… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Category: politics

  • Settlement trade restrictions are a welcome first step – Miliband must go further to end UK complicity in genocide and occupation

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    The Green Party has welcomed restrictions on trade with illegal Israeli settlements as an overdue first step, but says the measures must be strengthened and followed by wider action to end British complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

    Greens have long campaigned for a settlement trade ban and are calling for comprehensive restrictions on goods, services and investment in both directions, covering all illegal settlements with no loopholes.

    The party has called for a full two-way arms embargo, wide-ranging sanctions and an end to military and intelligence cooperation with Israel.

    Ellie Chowns, Green Party MP for North Herefordshire. CC image Wikipedia.
    Ellie Chowns, Green Party MP for North Herefordshire. CC image Wikipedia.

    Green Party Foreign Spokesperson Dr Ellie Chowns MP said:

    “The measures announced today mark a critical and overdue step towards upholding the UK’s obligations under international law – one which the Green Party has long fought for and strongly supports. We additionally welcome the government’s recognition that the occupation is unlawful and that Palestinians face ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Exerting pressure on the Israeli Government over illegal settlements is crucial to protecting the human rights of Palestinians, and Greens are pleased to see action taken to progress this aim. 

    “Important questions do remain regarding the scope of announced measures on services and investment. Ministers must make clear that restrictions cover all illegal settlements, not only settlement expansion; UK businesses must additionally be stopped from financing, insuring, and profiting from settlements that already exist. A comprehensive ban must cover goods, services, and investment in both directions, including goods containing settlement-produced ingredients or components and the letting of settlement properties, with effective enforcement and no loopholes. 

    “The Foreign Secretary has spoken of a fundamental reset in Britain’s relationship with the Israeli Government – this reset could not be more welcome, nor more needed. It is critical that our work does not end here; the UK has a legal and moral responsibility to use every lever to end its complicity in the Israeli Government’s crimes, including the ongoing genocide in Gaza. 

    “Britain’s legal duty to prevent genocide arose when ministers knew, or should have known, of a serious risk. That threshold was crossed long ago. Continuing military and intelligence cooperation with Israel while Palestinians are killed and denied lifesaving aid is a shameful failure to fulfil that duty. Ministers must take further action. 

    “That requires a full two-way arms embargo, wide-ranging sanctions, an end to military and intelligence cooperation, and withdrawal from the UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement. Existing export licenses that sustain the occupation must be ended, and restrictions must cover F-35 components supplied through the international pool. Britain must also press for unimpeded humanitarian access and independent war crimes investigations to secure accountability and justice. 

    “This is a moment of real progress, and should be recognised as such. But it must also be the beginning of something much bigger. The Green Party will welcome every meaningful step towards upholding international law and protecting Palestinian rights – and we will keep pushing for further action that is still urgently needed.”

    The Green Party is calling for the UK Government to:

    • Ensure restrictions form a comprehensive ban on goods, services and investment in both directions, covering all illegal Israeli settlements – not only settlement expansion – with effective enforcement and no loopholes.
    • Deliver the fundamental reset in relations with Israel promised by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, standing firm against threats of retaliation from US and Israeli officials.
    • Introduce a full two-way arms embargo, covering both sales to and purchases from Israel, end existing export licences that sustain the occupation, and reverse the exemption for F-35 components supplied through the international pool.
    • Impose wide-ranging sanctions, including banning the sale of Israeli government bonds in the UK and trade or investment involving companies that contribute to Israel’s genocide, alongside targeted sanctions on responsible senior officials.
    • End all military and intelligence cooperation with Israel – including cancelling and publishing the classified 2020 UK-Israel military agreement, which remains in force.
    • Demand and help secure unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza so essential food, medicine, shelter, and other aid can reach those who desperately need it.
    • End the UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement.
    • Push for safe and unimpeded access to Gaza for international media, enabling journalists to report freely and independently.
    • Use every available diplomatic lever to ensure immediate and regular International Committee of the Red Cross access to all prisoners and detainees held in Israeli facilities.
    • Drive independent investigations into war crimes and back justice mechanisms for victims, in order to bring about the accountability required for a just and lasting peace.

