UK’s new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced that she will introduce laws further attacking and eroding the right to protest to enshrine Zionism into UK law. Institutionalized religious segregation and discrimination is a political system known as Theocracy.
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.
Ministers are to give police new powers to target repeated protests, aimed particularly at cracking down on demonstrations connected to Gaza, the Home Office has said.
The announcement, made the morning after almost 500 people were arrested in London for expressing support for Palestine Action, a proscribed organisation, could allow police to order regular protests to take place at a different site.
Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, will also look at all anti-protest laws, with the possibility that powers to ban some protests outright could be strengthened.
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If a protest has caused what a Home Office statement called “repeated disorder” at the same site for repeated weeks, police would be able to order the organisers to move it elsewhere, with anyone who fails to obey risking arrest.
Mahmood, the statement added, would “also review existing legislation to ensure that powers are sufficient and being consistently applied”, including police powers to ban some protests completely.
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The powers appear to be aimed at both mass pro-Gaza demonstrations, which took place in London and some other cities over a period of weeks, and those held to support Palestine Action.
On Saturday, police arrested about 500 people at the latest such protest. It took place despite ministers, including Keir Starmer, asking that it be postponed following this week’s deadly attack on a synagogue in Manchester.
Mahmood indicated that this was directly connected to the proposed extra powers, saying: “It’s been clear to me in conversations in the last couple of days that there is a gap in the law and there is an inconsistency of practice.”
She continued: “I’ll be taking measures immediately to put that right, and I will be reviewing our wider protest legislation as well to make sure the arrangements we have can meet the scale of the challenge that we face, which is protecting the right to protest, but ensuring that our communities can go about their daily business without feeling intimidated, and also that public order can be maintained.”
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Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAPalestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’.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.
Demonstrators during October 3 general strike in Italy. Source: USB/Facebook
Hundreds of thousands joined a new general strike across Italy, in solidarity with the people of Gaza and the Global Sumud Flotilla.
Hundreds of thousands of people have again taken to the streets of Italy in response to a general strike call originally launched by the grassroots union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) and later joined by some of the country’s largest trade union confederations. As they blocked ports, highways, and industrial zones, protesters delivered a resounding rejection of Giorgia Meloni’s government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, demanding an immediate end to the attacks and the release of activists kidnapped from the Global Sumud Flotilla.
“Tens of thousands of people took to the streets for the general strike in support of Palestine: this is a huge success,” Giuliano Granato of the left party Potere al Popolo reported from one of the marches. “It shows that there is a majority in the country that is fighting for Palestine and doing what our government has not dared to do for two years.”
The strike came just days after Israeli forces assaulted dozens of vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters, detaining activists, including several Italians. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and other officials failed to act decisively for their protection or release. Instead, they implied Israel had acted with measure and tried to shift the blame on the flotilla for continuing its humanitarian mission despite threats. The government’s attempt to present itself as “sovereignist” fell apart in the face of these events. “This is not a government of sovereignists. This is a government that bows down and prostrates itself before Israel,” Granato said.
Demonstrations during October 3 strike in Italy. Source: CGIL/Facebook
In several cities, demonstrators faced heavy police repression. In Padua, more than 10,000 protesters occupying the industrial zone were attacked with water cannons and tear gas. “The march stayed united and we are continuing the blockade,” one participant said. “We want an end to complicity. We want a free Palestine.”
Protesters in Bologna and Naples also pushed through police lines to occupy strategic points. In Naples, at least 50,000 people seized part of the port despite heavy policing. In Bologna, 150,000 blocked major roads. “This is the response of the people to Israel expanding the war, to the government repressing us, to those who want to divide us into good and bad,” Potere al Popolo’s Bologna chapter wrote. “Let’s center our priorities around those who keep this country going every day, with precarious lives, low wages, and insecure jobs. Instead of rearmament and alliances with Israel, let’s lay down arms and raise salaries!”
Union leaders echoed the calls. Maurizio Landini, head of the confederation CGIL, stated: “There are no rights, there is no dignity without peace. True security does not mean increasing spending on weapons, but investing in public health, education, employment, and the redistribution of wealth.”
