published earlier this week.
According to the court, the criminal offense of using symbols of unconstitutional organizations is not fulfilled if someone uses the symbols to sharp criticize the state of Israel’s methods and thereby clearly distances herself from or condemns Nazi-era injustices.
The user in question posted a table in her story comparing the actions of the Nazis with Israel’s actions in the Middle East conflict. Above it was a split image showing the flag of Israel on one side and the flag of the Nazi party—with a partially visible swastika—on the other.
Another post showed a wall with a Star of David, in the center of which was a Nazi swastika. Soldiers were firing from the wall into the walled-off area, with blood flowing out from beneath the walls. The user also included the hashtags #freepalestine and #gazaunderattack.
A lower court in the city of Ludwigshafen had sentenced the woman to a fine of €2,400 ($2,768) for using symbols of unconstitutional organizations. On appeal, the Zweibrucken court overturned the decision. It cautioned against interpreting the criminal offense too broadly in light of freedom of expression.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
