The UK government – in the undistinguished shape of Baroness Smith of Cluny, Labour party hack, youngest daughter of John Smith and Advocate-General for Scotland – has responded to the court in our request for a Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action.
The Government asks that the judicial review be denied on 6 grounds:
1) That I have no legal standing.
The Government does not accept that I previously participated in any Palestine Action activity or expressed support for Palestine Action:
“The Petitioner’s averments relating to his alleged support for Palestine Action and alleged participation in protests organized by Palestine Action are not known and not admitted.”
They evidently were not able to read these articles!
2) That the Petition is unnecessary as it duplicates proceedings in England.
This is the classic unionist stance. It ignores the fact that the High Court of England and Wales is not superior to the Court of Session in Scotland and there is precedent for a judicial review in both jurisdictions coming to different decisions on the same facts and circumstances. (The Miller and Cherry cases on Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament).
3) The Petition has no real prospect of success.
This contradicts (2) because in the English case both the High Court and Court of Appeal specifically rejected this argument in granting a judicial review. So the UK Government is arguing both that the English case makes this case unnecessary – and that the English courts are wrong. This seems rather peculiar.
4) The Petitioner’s averments being irrelevant et separatim lacking in specification, the Petition should be dismissed.
This is effectively the same argument in 3, and again it was dismissed by the English Court of Appeal.
5) Yvette Cooper was under no duty to consult anybody at all before proscribing Palestine Action
Yet again, this is rehashing argument which the UK government spectacularly lost in the English Court of Appeal. Indeed, there judicial review was granted into three separate grounds of faulty process through failure to consult.
6) That Article X and XI of the European Convention of Human Rights (freedom of speech and freedom of assembly) are not engaged because of the exception for terrorism.
Once more, this is a ground on which they failed to block judicial review in the Court of Appeal in England, because the question of whether Palestine Action can properly be considered a terrorist group, and whether the effect on freedom of speech and assembly is disproportionate, are arguable grounds before the judicial review.
So in short I am confident at this stage. The only grounds on which they did not already lose in England are the question of my standing, and the question of whether a Scottish judicial review can be held when one is being held in England.
On my standing they have made a mistake in disputing that I had taken part in any action organised by Palestine Action or urged people to support it. But even if that were not the case, Walton vs Scottish Ministers established that a person with a genuine interest in a subject of wide public concern has standing.
As Lord Reed stated in that case: “The rule of law would not be maintained if, because everyone was equally affected by an unlawful act, no-one was able to bring proceedings to challenge it”.
On whether there can be a Scottish judicial review when one is already granted in England, it is not surprising that the government wishes to challenge this. It is an assertion of Scotland’s separate rights and jurisdiction. For decades it was simply accepted that the High Court of England and Wales was responsible for judicial review of matters which – like the proscription of Palestine Action – affected the whole of the UK.
I think I am right in saying that Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament was the first time an action had been separately judicially reviewed in both England and Scotland. There the English courts found for Boris Johnson (i.e. the government) and the Scottish courts found against him. I do not think it at all improbable that the Scottish review will ultimately find the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful while the English review will find for Yvette Cooper.
Then either the UK government will have to go to the Supreme Court (whose existence is an abnegation of the Treaty of Union), or Palestine Action will be legal in Scotland and banned in England. In the prorogation case the government went to the Supreme Court and lost – it agreed with the Scottish judges.
We wait now for a court date. I am sorry to say this but we do need to ask for donations to continue this forward. It is a very expensive thing to do. One thing the government relies on is that it has unlimited resources and we do not. If we can spread the burden across enough small contributions, we can do it.
Every penny helps, but please do not cause yourself hardship.
You can donate through the link via Crowd Justice, which goes straight to the lawyers, or through this blog.
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/scottish-challenge-to-proscription/
Alternatively by bank transfer:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Or crypto:
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
Small coin in the legal fund tin. Good luck.
If to have standing you would need to show “support for Palestine Action and …. participation in protests organized by Palestine Action” you would only have standing if you broke the law. Not quite logical.
Prior to the ban FFS.
Calm down, Brian.
Well done.
The British legal system is on trial. Either the Scottish courts affirm their independence or the British courts deny they have any. If the case runs, as you say, a differing legal status will exist for PA.
Either way it the issue ends up in the higher courts.
Good luck.
Craig, I remember you writing some time after your lost case in the Alec Salmon situation, that you thought you could have done a better job defending yourself.
Seems to me that the mark of a competent barrister is being able to concentrate on at least two things at the same time. 1) the verbal argument in the moment while in court. 2) being able to look ahead and work their laptop/consult with colleagues etc while in the midst of 1).