The strike raised demands for a full arms embargo on Israel, the severing of all ties with the occupation authorities, and an immediate end to the genocide. And there is no end in sight for the mobilization – those who joined the strike are already preparing for Saturday’s national demonstration in Rome, where they will again assert their solidarity and determination to see a free Palestine.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.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.
So disjointed is Labour’s annual meet, the messaging differs from room to room. Attendees agree only on fear of Reform
Demonstrators outside the Labour Party Conference get creative | Seth Thévoz
I’ve been attending political party conferences in the UK for over 20 years, but I’ve never seen anything like the Labour conference currently taking place in Liverpool.
The governing party is a broad coalition at the best of times. But this year’s event has been a series of “bubbles” that don’t – and won’t – interact with one another. You can experience a completely different reality from the people 50 feet away, just by going to different events.
That’s why, all week, when people have asked me, “What’s the feeling like at Labour conference?” I’ve replied that it depends on which Labour conference you’re attending. The real conference takes place not on the carefully choreographed main stage, but in a hundred meeting rooms dotted across the city, where fringe events are put on by members, activists and lobbyists – and it’s in those rooms that the party’s deep internal rifts can be seen.
On day one, in the space of four meetings, I was told, firstly, of the importance of immigrants being treated with dignity and respect; secondly, of the need for Labour to go further in cutting immigration as the only way to stop Reform UK; thirdly, of the desperate need for more immigration if we were serious about growing the economy; and fourthly, what a brilliant job the government was already doing of cutting immigration.
As an immigrant, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this. But then, Labour conferences have always been a performance art – it’s an essential way to square the circle.
Exaggerated patriotism and mockney accents
You learn a lot by watching people at conference. A lot of play-acting goes on at Labour conference.
Take sharp-suited trade secretary Peter Kyle. Introduced to a rally organised by Labour First, a network representing those on the right of the party, Kyle spent a full minute explaining how he didn’t really like wearing suits, and protested: “I don’t own moccasins!”
Kyle isn’t alone. Elsewhere, well-spoken, public school-educated special advisers from the south-east suddenly put on mockney accents, deeply aware of the shame attached to sounding posh in Labour circles. And the party’s traumatised politicians, long nervous about having their patriotism questioned, try to take on the mantle of the keenest flag-shaggers, with fringe venues, exhibition stands, corridors and merchandise all draped in Union flags.
‘Flag-shaggers’: Labour is eager to prove its patriotism and rival Reform’s use of flags | Seth Thévoz
You soon pick up where the centres of power are around the conference hotel, its bar and its private business suites, as key party personnel are bundled away for hush-hush meetings with donors and diplomats. But for the people-watcher, there is a golden rule to observe: doughnutting.
VIPs make up the hole of a doughnut, and they’re surrounded by a gaggle of hangers-on. The more important you are, the bigger the doughnut: a backbench MP merits just one young diary secretary by their side, while a cabinet minister or a city mayor can have half a dozen staff flocking around them at all times. No one wants to be Billy No Mates.
I mention this because it was striking to see Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, shuttling around the lobby of the Pullman hotel at least eight times – always alone. Whether he prefers to work in isolation or is just being avoided, I don’t know. But I wasn’t the only seasoned conference-goer to observe, “That’s really weird.”
McSweeney has had a tough September. First, he’s synonymous with Starmer’s many resets and changes of strategy, which have seen Labour plummet in the polls. Second, he came under fire for having advocated for Peter Mandelson to be appointed as the UK’s Washington ambassador despite his known friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and despite concerns raised by the security services during the vetting process (Mandelson was fired after emails he sent to Epstein following his conviction emerged earlier this month). And now, thanks to a new book from investigative journalist Paul Holden, the peculiar tale of how more than £700,000 of donations to Labour Together went undeclared on McSweeney’s watch has resurfaced, heaping further pressure on the man many believe to be the architect of Starmerism.
But it was the sight of him hurrying around the conference on his own, not the many op-eds published questioning his political judgment in recent weeks, that made me realise McSweeney may be in deep trouble. I’ve never seen such a senior government figure alone at a party conference, let alone over and over again.
