Here are Tim Norman, Patrick Henningsen and myself discussing the Skripal charade, at the Beautiful Days Festival near Exeter. At the start 90% of the audience said they believed the official narrative. At the end 80% had changed their mind.

I am particularly proud of this because we were comparatively close to Salisbury and it was mostly an apolitical audience of interested locals.

I look like I had been sleeping under a hedge for four days. Well, I more or less had. It was a music festival. In a sense convincing so many people, when I could not have looked less like an authority figure, is still more satisfying.

Tim Norman has a much longer version of his presentation and we shall try to do this together again soon, hopefully actually in Salisbury.  Patrick Henningsen is a journalist of great integrity: he has been consistently interested and engaged in this story.

I had plans to make a documentary which were put aside during covid. I might try to run a conditional crowdfunder in a little while, where the money is withheld unless enough is collected to deliver the project.

Attention of course moves on, but the Salisbury lie still features in Starmer’s Russophobic and militaristic rhetoric, and in a sense this story is more important than ever.

———————————

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In late November, a judge in the High Court of England and Wales will hear a judicial review into the legality of the proscription of Palestine Action.

That court has no jurisdiction in either Scotland or Northern Ireland and does not take into account the law of either place, which is different to English Law.

Yet the proscription of Palestine Action applies to the whole UK and the result of the English judicial review will apply to the whole UK – which is a direct violation of Scottish legal rights.

My attempts to raise this point in London have been met with a haughty colonial arrogance, which amounts to “so what?”

Two grounds have been granted for the judicial review in English and Welsh law. Firstly the judge will consider whether the effect of proscription is contrary to the rights of free assembly and free speech protected by the European Convention on Human Rights Articles 10 and 11.

The ECHR applies UK-wide and the arguments will be the same were the case heard in London, Edinburgh or Belfast. An English or a Scottish judge may come to a different conclusion, not only for reasons of individual judgment, but because of the way the basis of law is considered differently in the two jurisdictions.

But the English judge will also consider whether due process was followed in the proscription according to English and Welsh public law. The argument is whether or not Palestine Action ought to have been consulted, or others likely to be affected by the proscription ought to have been consulted – in a situation where the views of Israel and of weapons manufacturers were in fact consulted.

Now, that common law is entirely different in Scotland to England and Wales. In fact the Scottish legal system has a very different tradition to the English system, and the Scots system is not really based on common law, though precedent is cited.

While the English and Welsh legal system is grounded in common law, relying heavily on judicial precedent and case law, the Scottish legal system is rooted in Roman law principles, emphasizing codified statutes and a civilian tradition that distinguishes it from common-law jurisdictions.

I should pause to exonerate the Welsh. When the English conquered, raped and colonised Wales, they simply destroyed its existing administrative and legal systems and imposed their own. Therefore when I speak of “English and Welsh law” I am merely reflecting the current jurisdictional reach.

An important point has to be grasped, which requires a dropping of the colonial mindset.

It is perfectly possible that the banning of Palestine Action might be found lawful in English and even EU law, but is still unlawful in Scotland under Scots law.

I should emphasise that this argument applies not only to Palestine Action but to every English High Court judicial review of a Westminster government action.

You may be surprised to hear the point is probably non-controversial amongst lawyers.

Given five minutes to think about it, I am not sure any Scots lawyer would say it is untrue that UK-wide government action might be lawful in England but not in Scotland. But such is the Establishment cringe of pretty well the entire Scottish legal profession, I cannot think of an example of it ever being tested.

One fundamental difference between English and Scots law has a firm statutory basis – which is that between the English Bill of Rights and the Scottish Claim of Right.

Here the key distinction – and this is a hoary old truism – is between the English tradition of parliamentary sovereignty and the Scottish tradition of popular sovereignty. Scots law contains protections against oppressive executive acts, whether or not imposed by parliament, in a way which English law does not.

For those that may doubt that what I am saying is established law, here is an extract from an article by retired European Court of Justice judge Professor Sir David Edward in the Supreme Court Yearbook Volume 6, entitled “Scotland’s Magna Carta. The Claim of Right and the Common Law” (not available online):

It follows that that which is lawful cannot be arbitrary or irrational – a principle already present in the Wednesbury criteria and developed in more detail from EU administrative law (derived from German law) insisting on the objective justification and proportionality of executive action.¹⁰ For recent examples of how this idea is being given effect, see in particular the Judgments of the Supreme Court in R v Gul¹¹ and Beghal v DPP¹² which illustrate the evils of over-broad discretionary powers, as well as the importance of not relying on answers given under compulsion.

The reference in the Claim of Right to the Estates as `a full and free representative of the Nation’, whether or not it reflects the constitutional philosophy of George Buchanan, cannot surely be interpreted as a demand for `sovereign’ Parliamentary power, still less the power of the Parliamentary majority for the time being. It is, rather, an assertion that ultimate power rests with the `Nation’…

That the Westminster parliament cannot just impose on Scotland any law it wishes was spelt out explicitly by Lord Cooper in his 1953 judgment in MacCormick v Lord Advocate:

The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctly English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law…

Now, I am fully aware that the bulk of the Claim of Right represents the establishment of anti-Catholicism in the state. But that does not obviate its useful provisions. Of which the most (but not only) relevant one is this:

That the causing pursue and forfeit persons upon stretches of old and obsolete laws, upon frivolous and weak pretences, upon lame and defective probation, as particularly the late Earl of Argyll, is contrary to law.

