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Jeremy Corbyn Calls on British PM to Tackle Tax Avoidance

teleSUR – April 5, 2016

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn slammed David Cameron on the tax avoidance scandal saying the “unfairness and abuse must stop.”

The leader of Britain’s main opposition party called on the government Tuesday to tackle tax havens, saying it was high time British Prime Minister David Cameron stopped allowing “the super rich elite [to] dodge their taxes.”

“There cannot be one set of tax rules for the wealthy elite and another for the rest of us,” Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said at the launch of the party’s campaign for local elections next month.

“The unfairness and abuse must stop… I say this to the government and to the chancellor, no more lip service, the richest must pay their way.”

After leaked documents from a Panamanian law firm revealed how the world’s powerful use secretive offshore company structures to stash their wealth, Cameron has come under pressure to clamp down on tax evasion in British-linked territories after the “Panama Papers” implicated his father, Ian Cameron, in running an offshore tax-evasion fund.

April 5, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , , | 1 Comment

Disarmament or Bust

Nations Meet to Discuss International Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons

By Lesley Docksey | Dissident Voice | March 9, 2016

With the debate going on about whether the UK should renew the Trident missile programme or get rid of it, hardly anything is said about what is happening internationally to rid the world of nuclear weapons – which shows how inward-looking Britain can be, despite claiming a prime position on the world stage.

While national media reported on the Stop Trident demonstration in London, it ignored the discussions taking place in Geneva, or their background including:

  • three international, government-level conferences, the last in Vienna, on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, which produced
  • the signing and endorsing of the Humanitarian Pledge by a majority of nations
  • a vote in the UN General Assembly (voted against by nuclear-armed states which called the Resolution ‘divisive’) but passed by 135 states, to establish an Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations
  • the first meeting of which took place in Geneva in February

You’d think that deserved a headline or two, the attention of more than some MPs and loud trumpeting from anti-nuclear campaigners, but no. At the London demonstration, organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), Labour’s Leader Jeremy Corbyn did speak about the Vienna conference and the humanitarian issues.

And the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas mentioned the OEWG talks in Geneva. In a New Statesman article she also urged the UK government to take part in those meetings. Take part? They are boycotting them.

But no one mentions that.

Yet the wit, wisdom and yes, the whingeing, displayed in statements from Ambassadors and delegates, the depth of the debates, were in many ways far more worthy of our attention than another march to Trafalgar Square.

The aim was to identify the legal gaps in the nuclear weapons treaties and agreements that prevented genuine progress towards disarmament. Naturally some states insisted that there were no legal gaps and the old ‘step-by-step’ process was working even though the world is no nearer to disarmament.

Delegates from 90 nations were there, as was civil society.  In a statement delivered by Beatrice Fihn on behalf of ICAN and its 440 partner organisations, she listed all the legal gaps needing to be filled. And she reminded all those there that “Non-nuclear-weapon states are not merely encouraged to take positive steps towards nuclear disarmament; they are required to do so – regardless of the continued failure of nuclear-weapon states to act.”

From the start, a treaty banning nuclear weapons was mentioned more than any other legal instrument as a path towards disarmament, even by nuclear-alliance states begging for ‘caution’ and ‘we can’t do this without the input of nuclear states’. They can; and a ban treaty seems the best way forward.

“States that ‘rely on nuclear weapons in their security doctrines remain reluctant to consider moving ahead without the nuclear-armed states” reported the daily updates from Reaching Critical Will.

So what are the nuclear-alliance states?  They are those states (such as NATO members) which, although they have no nuclear weapons of their own, claim that they base their ‘security’ on those that do.  To quote Reaching Critical Will:

“While many states called for urgent action, others, including Germany, Netherlands, Japan, Canada speaking on behalf of a group of states, and Finland, cautioned that security considerations of states must be taken into account… Bangladesh asked what could be a bigger security concern than being the victim of a nuclear attack.” Good question.

Does this second-hand security mean that these states are depending on someone else to blow up the world? Would they not be equally guilty under international humanitarian law?

Still, give these states their due. They are at least taking part. The nuclear-armed states are determinedly boycotting the OEWG. Not being able to control what’s happening, they are relying on their alliance to fling a few spanners into the works for them.

The Netherlands tried. It argued that the nuclear-armed states should take part in the discussions. The majority of the world somehow cannot move forward without their willingness to take part. The OEWG should use its time thinking of ways to tempt the armed states into giving up their toys. And how was this for a circular argument:

… the Netherlands is not against a ‘ban’. We see it as a final element towards a world without nuclear weapons, when nuclear weapons no longer fulfil a function in the security of states. It is clear that we have not reached this stage yet and that starting negotiations on a ‘ban’ would therefore be premature.

So we should only have a ban when nuclear weapons are deemed useless anyway.

But as the Irish Ambassador said, in a very quotable speech:

This is a small planet, getting smaller every day… In such a world, questions of security impact us all… And in such a world there is no place for nuclear weapons… In any area of life, work or governance, if something wasn’t working for 20 years, or indeed for over 70, we would try to fix it.

