Big Brother Banking? UK’s New “Fraud Bill” Sparks Fears of Financial Snooping
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | September 26, 2024
A considerable scandal broke out in the UK under the previous government over a practice dubbed, “debanking” – which saw various public, but not only, figures cut off from financial services as a way of punishing them for their political views.
That also faced a considerable backlash, but the Labor government that took over earlier in the year doesn’t seem to be willing to give up on the core postulates: it appears to be just trying to go about achieving the same end goal in a more “subtle” manner.
The policy is this: give banks spying powers over everybody, but call that a requirement for banks and financial institutions to “share data that may show indications of potential benefit overpayments.”
In order to achieve the stated goal, the whole population’s bank accounts are likely to be monitored.
So one can think of this as the financial sector version of the “online age verification” push. In that scenario everybody (“the whole population”) loses their right to anonymity for no good reason – but a reason, nonetheless. Opponents say it’s to surveil and control as many people, in as many ways possible, at one time.
The UK government naturally keeps its messaging on this legislative initiative as “clean” as possible – it’s to crack down on fraud in the social security system, they say.
Remember what it’s called, because it is sure to crop up in the future, and not in a good way: “Fraud, Error and Debt Bill.”
The government plays not only on people’s natural aversion to fraud but also on sensibilities around spending taxpayer money – the sponsors promise not to waste £1.6 billion ($2.1 billion) of public money over the next five years, just thanks to this bill.
But, to get there, they need to “extend and modernize DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) powers.”
Like this: “Better investigate suspected fraud and new powers of search and seizure so DWP can take greater control investigations into criminal gangs defrauding the taxpayer. (…) Require banks and financial institutions to share data that may show indications of potential benefit overpayments.”
Hold the phone, rights groups are basically saying at this point. And then some are blasting this as (PM) Keir Starmer’s “benefits bank spying plans.”
“A financial snoopers’ charter targeted to automate suspicion of our country’s poorest is intrusive, unjustified, and risks Horizon-style injustice on a mass scale,” said Big Brother Watch, adding that his was “an assault on the presumption of innocence.”
Mystery of Andrew Bridgen’s vanishing votes
By Sally Beck | TCW Defending Freedom | September 23, 2024
After 14 years as MP for North West Leicestershire, former Conservative Andrew Bridgen lost his seat in spectacular fashion at the general election in July with an implausible 95 per cent decrease in votes. This made no sense as he enjoyed more than 95 per cent recognition on the doorstep, an endorsement from US politician Robert F Kennedy Jr, and a positive response from his constituents, many of whom had received justice because of his interventions.
A popular MP, fighting David-and-Goliath causes considered taboo by the government but essential by the electorate, he had become a thorn in the Conservative government’s side, and he was expelled in April 2023. Facing ferocious opposition from his own party, he exposed the Horizon Post Office scandal, fought for recognition for the covid vaccine injured and bereaved, and highlighted the iniquity for those facing compulsory house purchases to make way for the HS2 rail link. He was forced to sell his family home to HS2 and personally lost £500,000.
Bridgen was first elected in 2010, in what was then a Labour stronghold considered ‘unwinnable’ by David Cameron, overturning a Labour majority of 4,477 to win with a majority of 7,511, 45 per cent of the vote. In the 2015 and 2017 general elections, he kept his seat and increased his margins to 11,373 (49 per cent) and then 13,286 (54 per cent). In 2019, his majority increased again to 20,400, 63 per cent of the vote, with 33,811 voters.
To drop from 63 per cent of the vote to 3.2 per cent with just 1,568 votes seems implausible. Bridgen said: ‘After the election people were coming up to me, and still are, saying, “I voted for you, my whole family voted for you. What happened?”’
Compare Bridgen’s 2024 result with that of former Labour MP George Galloway, now leader of the Workers Party of Britain. In 2003, Galloway left Labour to become independent and in March 2024 won a landslide by-election in Rochdale with 12,335 votes, almost 6,000 more than any other candidate. He lost the general election four months later to Labour’s Paul Waugh, by just 1,539 votes – Waugh 13,047 and Galloway 11,508, a 15 per cent decrease.
Bridgen’s competitors were virtually unknown in the area too, although Conservative candidate Craig Smith (who came second) does live locally. Both have a tiny social media presence compared with his own. Labour’s Amanda Hack, who won the seat, has just 840 followers on Facebook, Craig Smith who came second, fares marginally better with 2,200 followers, but nothing in comparison with Bridgen who currently has 28,000 Facebook followers. His rival MPs’ X presence is just as pitiful; just 2,431 follow Hack, a measly 1,366 follow Smith while 261,900 follow Bridgen.
So what happened? Bridgen thinks that the vote could have been tampered with, a suggestion strenuously denied by North West Leicestershire District Council (NWLDC) which has responsibility for collecting and counting the votes, and has highlighted what he sees as anomalies. A council spokesman said: ‘With the exception of the exit poll being cancelled, the allegations being made have no factual basis and are based on inaccurate assumptions.’
The contentious issues for Bridgen surround the exit poll, the opening of the ballot boxes and new electoral services staff. Is there any evidence to support him or are the inconsistencies coincidence or misinterpretation?
The market research company Ipsos-MORI conduct exit polls on behalf of the BBC, Sky Television and ITV. Just two weeks before the election, they cancelled the North West Leicestershire exit poll with no explanation, removing any chance to check voters’ candidate preference.
Political scientist John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, curates the information for Ipsos-MORI and confirmed that North West Leicestershire (and Rochdale for that matter) had no exit poll. He said: ‘The only exit poll was an exercise conducted at 134 locations across the UK and designed to estimate the outcome across the country in seats.’ There are 650 seats in the UK.
NWLDC also admitted the poll was cancelled and their spokesman said: ‘We were only informed at the very last minute.’
Bridgen questioned the time it took to count the vote. The ballot boxes took around 25 minutes to reach Whitwick and Coalville Leisure Centre, a central location in the constituency, where the ballot papers were counted.
Polling stations closed at 10pm and Allison Thomas, CEO of the council and returning officer for the constituency, said they would not begin the count until 2am – a four-hour time lag. ‘There was no explanation,’ Bridgen said. ‘The election officers were unnaturally nervous too. You’d have thought they were the ones standing for election. None of it stacked up. I’ve been through around 20 elections locally and I’ve never seen anything like that.’
Bridgen’s manager David Baggett confirmed: ‘The ballot boxes were slow to come in. They were still validating the ballot papers when the final count was called in Newcastle.’
Validation means election staff check the number of ballots received against voter roll lists that are checked at each polling station.