The Claim of Right is still the law of Scotland (and is not the law of England). It was not revoked by the “Union” of 1707 and indeed here it is on the UK government’s definitive website of currently active legislation.

Now, there could not be a starker example of “causing pursue and forfeit persons… upon frivolous and weak pretences” than claiming Palestine Action, a non-violent protest and civil-disobedience organisation, is a terrorist outfit.

Even more absurd is to claim that those decent people who have been pursued by the executive all over Scotland for opposing genocide, are supporters of terrorism.

There is the clearest case that the proscription of Palestine Action and subsequent repression are precisely the kind of executive persecution and injustice which are outlawed in Scotland by the Claim of Right – and are outlawed irrespective of parliamentary authority.

It is precisely an arbitrary and irrational executive act, which cannot be lawful in Scotland, whatever the views of the Westminster parliament. Nor can the Westminster parliament invoke the alien doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty in Scotland, to impose arbitrary and irrational executive action under the rubric of “reserved powers”.

Palestine Action may yet succeed in their judicial review in England. But a separate judicial review must be launched in Scotland that both challenges this extreme Zionist act in support of genocide – directly contrary to overwhelming public opinion in Scotland – and asserts the continued existence of Scotland’s popular and communitarian legal tradition.

———————————

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Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

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This post initially included a corridor photo which was fake. My fault, but that made no difference at all to the argument.

It will definitely be good if the war in Ukraine draws to a close. Too many have died or been maimed, too many civilian assets have been destroyed. However the cynicism with which the conclusion of the war is being driven is quite extraordinary.

I am not sure there has been a sight in modern history equivalent to the way Europe’s “leaders” were pictured in the White House.

This is not an accident. There really is a craft to diplomacy; many countries in the world have foreign services consisting largely of people who have a degree in it. I have personally organised two state visits for the former Queen as well as head of government visits.

These things follow a careful choreography and an absolutely key part of that is to present a picture of equal status between state parties. Who will enter first, whether there will be a handshake, the precise spot where the handshake will happen, the setting of the table they meet around, flags of equal size, all that is plotted in great detail. It is fundamental to the job.

If I had put Robin Cook, for example, in a position where he was seated on a chair in front of an interlocutor enthroned behind a desk, I would have received a very fierce bollocking indeed. Yet here we have European Heads of State and EU leaders seated before a desk in the Oval Office.

This is just unthinkable to anybody familiar with the craft of diplomacy. I realise you don’t have to be a diplomat to feel there is something wrong in this picture: but you are probably not quite as stunned as I am.

The unequal interpersonal relationships are just the immediate physical manifestation of Trump’s instinctive ability to maximise the brutality of realpolitik. The deal which is being put together to end the war in Ukraine is a remarkable testimony to Trump’s ability to seize economic advantage for the USA, or at least for the class of people in the USA he cares about.

Trump’s Presidency is marked by an undisguised willingness to leverage the massive economic advantages which come from possessing the world’s reserve currency, which means you can just invent money to purchase any good you want from another country, the economy of which becomes addicted to this “cash” flow.

Trump’s trade war has displayed an ability to force other states to make enormous concessions, including reinvesting hundreds of billions of dollars back into US industry, rather than face tariffs which would make it harder to give up their goods as tribute to the USA in return for token dollars.

The reserve currency is essentially a confidence trick. It always works, if and only if the world believes in it. The world was starting to lose its faith in the power of the dollar, and Trump was smart enough to know that the way to maintain a confidence trick is to double down and be still more assertive.

Trump has undoubtedly prolonged, at least a little, American economic supremacy.

The Ukraine deal is a related trick. Part of the “guarantee” of Ukraine’s security is that the Europeans will purchase US $100 billion worth of weapons from US arms manufacturers in order to give said weapons to Ukraine.

It is not planned that any European weapons will be in the deal or that the USA will finance any weapons. A senior FCDO source tells me that Keir Starmer is saying the UK will put “well over” £10 billion into the pot to buy US weapons for Ukraine.

The hope on the European side is that they will be able to pay for this merchant-of-death bonanza with stolen Russian money – assets seized under sanctions. There are two obstacles to this. The first is the international courts, which are most unlikely to agree. The second is Vladimir Putin.

I have never bought into the notion that Russia is militarily infallible and about to triumph quickly and simply. I have certainly never accepted the nonsensical propaganda that the initial disastrous Russian strike at Kiev was just a ruse or feint.

But Russia is indeed now winning and was always going ultimately to prevail on the battlefield. The delusional rhetoric of European leaders over the last few weeks, including from Keir Starmer, attempted to ignore this obvious reality.

Ukraine’s lines in Donetsk are now so untenable that Putin is able to attempt to insist on being given territory he has not conquered yet, because everybody knows that conquest is both unstoppable and imminent.

This is a realpolitik as hard as Trump’s.

The team Trump took to Alaska had substantially more officials connected with commercial policy than with military or foreign policy, and we should not underestimate the extent to which this attempt at agreement is cash driven.