As all those taking part in the OEWG wanted a world free of nuclear weapons; that, having signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), they seemed to know how to get there; that they were even more aware now of the terrible humanitarian consequences of using such weapons and the inability of any nation to cope with such an event; despite all that, said Ireland:

… the problem is that we are no nearer multilateral nuclear disarmament now than we were 20 years ago, when the NPT was indefinitely extended.

Ah, but look at how the non-proliferation part of the NPT has succeeded, was the reply. South Africa, among those nations that got rid of their nuclear arsenals, made a telling point: “nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are mutually reinforcing processes — the disregard of one has a direct impact on the advancement of the other.”

Delegates were coming to realise that working for a ban treaty does not exclude other legal processes towards disarmament. They can work together, but the big gap is the lack of a ban treaty. By the second day they were agreeing that, given the refusal of nuclear-armed states to take part in the discussions, a ban treaty was perhaps the most sensible way forward.

Malaysia explained that as most legal measures proposed are currently blocked by the nuclear-armed states, three not mutually exclusive options remain: a treaty banning nuclear weapons, a framework convention, and increasing verification capacity. They also pointed out that a ban treaty could be negotiated now and be part of a wider framework later, something the nuclear alliance has difficulty accepting, perhaps because they know their ‘security blanket’ will not approve.

New Zealand’s delegate was quite clear:

I have heard some recent suggestion that while a legally-binding prohibition may be necessary for maintaining a nuclear weapon-free world, it is not in fact necessary in order to attain one. However, no clear explanation for why, as a matter of international law, this might be the case has yet to be put forward.

This is surely part of the ‘smoke and mirrors’ game played by nuclear-armed states.

We see no reason why the pathway adopted for the elimination of other weapon systems, including the elimination of both other types of WMD – that of a legally binding prohibition – should not equally be applicable as a pathway for the elimination of nuclear weapons… There is no need to reinvent the wheel…

Indeed no. But we can make it very, very ornate. Australia delivered a fascinating working paper on behalf of itself and 17 other countries – fascinating because nowhere does it mention a ban treaty. Instead it talks of ‘no quick fixes’, ‘addressing the legitimate security concerns’ of nuclear-armed states and ‘incremental but necessary steps that will enhance security for all’.

It is all about ‘means and sequencing’ and identifying “concrete and practical building blocks”. The NPT is brought into play, as is the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. There are lists of all the tiny steps we might take, or consider taking, along with a), b), c) and so on to m).  There absolutely must be transparency and… well, think of it all as a trust-building exercise.

Mexico took up the challenge of the ‘legitimate security concerns’. This concept was not elaborated enough, Mexico argued, as it is not clear whose security these concerns focus on and if states are for or against collective security.  As Austria pointed out, collective security is a very different thing to the security of individual nations.

As for the lack of trust, Austria argued this is due to the failures of states to implement various agreements and commitments that had been agreed to by consensus. The onus is on those countries that have nuclear weapons or rely on them as part of nuclear alliances to diminish that mistrust.

Unable to resist a tiny dig at the pro-nuclear states Mexico pointed out that nuclear-armed states boycotting the meeting would not increase trust. Rather the reverse, one would think.

Austria, a leading light in these discussions, reminded delegates that in the Humanitarian (Pledge now adopted by the UN) it says:

We call on all states parties to the NPT to renew their commitment to the urgent and full implementation of existing obligations under Article VI, and to this end, to identify and pursue effective measures to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons…

A large number of states share the belief that such a legal gap exists, something pro-nuclear states try to deny. Austria’s working paper on this issue is masterly, laying out all the arguments and exposing the legal gaps. The very structure of the NPT requires additional legal (and non-legal) measures for its full implementation. This applies to Article VI just as much as it applies to the non-proliferation obligations.

(Article VI commits the nuclear armed states to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control,” (emphasis added).

All approaches to implementing Article VI should be followed. The ‘step-by-step’ method can sit alongside a comprehensive ban treaty. They are, argues Austria, complementary, and the humanitarian issue is now so serious that all available steps should be taken. Brazil reminded delegates that provisions under the NPT allowed the Nuclear Weapon States only to hold those weapons temporarily, something constantly ignored.

Austria also ripped up the ‘security’ and ‘deterrence’ arguments used by the USA et al. Deterrence rests on the threat of readiness to inflict mass destruction on a global scale, and on the awareness this would be suicidal. Thus, explains Austria:

Ultimately, it is difficult to reconcile this with the underlying foundation of nuclear deterrence that it leads to rational behaviour of all actors involved.  The threat is either credible, which requires – in light of the new evidence – readiness to act entirely irrationally. Alternatively, the threat is non-credible since rational analysis cannot lead to the conclusion of risking the use of nuclear weapons.

Not for nothing was Mutually-Assured-Destruction considered MAD.

During 5 days of presentations and debate, many states called for a ban treaty. And key supporters of the Humanitarian Pledge – Mexico, Austria, South Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia – stressed the time has now come to start the negotiations to prohibit nuclear weapons.

The OEWG reconvenes in May for another session. Dare we hope that we will see them start negotiating and putting together the text for a treaty that bans these weapons? It’s beginning to look that way.

• (With grateful thanks to Reaching Critical Will)

• See here for an overview of civil society’s campaign which led, finally, to the disarmament talks in Geneva

Lesley Docksey is the former editor of Abolish War.

