Labour Party

CENSORED: KEIR STARMER’S EMAILS ABOUT ISRAELI WAR CRIMES CASE

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https://www.declassifieduk.org/censored-keir-starmers-emails-about-israeli-war-crimes-case/

Starmer’s time at the CPS is under scrutiny. (Photo: Keir Starmer / Flickr)

The Crown Prosecution Service is refusing to release files on how Starmer blocked the arrest of former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni over alleged war crimes during the brutal bombing of Gaza in 2008.

  • The coalition government changed UK law in 2011 to enable Israeli ministers accused of crimes to visit Britain without fear of prosecution.
  • Declassified asks the CPS to conduct an internal review into its decision to censor the Starmer emails.

In October 2011, Keir Starmer was asked by a human rights group and law firm to issue an arrest warrant for former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who was visiting London, over alleged war crimes.

Starmer was then Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). But two days later, he blocked the application for Livni’s arrest, citing a Foreign Office decision to grant her visit “special mission” status.

Declassified recently submitted a freedom of information (FOI) request asking for all communications to and from Starmer’s office regarding the case.

These files could shine a crucial light on the discussions which led to Livni’s escape from prosecution.

However, the CPS has censored a number of key emails, claiming that the release of such information would prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs.

Starmer’s role in the Livni case requires closer inspection in light of the Labour party’s ongoing support for Israel’s brutal war on Gaza.

One of the redacted emails released to Declassified following our freedom of information request.

Tzipi Livni

Livni was the Israeli minister of foreign affairs between 2006 and 2009, and a member of Israel’s war cabinet during the brutal bombing of Gaza between December 2008 and January 2009, known as Operation Cast Lead.

According to a UN report, “numerous serious violations of international law… were committed by Israel during the military operations in Gaza”, which killed around 1,400 Palestinians, 333 of whom were children.

Those crimes included “the direct targeting and arbitrary killing of Palestinian civilians”, as well as a “deliberate and systematic policy… to target industrial sites and water installations”.

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https://www.declassifieduk.org/censored-keir-starmers-emails-about-israeli-war-crimes-case/

Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel's Gaza genocide.
Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide.

I remember publishing about this case of Zippy Livny escaping prosecution but there’s no sign of it …

Continue ReadingCENSORED: KEIR STARMER’S EMAILS ABOUT ISRAELI WAR CRIMES CASE

The Labour Party must not follow Tory economic policies

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Image of cash and pre-payment meter key
Image of cash and pre-payment meter key

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/the-labour-party-must-not-follow-tory-economic-policies/

Labour is counting on the unpopularity of the Conservative Party to catapult it into power but in the absence of specific policies and failure to improve quality of life, electoral goodwill will quickly evaporate.

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Labour and Conservatives have become slaves to arbitrary fiscal rules even though they have failed to deliver almost every target relating to economic growth, inflation, public debt, investment and more. Labour emphasises that it wants to reduce the government debt to GDP ratio in five years’ time. However, no rationale is presented for such a straitjacket. No assessment is made of the consequences of removing billions of pounds from the economy. No rationale as to why low debt to GDP ratio is an indicator of the prosperity of a nation and why this should take priority over investment or redistribution. Analogies with household budgets or maxed out credit cards are misleading as governments, especially those with global currencies such as the Pound Sterling, can create money to achieve desired social objectives and levy selective taxation to eliminate inflationary effects. But Labour is no student of the modern monetary theory.

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Debt can be used to rebuild the economy even if Labour and Conservatives are hostile to it. The Post-Second World War boom was built upon direct public investment in new industries and social infrastructure. In 1946, public debt stood at over 270% of its GDP. This provided jobs and fuelled demand. It fuelled corporate investment as the state bought goods and services from the private sector. It laid foundations of emerging industries, such as biotechnology, information technology, aerospace and more specially as the private sector showed little appetite for long-term investment and risks. Within a generation, the public debt came down to 49% of GDP and I can’t recall our parents and grandparents fretting about the public debt.

