Reports that McSweeney’s successor Josh Simons will head Burnham’s No 10 policy unit suggest this is part of a wider ruling-class project to reassemble as much of the Mandelson-McSweeney project as possible and ensure it remains the dominating influence in government.
Simons headed Labour Together when it hired private investigators to smear and intimidate journalists who had helped expose its financial misconduct, notably Holden but including the Morning Star’s Andrew Murray.
It would be the height of folly for Burnham to give Simons a political role, whether or not this was the gentlemen’s agreement that saw Simons resign his Makerfield seat to let Burnham run.
It would reinforce the “jobs for the boys” impression of government by clique and confirm that the system looks after its own, no matter how outrageous their behaviour.
It would show that the disgraced think tank is still in charge …
dizzy: Looks like we have no change apart from the front man. I am disappointed in those that abandoned their stated intentions and contributed to achieving this … It wasn’t without warning, was it?
NAKBA 78: Protesters on the huge London rally on the anniversary of the Nakba in May
History suggests apartheid ends not through appeals to conscience alone but through sustained economic and political pressure, says HUGH LANNING
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With every red line it crosses from the Nakba to genocide, Israel reveals its contempt for international law. It revels in the impunity the Western world grants that result partly from guilt rightly felt for the horrific crimes we inflicted on Jewish people in our countries, not just in the second world war, but over centuries of antisemitism, which is still ongoing.
But also, because Israel is a major part of the West’s colonial and now neoliberal strategy in the Middle East.
Under the protective wing of an increasingly authoritarian US and led by the ever-stronger fascist and racist tendencies within, Israel believes it has a generational opportunity to conquer Palestine completely and establish the zionist dream of a “greater Israel” from the river to the sea.
The mentality is: “If we got away with genocide in Gaza, we can get away with anything.”
How is this avalanche of violence, death and atrocity to be stopped? Well, not by the mealy mouthed “sanctions” recently announced by Yvette Cooper. When is a sanction not a sanction? When it does nothing to the perpetrators of the crime. Under international law the official role of sanctions is to bring pressure to bear on the miscreants to achieve compliance.
The token measures announced “target individuals and entities involved in financing and enabling settler violence in the occupied West Bank.” No mention of the Israeli state.
The Israeli government is a settler government; the forcible settlement of the West Bank is its official policy. It legalises and legitimises even the outlier settlements illegal under Israeli law. The IDF either stands idly by or actively protects and supports the settlers as they go about their violent business. Not surprisingly as many of the soldiers are themselves settlers — brothers and sisters of those committing the crimes.
The government itself is riddled by members of extreme settler parties. Indeed, Israel is a settler colonial entity, all but a few of its citizens are settlers.
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Apart from an arms embargo on the two-way trade with Israel, the new Burnham government ought to institute an audit of all government, local and national, expenditure, contracts and co-operation to identify and stop any support for companies engaged in supporting the settlements and the occupation — Oracle and Palantir being obvious examples.
As the US has done with Russia and supporters of Palestine — follow the money. The war, the occupation, the settlements are all funded with much investment and finance coming from abroad and being channelled through British financial institutions. This should be stopped.
The EU has a positive trade agreement with Israel treating it an as associate member which Britain is trying to replicate following Brexit. These trade agreements should be ended.
The government and its representatives ought to support, not block, moves in international bodies to ban and boycott Israel — be it Fifa or Eurovision — Israel should be treated as the apartheid state it is.
So complicit has the British state been for decades, the list of what could be done is almost endless.
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Hugh Lanning will be among the speakers at a Labour and Palestine online event on Tuesday July 7 looking at ending Britain’s role in crimes against the Palestinian people. Find out more and register for the meeting at bit.ly/endukcomplicity.
Join the National March for Palestine July 18 in central London at noon. Visit palestinecampaign.org for more details.
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Genocide denying UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.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.
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A view of the destruction as Lebanese residents return to their homes following the agreement reached between the U.S. and Iran in Nabatieh, Lebanon on June 15, 2026. [Houssam Shbaro – Anadolu Agency]
Lebanese Information Minister Paul Morcos said Monday direct material damage from Israel’s war on Lebanon is estimated at between $3-4 billion, Anadolu reports.
Speaking following a ministerial meeting, Morcos said the figures are preliminary and do not include economic losses or indirect damage, according to the state news agency NNA.
The estimates come as the Israeli army continues daily violations of a US-mediated framework agreement signed with Beirut.
On Monday, Israeli forces blew up homes and carried out explosions in two towns in southern Lebanon, and detonated explosives overnight in the town of Houla in Marjayoun district.
Morcos said Monday’s ministerial meeting discussed the results of field visits by ministers to southern villages and towns, including ways to support the return of residents to their areas and provide proper shelter.
The ministers also discussed supporting the needs of municipalities and local economic sectors to help residents return, ahead of the launch of reconstruction efforts, he said.
On May 26, Lebanon and Israel signed a framework agreement under US mediation, which provides for a phased Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory.
The agreement, however, does not set a timetable for a full withdrawal and links further pullbacks to the Lebanese army assuming security responsibilities and the disarmament of non-state armed groups, including Hezbollah.
Lebanese officials said the agreement represented a “first step” toward restoring state sovereignty over all its territory and allowing displaced people to return to their towns.