March 10, 2016 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | 1 Comment

‘Education, not destruction!’ Peace activists, MPs & celebs join Corbyn at anti-Trident march

RT | February 26, 2016

Thousands of anti-nuclear campaigners will march alongside Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in London on Saturday to protest the renewal of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. The Labour leader’s opposition to Trident has been sharply criticized by trade union bosses.

The national demonstration is organized by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and has drawn the support of peace activists, academics, students, celebrities and others. Political heavyweights Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas are also expected to attend.

The Stop Trident anti-nuclear rally has also secured the backing of the National Union of Students (NUS), which passed a motion to support it this week.

NUS Vice President for Further Education Shakira Martin, who will speak at the Trafalgar Square protest, said the billions of pounds used to maintain Trident should be spent on education.

“Today the National Union of Students, which represents 7 million students, voted to support this Saturday’s Stop Trident national demonstration,” she said.

“If Trident was ever used, then hundreds of millions of people would be killed. Instead of spending over £100 billion on weapons of mass destruction, I believe we should be funding free education.”

The high-profile demonstration has also drawn support from celebrities such as fashion designer Katharine Hamnett and comedian Jeremy Hardy.

Commenting on the costly nuclear deterrent, Hardy said he opposes the program because “it’s based on this idea of mutually assured destruction.”

“In order to keep us safe, you’ve got to be insane enough to use a nuclear weapon, and the other person’s got to be insane enough as well,” he said.

“But neither of you have got to be so insane that you actually use it. So you’ve only got to be insane enough to be prepared to use it but not quite insane enough to actually use it.

“And so long as we just keep that balance of insanity absolutely perfect and equal on all sides we’ll be fine. Sounds like a good gamble to me.”

The Stop Trident rally comes as Labour’s shadow defense secretary Emily Thornberry conducts a review into the Trident missile system.

Leaders of some trade unions, who normally support Labour’s policies, have said the abolition of Trident would cost tens of thousands of jobs.

Lashing out at Corbyn’s anti-nuclear stance, Gary Smith, a leading official with the GMB Union, told the IB Times the debate should focus on the predicament of workers.

“This is not a debate for the wine bars of Islington and Edinburgh – this is real life for the workers and their communities,” Smith said.

“This is not a fight we picked,” he added. “The people who started this argument clearly have no idea of the massive ramifications for not renewing Trident and they don’t understand how the whole shipbuilding industry and defense sector is linked together.”

February 26, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Most Britons ‘proud’ of colonial legacy they know little about

Brits executing Indians in Singapore who refused to fight the Ottomans, 1914
By Danielle Ryan | RT | February 18, 2016

A recent poll conducted in the UK found that 44 percent of British people are “proud” of the British Empire, while only 21 percent of respondents “regretted” that it existed.

The YouGov poll found 43 percent of respondents felt the empire had been a “good” thing while 19 percent said it was “bad”.

At its peak in 1922, the British Empire governed one-fifth of the world’s population and one-quarter of the world’s land area. Slave-trading, famine, concentration camps, massacres; those all sound like a history that would evoke a sense of shame, not pride.

But this isn’t about bashing Britons for being proud of their history and telling them to feel ashamed instead. It’s about the fact that they — too many of them — don’t actually know their history. The history of the empire is not widely taught in UK schools — and what is taught is a watered-down or varnished version of the truth.

As British-Nigerian historian and writer David Olusoga put it: “The empire has become reduced to the abolition of slavery, the building of the Indian railways and some vague talk about the rule of law, British values and the spread of the English language.”

Calls for an overhaul

Last year, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called for an overhaul of the country’s national history curriculum to include more teaching about the crimes of the empire. He also called for more teaching on the rise of the trade unions and “socialist tradition” in Britain. On the subject of the British Empire, he said: “You need to get the story from the people where the empire expanded into, rather than those that came there to take control of it.”

But Corbyn is not the only one to take issue with Britain’s history curriculum. Leading historians have called for an unvarnished approach to teaching about the country’s past. Ashley Jackson, Professor of Imperial and Military History at King’s College London, told the Independent that, understandably, “a lot of British people would like to think that the imperial past was generally okay, but unfortunately if you look at the record of empire it’s very difficult to say that overall it was a good thing.”

Andrea Major, an associate professor in British colonial history at the University of Leeds said there was a “collective amnesia about the levels of violence, exploitation and racism involved in many aspects of imperialism” and that “better education” and “more open public debate” was needed.

The results of the YouGov poll were released last month on the same day as a UN report into the violence committed by the Islamic State terror group in Iraq, which led to some uncomfortable comparisons on Twitter.

Look over there!

Countries deal with traumatic histories and legacies in much the same way. Let’s call it the “Look over there!” approach. The bad is downplayed to near irrelevance, while the good is magnified. This is a kind of natural default displayed by great powers. At the same time, the crimes committed by others take on a disproportionate level of importance. A barely audible mumble of ‘yes we made some mistakes’ is quickly followed up with ‘but look at how awful [insert other country] is!’

