The anti-woke group, Restore Trust, had launched a renewed campaign to win seats on the Trust’s council this year after failing in their attempts last year, and this time they had the likes of Farage, along with the right-wing press backing them.
An attempt by a right-wing group to take over the National Trust, the UK’s largest charity, has failed after the candidates backed by the likes of Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg, failed to secure a place on the National Trust’s council in this year’s elections.
The anti-woke group, Restore Trust, had launched a renewed campaign to win seats on the Trust’s council this year after failing in their attempts last year, and this time they had the likes of Farage, along with the right-wing press backing them.
Why do the National Trust’s elections matter? Because what was at stake was the future not only of the UK’s largest charity but also one which owns more than 1,300 farms, 775 miles of coastline and 250,000 hectares of land, making it Britain’s largest private landowner. The right recognises the importance of an institution like the National Trust, and did all it could in the council elections to help its candidates.
Experts warn UK’s regulations now lag behind those of the EU and that Britons will be exposed to more toxic chemicals as a result
The government is to loosen EU-derived laws on chemicals in a move experts say will increase the likelihood of toxic substances entering the environment.
Under new plans the government will reduce the “hazard” information that chemical companies must provide to register substances in the UK. The safety information provided about chemicals will be reduced to an “irreducible minimum”, which campaigners say will leave the UK “lagging far behind the EU”.
The UK’s scheme, called UK Reach, is falling behind the EU’s as it is. The UK has not been part of the bloc’s chemicals regulations scheme, EU Reach, since 2021. Eight rules restricting the use of hazardous chemicals have been adopted by the EU since Brexit, and 16 more are in the pipeline. The UK has not banned any substances in that time and is considering just two restrictions, on lead ammunition and harmful substances in tattoo ink.
Campaigners have called for the government to follow EU chemicals regulations as standard, diverging only if and when there is a good reason to do so. This would free up time and money for regulators and mean dangerous chemicals banned by the EU do not enter the environment before there is time to ban them.
Responding to Rishi Sunak’s extensive cabinet reshuffle today, co-leader of the Green Party, Adrian Ramsay, said:
“This reshuffle looks desperate and is a sign that Rishi Sunak has run out of talent. David Cameron started the programme of cuts to our public services which has now brought the NHS to near breaking point. Since his disastrous exit he has cashed in on dodgy lobbying for global oligarchs. And on the odd occasion where Cameron did take a principled stand – such as on maintaining the international aid budget – the government has since reneged.
“As to the departure of Therese Coffey as Environment Secretary, nature can at least temporarily breathe a sigh of relief as we await to see who replaces her. She put in place a subsidy system which is not working for farmers or the environment, and she has failed to tackle the blight of sewage in our rivers – a situation she herself described as ‘a scandal’ when I challenged her on it at a public meeting in Suffolk last month.
“We need a fresh start on the environment, with real action to stop the water companies profiting from failure and a proper system of nature-friendly farming payments which are easy for farmers to access.
“This chaotic and unprincipled government has reached the end of the road. It is doing great harm to the country. We need a general election now.”
Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
The State Department and USAID staffers denounced the president’s “unwillingness to de-escalate” Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza, which have killed more than 11,000 Palestinians.
One hundred U.S. foreign service officials have signed a “scathing” internal memo blasting President Joe Biden’s “unwillingness to de-escalate” Israel’s assault on Gaza and his failure to stop Israeli “war crimes and/or crimes against humanity” in the embattled Palestinian enclave.
Axios reported Monday that the five-pageinternal dissent memo was signed by officials at the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The memo was reportedly organized by Sylvia Yacoub, a foreign affairs officer in the State Department’s Bureau of Middle East Affairs who earlier this month accused Biden of being “complicit in genocide” as Israeli forces indiscriminately bombarded the Gaza strip by air, land, and sea—killing thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children.
“Members of the White House and [the U.S. National Security Council] displayed a clear disregard for the lives of Palestinians, a documented unwillingness to de-escalate, and, even prior to October 7, a reckless lack of strategic foresight,” the memo states.
The missive accuses Biden of “disregarding the lives of Palestinians,” over 40,000 of whom have been killed, wounded, or gone missing since Israel launched its retaliatory war that has also displaced over 1.5 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.
Israel’s relentless attacks and its cutting off of electricity, food, and fuel supplies to the already besieged territory “all constitute war crimes and/or crimes against humanity under international law,” the memo asserts. “Yet we have failed to reassess our posture towards Israel. We doubled down on our unwavering military assistance to the [Israeli government] without clear or actionable red lines.”
More unprecedented dissent from within the State Department: An internal State Department dissent memo accuses President Biden of "spreading misinformation" and says that Israel is committing "war crimes" in Gaza https://t.co/Cm52hgAadr
Responding to the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel that killed around 1,200 people, Biden has repeatedly proclaimed his “unwavering” support for Israel and requested another $14 billion in U.S. armed assistance to the key Middle East ally—which already receives nearly $4 billion from Washington annually.
The president has dismissed calls to cut or place conditions on U.S. aid, while Biden administration officials have been derided for claiming they have no leverage over Israel.
Biden has also rebuffed widespread and growing calls for a cease-fire in Gaza, instead advocating for a so-called “humanitarian pause” to allow civilians to flee and aid to enter the strip.
The signers of the memo denounce Biden for “questioning the number of deaths” in Gaza by saying he had “no confidence” in Palestinian health officials’ casualty reports—figures deemed reliable by United Nations agencies, human rights groups, international and Israeli mainstream media, and even the State Department.
Biden was accused of “genocidal denial” following his remarks. Directly contradicting the president, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf warned last week that the death toll in Gaza may be “even higher” than reported, as thousands of bodies lie unrecovered beneath the rubble of bombed buildings.
The memo’s signers also accused the president of “spreading misinformation” about the war.
Axios said the memo was sent to the State Department’s policy office on November 3 through the official dissent channel established during the Vietnam War era to allow diplomats to express their disapproval of U.S. policies and practices. Dissent memos are meant to stay within the agency, but are sometimes leaked to the public.
Multiple dissent memos about the Gaza war are currently being circulated within the State Department, according toPolitico.
A State Department spokesperson told Axios that the agency “is proud there is an established procedure for employees to articulate policy disagreements directly to the attention of senior department leaders without fear of retribution.”
“We understand—we expect, we appreciate—that different people working in this department have different beliefs about what United States policy should be,” the spokesperson added.