  • Majority of Tory and Reform voters do not back cuts to disability benefits, survey finds

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    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/08/majority-tory-reform-voters-do-not-back-cuts-disability-benefits-survey

    The British Social Attitudes report found that just 7% of respondents backed cuts to disability benefits. Photograph: Andriy Popov/Alamy

    Nearly half of respondents say spending on personal independence payments should be increased

    There is little appetite for cuts to disability benefits even among Conservative and Reform voters, and proposals to reduce spending could prove politically risky, according to an authoritative national survey.

    The British Social Attitudes (BSA) report found that while support for welfare spending as a whole had dipped sharply in recent years, just 7% of respondents backed cuts to disability benefits – and 49% said they should be increased.

    Two government-commissioned reviews – of the personal independence payment (Pip) benefit, and support for jobless youngsters – are expected imminently, amid speculation they will seek to restrict spending on disability benefits.

    The BSA report notes that any ministerial proposals to axe disability benefits would carry little support among Labour voters, of whom just 5% favoured reduced spending and 57% backed more generous spending.

    Support for spending on disabled people remained high among Tory and Reform UK voters of whom 40% supported more spending on claimants who could not work, and just 10% supported less spending.

    …

    See the original article at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/08/majority-tory-reform-voters-do-not-back-cuts-disability-benefits-survey

    Reform UK has a new target in its sights: Disabled people

  • Unite hails hot bus win as drivers no longer have to ‘sweat it out’

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/unite-union-hot-bus-win-drivers-temperature-climate-crisis

     Peter Crane, who has driven for Arriva for 22 years, shows a photo of a temperature reading from inside his cab at 44C, as he takes part in strike action at Wood Green Bus station in north London

    BUS drivers have won a groundbreaking agreement after striking over hot weather conditions, Unite announced today.

    Around 1,500 Union members at Arriva North London walked out last month over the dispute.

    They were poised to strike again today but the action was called off after they voted to accept a new deal when Arriva and Transport for London confirmed they will fit air conditioning to Arriva London North buses by May next year.

    They will also no longer be expected to “carry on and sweat it out” if air-conditioning is not working on a diesel or hybrid bus.

    Drivers will only need to complete 35 minutes of driving before the bus is stopped and returned to the respective garage.

    …

    Unite national lead officer Onay Kasab said: “This is an excellent win for our members, who stood together on picket lines to fight for and win an agreement that means that drivers are not simply expected to sweat it out.”

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/unite-union-hot-bus-win-drivers-temperature-climate-crisis

  • Labour acts at last on Israeli crimes

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-acts-last-israeli-crimes

     Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband making a statement on Israel-Palestine in the House of Commons, September 8, 2026

    LABOUR finally got serious about tackling Israeli aggression today as new Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced a landmark ban on trade with illegal settlements in the West Bank.

    He also made a government acknowledgement — “overdue,” as he conceded — that Israel’s entire occupation of Palestinian land is illegal.

    Pro-Palestine campaigners welcomed the developments, which followed Prime Minister Andy Burnham admitting that the Labour Party had got its response to the crisis in Gaza wrong, as a “first step.”

    Palestine Solidarity Campaign deputy director Pete Leary said: “Millions of people across Britain will hope that today’s announcement proves to be a first step towards the British government finally meeting its obligations under international law.

    “At a minimum, that requires not just a ban on trade with illegal settlements but also a complete end to the trade in weapons and other forms of co-operation that helps Israel to sustain its system of apartheid.

    “It must also include action against companies, charities and other entities linked to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people including its ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

    …

    Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-acts-last-israeli-crimes

    Ed Miliband accuses Zarah Sultana of Palestine speech ‘for TikTok’

    Ed Miliband and Zarah Sultana in the House of Commons on Tuesday (Image: PA)

    …

    Sultana … told MPs: “Whether directly or indirectly arming a genocide is still arming a genocide and it announced a settlement ban as a dead cat hoping to distract us from wider UK complicity.”

    The Coventry South MP said Ed Miliband could impose “full economic and diplomatic sanctions on Israel”, end arms sales and intelligence co-operation, and describe events in Gaza as a genocide.

    She added: “So I ask him directly, how many more Palestinian men, women and children must be killed by Union Jack weapons before this government finally stops arming Israel completely?”