NWLDC appointed Ms Thomas as CEO in August 2022. In April 2023, after he had been expelled from the Conservative Party, Bridgen said: ‘I was informed that the whole of the election services department had resigned en masse, on a Friday, and they’d been replaced by a new team. That was amazing because I can’t remember anybody leaving since I became the candidate in 2006. There were three people in the department, they weren’t relatives, so I can’t understand why they all left on the same day. I think that’s very, very unusual.
‘I spoke to Allison Thomas to ask what was going on. And her answer was that it was the right time for them to move on, whatever that means. Before the election I wanted to have a meeting with the new team. I was very uncomfortable about it. It took a long time to get a meeting.’
The council have denied that the whole team left but admitted Bridgen and Baggett met election services staff before the general election. Their spokesman said that two staff retired in 2022, no staff left or retired in 2023 or 2024, and two original staff remained: Democratic Services Manager Clare Hammond and Electoral Services Officer Chris Colvin. Both met Bridgen and Baggett.
Bridgen was concerned that electoral services staff were on their own in Stenson House, a council building in Coalville, while all other departments had been relocated to other buildings. Part of the council’s offices were due to be demolished, hence the mass exodus.
Bridgen said: ‘We had the meeting four weeks before the election in the old premises. Clare Hammond joined, saying “I thought you’d like to see a familiar face.” It turned out that the whole of the council had decamped, leaving electoral services in that big old building on their own. There was no oversight of them, so no one knew what they were doing.’
The council said: ‘This is not the case. Our entire staff moved to new administration offices in April 2023. For the purposes of administering and managing all elections, the elections team book rooms at Stenson House. This is to enable all members of the team to work in the same office, and to allow the team the space they need to receive postal votes, organise ballot boxes and other work that requires space. This work takes place at Stenson House for every election and has done for many years.’
Bridgen was always popular with his constituents, and his 2024 election address has had 24,231 views on YouTube.
‘Michael and Susan Rudkin from Ibstock were my constituents,’ Bridgen said. ‘Michael was chairman of the National Federation of Subpostmasters. He appeared in ITV’s drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office about the Horizon scandal, and witnessed Fujitsu’s engineers altering sub-postmasters’ accounts remotely at their HQ. The day after he visited Fujitsu, his wife was accused of stealing £44,000 from the post office and wrongly convicted. I helped get that conviction overturned.’
By contrast many in the Conservative Party hated him, and the government refused 20 requests to debate excess deaths after the UK saw a 9 per cent increase in 2022, a year after the covid vaccine rollout.
Bridgen also challenged the World Health Organization’s power grab, continued to highlight the government’s gross ineptitude and handling of the covid pandemic, and they finally kicked him out after Matt Hancock accused him of anti-Semitism, clearly twisting his words. Discussing the horrendous rise in post covid vaccination heart issues, Bridgen tweeted: ‘As one consultant cardiologist said to me, this is the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust.’
On alleged vote rigging he said: ‘If there was any skulduggery relating to the vote, it would have had to have been before the ballot boxes got to the leisure centre. I have no idea who would have been behind it. I tell constituents who ask that I’m trying to get to the bottom of it but without a whistleblower, I’m not sure I ever will.’
If anyone has any information about the vote, please email: sally@sallybeck.co.uk
Former British minister’s bizarre warning of Russian attack is admission of Britain’s nefarious role in Kursk
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 22, 2024
When former British military chief Ben Wallace wrote his bizarre op-ed last month warning that “Putin will soon turn his war machine on Britain”, it may have come across as the usual Russophobic scaremongering.
The ex-minister of defense wrote in the Daily Telegraph that “Britain’s in Putin’s crosshairs… Make no mistake Putin is coming for us.”
He painted the Russian leader and its top generals as unhinged madmen who were driven by revenge for old scores like the Crimean War in the 1850s.
Wallace, who served as a British army captain and was the minister of defense under three Conservative prime ministers between 2019 and 2023, is known for his hawkish anti-Russia views. He previously told the Times newspaper that Britain must be prepared to fight wars alone without the help of the U.S. He has compared Putin to Hitler, and he once claimed that the Scots Guards – the regiment in which he served – “kicked Russian asses” in the Crimean War and could do so again.
But, in hindsight, his Telegraph op-ed was not so much the usual belligerent rant to whip up Russophobia. This was not a mere paranoid warning of Russia’s alleged malign intent, but rather it was more an admission of British guilt in recklessly escalating the proxy war in Ukraine.
Wallace claimed, somewhat curiously, that Britain would be the primary target for any Russian military attack, not the United States. What made him say that? After all, the U.S. is by far the biggest military backer of the Kiev regime.
Pointedly, Wallace emphatically denied in his article published on August 26 that Britain had played any role in Ukraine’s offensive on Russia’s Kursk region. That offensive was launched on August 6. The incursion appears now to have been a military disaster for the Kiev regime with nearly 15,000 of its troops killed and hundreds of NATO-supplied armored vehicles destroyed.
As the offensive in Kursk flounders and Russia pushes on with rapid gains in the Donbass region of formerly eastern Ukraine, it is becoming more clear that Britain took a leading role among the NATO sponsors of the Kiev regime in promoting the Kursk offensive.
Captured Ukrainian troops have told how British marines trained and directed them to take on audacious missions. The military purpose of the missions was not precise or pragmatic. Their main objective was to create propaganda victories by raising Ukrainian flags on Russian territory.
This week, another British military insider, Sean Bell, who was the former air vice marshall of the RAF, urged the NATO-backed Ukrainian regime to “inflict maximum pain” on Russia. The former RAF commander was referring to the Kursk offensive and an expansion of air strikes on Russian territory.
This comes as Britain’s new Labour prime minister Keir Starmer is consulting with U.S. president Joe Biden on granting Ukraine permission to use long-range missiles to hit deep inside Russia. Starmer and his new defense minister John Healey have been keen to demonstrate that their government is every bit as gung-ho as the Conservative predecessors in supporting Ukraine militarily.
It also comes as the Russian state security service, FSB, claims that leaked documents it has obtained show that Britain is taking a leading role among Western adversaries in ramping up military and political tensions with Moscow.
When the Kursk offensive kicked off last month, NATO leaders were adamant that they were not involved in the planning. By contrast, the Kiev regime hinted that NATO was.
Despite the official denials, sections of the British media couldn’t contain their excitement in what appeared in the initial stage to be a lightning punch in the nose for Putin.
It was reported that Ukrainian troops had been trained in Britain prior to the incursion. While the Daily Mail blared that British Challenger tanks were “leading Ukraine’s advance into Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions”.
