Vote SNP Today – Chagos Just One Example of the Need to Dismantle the Imperial Entity 354


In Scotland I urge everybody to go out and vote SNP today, as the priority must be to send an unequivocal signal of support for Independence. I have respect for those who will vote Green and intend to send the same message, but it is not what I recommend you to do.

In the rest of the UK, I recommend people to vote Labour or Green as your analysis dictates. I am afraid I still have not seen sufficient evidence that my old party the Lib Dems has recovered from its sharp Orange Book lurch to the right to be able to recommend it.

The Chagos Islands vote at the UN yesterday illustrated why everybody should be ashamed of the label “British”. By a thumping 116 votes to 6, the UN General Assembly voted to uphold the International Court of Justice and demand that the UK return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

In the entire world, the only five countries allied with the UK are Donald Trump’s USA, apartheid Israel, ScoMo’s climate change denying Australia, Viktor Orban’s near fascist Hungary and the ultra corrupt Maldives. The fact that in the EU only the far right racist pariah Orban was prepared to support the UK, shows exactly the kind of far right rogue state the UK has become.

The forcible deportation of the entire population of the Chagos Islands by the British military to make way for a US nuclear base, subsequently used for extraordinary rendition and torture, is a story so shameful nobody with the slightest moral sense can possibly support it. I outlined the horrific complicity of the UK judiciary and political establishment right up to the present day, in one of the pieces of work I am most proud of. The UK’s decision to brazen it out and simply defy both the ICJ and UN as part of a far right alliance should cause anybody in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland to prioritise leaving the UK in the current elections – unless they wish to live in a far right rogue state.

There was a media spasm earlier this week over the UK’s complicity in torture, which MOD documents revealed to be ongoing. The astonishing thing about this is that all the media and political class had previously agreed to pretend it had stopped. It has never stopped, and there has been no change whatsoever in the policy since I resigned and blew the whistle over the policy in 2003.

As recounted in detail in Murder in Samarkand, I was told officially, while British Ambassador, at a meeting called specifically for the purpose, that the policy was that we will obtain intelligence from torture by “allied” security services like the Saudis or Bahrainis, and that this was not illegal provided that we do not specifically request that they torture people.

That policy is entirely compatible with the Cabinet Office Consolidated Guidance on Torture that reads we do not “participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment for any purpose”. It can only be ill motivation that leads the entire UK political class to pretend that this guidance precludes the receipt of intelligence from the torture chambers of Riyadh, Guantanamo and Bahrain.

The guidance is specifically worded to allow receipt of material from torture. Otherwise the guidance would say “we do not receive intelligence material from torture”. It very deliberately does not say that. Government lawyers say that to get intelligence reports from a false confession wrung from someone beaten to death in Bahrain is not to “participate in, solicit, encourage or condone”. The defence is “we did not ask them to do it”. And so MI6 and British ministers, knowingly, see intelligence from torture on a daily basis.

The UK is an evil and corrupt entity, a supporter of torture, of the deportation of the Chagossians, of the slow genocide of the Palestinians, a key participant in illegal wars now looking to a new one against Iran to keep the profits of the military industrial complex rolling in. The UK as an institution will never be able to spurn its Imperialist and warmongering behaviour. The only solution is to break the UK, to shatter it into pieces as small as possible. The chaos at Westminster shows the Imperial power in the final phases of its political decline, something highlighted by the lack of international support at the UN. Let us hasten the UK towards its long overdue demise.
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354 thoughts on “Vote SNP Today – Chagos Just One Example of the Need to Dismantle the Imperial Entity

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  • Mary Pau!

    Really you mean the UK establishment when you say the UK. As many of their actions are kept secret from the wider public, so the UK public cannot regarded as complicit in them.

    Also I, in common with very many English citizens, would be happy to see Scotland given its independence. Many Scots on the other hand, clearly have reservations,to judge from the referendum on the subject. And many in the Scottish establishment seem very happy to stay comfortably settled in the nests they have feathered while Scotland has been part of the UK.

  • lisa

    Do you have a bank account? I cannot/ refuse to use private companies (also banks are private, I know, but one is enough). I would like to donate though.

  • michael norton

    Surely this must be Nicola’s moment to go for it?
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-48417424
    SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, the country’s first minister, tweeted that her party had won a “historic” victory in the election, and that Scotland had “rejected Brexit again”.

    The party’s previous best European election result was 32.6% in 1994.

  • Dungroanin

    Well done to the SNP.

    As for the rest of us…

    A consideration of turnout is always advisable – it was slightly better than last time, but still abysmal.

    It went up from 35.5% to 37% (but still lower than the high of 2004).

    Meanwhile the average EU turnout went up from 42.5% to nearly 51%.

    As a comparision another country where there are equally great political changes – Spain, turnout went up from 44% to a staggering 64% – pretty much wiping the rightist nationalist hegemony.
    https://election-results.eu/national-results-overview/

    In the UK it seems that many Tories as well as Labour stayed at home.
    Some Tories switched to Brexit as did a portion of Labour.
    Significant Labour switched to Green.
    Many Tory and significant Labour numbers switched to LD.
    Most ukip followed Nigel like last time (and lets not forget a significant proportion of these are traditional Labour supporters at General Elections).

    My opinion is that Labour voters from last time have made a protest vote and will revert back as they did at the last GE. As will some Tories but they are destroyed as a functional party and will have to reform – probably as a formal alliance with the LD and the peri-pathetic centrists.

    In my opinion the Brexit/ukip vote is as previously, because Austerity is still in force and membership of EU is still the scapegoat. But ONLY amongst the minority of the voter base who were whipped into another frenzy.

    If it all seems to lead to analysts believing that the Labour vote has collapsed than surely the Establishment should aim for a quick GE to get rid of the bogey ‘Lexiteers’
    There are a handful of LexiteerMP’s but they really aren’t the Corbynites…)

    Bring it on!

  • Sharp Ears

    In Scotland –

    ‘The SNP has increased its number of MEPs from two to three while Scottish Labour lost both its seats in the European elections.
    With all 32 Scottish council areas having declared their results, the SNP has 37.7% of the votes – up from 29% in the last EU election.
    The Brexit Party secured second place and has won one seat. The Lib Dems and Tories also won a seat each’

    In England, the Brexit party has trounced Labour and Conservative. Ditto for Wales.

    The election took place on Thursday. The count in Northern Ireland continues!

    BBC website.

  • michael norton

    If you are sure you want an Independent Scotland, this sort of thing will not help the Scottish Economy

    Further strike action has been announced at one of Scotland’s busiest airports.

    Two 12-hour strikes have already been announced for Glasgow Airport in June as part of a long-running row over pay and pensions.

    And now the Unite union has announced a further four-hour stoppage.

    The union said it had added the extra strike after it says Glasgow Airport walked away from negotiations in what it describes as a “bewildering” move.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-48478250

    • Iain Stewart

      Ooh er, thanks for the warning Michael and let’s tremblîgly call the whole thing off 🙂

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