Reform agenda
Sienna Rodgers of The House magazine wasn’t wrong when she wrote, “the motivation for those targeting McSweeney is clear: Starmer, it is widely believed, is finished without him.” McSweeney has become a lightning rod because he is seen as the cause of so many of Starmer’s changes of direction.
Many of the Labour members who voted for Starmer in the party’s 2020 leadership election expected a more radical figure. Instead, they have been baffled by a series of policy U-turns and an increasingly socially conservative approach to policy, aimed at wooing Reform UK voters. McSweeney is seen as being behind this shift.
The dilemma over the rise and rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform party has hit Labour hard. It’s not just obvious in ministers’ speeches; all around the conference, you can hear the chatter of endless conversations along the same lines. “We’re quite fearful, to be honest,” activists tell one another. “It’s all about how to beat Reform, basically.”
Labour has historically taken its working-class voter base for granted, while it wins or loses elections on the back of middle-class voters. To suddenly find another party, claiming the mantle of being more working class, accusing Labour of being a party of southern elites, has really knocked people’s confidence. It goes to the heart of how Labour politicians see themselves: “Are we the baddies?”
And so activists seek solace in comfortable old certainties. In the conference’s ‘Labour shop’, a whole range of nostalgia merchandise has been launched this year, from mugs to T-shirts, commemorating 80 years since the Labour government of 1945. If Labour in 2025 can’t offer members a better future, it can at least offer up a better yesterday.
The Good Old Days: Labour is flogging a range of 1945 nostalgia merchandise | Seth Thévoz
Ad-libbing policies
This does not feel like a party that won a landslide only 14 months ago. Its conference has had a level of exhaustion normally seen only in parties that have been in power for over a decade. At fringe event after fringe event, the most interesting or lively guest speaker was usually the person brought in from outside the party: a social worker, an economist, or a local imam.
MPs and councillors, by contrast, often sounded shell-shocked and afraid to say too much. Part of this stems from how Starmer led Labour in opposition. The party’s strategists congratulated themselves on a brilliant wheeze, through the years of 2020 to 2024, of not being tied down to anything too specific. They were the textbook opposition, they believed: attacking the Tories in government, without having policies of their own that could be counter-attacked. They had learned from the Corbyn years, when lengthy manifestos were a hostage to fortune. No one wanted a repeat of Labour’s mammoth 1983 policy manifesto under Michael Foot, famously dubbed “The longest suicide note in history.” Policies could be left to the very end of the last Parliament, before being hammered out.
Unfortunately, Rishi Sunak’s call for an early election in May 2024 surprised many people, not least those strategists. And a lot of vital work never happened, from scheduled briefings with civil servants to agreeing on detailed policy proposals. Labour accidentally found itself in power several months too early and has been making up policy as it goes ever since.
This is how the government ended up quietly ditching several of its established policies, such as proportional representation and an elected House of Lords, while spending political capital on major new policies that weren’t even in its manifesto and which often divide people across political lines, such as last week’s new digital ID cards proposal.
Incidentally, a popular topic of conference gossip has been to speculate about which companies might get the lucrative government contract for ID cards, estimated by Labour Together as being worth up to £400m.
‘A ghastly job’
But the existential ennui has not stopped the glad-handing. There are plenty of lobbyists in town to do business, and Labour is in the middle of an election for a new deputy leader.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has been pushed by the party machine for that position at every stage, being unveiled at several rallies with slick leaflets promoting her campaign handed out by the entrance. In one flyer, Phillipson promises, “I won’t defend our mistakes” – a bold pitch, since being wheeled out to apologise for the party is basically the deputy leader’s job description. Indeed, earlier this month the role was described as “a terrible job, really ghastly” by Labour peer Margaret Beckett, who held the title in the 1990s.
At the rally by campaign group Labour to Win, Luke Akehurst MP put on a brave face, admitting the party has had “a couple of weeks where things have not gone well for us, and we need to put a stop to them not going well for us”. He pleaded with delegates not to go leaking stories to the press, with “a story of division and chaos and in-fighting”, and “taking the people at the top of the party out in front and critiquing them.”