The Times reported smugly that “British equipment, including drones, has played a central role in Ukraine’s new offensive and British personnel have been closely advising the Ukrainian military.”
Since the NATO proxy war against Russia erupted in Ukraine in February 2022, the British have been intensely involved in training commandos to carry out raids on Russian territory, according to Britain’s Royal Navy publicity.
Despite Ben Wallace’s assertion that Britain had no planning involvement in the Kursk offensive, it seems clear that his denial is a lie. Britain was and presumably still is heavily involved. It is known that mercenaries from other NATO states are on the ground in Kursk. But the British role is prominent in leading the charge (from behind, that is).
That charge has now run into a dead-end with heavy losses among Ukrainian troops. For the British planners, however, the military losses are of little importance. The Ukrainians were merely cannon fodder in a PR stunt to embarrass Putin and to whip up another round of military aid.
Britain has a sordid historical role in starting wars in Europe. Ben Wallace in his Telegraph op-ed mocked Putin for blaming Britain for being behind the Crimean War and the rise of Nazi Germany. On both counts, it is accurate to condemn Britain. What was it doing anyway sending troops to Crimea in the 1850s? And the covert role of Britain in financing, arming, and giving Hitler a free hand to attack the Soviet Union during the 1930s was a major contributor to fomenting World War Two, a war in which up to 30 million Soviet people were killed.
Today, Perfidious Albion is stoking the proxy war against Russia, which could lead to a nuclear Third World War. Its sinister fingerprints are all over the Kursk provocation. The has-been empire is trying to inflate its geopolitical importance among Western partners through machinations and manipulation. Even at the risk of inciting an all-out world war.
Ben Wallace’s bizarre op-ed about Russia “coming for us” can be better understood as an admission of Britain’s guilt and not simply another absurd Russophobic rant. The old Tory warmonger was projecting the reality of Britain’s nefarious role in escalating the proxy war. The British establishment knows that if Russia goes on to take reprisal, it has it coming. Its pretense of innocence is classic British dissembling.
How US Deep State Co-Opted TikTok
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 21.09.2024
TikTok wiped Sputnik’s account on Saturday, days after Washington announced draconian new restrictions on Russian media. The company offered no explanation.
The newest round of censorship comes amid the US establishment’s long war against TikTok amid much-touted (but never substantiated) claims by authorities that China uses the app for espionage and influence operations against American users.
The crux of US government claims is that the app sends US customer data to the Asian nation, where it can be seen by Chinese authorities or intelligence services. TikTok says its US data is firewalled from leaving the country via an agreement with American tech giant Oracle.
Joe Biden signed a law in April threatening to completely ban TikTok within 270 days unless its Chinese parent company ByteDance divests from US operations, setting the stage for a legal battle. The measure, packaged in alongside fresh appropriations for US-funded hot spots in Ukraine, Gaza and Taiwan, was rejected by a handful of progressive Democrats and MAGA Republicans, who deemed it a blatant assault on constitutionally afforded free speech.
Senator Rand Paul warned that “once you start objecting to content, what you’re objecting to is speech… The bottom line is, the more information, the better. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. That’s what happens in a free country.”
Congressman Thomas Massie characterized the ban threat as a “trojan horse,” giving the president expansive powers to crack down speech. “Some of us just don’t want the president picking which apps we can put on our phones, or which websites we can visit… We also think it’s dangerous to give the president that kind of power,” Massie said.
TikTok is already banned from use from devices owned by the US federal government, and by numerous state and city governments and universities.
It’s also been banned or restricted in multiple US-allied countries, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, at least eight EU countries.
Former president Donald Trump kicked off the TikTok censorship saga in 2020 after deeming it a “national security threat,” prompting the company to file a preliminary injunction to prevent such an eventuality. Trump reversed course this past spring, saying banning TikTok would only make Mark Zuckerberg’s “enemy of the people” Facebook “bigger.”
US agency plotted to channel government funds into anti-Iran campaign after 2022 riots: Report
Press TV – September 20, 2024
A new report has revealed that the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) privately plotted to direct government resources into an anti-Iran campaign established after 2022 foreign-backed riots.
Citing leaked documents and emails, The Grayzone news website reported Thursday that the NED had tried to channel US State Department resources into the so-called Iran Freedom Coalition.
The coalition, that is composed of pro-Western Iranian figures and warmongering US neoconservative operatives, represents a clear attempt to impose an “exiled leadership” over anti-Iran opposition, the report added.
It further said that the initiative against the Islamic Republic was spearheaded by Carl Gershman, the longtime director of the NED, which is considered Washington’s regime-change arm or the CIA spy agency in disguise.
“Regardless of the listed members’ level of participation, the composition of Gershman’s proposed Iran Freedom Coalition demonstrates how Iran’s self-proclaimed pro-democracy movement has become a plaything for the Bomb Iran lobby,” it said.
“Among those handpicked by Gershman to lead the initiative was William Kristol, the neocon impresario who has led a decades-long lobbying campaign for a US military invasion of Iran. Also selected was Joshua Muravchik, a flamboyant supporter of Israel’s Likud Party who insists that ‘war with Iran is probably our best option.’”
The report also said that the anti-Iran campaign’s Iranian members consist heavily of US government-sponsored cultural figures and staffers at interventionist Western think tanks like the Tony Blair Institute.
“As Gershman’s leaked proposal illustrates, these elements quickly hijacked the protests, inserting US government-sponsored exiles as the movement’s international face and voice, thus ensuring that their ultimate effect would be a deepening of US sanctions on average Iranians,” adds the report.
The Foreign-sponsored riots broke out in Iran in September 2022, when 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini died in a hospital in the capital Tehran, three days after she collapsed at a police station.
The findings of an investigation into her death later attributed the tragic incident to Amini’s pre-existing medical condition, debunking claims that she was beaten by the police.
Rioters, nonetheless, went on rampage across the country, causing massive material damage to public property and, in some cases, lynching security forces as well as civilians whom they regarded as supporters of the Islamic establishment.
Iran’s intelligence community said several countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, used their spy and propaganda apparatuses to provoke unrest in the country.
Washington’s new plan to control the Global South
By Anna Belkina | RT | September 20, 2024
When US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced a new “joint diplomatic campaign” to be implemented in concert with Canada and the UK last week, he clearly set out the initiative’s goal – “to rally allies and partners around the world to join us in addressing the threat posed by RT and other machinery of Russian disinformation and covert influence.”
Make no mistake: there is nothing diplomatic in this latest US effort to silence any voice that does not adhere to the Washington- and London-dictated narratives about the world.
