The end of anonymity in a state-verified internet
As governments tie online speech to real-world identities under the banner of child safety, the implications extend much farther
By Onur Ozersin | The Cradle | July 8, 2026
The internet, long framed as a space of relative freedom, is entering a period of structural change driven by governments acting in parallel.
A quieter process is underway across multiple jurisdictions. Authorities are introducing identity verification requirements tied to access and participation. These measures are presented as safeguards for minors, and a number have already been written into law.
From Canberra to Washington, London to Ankara and Abu Dhabi, governments are moving to dismantle the era of anonymous internet access, embedding age restrictions and verification protocols into law and platform design in what amounts to one of the most significant shifts the digital world has seen since its inception.
A coordinated turn
The emerging model links user profiles to verified identities, going beyond routine regulation and altering how expression functions online.
As every digital post becomes indelibly linked to a real-world identity and added to a permanent database, the concept of online privacy is fundamentally inverted. Anonymity is no longer viewed as a civil right, but rather as an illicit activity.
Momentum accelerated in the UK in 2025, where more than 12,000 individuals faced detention and penalties linked to online activity.
A similar trend is unfolding in the US, where states such as Florida, Utah, and California have pushed forward with localized identity mandates. Progress on a federal equivalent, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), remains under congressional debate.
The EU has moved along a parallel track through the Digital Services Act (DSA). Presented as a regulatory framework, it has taken on an enforcement function in practice. Denmark, Greece, Italy, and Spain have been selected as early testing grounds for verification systems.
By 2026, the focus had begun to widen. The debate moved from child protection toward the regulation of political expression. In Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated in early May, “I want to see the real names of everyone who expresses an opinion against us online. They should not hide behind anonymous accounts.”
Turkiye introduced comparable measures in late April. Parliament approved identity checks and a social media ban for children under 15. Following publication on 1 May, platforms were given nine months to comply.
Justice Minister Akin Gurlek described the internet as “digital chaos” and said the law would apply to platforms with more than one million users. Penalties for non-compliance include aggressive enforcement actions, such as financial sanctions, bandwidth throttling, and total network blocking.
The UAE adopted its own framework in June 2026 through Cabinet Decision No. 106. It set an official age threshold for social media use in the Arab world. Platforms are required to integrate with UAE Pass or deploy biometric verification systems. A 12-month transition period has been granted, with enforcement measures including fines and possible service suspension beginning July 2027.
While neighboring Gulf states have not yet codified specific age restrictions or identity verification mandates, parallel legislative frameworks are highly anticipated. This is particularly true for countries boasting advanced digitalization infrastructures, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Regulators are also cracking down on the primary tool used to bypass these digital borders: VPN services. European Commission Vice President Henna Virkkunen warned that identity verification measures must not be circumvented via VPNs, aligned with existing plans in France and the UK to restrict private network routing.
This crackdown marks a dramatic ideological reversal. Where European leaders previously criticized China’s rigorous internet restrictions under the banner of free speech, they are now deploying the very same enforcement mechanisms within their own borders.
Verification as a condition of access
Several proposals would require users to confirm their identity within fixed timeframes, in some cases as short as 72 hours. Failure to comply could result in account suspension and deletion of associated data.
The choice is reduced to two options. Users either attach their digital history to their legal identity or lose access to accumulated networks and content.
This requirement effectively weaponizes your entire digital past. A political argument you had years ago, an obscure question asked on an old forum, or a reckless comment made in the heat of youth will now follow you forever, indelibly stamped onto your official legal identity.
Initially restricted to government agencies, this searchable database could eventually be accessed by insurance corporations and future employers. Cross-border data sharing will likely become standard practice during international travel applications.
A possible scenario illustrates the trajectory. A visa application could include a request for a digital profile from a country of origin. Automated systems would assess that data before any human review.
The EU has already imposed sanctions on journalists covering certain geopolitical issues, including those expressing pro-Palestine views or positions aligned with Russian policy.
The scope of regulation is not limited to public content. The EU has continued to pursue its “Chat Control” initiative, which aims to enable scanning of private communications. After a temporary exemption expired in April 2026, the Council moved on 2 July to restore monitoring provisions through 2028.
This issue has prompted intense resistance from privacy advocates and a coalition of over 500 cryptographers, who warn that requiring platforms to pre-scan message content inherently compromises end-to-end encryption, effectively transforming private messaging spaces into permanently monitored state domains.
Speech under observation
Officials maintain that these measures apply to social media. The infrastructure being built has broader potential applications.
It is only a matter of time before fingerprint, retina, and facial scans become mandatory for every single action you take online.
Once that threshold is crossed, background screening will extend far beyond traditional criminal records; instead, an individual’s digital profile will become the primary determinant of their professional career. This shift seamlessly enables AI algorithms to scan every digital trace left online, pre-emptively labeling users as “risky” or “prone to crime.”
This framework inevitably chills public discourse; criticizing state policy, exposing corruption, or merely asking a question will be permanently appended to a citizen’s digital dossier. Consequently, state authorities will no longer need to actively suppress free speech.
When the penalty for dissent risks the destruction of an individual’s lifelong professional achievements, self-censorship manifests organically.
A comparable pattern is visible offline. More than 300 international students involved in pro-Palestine protests at US universities faced visa revocations and deportation last year. If visible protest carries such outcomes, the implications of permanent digital traceability are likely to be more far-reaching.
Speaking to The Cradle, journalist and technology policy expert Fusun Nebil frames the issue in broader terms:
“Perhaps the most critical point in this debate is that the internet is no longer merely a means of communication; it has also become people’s digital memory and identity. It is not enough for governments to cite seemingly legitimate justifications such as child safety, combating disinformation, and fighting cybercrime. We must seriously discuss how a digital order that completely eliminates anonymity will exert pressure on freedom of expression, political pluralism, and the culture of social criticism in the long term.”
From open forum to managed space
The internet has long functioned as a space where citizens learn and shape ideas through open discussion, progressing from early forum sites to modern social networks. However, under a system where every word becomes an official record, the survival of satire, humor, and intellectual exchange is thrown into question.
In a framework where a joke cracked at age 22 can be held up as evidence against an individual at age 40, the internet will cease to be an environment for exploration and instead transform into a vast courtroom where any spoken word can be leveraged as an indictment.
Today, traditional media such as newspapers and television channels are frequently controlled or influenced by powerful interest groups in many countries. As a result, social media platforms have become the primary spaces where citizens can freely exchange ideas.
However, introducing mandatory identity verification will almost certainly restrict the diversity of opinions in these remaining open environments.
In June 2026, the UK government launched a consultation on regulating content distribution on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. The proposals include requirements for algorithms to prioritize material from designated public service broadcasters and approved outlets.