Might it be true that you do yourself have this skill as a result of your diplomatic experience? If so, then I would seriously suggest that you are more motivated than any lawyer to research and present the coming Review.
What would still be useful is to have a barrister at your side acting as a Mckenzie friend in order to advise you on the procedural consequences upcoming as the result of any particular argument from the opposition or judicial decision.
That person – even if they were a practising barrister – would not have ‘standing’ to address the Court directly in this specific case. Only you would be able to do that. Would be interesting to see what fee might be charged for that advisory service !
Very true. I’ve known more than one lawyer, who, being a higher form of life, simply doesn’t listen to ideas put before them by mere humans. You normally have to get them drunk to get them to listen.
I don’t think that exalted view of themselves is confined to the legal profession, most other professions seem to be like that, too.
Raking in piles of money because they keep up their insurance-backed certification, which amounts to a caste licence to do stuff that their “profession” excludes other people from doing (in practice) – much of which depends on getting their clerks to fill in forms or look shit up for them – doesn’t incentivise listening, common humanity, or intelligent intellectual functioning.
They’re in the same bin as estate agents and medics.
It’s remarkable how many KCs have a gangster-like swaggering gait when they walk along.
Curiously barristers’ gowns still have the honorarium pocket. Maybe it’s to remind them of something.
https://sirhenrybrooke.me/2017/08/02/the-junior-barristers-gown/
Not an ‘honorarium pocket’ but a liripipe; a 1685 reminder/memorial to the death of the last Stuart to die a reigning King. Apparently!
Go get them Craig!
We appreciate your efforts muchly.
Wishing you (us) success.
@Craig – It might be worth taking a look at Agee and Hosenball, and also Aubrey, Berry, and Campbell, to see if there’s anything you can use. A Scottish legal angle was present in both cases IIRC.
Agee and Hosenball were deported on the Home Secretary’s diktat.
ABC were prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act.
CM: “They evidently were not able to read these articles! ”
Does this actually matter, though? I mean – does it actually matter that the arguments they make have no basis in fact, or is the case that any excuse will do for a tyrant?
Wouldn’t it be sufficient for the government to say, “This petition has no basis because Israel.”
No reason, no argument, no logic, no precedent, no law – just because “Israel”, and everything that facilitates that country doing whatever it wishes therefore follows. Anything which might obstruct it is wrong and illegal, with harsh punishment applied. Any appeal to the contrary is ipso facto baseless, because “Israel”.
The omission of a public consultation raises material concerns on the validity of a proscription, in a democracy.
…you would think…?
Just Stop Oil protesters have won their case:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjekdqj7529o
The judge gave legal advice to the jury:
Judge Paul Dugdale said they had to determine whether a conviction would be a “proportionate interference” with the protestors rights”.
“There are times when protecting the right to freedom of speech and freedom to protest can mean that activity that would otherwise be unlawful would be regarded as lawful by the court to protect those rights,”
On trial for committing “a public nuisance”. Trial by judge and jury. Result : acquittal.
On trial under the “tewwawism” acts. Trail by judge alone, no jury. Likely result : ….?
If the government wants to put a serious squeeze on protests, no-jury trials is the way to go!
Everyone who opposes oppression backs the right of trial by jury, and I would like to see it apply in all criminal trials. Magistrates just do whatever they’re told by prosecutors.
You may be interested in the recent history of jury trials in England and Wales.
Up until 1967, verdicts had to be unanimous.
But by that time, there were small but increasing numbers of black people, working class people, and women sitting on juries. The rulers were scared of the idea that one black person, proletarian, or woman might resist pressure from other jurors to vote guilty, thereby depriving the judge of his fun. This is why they decided to allow 11-1 and 10-2 verdicts – to make it easier to bring in guilty verdicts in the new world of Twiggy, the Open University, theatrical productions no longer requiring licences from the Lord Chamberlain, less frequent playing of “God save the queen” in cinemas, growing non-white immigration, the Beatles speaking in non-RP accents, and growing numbers of proletarians and women having some kinda tenancy rights over property.
Property remained key until 1974. Until that year, you didn’t have to own property to sit on a jury but you had to be a ratepayer. This excluded, for example, the large majority of rent-paying tenants in furnished accommodation, the large majority of married women, and so on. Probably only about 40% of the population before the new law were eligible to sit on juries, and maybe about 90% of them were men, but the number was growing. In 1974 the rulers opened out eligibility to everyone listed on the electoral register.
Since then, there have been some spectacular examples of jurors refusing to play along with state oppression, lies, and viciousness.