The point of all news media is to inform. Any information has the potential to influence people. Thus, the collective West has set out to curtail all potential influence that is not theirs.
Helping hand
James Rubin, the coordinator for the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center, elaborated on how this plan would work in an interview with his ex-wife, Christiane Amanpour, on CNN.
“Other countries will make decisions for themselves,” of course, but the charitable, the always-benevolent, the never self-interested American hand will be “helping other governments come to their own decisions about how to treat” RT.
Ah, all those poor, hapless “other governments” that clearly cannot read, watch, think, and decide for themselves. They were just waiting for Big Brother to help them.
What Rubin was really doing was scapegoating RT – and by extension, all other independent voices in what is supposed to be a free and diverse global information space, reflecting a diverse, very complicated, multipolar world – for the increasingly diminishing buy-in of much of the world into Washington’s foreign policies, and propaganda campaigns that accompany them.
As Rubin admitted during his press conference, “one of the reasons […] why so much of the world has not been as fully supportive of Ukraine as you would think they would be […] is because of the broad scope and reach of RT – where propaganda, disinformation, and lies are spread to millions if not billions of people around the world.”
Which countries refused to jump on board with the US and NATO support of the Kiev regime and the continuous escalation of the conflict? In reality, it is most of the world, including such geopolitical giants as India and China, who preferred to leave regional issues to the region in question.
Where official positions are concerned, it’s mostly NATO and its cohorts’ one billion vs our planet’s other seven. And while in those seven not everyone in the general population is of the same mind, neither is everyone in the US and other NATO countries.
Yet, due to the decades-long domination of the international information space by American and European mainstream news media (can you believe the BBC is over 100 years old?), many have been conditioned to think of the world – in the sense of who defines the global order, its rights and its wrongs – as the US and its vassal-state allies.
Notably, Mr Rubin specifically referred to Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa as regions where RT must be stopped. In other words, the so-called Global South. What’s got the US State Department so worried there?
RT’s success is Western media’s loss
Western military, political, and media establishments have been panicked over their loss of monopoly on global information in general, and about RT’s growing reach and influence in particular, for a while now. The self-proclaimed champions of free press, speech and thought cannot handle any of that free-thinkin’ they campaigned for.
To wit, have a scroll:
THE FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES, US: “Washington is struggling in the battle for hearts and minds in the ‘Global South’, where Russian propaganda outlets are often more popular than Western media.”
NEWSWEEK : “… it’s in the Global South that Russia has reaped the most significant rewards. The popularity of the Kremlin-controlled TV station Russia Today is high…”
POLITICO : “… many of the Kremlin-backed accounts – especially those from sanctioned media outlets like RT and Sputnik – have an oversized digital reach. Collectively, these companies boast millions of followers in Europe, Latin America and Africa…”
ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE, UK: “Latin America has witnessed a growth in Russian information efforts. Just like in the Middle East, Russia is operating a number of popular media channels, such as RT en Espanol, Sputnik Mundo and Sputnik Brasil, with substantial followings.”
CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, US: “Russia’s […] media presence and influence [in Latin America] are unmatched… The reach of Russia’s technique has proven to be effective … Actualidad RT and Sputnik Mundo have become so mainstream in LAC, that in December 2022, RT Spanish won three prestigious Mexican journalism awards for their coverage of the war in Ukraine.”
WILSON CENTER, US: “Russia has successfully implemented long-term strategies to capture and influence intellectual elites in Latin America.”
ATLANTIC COUNCIL: “Russia has established a significant media and information footprint throughout the [Latin American] region with Russia Today and Sputnik News.”
EL MUNDO, SPAIN: “In addition to hybrid channels, [Russia] uses public companies such as Russia Today, whose propaganda is triumphing in Latin America – the Spanish-speaking version of RT […] is integrated into family daily life from Venezuela to Bolivia.”
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES, UK: “Egyptian media ran headlines and reports verbatim from RT Arabic, […] EU Reporter, an independent media outlet, reported that ‘Russian media outlets like RT Arabic and Sputnik are extremely popular, with RT Arabic becoming one of the most trafficked news websites in the country.’”
FOREIGN POLICY : “RT Arabic and Sputnik Arabic emerged as major sources of legitimate regional news in the Middle East.”
JOSEP BORRELL, HIGH REPRESENTATIVE OF THE EU FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND SECURITY POLICY: “When you go to some African countries and you see people supporting Putin, supporting what Putin is doing in Donbass, saying Putin has saved Donbass, now he will come to Africa and save us.”
ABC, SPAIN: “The Kremlin has tried to increase its influence in the media using Russia Today and Sputnik News. And there have also been collaboration agreements with local media, hiring African journalists and African activists, and at the same time generating news in Arabic, English or French to gain the support of the African population.”
Thank you, thank you very much.
Exporting censorship
Since RT’s launch in 2005, our journalists have brought to light countless stories and points of view disallowed in the Western mainstream. We have built a massive global audience and won the trust of viewers and readers worldwide.
But, despite Western elites’ declarations to the contrary, any voice that fails to fit into the rather cramped echo-chamber they have set up to accommodate supposedly free discourse, is inherently seen as illegitimate. Therefore, it must be silenced.
Which is why, having pushed out official RT channels from Western airwaves and digital platforms, they now want – nay, need and ought – to export their particular brand of censorship globally. They pledge to wage a coordinated campaign to force other nations into following their example, all so that the West can recover its information monopoly. They must “disrupt [RT] activities” everywhere. It is not enough for them to silo off their own people from inconvenient facts and alternative viewpoints. They have the megalomania and the audacity to say that no one in the world should hear them either.
This is especially so in the Global South countries – the ones that the US has gotten accustomed to patronizing, manipulating, dominating, undermining and overthrowing unsuitable-to-them regimes, and outright controlling in any way they could, over the last century.
Welcome to neocolonialism, Taylor’s 2024 Version.
Government folks have also already lined up Silicon Valley wunderkinds – the tech giants that are ever so eager to curry political favor in order to stay on the lax side of corporate regulation – in this endeavor. Meta, which blocked access to RT’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the EU in 2022, has overnight removed RT from its platforms – entirely and worldwide.
YouTube removed RT’s record-breaking channels everywhere that same year, but Google’s parent company, Alphabet, had already worked to “de-rank” RT and Sputnik in Google searches back in 2017.
After all, “RT is the top recommended source for news concerning Douma’s chemical weapons attack, Skripal poisoning and the Syrian White Helmets,” wrote the Atlantic Council in 2018. In 2019, “Bild conducted a test and entered the query ‘Ukraine’ into Google News. Again, among the top ten articles were three from RT Deutsch and Contra Magazin.” When people looked for news, they came to RT.