This introduces a tiered structure within platforms. Certain sources receive visibility by design.
Exit routes and unintended outcomes
Mandating online identity verification could not only alter the nature of social media platforms, but also spark a mass exodus to the dark web. Ironically, the primary victims of this shift will be the very children these laws are intended to protect.
When governments force tech giants like Meta, X, and TikTok to implement identity checks, ordinary citizens who value privacy and young people in particular may turn to the dark web. Although mainstream platforms face frequent criticism, their moderation teams and AI systems actively remove the vast majority of harmful content.
In contrast, dark web networks lack any oversight or community guidelines. When a teenager uses the Tor network to bypass restrictions, they would not just be chatting with friends; they would enter an unmonitored environment where exploitation risks are exponentially higher than on monitored platforms.
Data concentration and exposure
The accumulation of identity data introduces another layer of risk. Large databases of biometric and personal information present attractive targets for cyberattacks.
In April 2026, concerns surfaced around the EU Age Verification App shortly after its code was made public. Security researchers identified weaknesses in its structure.
Independent specialists, including cybersecurity consultant Paul Moore and French cryptographer Olivier Blazy, immediately identified critical architectural and design vulnerabilities within the framework.
Addressing EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen directly on X, Moore issued a stark warning: “Seriously @vonderleyen – this product will be the catalyst for an enormous breach at some point. It’s just a matter of time.”
Telegram founder Pavel Durov also joined the debate, claiming that these security vulnerabilities are a direct result of the system’s fundamental design rather than a simple error: “The EU age verification app was hackable by design – it trusted the device (that’s instant game over).”
A monitored horizon
Although identity verification on the internet may seem like a step taken to protect children, whether it leads to a safe harbor or a dangerous cliff depends on how it is implemented. If the solution is based solely on enacting bans and collecting ID numbers, free communication will inevitably be pushed toward dark web networks where oversight is almost impossible.
The path to protecting children is not to lock digital doors and hand the keys over to the government. Rather, it lies in ensuring that the open internet continues to provide a space where citizens can freely express ideas without the pressure of self-censorship, while making it safe through moderation, education, and transparency.
Otherwise, by the 2030s, we may find ourselves facing not a generation protected from the harmful effects of the internet, but a generation that has grown up in the lawlessness of the dark web.
And if political Cancel Culture fails?
What will Europe become if the populist sweep occurs across Europe?
Ashes of Pompeii | July 8, 2026
A couple of days ago I wrote about political Cancel Culture in Europe, how the establishment is using lawfare to try to sideline populist movements, usually right wing, across the continent. And from their perspective, it is not hard to understand why. Without cancelling these opposition groups, there seems little doubt that almost all of the establishment parties will be swept away and in a very short time, the political landscape of Europe will look radically different.
The sheer scale of this potential electoral shift means that the traditional mechanisms of political control will simply cease to function. Germany would see the AfD as either the by far largest party or actually forming the government. The UK would see Farage and Reform achieving a near absolute majority, fundamentally altering the British political system. France would face elections where the runoff is between Le Pen and Mélenchon, with both being complete outsiders loathed by the establishment for entirely opposite reasons. Spain would probably see a coalition between the right and the far right. Unlike other European countries, the Spanish right is not entirely uncomfortable with the far right, as many will have had family members who were entirely in synch with the National Catholic fascism of the past. Italy presents a fascinating case. Meloni came in as a far right outsider but adapted to become more centrist. It seems not unlikely that she will go back to her roots if all of her European peers more closely resemble where she came from than where she is now.
This sweeping transformation forces us to ask profound questions about the future of the continent. What does this mean for the EU project itself? Can a union built on ever closer integration survive when its largest members are led by sovereignists? What happens to Ursula von der Leyen personally and politically in such a scenario? Will she be forced out by a hostile council, or will she attempt to pivot her own agenda to survive? How will the European Commission function without its traditional center left/center right driving force? Will the entire bureaucratic apparatus in Brussels, itself built on this centrist tradition, face a complete dismantling?
We must also consider foreign policy and defense. What happens to the practically unified European support for Ukraine when the political winds shift so dramatically across the continent? How does this impact the cohesion and future of NATO? What becomes of the traditional EU north and south relations, or the dynamic with eastern Europe? How exactly do Hungary and Slovakia fit into this new paradigm? Do they transition from isolated outliers to the new ideological center of gravity? Will the Baltic states find themselves isolated in their hardline defense postures?
Furthermore, we must examine other continental relationships. What happens to relations with Russia and European energy security? Is Russia even interested in returning to basing much of its trade on Europe – once burnt, twice shy?
And of course, America. Many of these leaders are very pro-American, have good relations with Trump and are ideologically aligned. But how well will European sovereignty movements mesh with MAGA and America First? One thing is to be ideologically aligned, another very different thing is economic and military negotiations, and national interests.
On the domestic front, the cultural battles will undoubtedly intensify. How far would these outsiders go in dismantling wokist policies such as LGBT mandates and aggressive climate change legislation? Will they simply pause these initiatives or completely reverse decades of legislation? What happens to immigration rules and the millions of migrants already on the continent? Will mass deportations become a realistic policy goal?
It will not be surprising to see a certain amount of taming of the firebrands, just as we witnessed with Meloni before she fully embraced her current centrist posture. Governing requires compromise, and the responsibilities of state often moderate radical rhetoric. But if all of them are outsiders simultaneously, taming becomes much more difficult. There is no moderate center left to anchor them. Who would in this case do the taming?
When the core nations of Europe are all led by anti-establishment figures, the gravitational pull toward traditional compromise simply vanishes. The firebrands would have absolutely no reason to yield ground to a center that no longer holds power. Voters will demand immediate and radical changes, and leaders will have no institutional excuses to delay. The resulting political environment will be entirely uncharted territory for modern Europe.
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The old consensus is dead. And either the traditional forces use authoritarian and lawfare means to maintain control, or a new, highly unpredictable era of nationalist governance is about to begin across the continent.
Of course the irony, and hypocrisy, of the political establishment’s use of authoritarianism to push back what they consider (or at least want us to consider) the “barbarian authoritarianists” will not be lost on all.
Cancel Culture has taken over European politics
Do we really want to outlaw the views of a third of the electorate?
Ashes of Pompeii | July 6, 2026
A few days ago, I wrote about the “banal nonentities” that form the political elite in Europe. Across Europe, these leaders of traditional establishment parties are deeply unpopular, most with approval ratings below 20%. Their policy platforms have demonstrably failed, leaving them destined to lose upcoming elections to supposedly “far right” parties. The great irony of this moment is that the policy platforms of these newly minted extremists would have been considered standard center right orthodoxy merely twenty years ago. Today, however, the media and the cultural elite have redrawn the boundaries of acceptable discourse, declaring these once mainstream views completely beyond the pale. Unable to defeat these parties at the ballot box through popular appeal, the establishment has turned to lawfare.