I think this possibility was kinda growing in the late 1960s. Certainly the rulers thought it was. Then you had the Angry Brigade trial of 1972, when four defendants were convicted but four were acquitted and the jury put in their famous plea for clemency.
Subsequent famous examples included at the Persons Unknown trial in 1978-79 (this is still little talked about!), the Clive Ponting trial in 1985, and the Michael Randle and Pat Pottle trial in 1991.
But guess what. It’s all over now.
Obedience nowadays is far more widespread, and far stronger, and far more likely to turn pitchforky against the disobedient. This became obvious to freethinkers and the genuinely disobedient no later than when mass quasi-house arrest started in 2020. Hardly anyone in the population has the energy to resist fascism and most of them want it.
The time of liberal democracy, call it what you want, is over. It won’t return.
@ Brian Red
On your penultimate paragraph: of course, you’re on the spot (that is, in England) and I’m not, but do you really think that obedience is far more widespread now than it was 50 years ago, or is it not rather that disobedience is more widespread but this is being met with more repressive legislation and tactics? I believe it’s the case that there is far more statute law these days that could fairly be termed repressive. Penalties (and court costs) also seem to have risen steeply.
Certainly one may suspect that restricting the extent of jury trials is not going to be a good thing for protesters.
By the way, we know how jurors get selected and lawyers take on cases on a “taxi rank” basis (it is said – is it true?) but does anyone know how judges are (or will be) chosen in the case of no-jury trials?
@ Luis
“(D)o you really think that obedience is far more widespread now than it was 50 years ago, or is it not rather that disobedience is more widespread but this is being met with more repressive legislation and tactics? I believe it’s the case that there is far more statute law these days that could fairly be termed repressive. Penalties (and court costs) also seem to have risen steeply.”
Yes I think there’s far, far more obedience. If you take stuff like the kettling of demonstrators, the cops would not have been able to get away with it in the 1970s or 1980s. I mean they might have kettled people for a while if they’d tried, but then they would have had a riot on their hands – whether you were talking about strike supporters, anti-racist protestors, anti-nuclear weapons protestors, or whoever. The current advance of state oppression isn’t in response to a growing wave of struggle, even if it would be nice to think otherwise.
“By the way, we know how jurors get selected and lawyers take on cases on a “taxi rank” basis (it is said – is it true?) but does anyone know how judges are (or will be) chosen in the case of no-jury trials?”
The taxi rank rule applies to barristers being handed cases. But in cases like most of the ones we talk about on this blog, mostly the solicitor in consultation with the client will approach a barrister they think will do a good job and they’ve used before.
Only crimes that can’t be punished with long prison sentences get tried by magistrates, many of whom are legally unqualified. Many also do things like sit on schools’ governing boards, or on state “health” committees, or whatever – you know the kind of thing, “because we don’t want the wrong kind of people to get involved”. Local self-important pillocks.
Magistrates never sit with juries. Sometimes actual judges can do a magistrate’s job in cases which still come under a magistrates’ court, and in such cases they won’t sit with juries either. These are nowadays called district judges (magistrates’ court) and they used to be called stipendiary magistrates (“stipes”). They are legally qualified. I think they can send you down for longer, but without a jury they can’t try the most serious offences which must still go to the crown court where there will be a jury. The real b*stard in all this is that prosecutors can choose a charge that gets you tried in a magistrate’s court without a jury, and if convicted you may go to prison. It won’t be for five years, but it will still be long enough to p*ss you off … without your ever having had a chance to appear in a proper court where you’re tried by your “peers”. E.g. let’s say your lawyer is asking questions of a police witness. Well if it’s in front of a jury, he can do a lot of damage to the prosecution case and show the cop up as the liar that he is, so that basically everyone can see the cop is a liar, and most importantly of all, the jurors can see that he is. None of that matters in a magistrate’s court, where the magistrate will act as if you and your solicitor or barrister are unspeakable turds for putting the fine upstanding officer of the law through such an ordeal.
Magistrates mostly do whatever prosecutors tell them. If they get in trouble, their clerks help them out.
To answer your question, choice of magistrates’ court is supposed to be by locality. I dunno how the actual magistrate is chosen from among those who sit at that court. Michael Snow certainly seems to be called upon a lot to handle certain types of case, and he probably does whatever he’s told by central government.
Thank you, Brian Red, for a very instructive reply!
As for police officers “not getting away with it” 40 or 50 years ago, I recall reading about police behaviour during the great miners’ strike: it appears there were not too many officers hauled up before the courts for excessive violence? And were there not trials in relation to IRA bombings where confessions were beaten out of suspects (your Chris Mullin was active in getting one of those verdicts overturned after many years – but the officers concerned got away with it).