Putin, who is winning the war, will insist on the lifting of economic sanctions and is simply not going to agree to US weapons being purchased for Ukraine by the Europeans with Russian money.

As support for the Ukrainian military is an essential part of the mooted “security guarantee” structure – as opposed to mutual defence commitment – funding will have to be found. This despite Rachel Reeves’s entire philosophy being to please the money markets by austerity.

My FCDO source tells me that plan B, for when the idea of paying with Russian money fails, is for the private financing of the UK’s purchase of US weapons for Ukraine. This has been an important point of preparation.

Just as with the aircraft flying out of Brize Norton, the idea is that a private equity consortium would finance the purchase of the weapons for Ukraine, with repayment by the UK over a twenty-year period.

This means that £10 billion of weaponry would eventually cost the UK about £38 billion. Yes, you read that right. BlackRock and Trump himself are among a variety of investors who would be brought into the scheme as financiers.

There is of course no industry like the weapons industry for corruption: backhanders, directorships, service contracts to front companies, post-retirement jobs. Politicians love the defence industry.

That US $100 billion for weapons will provide lots of lovely pork for absolutely everybody in the picture. Look at the wealth of Tony Blair. Come back to me in ten years’ time and discuss what personal wealth was eventually amassed by each of the people in this photo.

Zelensky is probably the biggest profiteer of all (though he also has bosses to pay off).

I explain in specific detail in both my memoirs – Murder in Samarkand and The Catholic Orangemen of Togo – that international affairs is always driven not only by control of natural resources, but by the corrupt interest of politicians in the companies that acquire them.

That I found first-hand to be true for oil and gas in Uzbekistan and for rutile and diamonds in Sierra Leone.

With Trump, these background motivations step out of the shadows and into the spotlight. So here we have a war which appears, thank goodness, to be drawing to a close, but on the basis of overtly commercial deals.

I expect those European leaders will cheer up. Cash can buy a lot of indignity.

As I have stated frequently, it was and is simply impossible for Ukraine to recover all of its territory of 1991, without a NATO-fuelled war being waged on a scale that would have been certain to escalate to nuclear conflagration.

There will now be border adjustments, be they de facto or also de jure, with the integration of some Russian-speaking areas of Eastern Ukraine into Russia, including Crimea and at least the large majority of the Donbass.

It is simply a statement of fact that there had never existed a Ukrainian state prior to 1991, and that there had never been any state with anything like the borders of 1991 Ukraine. I don’t know why people find incontrovertible historical truth so offensive.

We are going to have a modestly smaller, Western-aligned Ukraine. That seems to me something those Ukrainians who want to be Western-aligned ought to be celebrating. The percentage of the land area of Ukraine likely to be retained by Russia – something under 20% – is a fair approximation to the percentage of the Ukrainian population who would prefer to actually be Russian.

If the putative peace deal can be delivered, it will undoubtedly be better than continuing war. It will be slightly less advantageous to Ukrainian nationalists than the deal that was available in Turkey over two years ago, but which NATO vetoed.

Hopefully Ukrainians have noted that sacrificing an entire generation as cannon fodder for NATO is not a good policy.

European leaders are still attempting to strut their stuff by threatening Putin with further sanctions if a deal is not reached. This simply does not work; Moscow is fine. It in no way counters the military advantage now enjoyed by Putin.

I should like to believe that peace in Ukraine might lead to a reduction in Russophobic hysteria across Europe. But the truth is, that Cold War-style scaremongering is really all these failing European leaders have with which to terrify and control their disgruntled and impoverished populace at present.

They will, however, be ever less convincing.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

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Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

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Yvette Cooper has continually lied about Palestine Action in a panicked attempt to defend the proscription of a direct action protest group which is opposing a Genocide in which Cooper’s government is deeply complicit.

Cooper and other government ministers have repeatedly claimed:

• Palestine Action attacks people, not just weapons-making equipment
• Palestine Action is funded by Iran or another hostile power
• Palestine Action attacks Jewish-owned businesses based on racism
• Palestine Action has plans for future unspecified appalling terrorist acts

In fact none of this is backed up by the assessment of the government’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre which forms the basis of the proscription of Palestine Action.

The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) is not a committee which meets occasionally, but a permanently staffed organisation with premises inside MI5 HQ in Millbank. The JTAC consists of representatives of:

MI5 – the Security Service
MI6 – the Special Intelligence Service
GCHQ – electronic and communications surveillance
DIS – the Defence Intelligence Service
Customs & Excise Special Operations
The Border Force
Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism Command
The Home Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Ministry of Defence
The Department of Transport

Ten other ministries are included on an ad hoc basis.

All reports of the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre must be approved by consensus of all involved.

It is of course vitally important that all of these bodies are under ministerial control. The object of the exercise is to produce the result desired by ministers, i.e. proscription, justified only on available true facts and a legally tenable argument under the current legislation.

I attach the declassified version of the JTAC report, which has been “gisted” for use in court proceedings.

“Gisted” means it has gone through a process known as “sanitisation”. This means that all the key information has been retained, but in a form which protects the source.

Before I explain this to you I should explain that I once headed the FCO section of an extremely similar operation, not JTAC but ESC. The Embargo Surveillance Centre had very similar membership, was composed of almost exactly the same parties and was also primarily involved in assessing and producing reports and “action-on” from top secret intelligence.