For the past decade or two, Anglo academic and intellectual spheres have been suffocated by the relentless machinery of cancel culture. What began as a tool for social enforcement in universities and media has now metastasized, erupting into the mainstream political arena of continental Europe. This phenomenon represents a profound shift in how political power is maintained. Where elections were once won through the clash of policies and the appeal of personalities, the modern political landscape is defined by institutional exclusion. Context, truth, logic, and tradition have been rendered entirely irrelevant, replaced by a singular and overriding imperative that one must belong to the approved in club.

And please, the point is not if the ideas of Farage or AfD are wrong. I might not agree with much of their platform. The problem is the courts should not be where electoral politics are decided. But the European political mainstream, irrelevant whether (supposedly) left or right, has failed miserably and are desperate.
This weaponization of the legal system is now the primary mechanism of political cancel culture in Europe. In the United Kingdom, Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform UK party which is poised to potentially win upcoming elections, is under intense investigation. He is accused of failing to declare financial support from his longtime assistant George Cottrell, including staff, security, and housing, before becoming a Member of Parliament. Furthermore, Farage faces scrutiny over an alleged undeclared gift of five million pounds from cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harbourn, threatening him with sanctions and disqualification. Reform UK maintains that no rules were violated, but the investigation itself serves the purpose of clouding their campaign.
Similar tactics are being deployed across the continent with alarming coordination. In France, the leading opposition candidates Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella are under relentless legal attack. Le Pen has already been disqualified from the elections due to a criminal case, while Bardella faces his own fraud investigation. Even mainstream rivals are not safe, as Dominique de Villepin and Édouard Philippe have become targets of the financial prosecutor for alleged historical offenses. This prosecutor reports to the Ministry of Justice, headed by Gérald Darmanin of President Emmanuel Macron’s party. What a coincidence, as this legal machinery conveniently protects Gabriel Attal, the virtual successor to Macron, by eliminating his prominent rivals.
In Germany, the state is actively trying to prevent the Alternative for Germany party from participating in elections. They are attempting to deprive the party of funding, and the domestic intelligence service has prepared a report labelling them anticonstitutional. At the European level, investigators are conducting coordinated searches and raids across multiple countries against right wing groups in the European Parliament, accusing them of large scale financial fraud and the theft of EU subsidies.
Does anyone doubt whether all of the parties use similar financial schemes? Of course not. And this without even going into the case of VdL and Pfizer…
The net is cast even wider in the Baltic states, where legal cases are routinely launched against opposition figures who attempt to gain votes from the large Russian diaspora. Lithuanian politician Antanas Kandrotas, along with Latvian Stability party leader Alexei Roslikov and his colleague Igor Yudin, have all been targeted by authorities. In every instance, the legal mechanism is utilized not to uphold justice, but to neutralize political threats.
This erosion of democratic norms is further evidenced by the outright cancelling of presidential elections in Romania and the glaring irregularities witnessed in Moldova. When the ballot box cannot be controlled, the information space is heavily policed. There is increasing and aggressive censorship on social media platforms, which are now acting as willing deputies for state control. Just this week, the European Union has criminalized the sharing of RT content. This draconian measure applies regardless of whether the shared content is true or false, and it completely ignores the intent of the user. Even if a citizen shares a link simply to cite it as an example of propaganda, they are still committing a criminal offense. The state is no longer just controlling the narrative through positive reinforcement of its own views, but through the active criminalization of alternative information.
When we bring the story of academic cancel culture together with these political prosecutions and media blackouts, a clear and disturbing picture emerges. The underlying philosophy is identical. In the intellectual world, cancel culture dictates that context, objective truth, logical argument, and historical tradition do not matter if the speaker holds the wrong ideological views. The only thing that matters is moral and ideological conformity to the prevailing orthodoxy. This exact same logic has now captured the European state. The establishment knows it can no longer win the argument on the merits of policy. Instead, they rely on the administrative and legal apparatus to silence the opposition. The allegations of financial impropriety or anticonstitutionalism are merely the new vocabulary of cancellation. The goal is to delegitimize the opposition and bar them from the democratic process entirely.
Ultimately, this trajectory should be deeply troubling, even for those who do not agree with some or even all of the policies of these right wing parties. By utilizing lawfare, election cancellations, and information blackouts, the establishment is effectively outlawing the views of up to forty percent of the population. Outlawing ideas does not make them disappear. These people and their underlying grievances will not simply go away because a court has ruled against them or a media conglomerate has banned their preferred platforms. When a significant portion of the electorate is told that their voices are invalid and their political representatives are criminals, the social contract begins to fracture. Some will inevitably start to look for where to go outside the current political system entirely, seeking alternative structures that the current elites can no longer control.
I think we have been down that road before and none of us should want a return visit.
UK and Israel criticized for persecuting anti-genocide advocates

Protesters rally in London in support of Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Press TV – July 4, 2026
Protesters gathered outside the General Medical Council’s headquarters in London to slam the council’s attempt to silence those speaking out about the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Protesters describe the surgeon as one of the world’s leading war doctors and argue that the regulator’s actions amount to an attempt to silence those who speak publicly about the realities of war,
So we are demonstrating in front of the GMC, because the GMC has decided to appeal against the rulings of two of its own tribunals, so that the High Court would allow it to try me for a third time, in order to get the right political result that it wants.
The GMC is conducting a political campaign against, not just myself, but every doctor who’s spoken up against the genocide, in order to silence us, in the service of the genocidal project. – Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah, British-Palestinian Surgeon
Doctors, campaigners, and members of the public traveled to attend the demonstration, asserting that the proceedings are about more than one individual, warning that they could have a chilling effect on healthcare professionals speaking about humanitarian crises.
Actually, there probably were a group of lawyers set up by the Israelis again to pursue highly charged politicized campaigns against professionals and workers in this country who stand against genocide.
So, really, it’s the action of how the British government and the Israelis who are trying to persecute and outlaw speech in support of Palestine in the heartland of Britain.
Actually, from, we know where our government, you know, the British government, the Labour government, and the Tory government before it have been complicit in genocide from bases like RAF Akrotiri, where Keir Starmer went and complimented the troops.
They run the genocide, they send the planes over Gaza, they stream that information live to the Israelis as they’re committing that genocide.
So our government is complicit, and what they’re doing with their complaints is they’re making it illegal for us to oppose it. – Ranjeet Brar, NHS Surgeon
Speakers at the rally urged the GMC to withdraw the appeal; assisting medical professionals should not face professional consequences for raising concerns over civilian suffering in conflict zones.