And he lashed out at hints that Manchester’s Mayor Andy Burnham might challenge Keir Starmer: “Most of the cameras are following someone who isn’t even qualified to run!”
Akehurst – a veteran fixer on the Labour right – knows a thing or two about winning internal Labour elections. At the Labour First rally the next day, he boasted of how he was able to “completely confound” journalists with floor votes still favourable for the leadership, because of “organising all year”, electing “speaker after speaker after speaker” as delegates, “which is like bloody herding cats, trying to get people, just, oooh trust us, here’s seven really obscure topics that would be really quite ideal for us to debate. We got about 67% of the vote or something on that.”
There were theatrical pledges of support, as cabinet ministers at rallies lined up to praise the prime minister.
Health secretary Wes Streeting is an ambitious political operator, whom I’ve known since he was my student union’s president 20 years ago. Even back then, he was clearly already running to be prime minister; like Cassius in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, he often “has a lean and hungry look.” Yet at the Labour rally, he was doing his best to channel the manner of a North Korean MP theatrically clapping the Dear Leader, not wanting to be seen as half-hearted in his applause.
Health secretary Wes Streeting is among those keen to be seen loyally applauding | Seth Thévoz
But the mood of delegates was far less chipper. When chancellor Rachel Reeves told the rally, “It’s great to see Keir come out fighting this week!”, the Labour member next to me – who had been loyally applauding up until this point – muttered, “Yeah, too late!”
Ultimately, the Labour conference in Liverpool reminded me of grief. And grief has five stages. I saw plenty of denial, anger, bargaining and depression. I saw little of the last stage, acceptance. But then again, even some of the bargaining was surreal. One delegate I overheard in the café was musing on whether the coming England match might help the government’s popularity. He earnestly predicted, “When England do well, the whole community do well, so maybe if we, er, hope…?”
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.Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting speaking at the launch of the Government’s 10-year health plan during a visit to the Sir Ludwig Guttman Health & Wellbeing Centre in east London, July 3, 2025
US General Stanley McChrystal has been invited to advise on creating a ‘team of teams’ for healthcare transformation. His credentials? He previously ran interrogation bases where Iraqis were stripped naked and beaten, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
HEALTH SECRETARY Wes Streeting adopted Labour’s “warfare over welfare” approach by inviting US General Stan McChrystal, a key player in the disastrous Iraq and Afghanistan wars, to give advice on NHS “reform.”
Papers I recently obtained under Freedom of Information show Streeting sought out McChrystal for the meeting, which took place last November. Streeting’s office wrote to the Ministry of Defence saying he “would like a contact for General Stanley McChrystal as he’d be interested in hearing more about his experience in mobilising change” to “inform” his “10 Year Plan for Health.” With Ministry of Defence help, Streeting invited McChrystal to London.
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McChrystal led JSOC from 2003–8, battling the al-Qaida insurgency in Iraq, which followed the British-US invasion. McChrystal is credited with success through the 2006 killing of al-Qaida’s Iraqi leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. However, defeating al-Qaida only led to the rise of the more vicious group Isis.
Human Rights Watch and the Washington Post detailed abuses by troops under McChrystal’s command in Iraq in this conflict. JSOC ran an interrogation base, Camp Nama, where Human Rights Watch says detainees were “beaten” and “regularly stripped naked, subjected to sleep deprivation and extreme cold, placed in painful stress positions.” Maybe Streeting thinks McChrystal being in charge of physical abuses gives him some kind of medical knowledge.
It’s certainly hard to see how Streeting can believe McChrystal is somehow a model for good and lasting change. McChrystal’s Afghanistan success was also short-lived: the Taliban is back in charge of Kabul.
He likes to keep a low profile. But Sir Trevor Chinn is one of the most powerful men in British politics.
The retired businessman has donated millions to politicians, facilitated Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s rise to power, helped destroy the movement around Jeremy Corbyn, and, above all, has made sure that both major parties support Israel and its expansionist project in the Middle East.