Instead of a dynamic state, both Labour and Conservatives support further cuts in public spending even though that will reduce investment, slow economic growth, and inflict long-term damage. Too many public buildings and schools are crumbling away. The government response is that college spending per student aged 16–18 in 2024 will be 10% below 2010 levels, and about 23% below them for school sixth forms. Since 2010 local council funding has been cut by 23.3% in real terms, leading to degradation of public services and higher council tax on hard-pressed households. Hospitals in England have a waiting list of 7.6m appointments. None of this can be addressed by adherence to arbitrary fiscal rules.

There is a strong case for redistribution of income and wealth, but Hunt and Reeves ignore it even though higher disposable income for the less well-off has a greater multiplier effect. No amount of economic growth can be sustained unless people have good purchasing power to buy goods and services. Both parties reaffirm their faith in trickle-down economics which has seen wealth sucked upwards and prevent economic recovery. The UK has 171 billionaires with combined wealth of £684bn. The richest 1% of the population has more wealth than 70% of the population combined. The richest 10% of households hold 43% of all wealth, and the poorest 50% own just 9%.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/the-labour-party-must-not-follow-tory-economic-policies/

Continue ReadingThe Labour Party must not follow Tory economic policies

Journalist Owen Jones leaves Keir Starmer’s genocide-supporting ‘Labour’ party

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/21/labour-party-cancelling-membership-policies

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The assault on Gaza, the great crime of our age, adds moral indecency to the pile of dishonesty and vacuity. When Starmer declared Israel had the right to cut off energy and water to Palestinian civilians, he did so as a human rights lawyer who understands the Geneva conventions. After letting shadow cabinet ministers defend him, he claimed it “has never been my view that Israel had the right to cut off water, food, fuel or medicines”. We all have political red lines: mine is supporting what would amount to war crimes against innocent civilians, toddlers and newborn babies among them, then gaslighting the public over doing so.

Where is my gratitude for Starmer delivering a now inevitable landslide victory, you may ask? Well, he didn’t force Boris Johnson and his cronies to violate their own pandemic rules, or to trash the NHS, or oversee the worst squeeze in living standards in history. Nor did he propel to power Liz Truss, whose unhinged economic experiment crashed the economy – the moment when the electorate turned on this Tory party for good.

The absolute power a landslide victory will give Labour should scare you. When Starmer allies deployed antisemitic tropes – with one joking about a “run on silver shekels” when two Jewish businessmen missed out on peerages, and another calling a Jewish Tory donor a “puppet master” – an apology was deemed to be sufficient. When another racially abused a journalist and had a sexual harassment complaint upheld, they were reinstated after investigation.

Contrast this with Diane Abbott, Britain’s first Black female MP, who was suspended after immediately apologising for an Observer letter in which she argued that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people are not subject to racism “all their lives”. She has been left in limbo for 10 months and counting while the party investigates – only for Labour to use the racist abuse directed at her by a Tory donor for political capital, while still refusing to reinstate her.

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Continue ReadingJournalist Owen Jones leaves Keir Starmer’s genocide-supporting ‘Labour’ party

Just Stop Oil confronts Emily Thornberry && Keir Starmer and UK ‘Likud’ Labour party accused of aiding and abetting genocide

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Just Stop Oil supporters have disrupted a public event featuring Emily Thornberry. As Thornberry was delivering her open remarks, the pair stood up to confront the Labour front-bencher and Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales. They threw orange confetti and addressed the assembly, remarking “We need you to make a commitment to revoke the Tory licences for oil and gas infrastructure which will lock us on to the worst pathways of global warming and climate catastrophe”, and “Labour needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Everyone else has clocked that new oil and gas means more floods, more fires, rising food prices… when are you going to get it?”. Members of the audience were repeatedly heard to say “hear, hear!” to these comments.

After the action takers were escorted from the room, Emily Thornberry addressed the audience, saying:

“I have had Just Stop Oil outside my house, I have had Gaza protests pretty much everywhere I go. I assumed it was Gaza then I saw the orange and thought ‘Oh, right! It’s Just Stop Oil’. The worst thing is that one becomes hardened to it… I’m happy to argue the issues, I’m not happy to be told I’m responsible for the murder of babies in Gaza, or I’m personally responsible for the boiling of the planet.”