There’s a clear example here with Dr. Ghassan, where UK law is for Israel, that it is essentially standing up for the rights of a foreign entity, have been pressuring patients, pressuring people to make complaints against Dr. Abu-Sittah, and this is just one example of many other institutions, medical institutions like the Royal Colleges, and even the journals, the medical journals that we publish in, where they’ve been pressured from UK pro-Israel lobby groups to censor and to shut down any form of pro-Palestine activism.
So, I think we’re seeing this now very clearly with Dr. Ghassan, but the reality is it’s much more widespread than any of us think. – Dr Omar Abdel-Mannan, British-Egyptian Pediatric Neurologist
Organizers say they will continue campaigning until the proceedings against Dr. Abu-Sittah come to an end, maintaining that doctors must be free to speak about humanitarian consequences of war without fear or professional repercussions.
Supporters gathered outside the General Medical Council in London to stand behind British Palestinian surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, accusing the regulators of attempting to silence one of the world’s most prominent war doctors.
Demonstrators say the case is not simply about one medic, but the right of healthcare professionals to speak out on the atrocities of Gaza without professional retaliation.
Lloyds Debanks The Canary, Withholds Its Funds
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | July 1, 2026
The Canary is a British left-wing independent news site, running since 2015, that calls itself “radical working-class media” and made its name attacking the political establishment and the mainstream press.
On June 30, after almost ten years of banking together, Lloyds Banking Group shut the site’s business account, held on to a large share of its money, and gave no reason. The Canary now says it has “barely any funds” and cannot pay all its staff.
According to the outlet, Lloyds is “withholding a substantial amount of our money” and “has not explained why it has taken this action.” The Canary went back to the bank more than once looking for an answer. “Despite multiple communications from us, the bank has not been forthcoming with its reasoning,” it wrote.
Its editors called the move an “outrage” and said they had been “unceremoniously dropped into financial instability with no notice or explanation from Lloyds.” No warning came, and the bank has named no date for handing the money back.
The arrangement is one-sided. Lloyds holds the money and sets the timeline, and it answers to nobody for either. A long-standing customer can lose access overnight and never learn what triggered it. That silence is a large problem with debanking. The bank never has to prove its case because the damage lands before the target can push back.
So who gets to decide a news organization is too risky to bank? Right now, Lloyds does, privately, behind language it won’t explain. Asked about the account, a spokesperson would say only “We do not comment on individual customer accounts.” That answers nothing.
The Canary suspects its politics played a part and says it will not pretend otherwise. “Whilst we do not currently know the reasons behind our debanking, we cannot afford to be naive about this,” the outlet wrote, adding that other politically active people have been cut off by their banks lately. Guessing at motive is what customers are reduced to when a bank withholds the real one.
The Free Speech Union, which has fought its own banking battles, backed the outlet fast. A spokesperson called debanking “one of the most pernicious forms of cancellation that an individual or organisation can face” and said the group is in contact with The Canary and “stand ready to help.”
Britain wrote rules meant to curb exactly this. Since April 2026, a bank must give 90 days’ notice and a written reason before closing an account. The protection reaches only accounts opened after the rules took effect, so a decade-long customer like The Canary falls outside it.
None of this began with The Canary. Coutts, part of NatWest, dropped Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in 2023 after tagging him a politically exposed person, a row that cost chief executive Alison Rose her job and pushed debanking onto the front pages. A bank decides a customer’s views have become a liability, shuts the account, and reaches for regulation instead of an explanation.
The Canary had just announced a daily print newspaper, 25,000 copies across England and Wales. An outlet building toward a bigger platform suddenly cannot make payroll, not through any court order or public process, but because one bank chose to hold its money and stay silent.
Palestine Action Proscription: We Fight Back
By Craig Murray | July 1, 2026
I publish below in full the Note we have submitted to Court today to re-establish the separate Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. Not only is the state doubling down on prosecution of pro-Palestine activists, a new National Security State Threats Bill is being fast tracked through parliament to extend the attack on free speech.
Under this bill receiving a benefit including “information” from a state entity designated as “hostile” by the Home Secretary will be a crime bringing up to 14 years in prison. So publishing casualty figures from Iranian sources, for example, will be terrorism. Publishing information about Ukrainian attacks on Russia will be illegal.
This is the relevant clause of the Bill. My emphasis:
17C Obtaining etc material benefits from a designated body
(1) A person commits an offence if—
(a) the person—
(i) obtains, accepts or retains a material benefit which is not an excluded benefit, or
(ii) obtains or accepts the provision of such a benefit to another person,
(b) the benefit is or was provided by or on behalf of a designated body, and
(c) the person knows, or having regard to other matters known to them ought reasonably to know, that the benefit is or was provided by or on behalf of a designated body.
(2) A person commits an offence if—
(a) the person agrees to accept—
(i) a material benefit which is not an excluded benefit, or
(ii) the provision of such a benefit to another person,
(b) the benefit is to be provided by or on behalf of a designated body, and
(c) the person knows, or having regard to other matters known to them ought reasonably to know, that the benefit is to be provided by or on behalf of a designated body.
(3) Material benefits may include financial benefits, anything which has the potential to result in a financial benefit, and information…
Please note there is specifically no public interest defence, no journalism defence and it is to be illegal to receive true information. It is not about the spread of disinformation, it is about the spread of information contrary to the British state narrative. Receiving information from a designated enemy of the UK is the offence, whether you publish it or not.
There in no modern precedent for this in peacetime. It is being forced through all its parliamentary stages – three readings, amendments and two Lords sittings – in a single day. I have repeatedly said that liberal democracy has collapsed. I do not need further proof.
Under the current legislation, yesterday prominent international lawyer Dan Kovalik was detained in Liverpool, his phone and laptop seized and he was questioned about his support for Palestine. Dan is a lawyer. He is entitled to lawyer/client confidentiality. His clients include the President of Colombia and other international figures. The UK is a rogue state.
The UK state is currently attempting to gaslight us with a concerted campaign of messaging about a few millions in aid to Gaza – much of which is concentrated on assisting ethnic cleansing by various medical and educational routes for people to leave Gaza. But with Labour Friends of Israel member Andy Burnham to take over as PM with former Chair of Labour Friends of Israel James Purnell as his Chief of Staff, support for the Genocide will continue unabated.
The absurd National Security (State Threats) Bill shows that attack on dissidents and free speech will continue at home too. The debanking by Lloyds of The Canary is another prong of the extraordinary destruction of civil liberty under New Labour.
So I am determined not to bow to the sisting of the Scottish judicial review and we have lodged a motion to “reclaim” or restart proceedings.