A present day example can be found in Syria. When bombs dropped by the US or UK kill civilians, it is denied or passed off as a terrible mistake. No one bats much of an eyelid at the BBC or CNN. But when Russian bombs kill civilians, they suddenly change their tunes and it becomes must-read news. Look over there! Look what they did! To save myself from shouts of “hypocrisy” let’s be clear: This happens in Russian media, too.

Cameron and the Empire vs. Putin and Stalin

While former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair apologized in 2006 for Britain’s role in the early slave trade, current PM David Cameron has been somewhat less critical of the country’s colonial past, notably refusing to apologize for the Amritsar massacre of 1919, which saw British troops open fire on crowds of Indian nationalists, killing nearly 400 and wounding many more. Visiting Amritsar in 2013, Cameron argued that it would not be right to “reach back into history” and reasoned that it was enough that the event had already been “rightly criticized” at the time, adding that there was still an “enormous amount” to be proud of in what the empire was responsible for.

In some ways, we could compare the results of the YouGov poll to Russian public opinion on Stalin. There is much criticism in the West for Vladimir Putin’s alleged “rehabilitation” of the dictator. Westerners are astounded to learn that Russians could have any positive feelings at all regarding the Stalin era — and they’re not shy about blaming Putin and labeling him a modern-day reincarnation of the dictator himself. However, Cameron’s comments about pride in the empire don’t get quite the same treatment. That is for many reasons — but the overriding one is simply that we in the West are allowed to be unapologetically proud of our histories. It’s always ‘others’ who should hang their heads in shame, groveling for acceptance.

Looking in the mirror

But is there really any use in comparing and contrasting? Britons are proud of an empire they know little about. Americans still haven’t managed to build a national slavery museum. Russians are still grappling with the legacy of Stalin and even Lenin. Wouldn’t we all just be better off worrying more about our own histories than everyone else’s?

History is delicate. It can rarely be discussed in ‘all good’ or ‘all bad’ terms. Its subtleties and nuances are as important to our understanding of the past as they are to informing our understanding of the present. I recently visited Moscow’s state-run Gulag Museum. On one of the walls in the museum it was written: “We have yet to fully study, understand and accept this history”.

The same can be said for modern-day Britain and its understanding of the Empire.

Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance journalist and media analyst. She has lived in the US and Germany and is currently based in Moscow. She previously worked as a digital desk reporter for the Sunday Business Post in Dublin. She studied political reporting at the Washington Center for Politics & Journalism in Washington, DC and also has a degree in business and German. She focuses on US foreign policy, US-Russia relations and media bias.

February 18, 2016 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

UK Israeli boycott ban contradicts official govt business guidelines

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RT | February 18, 2016

Britain’s ban on the public boycott of goods from Israel’s occupied territories contradicts its own official business guidelines, documents have revealed.

The controversial new law, which would ban local councils, student unions and other public bodies from boycotting goods for political reasons, was announced by the government on Monday and has been implemented without parliamentary debate or vote.

However, documents first seen by the Independent show the Foreign Office’s Overseas Business Risk assessment for Israel states that the government does “not encourage or offer support” to business with the occupied territories, apparently contradicting the new regulation.

“Settlements are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impossible,” the document reads.

“There are therefore clear risks related to economic and financial activities in the settlements, and we do not encourage or offer support to such activity.”

The new rules do not apply exclusively to Israel, but would ban institutions that receive the majority of their funding from the government from participating in procurement political campaigns, choosing not to buy products from companies on political grounds. The only exception would be nationwide boycotts mandated by the government.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has attacked the new law, saying it undermines the democratic rights and freedoms of public bodies.

PLO Executive Committee Members Dr Hanan Ashrawi and Dr Saeb Erekat released a joint statement after meeting with Middle East Minister Tobias Ellwood on Wednesday.

“This represents a serious regression in British policy and it would empower the Israeli occupation by sending a message of impunity,” said Ashrawi and Erekat.

“In order to accommodate the Israeli occupation, the British government is undermining British democracy and their own people’s rights.”

The Labour Party has panned the new measures as an “attack on democracy.”

“This government’s ban would have outlawed council action against apartheid South Africa. Ministers talk about devolution, but in practice they’re imposing Conservative Party policies on elected local councils across the board,” Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said.

The government, however, has defended the anti-boycott measures, saying they are necessary for “community cohesion” and national security.

“There are wider national and international consequences from imposing such local level boycotts. They can damage integration and community cohesion within the United Kingdom, hinder Britain’s export trade, and harm foreign relations to the detriment of Britain’s economic and international security,” ministers said in a procurement policy note sent out to public authorities.

Coinciding with the law’s announcement, Cabinet Minister Matthew Hancock, who has recently come under fire for accepting a £4,000 donation from a right wing think tank, weeks before announcing a crackdown on lobbying by charities, is currently in Israel promoting business and trade links with the UK.

Read more:

Like Thatcher with apartheid: UK to ban public bodies from boycotting Israeli West Bank goods

February 18, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US, NATO ‘very nervous’ about Corbyn’s disarmament plans – reports

RT | February 14, 2016

US and NATO officials are “very anxious” about Jeremy Corbyn’s policies, specifically the Labour Party leader’s aim to scrap the UK’s four Trident-armed submarines, as well as his “support for Russia.”