Perhaps we’re using the wrong word when we write “obedience”. But even if we do use that word, perhaps we should say that there is more “mental” disobedience nowadays (the internet having aided) but that the corresponding uptick in “actual” (ie physical) disobedience has been more than countered by catch-all repressive legislation?
“Up until 1967, verdicts had to be unanimous.”
and so finally died the last vestige of the Saxon tradition of consensus, almost 900 years to the year after the Normans invaded and introduced the idea of majorities kicking minorities in the teeth.
Protecting the right to freedom of speech doesn’t seem to extend to anyone posting a nasty message online but criminal damage to a national monument; oh that’s fine.
“Judge Paul Dugdale said they had to determine whether a conviction would be a “proportionate interference” with the protestors rights”. “There are times when protecting the right to freedom of speech and freedom to protest can mean that activity that would otherwise be unlawful would be regarded as lawful by the court to protect those rights,””
He’s telling the jury to let them off. A judge can’t say so openly.
Presumably they’re posh? “Just stop oil” is muesli-eater talk for “There are too many oiks”. I doubt the more straitlaced in their families and class (e.g. ones who become judges) will have much of a problem with what they’re doing.
Anyway it’s not as if there aren’t statues to arseholes all over the place, and all sorts of other symbolic places. Best for genuine opponents of the regime to leave Stonehenge alone. Stonehenge hopefully will outlast capitalism (and nations too, Pears).
Juries were able to reach a unanimous verdicts for a thousand years until some clever soul thought that something had been wrong with unanimity all that time. Are you not familiar with the saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”? Presumably you also think it more important that a guilty person should not walk free than that an innocent person be wrongly punished, the change to a majority vote making this more likely.
The problem is that we have been brought up to think that majority rule is a good thing in all cases, because it is, when compared to minority rule. However the possibility of consensus being even better in many cases is never considered and our heads are filled with rubbish like “having to decide everything by unanimity means that it is likely that nothing will ever be decided”. It is having everything decided by the majority that makes people pigheaded. If people had to compromise to get things done, they would compromise. People don’t like to compromise, which is what makes majority rule so attractive.
Thank you for your response, Bayard.
In your first post you mentioned unanimity, and in this post above you speak in favour of consensus.
How would you define the difference between unanimity and consensus, and how does one go about achieving the latter if the former has been shown to be impossible?
Specifically, in the example of juries reaching a verdict, how does one achieve compromise in a case where a verdict of “guilty” or “not guilty” has to be the outcome but where there is an honest divergence of opinion? After all, the system does not allow “80% guilty” or “80% innocent” verdicts.
I think we can agree, however, that jury trials, even with majority verdicts, are preferable to judge only trials for all but minor matters?
“How would you define the difference between unanimity and consensus, and how does one go about achieving the latter if the former has been shown to be impossible?”
Consensus and unanimity are the same thing. Unanimity is arrived at through consensus.
The problem of juries not achieving a unanimous verdict is not one that was considered enough of one to make any changes for hundreds of years, i.e. it is a non-problem, and this in a judiciary and society far more corrupt than what we have today. Remember that under English law the default verdict is “not guilty”. The defendant is innocent until proved guilty. The whole idea of having a jury of 12 is that all should be convinced beyond reasonable doubt of the guilt of the defendant. Otherwise why not have six jurors or even two?
The change to majority verdicts was a typical politicians’ measure, changing something tha didn’t need to be changed, so as to be seen to be “doing something about something”.
I should probably – and surely will – give this a rest as there are more important things to discuss (in this case, the possibility of a systematic move away from jury trials to judge only trials). Nevertheless, a few final observations if you’ll bear with me.
Firstly, I could imagine that the majority of juries still reach unanimous verdicts and that 12 to 2 verdicts are exceptional rather than standard. So indignation can be overdone…
Secondly, I am puzzled by the logic of saying that unanimity and consensus are ‘the same thing” and then going on to say that unanimity is “arrived at through consensus”. The second statement implies that consensus is a stage on the road to consensus. But a stage cannot be the same as the end result. To claim otherwise is to follow the Holy Trinity doctrine, which says that there are three separate entities which are nevertheless one single entity.
Thirdly, you will be aware that the nature, functions and practical working of juries in England has developed and evolved
over the centuries since the 12th Century (the same as just about every other surviving institution). Perhaps the introduction of 12 to 2 verdicts is simply a part of that process, introduced as a practical measure rather than representing some kind of sinister plot by the powers that be, or politicians just changing something for the sale of it, as Brian Red and you suggest respectively).