This could not stand.
A quick aside: despite all the claims by the Americans and the Brits about RT’s supposed attempts to “sow discord” in their societies, the network really should be lauded for bringing people together instead. In the US, where political bipartisanship is a near-extinct species, the Biden administration’s present-day efforts are fully endorsed by Fiona Hill, of Donald Trump’s National Security Council, who argued that “there has to be concerted action against RT.” In the UK, the recently elected Labor leadership has fully adopted their Tory predecessors’ anti-RT playbook.
Not going away
Let me be clear: RT is not going anywhere, in the West nor in the Global South. Our journalists will continue to do their jobs. We will continue to find ways to have our voice heard. Our audiences “of millions if not billions of people around the world” expect nothing less of us. This is our duty to the global community.
As for the global community, where does it stand, in the face of this new US-led campaign?
The Hindu, one of India’s newspapers of record, reported that already “US officials have spoken to [India’s] Ministry of External Affairs about joining their actions against what they call ‘Russian disinformation’, by revoking accreditations and designating [RT] journalists under the ‘Foreign Missions Act’. However, while the ministry has been silent on the issue, government officials said that the debate on sanctions is not relevant to India, while a former diplomat said that banning media organizations showed ‘double standards’ by Western countries… An official said that the matter ‘does not pertain’ to India and pointed out that India does not follow unilateral sanctions that are not approved by the United Nations.”
We are confident that the rest of the truly independent world will follow suit.
Anna Belkina is RT’s deputy editor in chief and head of communications, marketing and strategic development.
Ukraine at the Crossroads
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | September 18, 2024
The West is being increasingly confronted with the cold realization that Ukraine cannot win this war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has set as a threshold for victory, not only the recapture of territory up to his country’s prewar borders, but the reclamation of all of its territory to the 2014 border, including the Donbas and Crimea. There are few among Ukraine’s Western backers who subscribe any longer to that illusion.
But Western governments and the Western media delude their public into believing that the war is a stalemate that Russia also cannot win. This assessment is based on the unsubstantiated claim that the threshold for Russia winning is, as a start, the subjugation of Ukraine in its entirety.
But that has never been Russia’s stated goal. Just as listening to Zelensky’s stated definition of victory leads to the realization that it cannot be attained, so listening to Vladimir Putin’s leads to the conclusion that it can. Russia cannot subjugate all of Ukraine. But it has also never claimed that as its goal. Putin has consistently said that “this conflict is not about territory… [it] is about the principles underlying the new international order.” He has said that Russia never intended to conquer Kiev and that the early advance toward the capital was intended to force Ukraine into the negotiations that the United States declined.
Putin’s stated goals have always been a written assurance that Ukraine will not join NATO and protection of ethnic Russians in the Donbas. His June peace proposal contains those very points. The proposal states that Ukraine must guarantee that it will be a non-nuclear, non-aligned neutral nation that will not join NATO. It states that Ukraine must completely withdraw from Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, that they must agree to limits on the size of their armed forces, and that they must ensure the rights of the Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine.
If that is Russia’s definition of victory, then it is not impossible that Russia could win the war. And the advance on Pokrovsk is bringing some of those key points closer to realization.
Ukraine’s Western partners are at a crossroad. Plans of providing Ukraine with whatever they need for as long as it takes to push Russia out of Ukraine have been replaced by reinvigorating Ukraine’s position on the battlefield to strengthen their position at the inevitable negotiating table, even if that means, as one Western columnist put it, allowing Ukraine to “bomb Putin to the negotiating table.”
That would be one side of the crossroad: escalating war to advance peace. But that road, if it crosses Russia’s red line, is fraught with hazards. The other would be to find an offroad to the war, a road that leads to diplomatic negotiations and peace. Ukraine and some of its NATO partners, perhaps most importantly Britain, are urgently pushing the former. But a growing choir of Ukraine’s partners may be beginning to consider the second road.
In a vague article that names no names, Bloomberg reports that “some of Ukraine’s allies are starting to talk about how the fight against Russia’s invasion might end.” According to the report, “officials are more seriously gaming out how a negotiated end to the conflict and an off-road could take shape.” Facing the realization that Ukraine is unlikely to improve its position on the battlefield, “some allied officials” have begun “exploring ways in which diplomacy could break the deadlock.”
One of Ukraine’s partners is Germany. In a September 7 TV interview, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, “I believe that now is the time to discuss how to arrive at peace from this state of war, indeed at a faster pace.” Scholz’ statement may mark the most significant brake in NATO unity since the early days of the war. There are even unconfirmed reports that Scholz, who recently announced that Germany would provide no financial aid to Ukraine for the war after 2025, is preparing a plan for a diplomatic settlement to the war that could include Ukraine making territorial concessions.
And, though out in front, Germany may not be alone. The Wall Street Journal reports that some European diplomats are telling Ukraine that the battlefield reality necessitates that “Ukraine needs to be more pragmatic in its wartime aims and strategy.” Senior European officials have told the Ukrainian leadership that “a full Ukrainian victory would require the West to provide hundreds of billions of dollars worth of support, something neither Washington nor Europe can realistically do.”
The French newspaper Le Figaro reported on September 16 that the battlefield reality, the “slowly but steadily” advancing Russian forces and the realization in the West that “Donbass and Crimea are beyond the military reach of the Ukrainians,” are causing some of Ukraine’s Western partners in the United States and Europe to “discreetly” discuss a negotiated settlement. A “senior French diplomat” reportedly told the Le Figaro that France, too, is now contemplating a “lasting and negotiated solution to the war.”
All of these reports point to the slow birth of momentum to choose a different path at the crossroad. Even Zelensky has said, “I feel that not all territories should be regained by hand or with weapons. I believe this will take a long time and involve a significant number of people. And I think this is a bad thing. As a result, I believe we might retake our territories diplomatically.”
But Zelensky is still trying to push his NATO partners to take the road of escalation to future peace talks. And he seems to have the backing of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Calling daily for the U.S. to sign off on using Western long-range missiles to fire deep into Russian territory, Zelensky and Starmer are advocating the “bomb Putin to the negotiating table” route.
There appear to be delays on that route while the U.S. awaits the presentation of Zelensky’s promised plan for winning the war and what it needs from the West to do that. His “Ukrainian Victory Plan” promises to identify the steps needed on the battlefield to “give us the strongest possible position to bring about peace—a real, just peace.” Zelensky promises, “For each step, there is a clear list of what is needed and what will strengthen us.” Officials expect Zelensky to request NATO and European Union membership, security arrangements, economic commitments, and a steady flow of advanced weapons. Zelensky has also promised to include a list of targets inside Russian that Ukraine believes would help achieve victory.