I wrote daily gisted reports and cleared the “sanitisation” with the intelligence service representatives on a daily basis.

The purpose is to protect your source. You cannot give out information so specific that it can cause those under surveillance to say “Oh no my phone is tapped!” or worse “Wow the only person who knew that is Jimmy. He must have told them. Jimmy is an MI5 spy”.

So you have to reduce the level of information down to something that might have a more generic origin. Rather than saying “This group is planning to carry out an attack on Ladies’ Day at Ascot”, for example, you might say “This group is planning an attack in England”.

The object is to give the highest level of information the intelligence services are comfortable in giving.

That might end up being as vague as “This group plans attacks on civilians”. But that information would obviously be vital to the court and it would be given.

In fact there is nothing whatsoever in the JTAC assessment which backs up any of the claims being put out in a panic by government ministers.

The JTAC report makes absolutely clear that its assessment of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation is based only on the definition in the Terrorism Act, of a group that commits serious damage to property in order to influence government policy.

I pause here to note that the United Nations has intervened in the case to state that this does not meet international standards for defining terrorism. Damage to property should only be terrorism when the intent is to endanger life, such as damaging an air traffic control centre.

The JTAC report in fact notes that Palestine Action stresses its philosophy of non-violent action against people. Much is however made of one single attack (out of 385) where substantial violence against persons is alleged (though hotly denied).

But even here the JTAC report notes that the sledgehammer and axe were intended for use against machinery, an obvious fact.

I have blanked out a very small amount of the JTAC report which explicitly relates to this action in Bristol, because it is the subject of an upcoming trial and publication would be in contempt of court. The blanked-out sections take police allegations entirely as fact, even though they are hotly denied and subject to trial.

I have done this despite the fact that both government ministers and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police have repeatedly made assertions about these events which are absolutely prejudicial to a fair trial, and were undeniably in contempt of court.

Equality before the law has disappeared in the UK.

So here is the official, otherwise unvarnished JTAC report on Palestine Action. It makes plain that government ministers are simply lying about their information. I publish it as a journalist who has been given this document and sees an overwhelming public interest in the truth being known about a matter which has caused the arrest of some thousand people in recent weeks.

• If Palestine Action deliberately attacked people
• If Palestine Action had foreign funding
• If Palestine Action attacked random Jewish businesses
• If Palestine Action planned a big terrorist act

the JTAC report would say so. It says nothing of the sort.

Palestine Action is what it says it is: a non-violent direct action group which targets the Israeli weapons industry and its support and supply line.

It states that its actions are not terrorism but direct action to prevent Genocide – and when given the chance, juries have usually sided with Palestine Action against the government.

The reason Yvette Cooper has proscribed Palestine Action is that she is a member of Labour Friends of Israel and has received £215,000 from the Zionist lobby – which is £215,000 more than Palestine Action ever received on behalf of a foreign power.

Ministers are lying to you. I have provided a little antiseptic daylight.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

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If I were living in England, I would join Corbyn’s new party, and I urge people in England to do so. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland there are other factors, which I shall come on to.

I also say this with great respect for my friend George Galloway, whose Workers Party kindly hosted my candidacy for Blackburn in the General Election. I think Jeremy has been wrong in pointedly excluding George from the consultation meetings on setting up the new party.

But the truth is this. At nearly 700,000 signups, “Your Party” has already three times as many putative members as the Workers Party got voters at the General Election. Jeremy has the ability to create a juggernaut which the media and Establishment simply cannot ignore the way they shun George.

My advice to Workers Party members is to join Jeremy’s new party. There are many smaller left-wing parties which appear to be signing up en masse to the new venture – like the CPGB and the SWP – while having no intention of dissolving their own membership and structures.

It is very possible that the rules of Your Party will permit such dual membership.

I am thrilled by the potentially transformative effect of the public actually getting to hear left-wing arguments. This is how Corbyn, even handicapped by the conservative baggage of the Labour Party establishment, managed to get a far higher vote in two general elections than Keir Starmer achieved in his.

The Scottish Independence referendum showed the same effect. Despite massive media bias, the public did actually still get a chance to hear the arguments for Independence that had been kept from them. The result was a step change in support for Independence of 15% or more, which has never been lost since.

Your Party could shift the Overton window, permanently. For the first time in 40 years the public might get some exposure to the arguments of the Left.

We know that renationalisation of utilities, better public services and taxation of the wealthy are popular. When Corbyn led Labour, there was a brief opportunity to vote for those policies with a realistic chance of success, and millions of people took it.

Your Party will not be saddled with the need to compromise with the Blairites, and thus will be able to develop policy platforms of much greater internal coherence.

I think it is safe to assume it will be anti-NATO and favour a pacific foreign policy based on respect for international law. I think it is safe to assume that its policies will not only favour redistribution of wealth, but will challenge fundamental capitalist tenets of the ownership of the means of production.

I have no doubt it will be firmly anti-Genocide and will back BDS measures against Israel including arms sales.

I very much hope it will support a single state of Palestine. It is plain there is no viable two state solution. Palestine has been dismembered, chopped up, separated. The idea that a viable, non-contiguous state can be assembled from the ruins of Gaza, with the West Bank (or parts of it) and East Jerusalem is plainly nonsensical.