Fourthly, and connected with the above point, the mere fact that something has been around for centuries is not necessarily a strong argument for resisting change. If I were to be frivolous (still in an English context) and follow that lie of argument, I would plead strongly that judges and barristers should keep wearing those rather ridiculous wigs in court. Less frivolously, I would also be arguing against the abolition of the death penalty…..
Fifthly, the argument “if it isn”t broken, don’t fix it” is often an excuse for resisting change for the better. If a machine runs well, but is very inefficient compared to what else is on the market, should it be kept or replaced (assuming the financial means are available)?
Finally, I would imagine that the idea behind a jury of 12 members rather than 6 or even two has little to do with reasonable doubt or unanimity but rather that 12 represents a reasonable number of one’s peers. 2 would certainly be too few and 24 too many (although US grand juries have a lot of people, I think). 12 people, with the possibility of a reasonably high majority verdict, seems to cover two essential aspects: the size of the jury should be big, and there is a safeguard against a hung jury owing to the unreasonable or prejudiced behaviour of one member (for the latter, think the following: a black man is on trial and one jury member, who happens to be a member of the BNP, is convinced that all black men are criminals by virtue of their genes).
Before we leave this subject entirely, just what do you think are the benefits to be gained from moving to a majority vote system to set against the increased risk that an innocent person might be wrongly convicted?
Thank you for your reply, Bayard. In order to attempt to answer your question, I would need to understand why you believe 12 to 2 verdicts increase the risk of a innocent person being wrongly convicted.
I can’t understand how you draw that conclusion, so would be grateful if you could talk me through it.
BTW, do you have any information on the frequency of 12 to 2 convictions (ie, their share of all convictions at jury trials)?
@Colin – Out of interest, did you realise the judge was telling the jury to let them off? It wasn’t clear from your post.
@Brian Red I think the judge simply summarised the law so the jury was able to reach their verdict.
Only doing his job as a public servant, right?
In the real world, judges say all sorts of things to juries between the lines, and nudge them towards this or that verdict, and this is a clear case of it.
That must be correct : I have several times read the phrase “the judge instructed the jury”; the fun starts when the jury disregards the instruction.
By the way, can there really be a serious objection to 10 to 2 verdicts? If so, what is it ( I suppose this should be addressed to Bayard..)?
“By the way, can there really be a serious objection to 10 to 2 verdicts? If so, what is it”?
Can you really not appreciate the difference between unanimity, where everyone agrees on something and majority rule, where some people are always left unhappy?
Bayard
Yes, of course I can appreciate that unanimity means everyone agrees and majority means not everyone agrees.
And of course I can appreciate, in a general sense, that when a decision is taken by the majority, the minority might be unhappy.
In this specific context, I would suggest that the point is not to make all 12 members of the jury “happy” but , rather, to serve justice to the extent possible.
I cannot think of any areas where decisions always require unanimity (but perhaps I lack your breadth of vision). The reason for that might be that having to decide everything by unanimity means that it is likely that nothing will ever be decided. Small things like who shall form the next government, tax rates, school curricula, etc……even whether one should drive on the right or on the left.
LCdaS, see my reply at 13:35 above (the perils of replying on a mobile)
I’ve no informed feel for the distinct fundamentals nor essential nuances regarding matters legal north of the border, but it sounds on the facts of it, Craig, like you’re calling this accurately.
Not having seen the Response, it looks to me:
*> Arguments (3),(5)&(6, a circularity) would just be packing, self-evidently incorrect by cross-checking with Huda’s English application and counter-appeal (as commented above);
*> wrt (4): what sort of supplementary ‘level of specificity’ could the court need to have satisfied here before being addressed by the pleadings ? Is there a procedural ‘yardstick of particulars’ in Scotland to satisfy ? Relevance is at least Arts 10 & 11 ECHR …
*> Argument (1): similarly sounds like a hopeful punt on the A-G’s part – are they wanting you, Craig, to have climbed a roof somewhere ? The Baroness is possibly wishing for a short cut to avoid grappling with …
*> Argument (2), because of having to invest deeply in research paperwork for potentially involved constitutional implications.
Maybe a mirror-image of the prorogation case could occur – lawful in Scotland/unlawful England & Wales (a solid possibility of the latter, imv) – owing to the aversion to stirring up that can of worms in (2) ? Which would then be interesting on appeal.
For once, lawyers are doing a good job publicising a legal challenge to a government “terrorism” move. (AFAIAA they’re doing it without crowdfunding too.)