Both roads lead to diplomatic talks. The one at “a faster pace,” in the words of Olaf Scholz, the other at risk of escalation that will, in Putin’s words, “change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict” and, potentially, mean that NATO countries… are at war with Russia.”
How seriously Ukraine’s partners take Putin’s warning will help determine which road they take at the crossroad. The lack of a decision being announced after the September 14 meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Starmer suggests that the United States may be taking the warning seriously. National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told a press conference that the Biden administration would never say “that we don’t take Mr. Putin’s threats seriously… He has obviously proven capable of escalation over the last, now, going on three years. So, yeah, we take these comments seriously.”
But, more concerningly, he qualified that seriousness by saying, “it is not something that we haven’t heard before. So, we take note of it. Got it. We have our own calculus for what we decide to provide to Ukraine and what not.” More concerningly still, was Biden’s dismissive response to Putin’s caution. “ I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin,” Biden said.
Which attitude prevails in Washington and which view, Germany’s or Britain’s, prevails in Europe will help determine which road is chosen at the current crossroad: escalation or a faster pace to diplomacy. The first risks crossing red lines that could pull the West into direct conflict with Russia and offers little hope of improving Ukraine’s position at the negotiating table that the second road arrives at more quickly and directly. The first seems too dangerous to consider; the second seems like dangerous folly not to consider.
Russia Slams NATO’s ‘Reckless’ Rejection of Putin’s Red Line on Ukraine Attacks
Sputnik – 18.09.2024
MOSCOW – Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Wednesday that dismissing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warnings about the dangers of Ukraine using Western weapons to attack Russian territory is both provocative and perilous.
“Such a ostentatious desire not to take seriously the statements of the Russian president is an absolutely short-sighted and unprofessional step,” Peskov told reporters.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg denied in an interview out on Tuesday that allowing Ukraine to use long-range Western weapons to strike deep into Russia would cross country’s “red line” despite warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“There have been many red lines declared by him [Putin] before, and he has not escalated, meaning also involving Nato allies directly in the conflict,” Stoltenberg told The Times newspaper.
Stoltenberg said that he supported the United Kingdom and France in their decision to lift restrictions on Kiev’s use of long-range weapons against Russia. He argued that their use by Ukraine would not draw the alliance into conflict with Russia.
Putin said that NATO countries were essentially deciding whether to get directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict. He warned that direct participation of Western countries in the conflict would change its nature, forcing Russia to respond to emerging threats.
Meanwhile, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated on Wednesday that Hungary is concerned about the potential use of long-range arms to strike Russia, as this would contradict Europe’s security interests and heighten the risk of escalation. He emphasized that “Hungary is interested in peace, and every step that threatens escalation makes us concerned,” adding that the use of long-range missiles against targets deep in Russia would “increase the threat of escalation,” which runs counter to European security interests.
China calls out Anglo-American ‘disinformation’
RT | September 16, 2024
Claims by Washington and London that Beijing is supporting Russia’s military in the conflict with Ukraine are “groundless,” the Chinese embassy in the UK stated on Monday.
The diplomatic mission responded to the ‘Joint Statement on the US-UK Strategic Dialogue,’ which was issued after talks between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House last week. Among other things, the document said the sides shared “particular concern” about what they called “China’s support to Russia’s defense industrial base.”
The Chinese embassy rejected the accusation, stressing that Beijing has “always maintained an objective and fair position, actively promoted peace talks and pushed for a political solution” to the conflict between Moscow and Kiev.
“We firmly oppose the relevant countries’ constant propagation of disinformation that China supports Russia’s defense industry,” the statement read.
By making such claims, the US and UK are “adding fuel to the fire and shifting the blame” from themselves for the continuation of the fighting between Moscow and Kiev, the embassy said, adding that they should “stop” behaving in this manner.
The joint statement by Washington and London also underlined the importance of close coordination between the two nations in promoting their common values and interests in the Indo-Pacific region. The sides insisted that “peace and stability” in the Taiwan Strait, which separates Taiwan and mainland China, are “indispensable to the security and prosperity of the international community and called for the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues.
” The Chinese embassy reminded the US and UK that “the Taiwan question is purely China’s internal affair” and that “No external forces have the right to interfere.” Beijing considers the self-governed island to be part of its territory under the ‘One China’ principle.
“The biggest threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait now is the separatist activities for ‘Taiwan independence’ and the interference of external forces,” the diplomats stressed.
The mission blasted the Anglo-American joint statement, saying that it “makes groundless accusations… and interferes in China’s internal affairs.” Beijing “strongly deplores and firmly rejects this.”
Ukraine war turns into Russian roulette
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | September 16, 2024
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with the US President Joe Biden in the White House on Friday with the question of the use of long-range missiles by Ukraine to hit deep inside Russia on their agenda of conversation. But there were no announcements, nor was there any joint press conference.
Starmer later told the media that the talks were “productive” but concentrated on “strategy” rather than a “particular step or tactic”. He did not signal any decision on allowing Kiev to fire long-range missiles into Russia.
Starmer said no final decision had been taken on the Storm Shadow missiles and hinted that further developments may follow at the gathering of the UN General Assembly later this month. “We’ll obviously pick up again in UNGA in just a few days time with a wider group of individuals,” he said.
One reason for such extreme secrecy is that the US and UK are intensely conscious of the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s explicit warning on Thursday that any use of western long-range missiles to strike Russia “will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine. This will mean their direct involvement in the conflict, and it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically.”
Putin added in measured words: “This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries –- are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”
Admittedly, Putin has given similar warnings before also, but did not follow through even when western weaponry was used by Ukraine with impunity to invade Russia recently. So much so that Biden was plainly dismissive about the latest Kremlin warning, saying, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.”
On its part, Moscow estimates that although no official decision on the matter has been announced, it has already been made and communicated to Kiev, and that Moscow would have to respond with actions of its own.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, Moscow’s point person on the diplomatic track, was quoted as saying on Saturday, “The decision has been made, the carte blanche and all indulgences have been given (to Kiev), so we [Russia] are ready for everything. And we will react in a way that will not be pretty.”
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the country’s security council, went a step further saying that the West is testing Russia’s patience but it is not limitless. He said Ukraine’s invasion already gave Russia formal grounds to use its nuclear arsenal.