We have not yet reached the actual Scottish judicial review or had any chance to give the arguments we will use there. It is my intention that we will attack the proscription in the most fundamental way, making these points among others:
- There is an active obligation on states to do everything possible to stop a Genocide. By contrast, the UK has done everything in its power to facilitate Genocide, including protecting its supply chain.
- It is patently absurd to call a non violent direct action group a terrorist organisation
- The state should not be treated as neutral or infallible by the courts. The false narrative on Iraqi WMD, and the terrible deaths and destruction to which that narrative led, should be a warning the state can get it very wrong.
- As a former senior civil servant who was in the FCO during that period, I can testify to the pressures on civil servants and agencies to produce the evidence and policy recommendation that Ministers wish to hear
- The evidence base produced by JTAC to support the proscription recommendation was fundamentally untrue. The Filton jury proved that the Met Police and JTAC assertions of escalating violence, carrying weapons with intent to harm, did not happen as a matter of fact. The jury rejected the aggravated burglary and violent disorder.
- Only one Palestine Action activist has ever been convicted of an offence of violence, and there the jury specifically found no intent
- Lady Justice Carr in the Appeal Court judgement both relied on Sheriff McCormick’s sentencing remarks in the Thales case. But there were no convictions of violence in the Thales case. Sheriff McCormick misrepresented the evidence. Last week he the Sheriff Appeal Court in Scotland overturned his finding of anti-Israeli racism against Mick Napier of Scottish Palestine Solidarity Committee. The inaccurate and frothing remarks of one zionist Sheriff are not a basis for proscription.
- Lady Justice Carr ruled that the Home Secretary must be given “appropriate latitude” and a “wide margin of appreciation” in security cases. But the Home Secretary should not be idealised. They are a politician, and in this case a politician who is parti pris. Yvette Cooper is massively financed by the Zionist lobby. The courts should operate in the real world not in an idealised and unrealistic one.
Lady Carr’s judgement is entirely and directly predicated on the notion that in any conflict in law between the state and the citizen, special deference should always be given to the state as more noble and trustworthy. That reasoning is fundamentally flawed.
To get heard at all we have to roll back Lord Young’s extraordinary ruling that the English Court of Appeal judgement should be accepted as law in Scotland in the interests of “comity”. This overturns centuries of doctrine on the separate jurisdiction of Scotland going back to the Treaty of Union itself – though it does reflect what had in truth been the unchallenged though illegal practice of deference to England in such matters. … continue
UK ‘Counter Terrorism Police’ Detain American Lawyer And Human Rights Activist For Criticism Of Israel
By Justin K.P. | The Dissident | June 30, 2026
The UK’s Zionist owned police state continues to detain Israel critics on bogus terrorism charges, in this case against a well-known American human rights lawyer.
Dan Kovalik is a well-respected human rights lawyer and author who previously taught International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
Kovalik is currently representing Gustavo Petro, the president of Colombia.
He is a critic of Zionism and U.S. policy towards Iran, publishing the book “The Case for Palestine: Why It Matters and Why You Should Care” last year and publishing the book “The Plot to Attack Iran: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Iran” in 2018 .
For this, Kovalik was detained “at John Lennon International Airport in Liverpool, England” by counterterrorism police who seized his “phone, computer, fingerprints and DNA sample” over his “opposition to the Genocide on Gaza and the war on Iran.”
Kovalik wrote on X, “In the height of irony, I was detained at John Lennon International Airport in Liverpool, England by anti-terrorism police concerned about my opposition to the Genocide on Gaza and the war on Iran. They seized my phone, computer, fingerprints and DNA sample.”
Writer Nalia reported that Kovalik “was detained for approximately two and a half hours and interrogated extensively on his political views about Israel’s genocide in Palestine, Lebanese resistance organisation Hezbollah and on the war against Iran”.
She also reported that “Kovalik’s phone and laptop were seized along with his DNA, fingerprints, photos from multiple angles and copies of his bank and credit cards. After officers rifled through his luggage, they questioned Kovalik on the book he was carrying — a gift from a student by Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, Palestine’s Children: Returning to Haifa & Other Stories — before he was released and free to continue on his journey.”
She also noted that “Despite informing officers that he is a practising lawyer and that his phone and laptop contain documents protected by legal professional privilege — including attorney-client privilege — Kovalik objected to their seizure, which a supervising police sergeant confirmed to Kovalik that he had properly raised privilege objections. Regardless of his objections, his electronic devices were retained ‘with intention to copy,’ raising serious questions about the protection of legally privileged material, client confidentiality and compliance with the safeguards governing legal privilege under Schedule 3 and its accompanying Code of Practice.”
Commenting on the detention of Kovalik, former MP George Galloway, who himself was previously detained at Gatwick Airport for his support of Palestine, said: “The Political Police in Britain are out of control.”
A banal collection of nonentities and grifters

Ashes of Pompeii | June 30, 2026
Across the European Union, governance has increasingly devolved into an exercise in moral posturing. When virtue signalling becomes the primary policy guide, pragmatic statecraft is abandoned. The result is a continent plagued by strategic blunders, driven by an elite class that prioritizes appearing righteous over being effective.
At the heart of this dysfunction is the Brussels bubble, an insulated ecosystem entirely disconnected from the real world. The leaders populating this space generally lack practical experience, possessing only the specific skill set required to navigate internal party machinations. Consequently, they have consistently failed upwards. Ursula von der Leyen stands as the ultimate archetype of this phenomenon. After an, at best, mediocre career in German politics, culminated by a totally unsuccessful term as Minister of Defence, she was elevated to the head of the European Commission through backroom political horse trading rather than visionary leadership. This general lack of democratic accountability is fuelled by a profound sense of hubris and an entitlement to lead the globe. Apparently the natural order of things places Europe as the world’s moral, economic (and even military LOL) leader. Diversity and Identity Politics may rule in Brussels politics, where quotas are more important than merits, but in foreign policy Europe seems to think it has a God-given mandate to rule the world. Virtue signalling has entirely replaced serious political discourse as the main political language, ensuring that only the most ideologically compliant rise to the top.
This environment breeds rampant careerism, where the ultimate goal is securing a prestigious post through absolute subservience to the EU elite and the United States. Loyalty to Washington is routinely rewarded over national interest, as seen in the appointments of Annalena Baerbock to the United Nations and Mark Rutte to NATO. Alongside this sycophancy comes institutional corruption. The Pfizer scandal perfectly encapsulates this rot, with Von der Leyen at the center of the scandal. But the intense scrutiny she should be facing is glaring for its absence. When leaders operate with such opacity and prioritize personal or political advancement over transparency, the entire administrative apparatus rots from the inside.