MintPress News profiles perhaps the most influential man in the pro-Israel lobby and lifts the veil of anonymity he hides behind.
Israel’s Man
In November, President Isaac Herzog personally awarded Chinn the Israeli Medal of Honor for his “service to the state [of Israel] and the Jewish people.” The past year, President Herzog said in his presentation speech, was “the most difficult since the founding of the state.” However, he noted, his country was extremely fortunate to have “great friends and supporters in the world who fight alongside us against antisemitism, defend Israel’s name in the media, and have long fought for Israel’s place among the nations.”
Chinn has a decades-long history of promoting Israeli interests in the United Kingdom and beyond. In 2005, as co-chairman of the Israel-Britain Business Council, he led a delegation to Israel to participate in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Conference for Export and International Cooperation. The conference was an attempt to bring back economic growth to Israel after three years of stagnation as a result of the Second Palestinian intifada.
In 2018, he co-hosted a high-profile celebration of former Israeli President Chaim Herzog attended by some of the most powerful figures in British politics, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Held at the exclusive Spencer House in London, the event celebrated the British-born president, honoring him as a “warrior and statesman.” Herzog was an officer in the Israeli military during the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of around 750,000 Palestinians in order to establish the State of Israel.
As the longstanding president of United Jewish Israel Appeal, a group that aims to increase British Jews’ connections to Israel, Chinn has helped to raise millions to fund free birthright-style trips to the Middle East. One 2023 event at London’s Kensington Palace alone raised £1 million (U.S. $1.36 million). The function was attended by former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who praised his work profusely.
Chinn’s ties to Israel go far beyond economics and culture. Last October, at the height of the Israeli attack on Gaza, the 89-year-old tycoon quietly met with the U.K. Foreign Office to advise them on arms exports to Israel. Officially, the British government claimed they were merely “discussing geopolitics with [a] businessman.” Documents obtained by investigative journalist John McEvoy, however, revealed the real purpose of the meeting was far less innocent.
Bankrolling the British Cabinet
Chinn, McEvoy told MintPress, plays an “important but overlooked role in British politics.” Since the 1980s, he noted, Chinn has funded both Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) and Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), pressure groups within the U.K.’s two largest political parties. He was also a member of the executive committee of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM), the most influential pro-Israel lobbying organization in the United Kingdom.
“Quantitative analyses of these groups’ activities are instructive,” McEvoy said, adding:
Eighty percent of Tory MPs are members of CFI and, between 2012 and 2022, the organization paid for elected members to go on more overseas trips than any other donor. Last year, LFI counted some 75 MPs as supporters, while 32 sitting Labour members had accepted funding from the group. For its part, BICOM has flown scores of journalists to Tel Aviv since the turn of the century.”
As such, Chinn sits at the head of a massive influence operation aiming to make sure that Great Britain continues to support Israeli interests. The scope of this operation is staggering; pro-Israel lobby groups have funded the majority of the British cabinet. In total, 13 out of 25 sitting cabinet members have accepted money directly from Chinn, or pro-Israel groups, according to McEvoy’s investigation.
This includes many extremely powerful figures, such as Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, and Health Secretary Wes Streeting. Chinn himself has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to these individuals.
Without a doubt, though, the most important recipient of his largesse is Prime Minister Keir Starmer himself. In 2020, Chinn donated £50,000 (approximately $68,000) to Starmer, bankrolling his campaign to become leader of the Labour Party. The donation was not registered until five days after the election.
It was around this time that Starmer very publicly began to shift his position on Israel. Until 2019, he had been a member of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East, and promised to “put human rights at the heart of foreign policy.” Yet just a few weeks after he received Chinn’s money, he publicly stated, “I support Zionism without qualification.”
His administration has vocally supported Israel, sending weapons to the country and providing other military assistance from U.K. military bases in Cyprus. It has also cracked down on pro-Palestine protests at home and defended Israel in international bodies such as the United Nations. In 2021, Starmer’s office even went so far as to hire Assaf Kaplan, a former Israeli spy, to conduct what it calls “social listening” within the party.