    Miliband responded by describing her intervention as a “complete travesty”.

    He told the Commons: “This government is taking action. It’s taking action on goods, it’s taking action on services.

    “We’ve banned the arms licences for the IDF in Gaza. We’ve taken action across the board. We’ve declared the occupation as unlawful.

    “It might have been designed for TikTok, but it really doesn’t become her.”

    …

    Continues at https://www.thenational.scot/news/26532705.ed-miliband-accuses-zarah-sultana-palestine-speech-for-tiktok/

  • Morning Star Editorial: Healey’s prescriptions for growth are familiar — and wrong

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/healeys-prescriptions-growth-are-familiar-and-wrong

     Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey visits the UK Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry, September 7, 2026

    JAGUAR Land Rover confirming 4,000 jobs will go took the shine off Chancellor John Healey’s claim that Britain’s economy is “turning the corner” today.

    Healey’s “pre-Budget speech” suggests his own well-publicised assessment that Andy Burnham’s is a “continuity” government, rather than representing a sharp policy break from Keir Starmer, holds true.

    He emphasises adherence to his predecessor Rachel Reeves’s fiscal-rules straitjacket, severely constraining government room for manoeuvre on spending. Burnham may have called for Britain to “get beyond” being “in hock to the bond market” when he was Manchester mayor but in government he runs as scared of the money men as his predecessor.

    Healey’s prescription for economic growth falls under two main headings.

    One, fiscal devolution, including greater tax-retention powers by local authorities, could begin to reverse the hollowing-out of local democracy we have seen since Thatcher’s day, though the specifics, which he says he will map out at the Budget, are crucial: his refusal to rule out devolution of corporation tax was worrying, since that could prompt a race to the bottom by regions hoping to attract corporate favours.

    But the other repeats the tried-and-tested-to-destruction mantra of government after government: that deregulating business will spur growth.

    Healey’s pledge to reduce business regulation by “25 per cent” echoes David Cameron’s notorious “bonfire of the regulations.”

    These arbitrary targets encourage reckless deregulation ignoring the principle dubbed “Chesterton’s Fence” — that you should find out why a fence was put up before you tear it down.

    Deregulation is responsible for atrocities like the Grenfell Tower blaze and outrages like the poisoning of our rivers and coastlines by privatised water companies exploiting the lax “operator self-monitoring” system so effectively skewered in Channel 4’s Dirty Business drama. Indeed, deregulation of the banking sector allowed the high-risk lending and speculation that exploded in the 2008 bankers’ crash, which prompted the long squeeze on wages and cuts to public services which Healey laments.

    Given how far trade unions’ hopes in this government are tied up with the Employment Rights Act, key provisions of which we’re still waiting on and which is already heavily diluted from the original New Deal for Workers, we need clarity on what Healey means by reducing the regulatory burden on business, particularly since he lists “labour costs” as part of that burden.

    He also objects to “planning constraints,” and specifies that changes to judicial review rules already applied to energy projects, which reduce the scope to challenge them legally, will be extended to “all major infrastructure.” The government classifies the energy and water-intensive, and overwhelmingly US-owned, data centres springing up on our land as “critical national infrastructure” — will we lose our limited democratic power to fight these?

    Aside from the risk that deregulation will weaken worker, consumer and public protections, the notion that letting corporations do whatever they want will lead to growth ignores the underlying weaknesses behind Britain’s low levels of private-sector investment.

    A corporate culture that prioritises short-term profit over long-term sustainability is actually the result of under-regulation, especially when it comes to allowing private equity to buy up British businesses and services.

    Jaguar Land Rover (JLR’s) problems include the frankly hostile trade policy of the United States and its tariffs, but also the transition to electric vehicles. Tories cite government targets for production of electric cars as a burden on the business — as if petrol cars have an indefinite future. But JLR’s plummeting sales in China are down to consumer preferences shifting towards electric cars. Investment in accelerating the transition to renewables, as we have seen in China, is the route to more competitive exports.

    A clear judgement on the new Chancellor’s approach must wait for the Budget. But the signs so far are that the crippling misapprehensions of the last government are shared by its successor.

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/healeys-prescriptions-growth-are-familiar-and-wrong. I hope that Morning Star will excuse me republishing their editorial in full.