This moral posturing yields disastrous foreign policy, most notably regarding Ukraine. The fundamental question is not what the EU can do to help Ukraine win, but why it is even meddling at all. If the EU and the UK had not meddled in the peace negotiations of March and April 2022, the war would have ended then and hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved. Furthermore, Ukraine would have secured far better territorial and political conditions than it is likely to achieve in any postwar settlement today. The early peace talks were derailed by Western interference, turning a potential diplomatic resolution into a grinding war of attrition. Instead of pursuing a pragmatic peace, European leaders chose to signal moral superiority, prolonging a devastating conflict. We can debate whether this was to satisfy their ideological vanity or out of simple subservience to Washington.
Domestic policies suffer equally. Driven by the moral imperative of green virtue signalling, European leaders prematurely dismantled reliable energy infrastructure, triggering severe economic crises. Meanwhile, the current trade dispute with China exposes profound intellectual dishonesty. The EU labels China’s success in manufacturing and exports as “overcapacity”. Yet, one must ask if Germany had overcapacity during all those decades where it maintained a highly successful export led economy. They refuse to acknowledge their own loss of competitiveness, choosing instead to penalize Beijing for outperforming them in the global market. By weaponizing trade terminology to mask their own industrial decline, Brussels prioritizes ideological protectionism over economic reality.
It must be noted that the United Kingdom suffers from most of these same ailments. London’s political class is equally plagued by careerism, a disconnected bubble, and a reliance on virtue signalling over practical governance. Ultimately, whether in Brussels or London, the shift toward governance by moral posturing has been catastrophic. When leaders are unelected, subservient to foreign powers, and selected for ideological purity and party loyalty, rather than competence, the nation suffers. Europe has traded statecraft for virtue signalling, leaving itself strategically vulnerable and economically weak.
Future historians will look back on today’s leaders and wonder just how could such a banal collection of nonentities and grifters rise to become in the “elite” of the once powerful Europe.
The Middle East, Hormuz and the New Mercantilism
By Craig Murray | June 29, 2026
The provisional surrender document signed by Donald Trump appeared to represent a triumph for Iran and indeed for the world; but neither the USA nor Israel has the slightest sense of honour and they cannot be trusted to negotiate in good faith.
Iran knows this – after all, the USA twice attacked Iran actually during peace negotiations, on each occasion killing key Iranian negotiators.
To understand the American position, it is important to realise two key points:
- Greater Israel is an absolute priority
- Opening the Strait of Hormuz is not a US priority
While the US/Israeli alliance were defeated in their attempt to impose regime change on Iran, and indeed have consolidated the popular support of the Iranian government, they have succeeded in expanding Greater Israel. Israel has ethnically cleared and devastated a vast swathe of Southern Lebanon, expanding its military footprint, and notably attempting to repeat its ploy from November 2024 of pushing forward its armour under cover of ceasefire.
Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon has been a major negotiating point for the Iranian government and is a key – indeed the very first – point of the Iran/USA MOU. But in an extraordinary coup aimed at negating that deal, the USA has signed a deal with Israel and its puppet Aoun regime in Lebanon which seeks to legitimise Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon through the agreement of the “Lebanese government”.
This is an astonishing development. I did not think I could have a lower opinion of the appalling bloated traitor “General” “President” Aoun but not even I – nor I think any commentator – believed he would make such a deal with Israel. The plan is that the Americans, Israelis and Lebanese Army will act together to forcibly eliminate Hezbollah, and only after that is certified – by the Israelis – will the Israelis withdraw from Southern Lebanon.
Here are the operative paragraphs. Note that they carefully do not say in terms that Israel will actually leave Lebanon.
“3. …The Government of Israel and the Government of Lebanon commit to a reciprocal, sequenced process, with clear conditions, whereby the LAF will restore effective sovereign authority over all Lebanese territory, pending the verified disarmament of non-state armed groups and dismantlement of associated infrastructure, enabling the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to progressively redeploy out of the Lebanese territory.”
“5 . …The Government of Israel underscores that the termination of this threat, through the disarmament and dismantlement of such groups in all of Lebanon and additional security arrangements to be agreed upon between the two countries, will eliminate any future need for IDF military action or presence in Lebanon.”
This is plainly completely incompatible with the USA/Iran MOU, which states as Point 1:
“The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war are signing this MOU to declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. The final deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon and other provisions of this paragraph.”
Of course, everybody knows that Israel will never withdraw voluntarily, any more than they withdrew from the Golan Heights. Annexation is plainly the goal and expansion of Greater Israel at least to the Litani River and probably further.
It is important to realise that this is not only Aoun seeking the annihilation of the Shia population of Southern Lebanon; he is also betraying his own community. Aoun is himself a Southern Lebanese Christian, and Israel has been destroying the homes, churches, hospitals and families of Southern Lebanese Christians with as much glee as they attack Muslims.
The agreement names two “pilot zones” where the combined Israeli and Lebanese Army forces will eliminate Hezbollah, followed by Israeli withdrawal from those zones. But these are zones which Israel is not currently occupying – they are areas where Israel was defeated in fighting by Hezbollah and which have been since subject to relentless Israeli bombardment.
So Aoun has agreed to support militarily an IDF advance further into Lebanon, against an agreement that Israel will be able to withdraw once these key Hezbollah redoubts have been destroyed. Even if Aoun were stupid enough to believe the Israelis will withdraw after the operation, this is a level of treachery it is difficult to comprehend.
Greater Israel is not a concept. It is a reality being created before our very eyes.
Israel now occupies 70% of Gaza and plainly the entire “Board of Peace” mechanism is nothing but smoke and mirrors, pure fraud. It has zero effect on the continued tightening of the Gaza concentration camp into an ever-shrinking area. Israeli settlements in the West Bank expand daily and every night the skies are red with Palestinian homes and crops burning. In East Jerusalem Palestinians are continually evicted and replaced by fresh European or American arrivals. In Syria, Israel is building permanent fortifications and its armour creeps forward field by field, with the full cooperation of “President” al-Jolani.
Iran was able to resist the combined military might of the USA and Israel. That is cause for celebration. But do not allow it to blind your eyes to the continued hard reality of the expansion of Greater Israel.
There is no gain for the US in the US/Iran Memorandum of Understanding which the US did not already possess before starting the war. It is therefore very possible, and in many senses valid, to read it as the formalisation of US defeat: a surrender document. Which is why you should be sceptical about US commitment to the terms.
The Strait of Hormuz was fully open before the US started the war. Allowing the flow of oil to resume has become a short-term US priority due to high domestic retail prices and pending elections, but the MOU envisages more Iranian control – and potentially fees – in the Strait than existed before the war.
There is no indication of restrictions on the Iranian nuclear programme that were not already available in the peaceful negotiations. Crucially there are no limitations on Iran’s vital ballistic missile production. The proposed relaxation of sanctions and release of frozen assets is a triumph for Iran and long overdue, and the $300 billion in dollars in reparations, from unspecified sources, is stunning.