It is a Bantustan solution designed to provide cheap labour to service Israel daily. The fact that all the Western government proponents of a two state solution speak of a demilitarised Palestinian state, permanently at the mercy of the genocidal Israeli state, shows how dishonest the plan is.

It has been suggested to me that Your Party will adopt the policy that the Palestinians should decide. I agree with that, but with one caveat. That cannot mean the hated Mahmoud Abbas should decide, and the Palestinians cannot decide with a literal gun to their head.

Let Palestine be free from the river to the sea. Then let the Palestinians decide whether they want to agree to the creation of a separate Jewish state.

The membership must decide the policy. I am reasonably confident of the result.

What cannot happen is an abuse of the central mechanisms of the party to demonise and/or expel people for false anti-semitism accusations, as the Labour Party did under Jeremy’s leadership.

It goes without saying that the ludicrous IHRA definition – equating anti-semitism with criticism of a state that is committing Genocide – must be rejected.

If it is really to be a different, bottom-up type of party, then the party leader ought not to have that type of power. The key salaried positions should also be subject to election rather than just appointed at discretion. Decentralisation must be very real and effective every day.

Which leads me to the nations of the UK.

The Left in Scotland is overwhelmingly pro-Independence. Unionism is very heavily a right-wing thing. There is a rump of left-wing thinkers who oppose Scottish Independence on internationalist grounds with a vision of working class solidarity. But that is a dwindling and far from vigorous strain of thought.

Neither Jeremy Corbyn nor Zarah Sultana has, so far as I can see, said a word about Scotland in talking about the new party. Their vision appears very Anglocentric. I hope that this silence is an acknowledgement that the position of the party in Scotland is, as English people, not their concern.

The existence of the SNP and of Plaid Cymru means that Your Party is entering a significantly more crowded market in Scotland and Wales, where not only is nationalism an extra factor, but the nationalist parties already sit well to the left of Keir Starmer (admittedly not a difficult ask).

In Scotland, I think mistakenly, there seems a widespread presumption that the Corbyn project will fall flat. But disillusionment with Labour in Scotland is enormous, both nationally and locally. As is disillusionment with the SNP.

Those connected to the Corbyn project in Scotland at the moment appear largely to come from the Old Labour establishment, many of whom have been vehemently anti-Independence.

But I doubt the party will reflect that.

Young people in Scotland are overwhelmingly pro-Independence. Another factor which receives insufficient attention is that opinion polls regularly show between 30 and 40% of Labour voters in Scotland are pro-Independence. Those are important recruiting demographics for Your Party.

I have not seen any figures for signups in Scotland. Pro rata with the UK there would be 70,000, which would make Your Party immediately the biggest party in Scotland. I think it is fair to assume there are at least 30,000. Nobody can know where they stand on Independence.

If Your Party is to be a genuinely decentralised organisation, then its Scottish and Welsh parties should be separate legal entities. They alone should decide their policy on Independence.

I suspect that a fudge will be attempted, whereby Your Party supports “the right of the Scottish people to decide”. That is frankly no use to anyone, and proceeds from an assumption that permission has to be granted.

The right of the Scottish nation to self-determination is established in international law. It is not a policy just to state it.

The support for Genocide in Palestine is not a bug, it is a feature of the rogue British state. That imperialist entity needs to be broken up.

So, where do I stand personally on the new Corbyn party?

I have signed up for information. I will make honest and well-motivated efforts to shape it and influence its members, and I encourage other people to join at this stage. I shall work for it to be decentralised in its structures, anti-Zionist and anti-NATO in its views, and for Scottish and Welsh Independence.

Depending on results, I shall decide whether to stick with it. I do hope it will be a broad church and that people will not split over small matters; but on large matters I cannot myself be part of a Zionist or Unionist party.

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On Wednesday we were crammed into the unsalubrious court 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice to hear the judgment from Judge Chamberlain on whether Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action would be granted a judicial review of the proscription of the organisation.

Judge Chamberlain breezed in and went immediately into a summary of his judgment, beginning with an account of the process so far. This was covered in my last report; the only new information was that the Special Advocate who had been present during the closed session was Tim Buley KC.

In this extraordinary abuse of process, the security services are allowed to bring alleged “intelligence” material into proceedings, which Huda Ammori and Palestine Action are not permitted to see. Nor are their lawyers allowed to have any idea what allegations have been made.

Instead a court-appointed “Special Advocate” is supposed to represent their interests, without being allowed to tell them what the accusations are. Nor can they tell the special advocate what points to make, as in “we absolutely have no foreign funding and have never had any contact with any foreign intelligence agencies”.

Nobody is ever allowed to know what a “Special Advocate” actually does or says in the closed session, nor what the government lawyers or those giving evidence on behalf of the security services do or say.

If I were a Special Advocate, I would do nothing except hand the judge a copy of the Dossier on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, and say: “This shows the quality of security service intelligence. Now go and wipe your arse with it.”

Having told us there had been a closed evidence process, Judge Chamberlain then gave us what he said would be a brief summary of his judgment. The link is to the full judgment.