According to a senior government source asked by The Independent on Sunday, foreign diplomats had voiced fears about Jeremy Corbyn’s agenda to pave way for nuclear disarmament, and also his settled approach towards NATO-Russia relations.

In August 2015, Corbyn, then the left-wing frontrunner in the Labour leadership contest, used the 70th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima to declare that if he were prime minster he would not replace the Trident nuclear weapons system and would get rid of nuclear weapons entirely.

“Britain should accept that such weapons are impossible to use with any guarantee of safety and we should scrap plans for renewing the Trident nuclear [defense] system, freeing up £100 billion to spend on our national wellbeing,” said his policy paper, entitled “Plan for Defense Diversification.”

Speaking to the Independent, former NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson confirmed that there was “a great deal of nervousness” among the alliance’s members, who see Britain’s nuclear capabilities as a security guarantee.

“It’s coming from the Americans, but other countries too. People forget that the British deterrent, as well as the American deterrent, is committed to NATO.”

In a clear intervention in domestic UK politics, Lord Robertson said that Corbyn’s policies would damage Labour’s chances of winning the next general election in 2020, because of the party’s “increasingly radical stance” on defense and security issues, The Telegraph reported.

His comments came after Labour MP Madeleine Moon, also a member of the House of Commons defense select committee, told a private party meeting she was approached by NATO diplomats in Washington.

“So many delegates wanted to speak to me about the Labour Party and the stance we are taking on NATO and Trident. They were very, very anxious,” she said.

Countries in Eastern Europe rely heavily on the nuclear deterrent the UK has, Moon said, and they are “nervous about what they are hearing,” citing “much more assertive, aggressive and belligerent Russia.”

Corbyn is a long-standing advocate of peace and nuclear disarmament, saying in one of his interviews that opposing violence and war has been “the whole purpose of his life.” As chair of the Stop the War Coalition, he campaigned vigorously against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2014, when the Ukrainian crisis unfolded, he wrote an article in the Morning Star, arguing that the main cause of the war was rooted in “the US drive to expand eastwards.”

A year later, when NATO-Russia dialogue deteriorated, he told parliament that “there would be a better chance of reaching some kind of agreement with Russia if there was a clearer statement that NATO does not intend to expand into Ukraine, and that in return Russia should withdraw from its border regions.”

The latest YouGov poll suggests that Corbyn’s policies on defense issues are strongly supported by a majority of voters. Sixty-seven percent said “Yes” to Britain leaving NATO, while 65 percent and 52 percent, respectively, support significant defense budget cuts and scrapping the Trident missile system.

February 14, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

UK Labour and the Trident Question

By Lesley Docksey | Dissident Voice | February 1, 2016

All anti-nuclear campaigners in Britain knew that Jeremy Corbyn wanted rid of Trident, the UK’s nuclear missile; he’s been at the forefront of anti-nuclear campaigning for longer than quite a few British MPs have been alive.  And we all, left and right, knew that Trident missiles would become an issue when Corbyn became leader of the UK Labour party, because both the Conservatives and those Labour MPs who love the idea of having nuclear missiles use his anti-nuclear stance as another stick to hit him with.

But, with another debate on whether Trident should be replaced coming up in Parliament sometime this year, and with many Labour MPs in favour, why aren’t Corbyn’s team and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) using the many good reasons available to make a strong case against replacing Trident nuclear missiles? Why stick yet again with the cost of replacement, and what the money saved could be spent on?

True, the cost is horrendous because it isn’t just a new missile system that is planned; the aging nuclear submarines are also being replaced.  Each year the cost increases by billions, often because of design faults which should have been foreseen.  But the Ministry of Defence procurement system is notorious for its mistakes and has wasted billions of taxpayers’ money.

We have known for years that the military (excepting the Navy) think Trident is completely useless.  It hasn’t stopped the UK from being embroiled in what sometimes seems like non-stop wars.  It won’t prevent terrorist attacks.  Nor did it prevent Argentina from moving in on the Falkland Islands.  And using it would be judged illegal under international law, not that a succession of UK governments have ever respected such laws.

We have known for years that the first of the new submarines, HMS Astute, was beset with problems and costing a fortune.  But then, the new ‘state of the art’ aircraft carrier has a similar history.  Quite frankly, the endless catalogue of poor design and engineering has made the UK a laughing stock.

We know that Astute ran aground in familiar waters; that previous nuclear submarines had been involved in the sinking of fishing vessels; that a major nuclear incident involving the submarines at Devonport was only just averted in 2012.

We knew that where two nuclear submarines out of four used to be at sea, it is now only one, and that the Navy has for some time struggled to recruit enough submariners.  This was highlighted again by the whistle-blower McNeilly last year.  He cast doubts on whether the nuclear missiles could be launched at all, so broken is the whole system.

We also know that submarines will be not just threatened but beaten by modern technology – their ‘secrecy’ under the waves will be located by the rapidly developing technology for underwater drones. Would anyone, even those who support the UK having nuclear missiles, feel safe trusting such horrendously dangerous weapons to an insane basket-case of a submarine fleet?

For all the reasons above, Corbyn’s recent throw-away remark on the Andrew Marr show that ‘the submarines could go to sea without the missiles’ should have been treated as just that. But no.  The media went wild making fun of his ‘nuclear’ policy.