This is on the English case against the Palestine Action proscription:
http://gcnchambers.co.uk/judicial-review-of-palestine-action-proscription-challenge-to-be-heard-in-november/
That link has been overtaken by events:
https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/ammori-v-secretary-of-state-for-the-home-department-2/
The Government lost their appeal to halt referral to judicial review, in spite of Underhill LJ’s view that the appeal had “a real prospect of success” (there was a crowd-funder btw launched at proscription to support Palestine Action’s legal challenge that gained pledges > £300,000).
Have there been any trials in Scotland where a jury has basically told the state to do one, as in Persons Unknown, Ponting, and Randle and Pottle in England?
One big difference between the Scottish and English jury systems is of course that in Scotland a simple majority suffices (i.e. 8 votes out of 15) whereas in England a verdict needs support from 10 out of 12.
I’m guessing this means that in many trials in Scotland there’s no discussion in the jury room, because as soon as the jurors are sent out they will call a vote and so long as nobody says they want a bit of discussion before they decide then there is a verdict right there and then. Or perhaps I’m wrong and more typically jurors do want discussion? Even then, though, if 8 are agreed then there’s still a verdict even if the other 7 are split between 2 thinking the opposite and 5 undecided.
The Scottish Parliament has recently passed the Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill which will make it a two-thirds majority for a guilty verdict in Scots Law criminal cases. However, the two-thirds requirement hasn’t been implemented yet.
The original Bill would have also reduced Scottish jury sizes from 15 to 12 persons but this plan was dropped.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8rndyyp7vo
Thanks for this. It became an Act on Thursday I see. I support the removal of “not proven”. If the state hasn’t proved their case, a person should continue to be what they were all along until that point, i.e. presumed not guilty. They are just as not guilty as a person chosen at random who had never been charged with anything – and there should be absolutely no confusion about it. (If the person actually was guilty, that’s tough on the state. They should have found some stronger evidence or organised their arguments better.)
The Act is here:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2025/12/section/65/enacted
It looks as though it was drafted by a backward 14 year old or perhaps an AI program.
This bit is peculiar, and it seems the new system may CONTINUE to operate against there being a lot of discussion in the jury room:
“(2)The jury may return a verdict of guilty only if a majority of the jurors are in favour of that verdict.
(3) Otherwise, the jury must return a verdict of not guilty.
The jury may return a verdict of guilty only if a majority of the jurors are in favour of that verdict.
(3)Otherwise, the jury must return a verdict of not guilty.
(4)For the purposes of subsection (2), a majority of jurors are in favour of a verdict if—
(a)in the case of a jury consisting of 14 or 15 jurors, at least 10 of the jurors are so in favour […]”
The key part here is 3). This suggests that the norm will be to take a vote right away. “Are there 10 votes for guilty? No? Well then we go back in and say not guilty.”
In England, the criterion for not guilty is the same as the criterion for guilty – there must be at least 10 votes in favour. So if they get into the jury room and it’s 8-4 (one way or the other) they must discuss.
And so as we awake this Sunday morning we learn of another absolutely horrendous stabbing incident on a train heading to London.
At present we do not know who the perpetrators of this incident are, save that they are in their 30’s, black and British born. No doubt many will jump to the conclusion that this is just the latest horrific incident perpetrated by people of ethnic origin. Very much a conclusion that many will not unreasonably conclude. And especially so in the current anti foreigner climate so extant throughout our media and politics.
Whatever the cause, I think however that it becomes crystal clear that we have not done enough to understand what is driving these outrages which are occurring not just across England, but also across other countries across Europe.
Domestic criminality is one thing, and ideological criminality is another. But do we understand why these classes of criminality are occurring. What drives the mindset to do what these people do.
For me I remember only to well when on the first day of the school holidays an attack was made on Glasgow Airport to explode a car bomb on the airport concourse. Some of the perpetrators were doctors. Not the type of people one would expect to try to carry out such an atrocity. Something drove them, and the others that followed with grim regularity, if regularity be the word. However if we if we don’t know what is driving this criminality then we need to find out. But I suspect we do know and are maybe not saying. it is also telling that these atrocities, did not occur 30 years ago.
Of course 40 years ago there were atrocities arising out of and in consequence of the war in Northern Ireland. Hatred at that time was extant against Irish people, similar to what is happening today against Asian types, predominately Islamic or just coloured..
And so, with another tragic outrage, that may be purely domestic criminal, or ideological criminal, we truly need to raise awareness of why so that adequate policies can be put into place to stop the horror.
And today with already all the fine words about police being in place within eight minutes, superb emergency response team responses, heroic train drivers, we really need to understand why. Only then can we stop what is happening.