Hezbollah, however, called the agreement “null and void,” saying that linking Israeli withdrawal to its disarmament crossed “all red lines.”
Since March 2, Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 4,300 people and injured over 12,000 others, according to official figures.
Israeli forces also continue to occupy areas in southern Lebanon, some held for decades and others seized during the 2023-2024 war, while advancing more than 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) into Lebanese territory during the latest offensive.
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Keir Starmer explains that UK is participating defensively in Trump and Israel’s criminal war for Israel’s genocidal expansion in Iran and states that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
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Hamas’ armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades hold a Palestinian flag as they destroy a tank of Israeli forces in Gaza City, Gaza on October 07, 2023. [Hani Alshaer – Anadolu Agency]
Secret Hamas documents summarised by the Israeli site OSINT613 appear to undermine one of Israel’s central narratives about 7 October: that the attack was a closely coordinated operation planned with Iran and Hezbollah.
The documents, first revealed by Israel Army Radio correspondent Doron Kadosh and analysed by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, were presented by Israeli sources as evidence of years of contact between Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. However, the same material indicates that neither Hezbollah nor Iran was informed in advance of the timing or operational launch of the 7 October attack.
According to the Israeli site OSINT613, Hamas had spent years seeking a broader multi-front confrontation with Israel and repeatedly tried to persuade Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah to join a simultaneous attack from Lebanon. Hamas also sought support from Iran, while internal documents described intelligence sharing and strategic discussions involving Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards during earlier rounds of fighting.
Yet the documents point to a major gap between Hamas’s expectations and the reality on 7 October. OSINT613 reported that, immediately after the attack began at 6:29am, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar sent an urgent message to Nasrallah apologising for not informing him in advance and asking Hezbollah to intervene through rocket fire and a major ground offensive. Sinwar’s apology for the lack of prior notice is seen as a strong indication that Hezbollah was not operationally informed before the attack was launched.
The requested ground offensive never came. Hezbollah later opened a northern front with rockets, missiles and drones, but it did not send its Radwan Force into the Galilee as Hamas had expected. According to the Israeli account, this failure to launch a simultaneous northern assault fundamentally changed the scale of the conflict and prevented a wider coordinated attack on northern Israel.
The Israeli report also indicate that Hamas did not expect Iran to enter the war directly. Instead, it envisaged Hezbollah and other Iran-aligned groups opening additional fronts while Tehran remained in the background. This detail complicates Israeli claims that Iran directly managed or jointly executed the 7 October operation.
The documents do show that Hamas had sought a wider regional war. In 2019, Ismail Haniyeh reportedly wrote to Nasrallah seeking closer military coordination, while a similar message was sent to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. During Israel’s 2021 assault on Gaza, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards reportedly established a joint intelligence operations room in Beirut, with Hezbollah providing intelligence on Israeli troop movements, air operations and surveillance.
However, the most important revelations undermines the Israeli claims that 7 October attack was a tightly coordinated regional operation. Hamas appears to have believed that Hezbollah would join a future “great strategic battle”, but internal Hamas assessments also warned that Hezbollah remained hesitant about entering a full-scale war with Israel. OSINT613 reported that Hamas intelligence documents described Hezbollah as facing a “psychological barrier”, an apparent reference to its hesitancy after the 2006 Lebanon war.
Nasrallah’s own reported response to Hamas’s proposal also suggests hesitation. According to the documents, he questioned what Hamas’s strategic objective would be and asked whether the goal was to force Israel’s collapse or merely prevent incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque. Hamas reportedly acknowledged that it had not fully defined its objectives.
Analysts have argued that Israel’s insistence on linking Iran directly to the 7 October attack served a wider political purpose: to internationalise the assault on Gaza, frame the war as part of a broader confrontation with Tehran and push Washington towards a more aggressive regional posture. Israeli officials repeatedly invoked Iran and its allies even when the connection was out of context, reflecting a long-standing Israeli effort to draw the US into direct confrontation with the Islamic Republic.
The Israeli-sourced documents now appear to undercut that propaganda line. While they show that Hamas maintained contacts with Iran and Hezbollah, they also suggest that neither Tehran nor Hezbollah had prior operational knowledge of the 7 October attack.
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Keir Starmer explains that UK is participating defensively in Trump and Israel’s criminal war for Israel’s genocidal expansion in Iran and states that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
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Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz. [SEBASTIAN SCHEINER/AFP via Getty Images]
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened Monday that Israel will “thwart” any future Iranian leader who seeks to attack his country, Anadolu reports.
His comments came as thousands filled the streets of Tehran on Monday for a massive procession of Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-Israeli strike on Feb. 28.
“Any Iranian leader who tries to promote plans to destroy Israel again will also be thwarted,” Katz said in comments carried by The Jerusalem Post newspaper.
He claimed that US-Israeli attacks against Iran “removed the immediate threat of destruction from Israel and severely damaged Iran’s strategic capabilities.”
“Israel is prepared to once again defend itself on its own at any time and against any threat,” Katz added.
Iran and the US reached a memorandum of understanding on June 17, aimed at ending their military conflict and reaching a lasting peace agreement.
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Keir Starmer explains that UK is participating defensively in Trump and Israel’s criminal war for Israel’s genocidal expansion in Iran and states that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