Yet there is one argument that could make Trident and its submarines dead in the water that Labour and CND are not using.  Nor is it mentioned by the media.  It is certainly not brought up by the government, except when voicing objections in the UN General Assembly.

An unprecedented series of intergovernmental and civil society conferences has laid the foundation for a political process that could finally ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.  It would become illegal not just to use them, but to possess, make, store, transfer, sell or, indeed, to have anything at all to do with or connected to nuclear weapons.  All of them.

Following the Oslo Process which successfully brought about the Conventions banning landmines and cluster munitions, and basing their deliberations on the dire humanitarian consequences of even one missile being used, Norway hosted the First Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons (HINW) in March 2013 in Oslo. A follow-up second conference was held in Mexico in February 2014. An all-important third conference was held in Vienna in December 2014, out of which came the Humanitarian Pledge.

It demonstrates the commitment of much of the world towards ending the threat of nuclear weapons that three international conferences should be held in the space of 21 months.

In May 2015, the latest RevCon (Review Conference on nuclear non-proliferation) took place. It was a failure.  At the same conference nations were signing up to the Humanitarian Pledge, despite cries of horror and backroom bullying by nuclear states.

Bear in mind that there are 196 countries in the world.  By the start of the 2015 RevCon 159 non-nuclear states had signed up to the Pledge and the endorsing states numbered 76 (read the full story here).  No wonder the Permanent 5 members of the Security Council were getting worried!

To clarify: those states that have signed the Pledge support its aims. Those states that have endorsed the Pledge will be committed to ratifying any resulting Treaty. 121 nations have now formally endorsed the Pledge.

Last December the UN General Assembly voted to set up a new UN ‘working group’ which will start the process of writing a treaty making all nuclear weapons illegal.  In November, prior to that vote, the P5 (US, UK, France, Russia and China) issued a statement on why they opposed such a move: setting up a ban on nuclear weapons ‘would undermine the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) regime’.

They would have ‘preferred a working group bound by strict consensus rules’.  Well, of course, they would.  It would have allowed them to block any progress.  Try as they might, they are finding it near impossible to stop this flood of nations moving to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

On January 28 ICAN made this announcement:

“Today in Geneva, the ‘Open Ended Working Group’ is meeting to develop “legal measures, legal provisions and norms” for achieving a nuclear-weapon-free world. This new UN body has the backing of 138 nations.

“Beatrice Fihn, executive director of ICAN, says: ‘It is time to begin the serious practical work of developing the elements for a treaty banning nuclear weapons. The overwhelming majority of nations support this course of action.’

ICAN UK adds: It’s important that this international perspective informs the UK debate on Trident renewal, so please help to share this information.

Civil society representatives, including people from ICAN, will be assisting the working group. But has Labour thought of sending anyone along?  And why aren’t Jeremy Corbyn and his team flagging this up as a major argument against replacing Trident?  After all, why replace something that in a year or three could be completely and utterly illegal?

February 1, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Britain’s ‘proxy war’ in Yemen condemned by critics

RT | January 28, 2016

Britain is at war in Yemen and is arming and facilitating a brutal Saudi dictatorship that is bombing innocent civilians, a growing chorus of critics has warned.

The allegation that Britain is engaged in covert warfare in Yemen was first made by Scottish National Party (SNP) Westminster leader Angus Robertson during a heated discussion in Parliament on Monday. However, it has since been echoed by political commentators and human rights campaigners, who are demanding the government come clean on the role of UK forces in the Saudi-led campaign.

The conflict in Yemen consists of a range of regional, local and international power struggles emanating from historical and recent events. As scrutiny of Britain’s involvement in the war intensifies, campaigners and commentators insist that the UK is intervening in the conflict. They argue that Britain’s arming of the Saudi-led coalition and provision of advice to Saudi military personnel amounts to proxy warfare.

‘Reckless conduct’

Britain’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia totaled £2.95 billion (US$4.23 billion) for the first nine months of 2015, and roughly £7 billion since Prime Minister David Cameron took office in 2010. Amid mounting concerns that UK-made weapons have been used to bomb schools, hospitals, markets and other civilian targets in Yemen, Cameron has been urged to suspend all arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn sent a letter to the PM on Wednesday demanding transparency on Britain’s involvement, after a leaked version of a UN panel’s report concluded attacks on Yemeni civilians had been “widespread and systemic.”

The 51-page report, which was obtained by the Guardian, examined 199 missions conducted by the Saudi-led coalition that violated international law.

Many of the attacks involved repeated airstrikes on civilian objects, including refugee camps; civilian gatherings such as weddings; civilian vehicles such as buses; residential areas; medical facilities; schools; mosques; markets, factories and essential civilian infrastructure. Three cases of civilians being pursued and shot at by aircraft as they fled residential bombings were also recorded.

UK director of Human Rights Watch said the findings of the UN report “flatly contradict” UK ministers’ rhetoric about the Saudi-led coalition’s actions in Yemen.

“For almost a year, [Foreign Secretary] Philip Hammond has made the false and misleading claim that there is no evidence of law or war violations by the UK’s Saudi ally and other members of the coalition,” he told the Guardian.