Lowkey, a rapper, activist, and host of “The Watchdog” on MintPress, has tracked Chinn’s activities closely, stating that:
Trevor Chinn is a key officer of the Zionist movement in this country. He is a vehicle through which the Israel lobby is able to fund key political figures, like Keir Starmer and David Lammy, and thus extend Israeli influence over what happens in British politics.”
Shaping the Labour Party
Tony Blair was the driving force behind Labour’s move away from social democracy and its embrace of big business, and Chinn’s cash helped make it possible. According to a 1996 report in The Independent, Chinn was one of several Labour megadonors who each contributed around £500,000 to bankroll Blairism and ensure its success.
Along with its economic approach, Labour’s traditional foreign policy positions also shifted. As former chairman of LFI, Baron Mendelsohn approvingly noted at the time,
Blair has attacked the anti-Israelism that had existed in the Labour Party. Old Labour was cowboys-and-Indians politics, picking underdogs to support, but the milieu has changed. Zionism is pervasive in New Labour. It is automatic that Blair will come to Labour Friends of Israel meetings.”
To this day, Blair maintains a close relationship with Israel. He is a patron of the Jewish National Fund, the largest builder of illegal settlements in the West Bank. His wife, Cherie, meanwhile, worked as an adviser to NSO Group, the controversial Israeli software firm behind the Pegasus spying software.
Chinn (left) looks at British Prime Minister David Cameron during a Jewish Leadership Council meeting at 10 Downing Street, Jan. 16, 2012. Kirsty Wigglesworth | AP
Since Blair, Chinn has continued to fund senior Labour figures. The one notable exception was during Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure, from 2015 to 2020. Corbyn, a lifelong socialist, anti-imperialist, and advocate for Palestinian statehood, was unexpectedly elected leader of the party in a landslide.
Almost immediately, senior figures in the Labour establishment began organizing against him. And they were helped by Chinn’s money and connections.
Chinn provided the financial backing for Labour Together, a think tank of right-wing figures with the stated goal of “defeat[ing] Corbynism,” and “win[ning] Labour back from the left.” He also financed the political ambitions of Corbyn opponents, including Owen Smith, Ruth Smeeth, and Deputy Leader Tom Watson. Corbyn was relentlessly attacked from all sides and suffered constant accusations of antisemitism designed to undermine public support for his project.
Also in Labour Together’s crosshairs were Corbyn-supporting media outlets, such as The Canary. A left-wing alternative media site, The Canary rapidly expanded its reach to 8.5 million monthly viewers. Labour Together devised a plan to, in their own words, “Kill The Canary.” To that end, they launched a sham “stop funding fake news” drive, claiming the outlet was spreading antisemitic content, and putting pressure on advertisers to pull their commercials from the site. Like the campaign against Corbyn, the antisemitism claims were false, but effective, and The Canary’s finances and reach were dealt a serious blow.
Equal Opportunities Oligarch
Chinn, however, is far from a strictly partisan donor. The elderly business magnate has also funded the Conservative Friends of Israel, the Tory equivalent of Labour Friends of Israel. CFI is, if anything, more influential than its Labour counterpart. Publicly available data shows that the organization has funded at least 118 Conservative members of parliament to travel to Israel on 160 occasions, providing over £330,000 (U.S. $450,000) towards the visits. Around 80% of Conservative MPs are members of CFI.
CFI wields significant influence within the halls of power, enough to force Prime Minister Boris Johnson to drop his plans to appoint Alan Duncan as his Middle East Minister. In his memoirs, Duncan noted that their opposition was “for no other reason than that I believe in the rights of the Palestinians.” Johnson was reportedly indignant. “They [the Israelis] shouldn’t behave like this,” he said. “The CFI and the Israelis think they control the Foreign Office. And they do!’” Duncan said, adding that Israeli penetration into British politics amounts to what he called “entrenched espionage” and a national security threat.
Going further back, Chinn repeatedly lobbied the administration of John Major (1990-1997) on its Middle East policy. “He can be quite a tough protagonist of the Israeli cause and is by no means a dove… My own feeling is that he is not very subtly tuned into the Israeli political scene,” one Foreign Office official wrote about Chinn in 1991.