Chamberlain said that the claimant (Huda Ammori) had introduced evidence of police action against people expressing in various ways support for the Palestinian cause. There was also evidence of people deliberately breaking the law on support for proscribed organisations.

The Home Secretary had submitted that the correct route for an appeal against proscription was to POAC (the Proscribed Organisations Appeals Commission). The Claimant had responded that this would take too long, until June 2026 at the earliest.

There were five reasons that POAC might not be a viable alternative remedy to a judicial review:

1) Timing – the POAC process could not conclude before mid-2026.
2) The impact on freedom of expression and assembly while the proscription remained in force.
3) There would be numerous criminal proceedings over support for Palestine Action in magistrates’ courts and crown courts up and down the country, in each of which it might be argued that the proscription was itself unlawful. There was a danger of conflicting judgments in different localities.
4) The legislation did not specify that an appeal against proscription could only be through POAC.
5) A judicial review did not close off an eventual process through POAC.

In assessing that a judicial review was a permissible route, he had declined to follow the judgment over the Kurdish Workers’ Party, because new court procedures (the Special Advocate nonsense) now permitted the courts to handle intelligence material, which they did not at the time of that case. Plus, that judgment was plainly wrong.

This was stated with such offhand disdain as to be striking. Of course judges can differ, but the bland contempt of the phrasing and delivery were unusual: “plainly wrong” to a judge of equal standing.

Which brings me to the unavoidable question of Chamberlain’s demeanour.

Sometimes my powers as a writer are not equal to the occasion. I have never seen anybody quite as self-satisfied as Chamberlain; he radiates assurance. He is the walking antithesis of impostor syndrome. It is worse than smug: there is a palpable gloat about him.

Judges in the Royal Courts are seated on an imposing tiered dais, many feet above the courtroom. Some judges attempt to diminish the distance; this can come over in different ways, from condescension to chumminess to intellectual equality.

Chamberlain does not bother. He is quite happy that our only view of him is up his nostrils.

He rattled through the grounds of appeal which the claimant had put forward.

Ground 1: Chamberlain was satisfied that Yvette Cooper had not acted for an improper political purpose but in the interests of national security.

Ground 2: That the proscription was a disproportionate limitation on freedom of expression was reasonably arguable.

Ground 3: It was not arguable that Palestine Action did not commit acts intended to influence the government, or that those who did were insufficiently connected to the organisation.

Ground 4: It was not arguable that Cooper had failed to consider significant information about Palestine Action or its classes of supporters.

Ground 5: Cooper did not err in giving weight to the views of Israel, to questions of financial loss and to other stated factors in concluding terrorism.

Ground 6: That Cooper failed to give weight to the need to oppose Genocide – this could be wrapped up in the balance question of disproportionate action under Ground 2.

Ground 7: The fact that only 3 of 387 actions were deemed by JTAC (the government’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre) to be terrorist – this could also be wrapped up in the proportionality exercise under Ground 2.

Ground 8: That Cooper had failed to consult those affected by the proscription under her common law duty; including not consulting with Palestine Action nor with any pro-Palestinian group or individual, when she did consult with the Israeli Embassy, weapons manufacturers and others. This was a reasonably arguable point of law.

Ground 9: That Cooper had ignored her obligations to prevent discrimination under the Equalities Act by targeting a pro-Palestinian protest movement – this was not arguable.

So Chamberlain concluded that a judicial appeal was granted under Grounds 2 and 8 but dismissed on all other grounds. However, as you will have gathered, he had in effect accepted that Grounds 6 and 7 were also arguable points, but they could be taken as part of Ground 2.

Chamberlain then suggested to Raza Husain, lead KC for Huda Ammori, that he suspected he would wish to seek interim relief and expedition of the case. Raza Husain stood and said the claimant wished to request interim relief, which would suspend the proscription pending the judicial review.

Chamberlain did not answer, but he paused the court while printed copies of his judgment were handed round to the media.

Raza Husain then tried again, but Chamberlain first turned to discussion about when the judicial appeal might be heard. Ben Watson, KC for the Home Secretary, wanted a longer period for disclosure and was adamant that the process could not start until some security services-related event on 12 September, which could not be discussed in open court.

This key event and date were referred to frequently in hushed tones. Hackers and foreign spy agencies please take note: 12 September. Raza Husain pressed for the hearing to be as soon as possible. Chamberlain pointed out that the dangers of haste “cut both ways” – full disclosure was also in the interests of the client.

This was pretty ironic, as the key “intelligence” on which the case turns is never disclosed at all.

Ben Watson KC then said the Secretary of State wished to appeal the decision to grant judicial review. Chamberlain replied that could wait, as he did not wish to go into closed court at the moment.

Raza Husain then stood and said again that the claimant wished to renew the application for interim relief – with great patience and as though he had not said it four times already.

Chamberlain said he had expected this, as though it were the most tiresome thing in the world.

He then ignored Raza and said that he had decided to grant permission to intervene in the case to Professor Ben Saul, the UN Special Rapporteur “on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism”.

Raza Husain noted this and then said the claimant wished to apply for interim relief.

Chamberlain was somewhere else. He said that Professor Saul’s expertise would obviously be welcome, but the permission to intervene did not mean he could guarantee any particular time slot or consideration, which would be up to the court hearing the judicial review “which may or may not be me”.