Amnesty International UK’s head of policy and government affairs Allan Hogarth expressed disgust at the government’s attempt to downplay concerns over Saudi Arabia’s conduct in Yemen.

“Thousands of civilians have already died and it’s been utterly dismaying to see Downing Street brushing aside extremely serious concerns about the reckless conduct of Saudi Arabia in this devastating conflict,” he said.

Conflict in Yemen

Saudi Arabia revealed earlier this month that British and American forces are stationed in the control center from which military operations against Yemen are being directed. However, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has refused to disclose how many British personnel are involved.

The department also insists Britain’s involvement is confined to advice and training geared at ensuring Saudi Arabia complies with international law.

Yemen’s civil war kicked off in 2014, after Zaidi Shiite-led Houthi rebels overran the capital, Sanaa. The rebels, who had been targeted in six separate wars by Yemen’s central government, were loyal to Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

During the Arab spring in 2011, the Houthis had gained control of Yemen’s Saada province. However, it wasn’t until September 2014 that they conquered Sanaa. The Shiite-led rebels subsequently forced President Hadi to resign in January 2015, and seized control of swaths of southern Yemen.

The following March, a Saudi-led coalition of states launched airstrikes against the Houthis in a bid to retake Yemen. Sometime later, a Saudi-led ground operation also began. By August 2015, the Houthis had been pushed back by resistance fighters supported by the Saudi-led coalition.

As the conflict rolls onward and civilian fatalities continue to mount, criticism of Britain’s role in the Saudi-led military campaign is growing ever stronger.

January 28, 2016 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Piers Corbyn on religion of climate change

Piers Corbyn, a meteorologist (and brother to Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn), says the religion of climate change is a con, much of it being pushed by big money, and politicians that are twisting science for their tax and payola agenda for their mates in industry.

December 5, 2015 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Britain’s David Cameron wants to use bombs to prospect for gold in Syria

By John Chuckman | Aletho News | November 30, 2015

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the British Labour Party, is a man of genuine integrity and honesty in his opposition to British bombing of Syria.

Indeed, he is everything the Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron, is not.

I think we see from the storm in the British press against Corbyn just how much the establishment values integrity and honesty, which is to say, not at all.

Almost every word of Cameron’s on the subject of bombing is deliberately deceptive.

He is in fact an intimate part of “the club” which privately regards ISIS and other murdering rogues as tools to an end, and that end is to destroy Assad and turn Syria into a rump state. The club’s members always falsely describe the situation in Syria as a civil war rather than what it truly is, an invasion of a peaceful land by the creatures of outside powers.

They freely admit ISIS is horrible, innumerable propaganda videos having established the fact for the public, but they make no move to do something genuine about it. They portray the only man who is doing something to help Syria’s brave army, Vladimir Putin, as some kind of evil figure with dreams of empire. There is a stream of propaganda and lies about everything Russia does, from its cruise missiles hitting Iran to its planes bombing hospitals, all offered with zero evidence.

Cameron’s every word on Syria is inappropriate. A British Prime Minister has no business pronouncing on the legitimacy of this or that government, especially one supported by the majority of the country’s people, clans, and armed forces. Cameron himself, posing as some cheap knock-off defender of democracy, positively Churchillian in his own eyes, enjoys the support of about 35% of British voters.

Assad’s government has fought bravely against monsters shipped in by Turkey and supplied by Saudi Arabia, Israel, and America for years now, while David Cameron sat back and pontificated.

Assad is not an angel, but he runs a state with tolerance for all religious groups in a region where that is not common, and he has often been generous in helping those badly hurt by the likes of David Cameron – for example, the millions of refugees created by the criminal invasion of Iraq. The reason Assad is hated by Cameron and his associates in “the club” is his independent-mindedness in not following Washington’s dictates. Cameron functions as a noisy little lap dog yapping and snapping at anyone ignoring his master, always in expectation of another approving stroke on the head. It truly is that simple, and all the rest we read and hear is just noisy propaganda.

Washington and Tel Aviv are determined to see Assad gone. And you must ask yourself why that should be a shared goal of the two most violent societies on earth today, each of them in a state of perpetual war and oppression of millions.

Yes, Turkey and Saudi Arabia hate Assad, too, but they mostly do as they are told by Washington.

And remember, one of those countries, Turkey, is run by a lunatic who assassinates journalists and any Kurdish person he can get his hands on, and the other, Saudi Arabia, is run by a senile absolute monarch who regularly cuts off heads and crucifies people and is conducting an illegal war in Yemen, killing civilians daily.

Those are the characters with which David Cameron shares his bed.

What is really at stake here is virtually never discussed in public: the right of countries to exist in peace without outside interference from aggressive states like America and Israel. The United Nations should be in the forefront of demanding just that, but it has been reduced to servility through internal manipulations and threats, especially threats of withholding American financial support as was done some years back. Ban Ki-moon is perhaps the most ineffectual Secretary General in memory, sometimes sounding like a pope enjoining peace with no one listening.