One of those taking action today was Genevieve Shanahan, 33, a university lecturer in Management and Sustainability. She said:

“Today I’m approaching Emily Thornberry to implore her to stand up to fossil fuel extremists and use her influence within Labour to secure a commitment to cancel these licences. The Labour Party are poised to win the next general election, and rather than grabbing this opportunity to protect the British public from this violence they are instead – unbelievably – dropping their existing climate commitments.”

“As a lecturer in sustainability, I need to practise what I teach. In my classroom we examine how permitting investment in new fossil fuel infrastructure would lock in economic incentives that will, according to all reasonable models, make climate collapse inevitable. If the Tories’ new oil and gas licences go ahead then that’s it – it’s game over for all of us.”

Keir Starmer accused of aiding and abetting genocide

Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel's Gaza genocide.
Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide.

Let’s look at Emily Thornberry’s response. She is shadow Attorney General for England and Wales and so should know the law.

From my quick and limited review of the law of genocide, there are 2 main crimes supporting genocide: aiding and abetting genocide and complicity in genocide although unfortunately there is not a clear distinction due to how the law has developed. Aiding and abetting is more serious since there is a greater involvement in the act of genocide. So it is plausible that Keir “I support Zionism without qualification” Starmer is aiding and abetting genocide when he says that Israel has the right to withold power and water: he is clearly helping and supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Where does this leave Emily Thornberry and other Labour shadow cabinet members and MPs? Thornberry said “… I’m not happy to be told I’m responsible for the murder of babies in Gaza …”. She’s supporting her glorious Zionist leader and certainly not diverging from his Zionist policy of aiding and abetting genocide. The cabinet has collective responsibility i.e. they’re all guilty, and the shadow cabinet should be held to the same standard. MPs? Do they depart from Starmer’s Zionist aiding and abetting?

Genocide is a most serious crime and it’s clear that Israel is committing war crimes and genocide. Responsible for the murder of babies in Gaza? I’d say complicit because there is no opposition to it and the electorate are very likely to regard it as such. There’s the further issue of course that these politician cnuts are supposed to represent their electorate who want an end to Israel massacring children and other Gazans.

“I’m not happy to be told … I’m personally responsible for the boiling of the planet.” Thornberry doesn’t want to be held to account for any of her actions or inactions. It’s certainly aiding and abetting again. Doing nothing to oppose it? Then complicity.

Continue ReadingJust Stop Oil confronts Emily Thornberry && Keir Starmer and UK ‘Likud’ Labour party accused of aiding and abetting genocide

Scotland Yard’s cyber crime unit investigating Croydon Labour

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https://insidecroydon.com/2024/03/18/scotland-yards-cyber-crime-unit-investigating-croydon-labour/

LABOUR SELECTION SCANDAL: ‘Day of shame’ as Information Commissioner and Met Police confirm investigations into allegations of vote-rigging in Croydon East selection. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Croydon Labour is subject to a criminal investigation over allegations of vote-rigging in a parliamentary selection, in what has been described as the latest “day of shame” for the party locally.

Scotland Yard has confirmed to Inside Croydon that its special cyber crime unit is conducting an active investigation into Labour’s Croydon East selection, which was abruptly halted last November when complaints were made that the local party’s membership lists had been tampered with.

Inside Croydon reported last week that the selection process had been re-started, but with one of the four short-listed candidates, Unison union official Joel Bodmer, no longer in the contest. “Bodger” issued a barely credible statement claiming that he had “withdrawn” from the contest in order to spend more time with his family.

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More details at https://insidecroydon.com/2024/03/18/scotland-yards-cyber-crime-unit-investigating-croydon-labour/

https://skwawkbox.org/2024/03/18/met-police-launches-criminal-investigation-into-croydon-east-vote-rigging/

The Labour party in Croydon is formally under criminal investigation by the Metropolitan Police cyber crime unit into allegations of vote-rigging in last autumn’s parliamentary selection for the new Croydon East constituency – a selection cancelled by the party after it could no longer deny the fixing of the result and tampering with local member lists and admitted that one candidate had been given early access to member lists and other candidates eventually received lists strewn with errors.

The data tampering included unauthorised changes of addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of a significant number of members with a vote in the selection.

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https://skwawkbox.org/2024/03/18/met-police-launches-criminal-investigation-into-croydon-east-vote-rigging/

Continue ReadingScotland Yard’s cyber crime unit investigating Croydon Labour