The overall goal of his activities—the political donations, private meetings, funded trips and media work—McEvoy told MintPress, is to “persuade politicians and journalists that supporting Israel is in their interests.” Chinn and the wider pro-Israel lobby employ a “carrot and stick approach,” whereby good behavior is rewarded with free trips, favorable media coverage and political donations, and bad behavior is punished with a loss of funding, political flak, and pressure campaigns. Thus, McEvoy concludes:
While many legislators in Britain are already avowed Zionists and need little persuading, the carrot and stick approach can achieve an important disciplining effect on politicians who are either equivocal or easily shunned into silence, which accounts for a significant proportion given the extent of careerism and cowardice present in Westminster.”
You Can Cut Down the Flowers, But You Can’t Stop the Spring
Sir Trevor Chinn is far from a self-made man. He inherited his substantial wealth and power from his father, Rosser, who owned the automotive giant, Lex Services, now called the Royal Automobile Club (RAC). In addition to his business interests, Rosser was also the president of the Jewish National Fund, helping Israel dispossess Palestinians of their land.
Trevor served as chief executive of the RAC and later became chairman of its chief competitors, the Automobile Association (AA) and Kwik Fit. Since 1973, he has served as president of the United Jewish Israel Appeal and holds or has held a number of other significant positions of influence. These include serving as a governor of Tel Aviv University, and his positions on the executive committees of the Jewish Leadership Council and BICOM.
In 2023, BICOM participated in an attempt to remove the music of MintPress’ Lowkey from the streaming service Spotify. Their plan failed, thanks to massive public pushback and widespread resistance from top names in the entertainment industry.
“I was, at that time, identified as a key target. But we defeated them, thanks to MintPress, The Electronic Intifada, and all the amazing people who supported me,” Lowkey said. “It really does go to show that these lobby groups are really only powerful when they are not confronted.”
One successful cancellation operation Chinn did participate in, however, was the 2014 campaign against a north London arts venue. After finding out that the event was sponsored by the Israeli Embassy, the Tricycle Theater refused to host the U.K. Jewish Film Festival.
Israel, at the time, had just launched Operation Protective Edge, a bombardment of Gaza that killed over 2,000 people. Chinn sprang into action, threatening to pull his funding from the theater unless they reversed their decision. “We are as a community under pressure from the boycott movement. We can’t accept boycotts and whenever one comes along we have to fight it,” he said.
Tricycle was eventually forced to concede after Culture Minister Sajid Javid—himself a member of Conservative Friends of Israel—“made it absolutely clear what might happen to their funding if they, or if anyone, tries that kind of thing again.”
For all his work, though, Chinn has not been able to stem the tide of pro-Palestinian sentiment across the United Kingdom and beyond. In November 2023, an estimated one million people attended a London demonstration calling for a ceasefire.
Since then, polling shows that public attitudes towards Israel have only hardened.
A recent YouGov survey found that more than twice as many Britons support Palestine (32%) as Israel (14%). Only 17% of the country holds positive views of Israel (including 4% that are very positive), compared to 63% negative (including 39% that are highly negative). And the vast majority of the country supports an arms embargo, with only 13% opposing an end to weapons sales to Tel Aviv. Worse still for Israel, these are among the best numbers in Europe for their cause.
In response, both Conservative and Labour governments have cracked down on public support for Palestine, suppressing demonstrations, arresting protesters, and harassing and intimidating pro-Palestine journalists.
How much, if any, influence Chinn had on these responses is a matter of debate. But what is incontrovertible is that he and his network of pro-Israel organizations are not an omnipotent force. This is especially true when they and their activities are exposed to the wider public.
Feature photo | Sir Trevor Chinn (left), pictured alongside Jacob Rothschild (center) and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (right) | Editing by MintPress News
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Vote Labour for Genocide.Keir Starmer warns against following the https://onaquietday.org blog.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting speaking at the launch of the Government’s 10-year health plan during a visit to the Sir Ludwig Guttman Health & Wellbeing Centre in east London, July 3, 2025