My handwritten notes have a marginal entry that this was the 6th time Chamberlain had interrupted the application for interim relief. Finally Raza Husain got to embark on it.

Since the first request for interim relief a fortnight ago, over 1,000 more Palestinians had been killed in Gaza. 80 children had been starved to death. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, had made a detailed statement criticising the proscription of Palestine Action and specifically asking for it to be revoked.

Chamberlain asked what precisely he was seeking in law. Raza Husain replied it was a stay of Article 2 of the Order, the proscription of Palestine Action.

Chamberlain said that his previous judgment against an interim stay had already accepted there was a serious issue to be heard, on the effect upon freedom of speech. But that was insufficient reason for a stay.

Raza Husain said that Ground 8, which was now accepted, was extremely important. It was a very strong argument, so strongly based as to justify the suspension of a proscription not done by due process.

Chamberlain replied that he had already noted there may be an arguable case on grounds 4 to 8, in his judgment against an interim stay. The Court of Appeal had agreed with him against the interim stay.

Raza Husain then handed over to Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC who said people were being deprived of freedom of expression protections under Article X of the European Convention on Human Rights. The chilling effect was on thousands of people.

Chamberlain said that may be true, but there could be irreparable harm on both sides. He had to consider the harm that might be done to national security by the suspension of the proscription order for several months.

Blinne responded that it was ridiculous, on grounds of alleged national security, to arrest elderly people for holding a placard, keeping them incommunicado as terrorists and going through their property with swabs.

Chamberlain replied that the argument is that such action is necessary to suppress the organisation as a whole.

Blinne asked whether proscription is actually necessary to protect the national interest, as opposed to the large number of other legal remedies available to the Secretary of State?

There were three kinds of freedom of speech affected. These were… Chamberlain then cut her off, saying he had identified these as speech which was legal in support of Palestine, speech which was deliberately defying the law, and speech which fell in a grey area of interpretation.

This was one of many interruptions by Chamberlain who made very plain that he was not interested in hearing this argument again. Blinne appeared to be continually apologising for her own existence: “I don’t want to push this too far”, “I will only lightly touch upon it”, “I won’t take up much time”.

What she was really saying was: “I can see you are not in the slightest bit interested in listening to me”. And she was right.

But she gamely ploughed on. Blinne said that people making perfectly legal expressions of support for Palestine were being harassed by police owing to the proscription, and the grey area appeared to include people who were opposing the proscription of Palestine Action.

There was also a fourth category: the press. There was much evidence of a chilling effect of the proscription on what journalists felt able to write about Palestine, as shown in evidence submitted by John McEvoy and others.

Furthermore the situation was made worse by section 12.1.a of the Terrorism Act which specifically removed the need for intent in criminalised speech. Accidentally saying something taken to be supportive of Palestine Action could be an offence.

Chamberlain said that was for the police and the courts to deal with.

Blinne said it should not fall on the police and courts to make such judgments and it should not fall on ordinary members of the public to try and predict an invisible line they should not cross following the first ever proscription of a non-violent protest group.

People had been arrested for holding signs saying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” That is not speech that threatens the security of the UK nor the safety of the public.

Raza Husain now took over again. He noted that the disclosure documents from the Home Office specifically stated that national security was not the “driving factor” for the proscription. They also specifically stated there was no damage to national infrastructure, nor any impact on national defence. The “attack” on Brize Norton was an act of vandalism which the Home Office documents disclosed would not affect the operation of aircraft painted.

This was fascinating. Plainly the Home Office internal documents show that what Yvette Cooper has been saying to Parliament and putting into the media is a lie.

Husain went on that the disclosure documents indicated that the timing of the proscription depended on factors including the local elections, a criminal trial, Israeli breaches of a ceasefire agreement, and a religious holiday.

That the proscription remaining in force is critical to national security is plainly therefore a nonsense, said Husain. At this point, Chamberlain interrupted him again.

My handwritten note only says “Chamberlain supercilious”. It had been obvious that Chamberlain had no interest in the arguments for interim relief. He had ruled on that two weeks ago, and as he is infallible, this was all a waste of time.

He did not actually say “talk to the hand” but his body language could not be more obvious. Occasionally he would relieve the ennui by interrupting Raza or Blinne mid-sentence.

Judge Chamberlain has never heard a sentence spoken that could not be improved by an interjection from Judge Chamberlain. Being a generous man, he declines ever to deprive the world of his great wisdom or make people suffer by listening to the uninterrupted thoughts of mere lawyers.

The effect of this is that we frequently can only surmise what the argument was going to be before it was intercepted and corrected. Chamberlain’s ability to predict what somebody was going to say and replace it with something more clever instead is uncanny – at least in his own estimation.

I do recall what Chamberlain said that caused me to write “Chamberlain supercilious”. He said that he supposed that Mr Husain would tell him that an interim stay was necessary and that Mr Watson would argue that it was dangerous.

Raza Husain was plainly annoyed. It is not just that I will say there should be a stay and Mr Watson will say the opposite, he said. It is the reasons which are important. He then continued to try to make progress, and was plainly angered by another interjection by Chamberlain.