So stunning of course that anyone with their head screwed on will realise there is no long term American intention to keep faith with the deal.
Trump is not stupid. There are many ways of characterising his kind of cunning, but it is not stupidity. He was not, as the prevailing narrative seeks to state, the only person in the World who did not realise the Strait of Hormuz would be closed by the war. The USA is quite happy to see the Strait of Hormuz closed, or permanently made more difficult and expensive to transit.
The key to understanding Trump’s position is his famous love of tariffs. Trump is a mercantilist. For many years the world worked on the general basis of accepting the economics of Adam Smith – that freedom of trade promoted universal, reciprocal wealth creation. That was the founding basis of the World Trade organisation, and is the internal philosophy of big trading blocs like the EU.
Trump rejects this and returns to the philosophy that other nations are all competitors, not potential partners, and that success lies not only in increasing your own production, but in damaging your rivals’ production – which ultimately will increase domestic production further. Trump rejects the basic premise of free trade.
The long prevailing belief in the beneficial effects of free trade historically was, as logic demands, accompanied by the demand for freedom of navigation.
Sweeping away tariffs goes hand in hand with sweeping away the controls on shipping which carry the goods. Before the rise of liberal economics, almost all states had practised mercantilism, with controls on shipping being a major source of state revenue. The magnificence of Kronborg Castle in Helsingør, in which Hamlet is set, was constructed entirely from revenues from tolls on ships exiting the Baltic by passing the strait it overlooks, for example.

Freedom of navigation was initially enforced ultimately by the British, and later the American, Navy. States attempting to enforce customary passage fees, for example in the Malaccan Strait, were classified as “pirates” and freedom of navigation became a routine justification for imperialist aggression and/or colonial occupation. Freedom of navigation eventually became customary international law, ultimately codified in the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea.
The simple truth is this: in openly abandoning the principle of free trade, the Trump regime has also abandoned the logically linked principle of freedom of navigation. This is evident not just in their indifference to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. It is evident in the naval blockades of Cuba and Venezuela and above all in the worldwide blockade of Russian hydrocarbon deliveries, including the effective end of free passage through the Strait of Dover, and a de facto naval blockade of the Arctic passages.
Following the shale boom, the United States is a net hydrocarbon exporter. The USA balance of trade benefits from high hydrocarbon prices. Trump is doing everything he can to increase US hydrocarbon production by slashing environmental and other controls. This is a core Trump policy.
The USA does not import hydrocarbons through the Strait of Hormuz. That fact is key to Trump’s thinking.
In this mercantilist view, closure of the Strait has two benefits for the USA.
- It disadvantages rival hydrocarbon suppliers
- It disadvantages rival industrial competitors in Europe and Asia who do get hydrocarbons through Hormuz.
This is exactly the same logic behind the destruction of Nord Stream 2. The same mercantilist system also explains the effective seizure through naval blockade and control of Venezuela’s oil production, and the blockade of Russian hydrocarbons through sanctions and the “shadow fleet” propaganda disguising another naval blockade.
The UK’s recent actions in the Dover strait indicate that the West, not just the United States has surrendered the principle of freedom of navigation in straits.
Trump believes, as he has repeatedly stated in public, that domestic fuel prices in the USA are a blip and will equalise as the USA increases its domestic fuel production and Venezuelan fuel production. However this was not happening in time for the mid-term elections which is why reopening the Strait of Hormuz became a temporary priority that occasioned the ceasefire and MOU with Iran.
None of this implies good faith negotiation or a real prospect for a lasting peace.
The Starmer legacy the establishment media won’t tell you: Celebrity sex crimes, imprisoning Assange and torture terror
Before Downing Street, Starmer built his reputation at the CPS – where some of Britain’s ugliest scandals were buried, delayed, or erased

RT | June 26, 2026
As Keir Starmer prepares to leave the UK’s highest office after less than two years, the media has lined up to explain why he failed to deliver on the enormous hype he received as opposition leader, and during his initial months in office. A repeated trope has been that Starmer was a “decent man,” but simply not cut out for mainstream politics. However, his record of concealing the UK establishment’s repulsive crimes – be that serial child sex abuse or spy agency torture – shows him to be anything but decent.
What was the reality of Starmer’s CPS role?
Starmer’s spell as director of public prosecutions for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has been fundamental to his mythology since before he became Labour leader. It was during this time, according to The Guardian, that “Starmer transformed his reputation from that of a radical lawyer to that of a moderate and cautious administrator.” Missing from this account is any reference to how the CPS under his leadership covered up the crimes of notorious celebrity pedophile Jimmy Savile, while he was still alive.
In February 2022, Boris Johnson got in serious hot water after he accused Starmer in parliament of “prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile,” as CPS chief. Condemnation from the media and UK politicians was universal. Johnson’s personal policy chief, who’d worked for him for 14 years, resigned in protest over the then-Prime Minister’s supposedly libelous statements. Such was the backlash, as pressure grew so severe, that Johnson retracted his comments in a matter of three days.
It was an extraordinarily rare example of the UK establishment moving in unanimous lockstep, to defend a single mainstream politician accused of wrongdoing. The episode was made all the more shocking by Johnson’s statement being literally true. Starmer was CPS chief when the Service made the indefensible decision to not prosecute Savile, and many aspects of that strangely downplayed and ignored scandal implicate the failed prime minister personally.
What did an inquiry say about CPS treatment of Jimmy Savile?
An internal CPS inquiry into the Savile affair was commissioned by Starmer in 2012, after it was revealed in the wake of Savile’s death that police had failed to press charges against him despite numerous witnesses credibly accusing the UK’s “national treasure” of sexually abusing and raping them when they were young girls. The inquiry found a CPS “reviewing lawyer” told investigating officers early on he “would not be inclined to prosecute these cases because they were ‘relatively minor’.”
The CPS lawyer also didn’t ask the police basic questions about the case. The inquiry report found his attitude troubling. “I would hope that any prosecutor would regard a sexual assault as being in and of itself serious,” the author stated. They found instead that “these particular assaults were far from trivial,” and “represented a course of conduct against vulnerable women and girls” by Savile, over many years. Consequently, the investigator had “reservations about the way in which the prosecutor reached his decision.”
Instead of refusing to pursue the case, the CPS had a duty “to ‘build’ a prosecution,” which its lawyers failed to fulfil. The allegations against Savile were plainly “serious and credible.” The inquiry found that “had police and prosecutors taken a different approach, a prosecution might have been possible.” These conclusions are all the more damning when you consider that all CPS files held on Savile were shredded in October 2010.