Why do you assume they’re both black?
Here is the police statement:
https://www.btp.police.uk/news/btp/news/england/updated-statement-following-incident-at-huntingdon-station—cambridgeshire/
The first thing the police say about either of the two detainees, after saying one of them is 32 and male, is that the person is black. That is called racism, even if the number of journalists who have enough guts to say it is zero. It is an absolutely, 100%, crystal clear case of racism. (It is not a case of “maniac on the run – keep a lookout for this person”, when it would be justified to mention a person’s skin colour. This person is already detained.)
One is described as “black”, the other as “of Caribbean descent”. “Of Caribbean descent” does not imply black. If he was black, the state would call him black, because that’s the kind of thing this shithouse state does.
And do we all recall the “reason” for this policy of “publicise the ethnicity” that they’ve sold to the chattering classes? Apparently it’s because people would say on Elon Musk’s micromessaging service that the detainee was Muslim or black, and there’d be lots of pitchforks out…and of course we don’t want there to be lots of pitchforks out. Yeah, right.
The state is speaking with a massively forked tongue, as it always does.
But apparently this wasn’t “terror”. A person running up and down a train carriage stabbing people with a big knife isn’t causing terror, they say.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the two guys were having a fight with each other, and someone unconnected got involved. It’s easy for a lot of people to get hurt if someone has got a knife and there’s a big melée.
Another thing that’s notable is how the state and the state-controlled media are bigging up the term “British national”. Basically they’re saying black British people, or people with an insufficiently high proportion of native British ancestors, are only here in Britain out of sufferance, and if they don’t behave they should be deported.
It wouldn’t be racism if he were white though would it?
The decision to publicly state the ethnicity of suspects was taken after the Stockport stabbings when it was widely rumoured that a Muslim asylum seeker was responsible. You can’t have it both ways, have an exception if the person is black. The fact that at least one of the suspects is black would come out sooner or later. Usually at their first court appearance which may well happen tomorrow.
” I wouldn’t be surprised if the two guys were having a fight with each other, and someone unconnected got involved. ”
Ten people? They might have been mugging passengers who decided to put up a fight or maybe drink or drugs were involved, at this stage we simply don’t know.
I think you probably mean the Southport stabbings?
I assume black or a shade in-between because police said black and Carribean. I appreciate there is a ranges of non white shades but my point was quite simple.
One you criminals who stab people because that is what they do. Glasgow gangsters, London needs, and loon balls. Call it knife crime.
And then you get terrorist as they call it crime. Mass stabbing driven by an ideology and grievance.And when I’m talking about terrorist, I’m not talking about peaceful septuagenarian holding small placards.
What Britain has done supporting targeting civilian areas in Gazza, providing thousands of air munitions, or what the military did in Iraq or Apghanistan must i would have thought been a catalyst for the attacks on our streets. To think otherwise is foolish.
But never once have I heard it postulated that thesecatrocious attacks were anything to do with the atrocious killing that we have done. It would however be interesting to find out.
The British Army and the deep security apparatus killed in Ireland. The response on mainland UK was id suggest a response. Bad begets bad. Or is the evil just one sided.
Anyway, another horror this morning with the police being good enough to say that the two suspected perpetrators were black and carribean but not suspected of being terrorist.
So important isn’t it that folks are told about a suspects colour. And here was me thinking folks could be jumping to the conclusion that they were second generation boat people. I wonder if they had curly hair?
But yes, good job done all round. Train Marshalls, scanners at all train stations, frisk search before getting on a bus..me id just like to find out what’s driving this explosion of mass attacks. Or is it just skin tone.
“It wouldn’t be racism if he were white though would it?”
It would if his skin colour was not mentioned, so “32, male and black” versus “32 and male” (for a white attacker) is racist, but “32, male and black” versus “32, male and white” doesn’t. Mind you, given that the attackers are already in custody, it’s not clear how their age and sex adds to the general sum of useful information.
Pears Morgaine.
Ask yourself why someone’s ethnicity has to be known?
Public Interest?
The whole tenor of the west since 9/11 has been ( it is not overtly stated but it is assumed) that all Muslims are potential terrorists.
Imagine if that was applied to all Jews due to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza?
This is yet again another Labour Government sop to Farage and his gang.
The reason why ethnicity is given to the public is to say to the Right – don’t burn down any Hotels with immigrant today – they were not Muslims.
When they are Muslims we’ll let you know.
The truth is there is no ‘War on Terror’ and never has been – instead as usual other Western Governments pathetically copied the US versions of The Patriot Act and Homeland Security.