Britain’s bombing in Syria would be just plain old-fashioned aggression adding to that already being done by ISIS, al-Nusra, and other cutthroats. We don’t know what targets Cameron has in mind, but he simply has no business in the country, and we can be sure that if he were sincere about only attacking terrorists, Syria would have welcomed him in its desperate fight. Cameron just keeps repeating, like an unpleasant child who thinks repetition makes something so, that the government of Syria must go.

The government of Syria has not sought Britain’s help, and contrary to arrogant people like David Cameron, Syria does indeed have a government, as legitimate as most in the world.

The only people doing any bombing with the permission of the government are the Russians, and they are supporting the only people doing any real fighting, the Syrian army.

This is not a small point for all those concerned about the rule of law, which you might think would be a prime concern for those who claim they oppose terror.

It took centuries to establish some rule of law in international affairs, and today states like America and Israel and Turkey ignore it completely.

Good old David Cameron wants to join the mob, getting his bit of attention.

And it can’t have escaped Cameron’s attention how handsomely the war criminal, Tony Blair, has been rewarded for doing his dirty part in tearing apart Iraq. He has been showered with gold and sinecures.

Wouldn’t it be natural for Cameron to expect a bit of that for dropping bombs on Syria?

November 30, 2015 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

UK’s Corbyn ‘Systematically’ Undermined by British Press, Report Finds

Sputnik – 27.11.2015

Whether it’s the color of his tie, his suit – or shell suit – his beard, his position on Trident or airstrikes in Syria, the Labour party’s new leader Jeremy Corbyn has been “systematically” undermined by the British press.

New research by the Media Reform Coalition found there was a “barrage of overwhelmingly negative coverage” written about him.

Sixty percent of the total number of articles written about him, including comment pieces and editorials, were negative, A mere 13 percent of articles on Corbyn were written in a positive manner. Just 27 percent offered a neutral position on the man voted to lead the Labour party.

Further scrutiny of individual papers by the Media Reform Coalition revealed that in the Sun and the Sun on Sunday, one of Britain’s most popular right leaning publications, 32 out of 36 news stories about Corbyn were negative. In the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, 50 of the 52 news stories were negative.

One hundred percent of the editorials in the Sun, Mail and Express didn’t say anything nice or positive about the Labour leader.

“Let’s not forget that Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of this country’s main opposition party by 250,000 people, which is 100,000 more than the number of people who elected David Cameron as leader of the Conservatives,” Dr Justin Schlosberg, chair of the Media Reform Coalition said.

November 27, 2015 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 1 Comment

Cameron in Crisis Over Syria After Labour Leader Splits Party

Sputnik – 27.11.2015

UK Prime Minister David Cameron is facing a political crisis after calling for support for airstrikes against ISIL in Syria, but failing to gain the support of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who has now caused a major rift in the opposition.

Cameron told lawmakers in London Thursday that Britain should join a coalition of forces in airstrikes against ISIL in Syria. The country is already bombing ISIL in neighboring Iraq, but Cameron needs a mandate from parliament to extend the operations into Syria.

The issue is politically sensitive as Cameron lost a vote to launch airstrikes against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2013, with cost him political value. This time around — in a vote on bombing Assad’s enemies — he cannot afford to lose political face again.

However, the Scottish National Party (SNP) has indicated that it will vote against action in Syria and Cameron needs the support of the Labour opposition to confirm his policy. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn — who has long been an anti-war campaigner — has written to his party lawmakers telling them he cannot support airstrikes in Syria.

The move has caused chaos within his party, with many members supporting airstrikes against ISIL. If Corbyn exercises his leadership right to demand all his lawmakers follow his lead — in what is known as a three-line whip — he stands to face a mass revolt in his party, which could force a leadership challenge, which would throw the party into chaos.

If — on the other hand — he allows his lawmakers a free vote, then he would remain leader of his party, and lawmakers would be allowed to vote whichever way they wish. Either way, Corbyn’s leadership will have been damaged.

Lesson Not Learned From Iraq

Cameron has other headaches too. Public opinion was strongly against the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and there are many who believe the decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein was based on flawed intelligence, with some — including Corbyn — believing the invasion was illegal.

The Chilcot Inquiry into the reasons for going to war, and its aftermath, has yet to be published and there are many lawmakers who believe its findings will be critical of the invasion because it lacked any exit strategy for Iraq, which has been plunged into civil war ever since. Few want to repeat the mistakes in Syria and are calling for an exit strategy and a strong commitment to support a rebuilding of the country following any invasion to erase ISIL.

If Cameron fails to gain a parliamentary majority on a vote — due next week — over bombing in Syria, he will be politically damaged among his NATO allies, leaving him out in the cold on the global stage. He is also facing calls for the UK not to put itself further at risk than it already is from reprisal terrorist attacks.

Others believe bombing in Syria will play into the hands of ISIL. Jürgen Todenhöfer, the German politician and journalist who, in 2014, spent time with ISIL in both Iraq and Syria, wrote in the Guardian :

“A bombing strategy will above all hit Syria’s population. This will fill ISIL fighters with joy.”

With Corbyn’s party in disarray, the SNP set to vote against bombing and his political worth on the line, Cameron is facing a difficult time in the week ahead and can only hope public opinion in the wake of the Paris attacks on November 13 can save him.

November 27, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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