Despite these grave criticisms, the investigator concluded, “I have seen nothing to suggest that the decisions not to prosecute were consciously influenced by any improper motive on the part of either police or prosecutors.” Which might be true, if only because all CPS files on Savile were destroyed. The report was therefore “dependent on material provided by the police to show what documents were seen by the reviewing lawyer and the advice which was given.”
The Service allegedly had “no record at all” of the case, which the inquiry claimed was due to CPS records on Savile being “automatically deleted” after a decision to take no action was made, in line with internal policies. However, the Service’s publicly accessible guidelines on “disposal” of evidence clearly state documents on cases where “no proceedings have taken place or where the case was discontinued before trial” must be kept for five years.
What role did Starmer play in Julian Assange’s persecution?
The Savile deletions were not the only example of suspiciously poor CPS recordkeeping under Starmer’s watch. In 2017, it was revealed the Service deleted sensitive email exchanges about Julian Assange with Swedish prosecutors three years earlier – potentially illegally, as a criminal case was ongoing. The communications occurred from 2010 until the WikiLeaks founder sought refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy in June 2012, where he remained for almost seven years, under constant threat of CIA assassination. In 2019 British police forcibly removed him and sent him to Belmarsh, a high-security prison, where we was kept in almost total solitary confinement for five years.
The emails were deleted by a CPS lawyer who had personally advised Swedish police not to visit London and interview Assange as he had requested, on the grounds that he feared extradition to the US from Sweden. “In my view it would not be prudent for the Swedish authorities to try to interview the defendant in the UK,” they wrote in January 2011. This sentence was redacted in emails released under Freedom of Information by the CPS, but not in files provided by Swedish authorities.
Sweden dropped its investigation into Assange in May 2017. Only later was it revealed that the case could have been closed much earlier, were it not for direct CPS intervention. Beyond advising Swedish police not to interview Assange in London, a Service lawyer repeatedly sought to dissuade them from dropping their investigation outright. In August 2012, they wrote to their Swedish counterparts, “Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!”
In October 2013, Sweden’s director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny wrote to the CPS that due to the passage of time, and lack of evidence against Assange, “we have found us to be obliged to lift the detention order… and to withdraw the European arrest warrant.” Three days later, Ny emailed a clearly affronted CPS, apologizing over the “[bad] surprise” of moving to drop charges against Assange. “I hope I didn’t ruin your weekend,” she added.
“All we can do is wait and see and perhaps be eternally grateful neither of us have to share a room in the embassy with him over Christmas!” the CPS lawyer responded.
Starmer’s personal role in all this has never been adequately clarified, but he visited Washington, DC in 2011, 2012 and 2013 while he was in effective charge of the Assange case, meeting with senior US officials. True to form, all records of Starmer’s trips were quickly destroyed, contrary to CPS protocol.
How did Starmer cover for MI5/MI6 torture?
After 9/11, the CIA launched a global torture program, identifying terror suspects, abducting them and sending them to black sites all over Europe and the Middle East, before torturing bogus confessions out of them to justify the War on Terror. MI5 and MI6 were not only centrally involved in the program; the two agencies ran an autonomous joint operation using “partner” agencies in the Global South to do the torturing itself.
When these activities became public, with legal actions mounting against the state by victims of the torture program and their families, UK police launched an investigation. Vast quantities of incriminating evidence were collected. However, Starmer as CPS chief consistently vetoed bringing offenders, including senior spy agency directors, to trial despite overwhelming cases against them. First, in 2010 he ruled there was “insufficient evidence” to prosecute an MI5 officer who participated in the torture in Pakistan of a UK citizen in 2002.
Police investigations into MI5 and MI6 for torture continued. However, in January 2012 Starmer again decided not to prosecute anyone from these agencies for their role in their unlawful treatment. The next April, Starmer attended the boozy going away party of MI5 chief Jonathan Evans, the first CPS official to ever attend such an event. Evans was a counter-terror veteran who’d served as MI5 director general since 2007, and would’ve been criminally liable if the CPS had decided to prosecute MI5.
Police investigations into the torture scandal weren’t finished though. Documents seized from Libyan security service offices, abandoned in the wake of Muammar Gaddafi’s October 2011 fall, were a treasure trove. This included faxes sent in March 2004 by then-MI6 counter-terror chief Mark Allen to Libyan spies, regarding a terror suspect kidnapped along with his wife in an MI6 operation. The suspect spent six years being tortured in Libyan prisons at the agency’s direction, with MI6 providing his interrogators questions to ask.
Overall, 28,000 pages of evidence on Allen’s involvement in torture were collected by police. In 2014 however, Starmer yet again decided this was “insufficient evidence” to prosecute the MI6 counter-terror chief, and the case was dropped. In return for a lifetime of serving the establishment, and assisting directly in the commission of serious criminality – if only by signing off on coverups and politicized prosecutions of dissidents – Starmer was rewarded with an empty seat in the UK’s highest office, for only two years.
UK suppressed intel on Sudan genocide to protect UAE ties: Report
Press TV – June 24, 2026
UK authorities have suppressed key intelligence and failed to act on warnings about atrocities in Sudan to preserve diplomatic and economic ties with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to testimony presented to lawmakers.
During a hearing of the UK Parliament’s International Development Committee on Tuesday, Nathaniel Raymond, director of Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, said the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) ignored repeated warnings before the so-called Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured El-Fasher in October 2025.
Raymond told lawmakers that the assault was followed by a massacre that claimed at least 60,000 civilian lives.
He said British policymakers placed strategic ties with the UAE above efforts to prevent starvation, displacement, and mass killings in Sudan.
Evidence presented during the hearing included mobile phone tracking data linking Addis Ababa, Abu Dhabi, and RSF-controlled territory.
According to Raymond, the information pointed to a covert weapons supply network supporting the militant group.
While the UAE and Ethiopia have denied supporting the RSF, Raymond said pressure from Abu Dhabi influenced the UK’s response.
He also stated that UK officials asked his research team in May 2024 to release sensitive tracking data publicly because the government was unwilling to challenge the UAE directly.
Raymond described a missed opportunity after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2736, when RSF operations reportedly paused while international reactions were assessed.
“Once the UAE assessed there would be no consequences, the attack resumed,” Raymond told the committee.
Decisions made by successive British governments, including those led by former Prime Ministers Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, contributed to a failure to prevent further bloodshed, he said.
A BBC report published in April linked the UAE to a network of Colombian mercenaries known as the “Desert Wolves,” who provided drone and artillery support to the RSF during the battle for El-Fasher.
Conflict Insights Group director Justin Lynch said, “The scale of atrocities and siege in El-Fasher would not have happened without the drone operations the mercenaries provided.”
Satellite imagery analyzed by Yale researchers after the city’s fall showed evidence consistent with mass casualties, while the United Nations later said the violence bore “hallmarks of genocide.”


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