Medvedev warned that Moscow could either resort to nuclear weapons in the end, or use some of its non-nuclear but still deadly novel weapons for a large-scale attack. “And that would be it. A giant, grey, melted spot instead of ‘the mother of Russian cities’,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app, referring to Kiev.
Putin, in his remark on Thursday once again rejected the Anglo-American sophistry that it is Ukraine that will be using any western long-range missiles and not NATO. He pointed out that the Ukrainian army “is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. They cannot do that. These weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or US satellites – in general, NATO satellites…
“most important, the key point even – is that only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this. Therefore, it is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is about deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict or not.”
Interestingly, neither Washington nor London has so far refuted Putin’s above explanation and, curiously, it has been expunged altogether from British press reports — fearing, perhaps, that public opinion might militate against such direct involvement by the UK in a war against Russia in a combat role!
Moscow anticipates that the US-UK ploy may be to test the waters by first (openly) using Britain’s Storm Shadow long-range air-launched cruise missile, which has already been supplied to Ukraine. On Friday, Russia expelled six British diplomats assigned to the Moscow embassy in a clear warning that Uk-Russia ties will be affected. Russia has already warned the UK of severe consequences if the Storm Shadow were to be used to hit Russian territory.
What makes the developing situation extremely dangerous is that the cat-and-mouse game so far about NATO’s covert involvement in the Ukraine war is giving way to a game of Russian roulette that follows the laws of Probability Theory.
That is to say, although Russia cannot be defeated or evicted from the territories in eastern and southern Ukraine that it annexed, Washington and London regard that the final outcome of this random event cannot yet be determined before it occurs; it may even be any one of several possible outcomes, and the probability cannot be ruled out that the actual outcome might even be determined by chance.
Apparently, Biden believes that Russia’s current battlefield dominance is a random phenomenon and possible outcomes range from an annihilation of Russian military power to a large-scale disruption of life in Russia and a possible collapse of Russia — at a minimum, the weakening of the Russian hand in any future negotiations. Simply put, the war is now about Russia rather than Ukraine and long-range missiles can be a game changer.
Thus, Biden, with no political constraints working on him anymore, is escalating the war to create new facts on the ground before his presidency ends in January, which may create conditions for permanent NATO military presence on Ukrainian territory and present Russia with a fait accompli.
Such a strategy built on the quicksands of probability is akin to a game of Russian roulette — an act of bravado. Indeed, Biden’s options to support Ukraine are shrinking with each escalation, As the Wall Street Journal puts it, “With only four months left in the Biden administration and little hope of Congress approving additional funding for Ukraine no matter who wins the presidency, the White House is debating how best to help Kyiv given its limited toolbox.”
Equally, Europe’s interest in the war is also waning. European politics is becoming unpredictable with the ascendancy of the far-right in Germany, the crisis of leadership in French politics, the relative decline of EU’s economy vis-a-vis global rivals due to limited innovation, high energy prices and skills gaps, etc. and, of course, the overarching economic crisis in Europe with no end in sight, as brought out starkly in the recent report by Mario Draghi.
Basically, Biden is pre-setting the trajectory of the war beyond next January so that even after his retirement, his policy approach aimed at inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia remains on track. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Saturday that Washington is working on a “substantial” round of further assistance for Kiev. He confirmed a meeting this month between Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart Zelensky.
Sullivan noted that Biden is working to put Ukraine in the “best possible position to prevail” during his final months in office. The bottom line is that Biden’s war strategy is attenuating as “escalation management” while NATO transitions as a direct party to hostilities.
The Witch Hunt continues
Another Questioning Voice is removed from the Medical Register
Health Advisory & Recovery Team | September 13, 2024
A chill wind passed through the dissident medical profession this week when Dr Sam White was permanently erased from the medical register. But it will not cause us to stop speaking truth to power or more importantly being open and honest with our patients about the potential harms of mRNA vaccines.
For those who don’t know of Dr White, he was an experienced General Practitioner who, like many others, found himself conflicted between his NHS practice expecting him to promote Covid-19 vaccines to his patients, while in his clinical practice seeing increasing numbers of people with vaccine injuries. After much soul-searching he resigned from his post in February 2021. A few months later, in June 2021, he recorded a short face to camera video explaining why he had decided to quit, which he then posted on a social media site. Perhaps to his surprise, it was viewed by millions and within a few days had come to the attention of his employer, namely NHS England, who blocked him from any NHS work, which he legally challenged. A GMC investigation then followed and his NHS suspension was reversed, but an Interim Orders Tribunal put conditions on his registration, namely that he must not use social media to express any medical opinion about the pandemic. Dr White challenged this in the High Court on the grounds that it breached his right to freedom of speech. The court upheld his challenge, as described in the BMJ here, though oddly enough the link to the actual judgement is no longer available, except via Wayback machine. Mr Justice Dove ruled that there had been “an error of law and a clear misdirection in the interim orders tribunal’s decision making process.” Its decision was “clearly wrong and cannot stand,” he added. He stressed that he was expressing no views on the merits of Dr White’s claims on social media. But he said the tribunal had failed to consider a provision in the Human Rights Act 1998. This states that a court or tribunal should not restrain somebody’s freedom of expression before a full hearing unless it was satisfied that after a full hearing the application to restrict publication was more likely than not to succeed.
At the time, the GMC clearly didn’t think that Dr White was a danger to his patients (there had been no clinical complaints against him) nor even sufficient danger to public health for them to suspend him and for the next 3 years he was entitled to work and to speak freely, and many of his supporters had thought this was the end of it. But the wheels of ‘justice’ (ironically in this case more like the wheels of ‘injustice’) grind slowly and in August 2024, the GMC set up a full hearing by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS). By this stage, Dr White had moved entirely to a practice of naturopathic medicine and decided that he would not engage with the process – he neither attended nor was he legally represented. No-one who has experienced a GMC investigation will blame him at all for this decision – it is time-consuming, emotionally draining and very costly. But his absence may have enabled a serious miscarriage of justice.
The charge against Dr White concerned 5 video interviews about the pandemic which he had recorded between June 2021 and July 2022, and the hearing hinged around details of the Human Rights Act 1998.
Article 10, paragraph 1 states:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.”
However in certain circumstances, the law allows for these rights to be restricted, as in Article 10, paragraph 2:
“The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.”