“That’s not what I said”, Husain stated, plainly furious at being misrepresented. “That’s not what I said”, he repeated. Shortly after, he drew to a close.

Ben Watson KC for the Home Secretary had nothing to say in public that would defend the need for the proscription to continue in force. His argument both against the interim stay, and for the right to appeal against the granting of judicial review, was entirely based on secret intelligence. We therefore had to clear the court.

I don’t know what Chamberlain heard in private from the intelligence services. I should be very surprised if it was not about invented support for Palestine Action from Iran or fabricated plans to attack the Israeli Embassy, because that is precisely the kind of mendacity that Ken McCallum, Director General of MI5, considers it his patriotic duty to churn out on a daily basis.

As I waited in the corridor for court to resume, there was a rather touching moment. A Muslim patriarch with a most impressive white beard came out from the adjacent courtroom at the conclusion of another, unrelated case. He was followed by his large family.

He recognised me, shook my hand and stated “We are 100% with you, all of us. Let me know if there is anything we can do.” Turning round and gesturing to his family, he asked “Would you like us to stay here and support you now?”

I thanked him genuinely but declined, as there was absolutely no space in the courtroom. But I record it because little moments like that can keep us going in these difficult times. I was genuinely touched.

After 45 minutes of secret spook-fest inside the courtroom, honest people were allowed back in. Chamberlain then produced his decisions.

To overturn his judgment of 4 July not to grant interim relief from proscription, there would have to be a material change of circumstances in the interim. Three grounds had been advanced:

1) That he had granted permission on ground 8, which the claimant stated was especially strong. But this was not a material change as he had stated before that grounds 4 to 8 might be arguable.

2) The extent of interference with freedom of speech. But this was not a material change as he had noted the interference with freedom of speech at para 100 of his original judgment. All that had happened was that possibilities he had foreseen had turned into concrete fact.

3) That the Secretary of State had given no evidence of threat to the public. But this was not a change since 4 July.

So, said Chamberlain, there was no material change of circumstance and the request for interim relief was denied.

The Secretary of State’s application for Permission to Appeal was also dismissed. Watson would have to apply direct to the Court of Appeal.

Finally, the judicial review could not be further expedited and would have to be held in a convenient week after 10 November.

With that, the hearing concluded.

My immediate feeling was outrage at the chutzpah of Chamberlain in claiming that he had predicted the effects of the proscription on freedom of speech, when the exact opposite is true – he pooh-poohed them. He did indeed state at para 100 of his 4 July judgment:

The evidence I have seen established that the broad criminal prohibitions imposed by the 2000 Act, and the very long sentences potentially available for breach of them, can cast a long shadow over freedom of speech. This, however, is the inherent consequence of a regime which aims to disrupt and disable organisations which meet the threshold for proscription.

But that paragraph only refers specifically to people protesting

under the banner of PA

Chamberlain in fact entirely rubbished the notion that people protesting more generally on Palestine would be affected. He stated explicitly in para 96 that:

In my judgment some of the consequences feared by the claimant and others who have given evidence are overstated.

And in para 97 Chamberlain got wrong everything that was going to happen next. He states that it will remain lawful:

… to continue to express their opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza and elsewhere, including by drawing attention to what they regard as Israel’s genocide… They will remain free to do so in private conversations, in print, on social media and at protests.

Yet Chamberlain had now been given evidence that the police were in fact, since the proscription, persecuting people for precisely the activities he had said would still be allowed.

What is more, in the 19 July hearing for a judicial appeal, Chamberlain had actually accepted that he got this wrong in his 4 July decision on interim relief. Here are extracts from the report of that hearing by Mohamed Elmaazi for this blog:

“I think what you’re doing is, you’re saying, you predicted this,” Mr Justice Chamberlain told Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC – representing Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori the morning of 21 July at the High Court of Justice – “and what you’re doing now is sharing evidence that they have happened.”

The judge’s remarks were in response to Ghrálaigh describing example after disturbing example of pro-Palestine and anti-genocide protesters being threatened with arrest — or actually arrested – across the country, ever since Palestine Action was banned as a terrorist organisation.

…Two weeks later, Chamberlain’s tone was somewhat modified. He appeared to accept that he may have been wrong. In fact, he actually reminded the parties of what he wrote by reading out part of his decision refusing permission.

Ghrálaigh told the court that the situation is “even worse” than even they had predicted.

So how did Chamberlain go from openly accepting that on 4 July he got this wrong, to claiming that there had been no material change as he foresaw everything correctly on 4 July?

The answer of course lies in those secret sessions with the security services.

To connect all this back into what is really happening on the streets, the police this evening detained hundreds of people in London, as they aggressively broke up a pro-Palestinian demonstration.

In case anyone is wondering what London’s Met Police are up to, this evening they arrested multiple people on Oxford Street simply for protesting against the ongoing slaughter and starvation campaigns in Gaza.

Met Police are accomplices to the genocide. pic.twitter.com/22uXbPEk5v

— Naila (@BrownNaila) August 1, 2025

So while the granting of a judicial review represents some kind of victory, it is meaningless for now, as both the proscription and the repression continue – as does the Genocide.

I do not have any hope for success from the judicial review – all this is part of the smoke and mirrors of process and legality behind which the British Establishment seek to mask their complicity in the crimes of Zionism.

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