The Tribunal chairman quoted from the case of Adil v GMC [2023] EWCA Civ 126. Mohammad Adil is a surgeon who was suspended by the GMC in 2020, again for a face to camera video which went viral. He also took the GMC to court but in his case he lost. In that case, “the Court held that the fact that a doctor expresses a minority view, even a view shared by a small minority is not sufficient of itself to render his conduct improper. Medical progress depends upon such debate and is littered with examples of what were thought to be heretical views becoming accepted wisdom, and vice-versa. Article 10 and the common law protect the right to express views with which most people disagree. Views contrary to widely accepted medical opinion are not sufficient to establish misconduct.” However, the judgement went on to say that this does not apply to views so far removed from any concept of legitimate medical debate and must be considered on the facts of each individual case. “There is an important qualitative difference between a doctor’s views which have some supporting scientific basis, even if not widely accepted, and views whose validity or accuracy is unconnected to any supporting evidential basis, in other words baseless.”
With Dr White absent from the proceedings, the Tribunal seem to have assumed that his views on the safety of the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines were ‘baseless’, whereas of course they are shared by a significant minority of doctors who have assembled a huge amount of scientific literature on vaccine harms. However, the judgement in quoting from his interviews has barely mentioned Dr White’s criticisms of the vaccine, for all of which he had provided many references to the GMC in 2021. It has instead focussed almost entirely on discussions about the ‘why’ of the vaccine rollout and the censorship, quoting Dr White speaking of: ‘evil’, ‘planned’, ‘globalists’, ‘tyranny’, ‘totalitarianism’, et cetera. These, of course, are all issues which are widely discussed but are not subject to testing and writing up in peer-reviewed journals. They are a matter of opinion. The question of whether Dr White’s opinions in any way harmed public health has not been demonstrated by the GMC, yet the Tribunal “determined that, it was more likely than not, such comments undermined public confidence in the medical profession.”
Another aspect of Dr White’s absence was that, whereas the GMC were actually asking for a suspension rather than for his name to be permanently erased from the register, the Tribunal interpreted his absence as showing a lack of insight into the seriousness of his actions and a lack of any effort at mitigation or remediation. For a surgeon who has cut off the wrong limb or a physician who has missed a potentially treatable fatal condition, remorse and a desperate wish to ensure you never make the same mistake again, would be the universal reaction, even without censure from the GMC. But for a doctor who is in effect a whistleblower, it is hard to show remorse, whilst still hoping that your actions have indeed saved lives.
The irony is that if the GMC really believed that Dr White was a danger to public health, they would have suspended him in 2021, at a time when the vaccine rollout was in full swing and we were heading towards a second winter of masks and lockdowns. Yet they appear to have made no effort to bring forward a full hearing, and have instead waited a full 3 years after his initial video before bringing this case. The rules for deciding on a penalty are that the Tribunal must consider whether the doctor poses a risk to future patients rather than only past. Given the government messaging with which Dr White disagreed all came to an end during 2022, it is hard to see what harm he is thought to be causing in 2024.
It was, however, made very clear that the penalty was not only intended for Dr White but also to send a clear message to other doctors considering speaking out. “Sanctioning doctors for comments likely to undermine public health and confidence in the medical profession so as to deter such behaviour engages the aim of the protection of public health and safety.” Indeed, coming close in the heels of Dr White, is a consultant psychiatrist, Dr Daniel Armstrong, also facing the possibility of being struck off for a single online video, “Navigating the Truth-deception duality”. And there are others with hearings in the near future. This is not about clinical complaints of patient safety. This is about doctors questioning the government about the management of the pandemic, especially the poor safety record of the vaccines.
In May of this year, Professor Dame Carrie McEwen, chair of the GMC, published a statement in response to the contaminated blood scandal. She commented robustly on the importance of protecting whistleblowers. “There is extensive commentary within the report about the importance of speaking up about both mistakes and near misses and a cautionary note about the need to protect those who do so from detriment to their career.” She said, “We are of course aware that referrals to us are sometimes used to intimidate. This is completely unacceptable, has significant consequences for doctors’ wellbeing and puts the safety of patients at risk….We’ve put a number of safeguards in place” and she committed to assessing “whether further interventions are needed to prevent retaliatory or weaponised referrals.” “also seen investigative media reports alleging that a number of NHS managers have taken actions to silence whistleblowers, including threatening referral to the GMC.” The Telegraph (15th May 2024), published one such report under the title “The four-step ‘playbook’ the NHS uses to break whistleblowers”.
A large group of doctors and other health professionals wrote to the GMC in June, highlighting their concerns over what appeared to be a witch hunt of doctors speaking out about covid-vaccine harms. The ongoing correspondence is published here. Several of the signatories to that letter had previously signed a fully referenced scientific letter to the Chief Medical Officer in June 2021 calling on him not to recommend covid vaccines for children, and found themselves referred by the DoHSC to the Counter Disinformation Unit.
A recent BMA survey showed that the proportion of doctors being discouraged from or even afraid of speaking out has risen significantly between 2018 and 2024, to the point where 61% of those polled in 2024 said they may not raise concerns because they were “afraid” they or colleagues could be “unfairly blamed or suffer adverse consequences”.
The UK is not alone in its efforts to stifle free speech with eminent doctors being similarly sanctioned in Canada, Australia, and most recently the USA. Whistleblowing in academia is no easier.
If public confidence in the medical profession has fallen, rather than blaming dissenters for speaking out against the prevailing message, perhaps doctors need to take a hard look at their unquestioning acceptance of the ‘Safe and Effective’ message and ask themselves why is covid continuing, why are their vulnerable patients being recommended for another booster every 6 months, and yet why are they apparently busier than ever?
Many of the doctors currently being hounded for speaking out on social media, are the same doctors who are repeatedly thanked by members of the public for their honesty and integrity and especially for their efforts to support the vaccine injured, often ignored and disbelieved by others. Comments beneath an article in the Mail about Dr White’s erasure, suggest that many members of the public have rather more faith in Dr White than they have in the GMC.
The current situation of self-censorship amongst doctors combined with GMC overreach, risks serious ongoing harms to patients and must not continue.
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From the Archives
Long Before Epstein: Sex Traffickers & Spy Agencies
By Elizabeth Vos | Consortium News | August 23, 2019
The alleged use of sexual blackmail by spy agencies is hardly unique to the case of Jeffrey Epstein. Although the agencies involved as well as their alleged motivations and methods differ with each case, the crime of child trafficking with ties to intelligence agencies or those protected by them has been around for decades.
Some cases include the 1950s -1970s Kincora scandal and the 1981 Peter Hayman affair, both in the U.K.; and the Finders’ cult and the Franklin scandal in the U.S. in the late 1980s. Just as these cases did not end in convictions, the pedophile and accused child-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein remained at arms’ length for years. … continue
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