Trump is busy using those Acts to oppress and ban his own people.
These actions by any Western Governments have nothing or very little to do with protecting their people from real terrorism.
They are about internalising the Acts to attack their own people.
Quite a cheek for the dolt GW Bush to stand on a pile of dead bodies and smouldering rubble and then declare that he was going to protect the American people from terrorism – it was bit late by then.
Where were you before it happened with your protection?
Reading Goat stories to kids – that’s what he was doing.
These people are running rings round everyone.
They were then and they are now with the medias help as usual.
We need to get it into our heads:
There is no war on terror ( see Syria for details) but there is a war on us.
muslim is not an ethnicity really. You can be muslim and black and many are. So, the police releasing ethnicity to stop speculation that they were muslim does not really make sense/ Presumaably it’s just that muslim is a proxy in the “gammon mind” for asian?
Ethnicity is a fabrication, invented to allow middle-class people to talk racism and still feel respectable. Quite why it’s necessary to use such terms to describe how people look when it’s their behaviour that matters escapes me but that’s what happens when you’re an unreconstructed 1970s egalitarian. Concluding that the 1970s (of all decades) was the good old days is a bit startling.
Ethnic Russians in the Donbas area of Ukraine?
No, mostly it wouldn’t be racism to say a suspect is white if he is white.
It feels just the same to be stabbed regardless of the stabber’s ethnicity, so I can’t see that the person’s ethnicity is of any importance.
The politics here has two planks.
1 is the hidden assumption that the state mustn’t be seen as giving special protection to non-whites. The reality is that it does no such thing.
2 is the idea that there’ a real danger of the state being overwhelmed by neo-Nazis if it doesn’t go overboard to show it won’t let non-whites off lightly. The reality is that the state is deliberately whipping up white racism.
I don’t know what happened on that train, but yes it would be quite feasible if two men are fighting and someone else gets involved (whether to try to stop them fighting, because they themselves have been knocked about, or because someone else has been knocked about) for 10 people to be injured if there’s a big knife involved – especially after third parties start getting cut and there’s a general feeling that this is a deliberate attempt to hurt or kill lots of people, i.e. a terror attack.
You talk about the decision to state the ethnicity of subjects. I am aware of that and the supposed reasons. So why hasn’t the ethnicity of the second detainee been stated? “Of Caribbean descent” is not an ethnicity.
There is absolutely no denying that.
BTW I am of Caribbean descent.
There are many ethnicities in the Caribbean region.
What they probably mean is he is of both black and white ancestry. Perhaps the authorities didn’t have a line ready on what to call such people? This is the kind of “problem” that racist regimes have. This is the kind of problem they had in South Africa under white supremacy, for instance. See the “pencil test”. All this f*cking sh*t is seen as necessary by racists only.
Brian Red
Ethnicity has a ring to it.
The question is is when you mention ethnicity to a certain audience it has a catch all effect.
Starmer’s ‘ Island of Strangers ‘ (written for him) racist outburst had an intentional meaning:
‘Not Us’
Meaning: not our ethnicity – meaning not White Christian – ranging from the Pope – to the KKK.
We can have Darwinian discussions all we like but the message is clear:
‘ Not Us’
I hope the perpetrator is not Jewish, otherwise the media will be doing cartwheels
trying to explain every thing to the viewers in a non anti – semitic way.
Does describing the first suspect as 32 and male represent 100% crystal clear cases of ageism and sexism, Brian? Asking for a friend.
Anyway, this was allegedly found on a parliamentary photocopier:
UK GOVERNMENT MULTIPLE STABBING RESPONSE FLOW-CHART
> Some people have been stabbed up.
> Have any of them been confirmed Jewish?
YES > Cancel everything. PM to fly back to UK immediately to chair emergency COBRA meeting & give press conference in time for News at 6 promising zero-tolerance for anti-Semitism & millions more to protect synagogues etc.
NO > Have 10 or more people been stabbed up?
YES > PM & Home Secretary should probably put out boilerplate ‘MyThOuGhTsArEwItHaLlThOsEaFfEcTeD'[*] tweets.
NO > Do nothing.
ENDS
* https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1984743058856869942
https://x.com/ShabanaMahmood/status/1984743811658940673
– and, in the interests of political balance:
https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1984744611273982298
https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/1984953669045932231
https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1984899941404459294
(To be fair to Nige, that last one was ‘MyThOuGhTsArEwItHaLlThEvIcTiMsAnDtHeIrFaMiLiEs’ – marks for originality)
The 35 year old ‘of Caribbean descent’ has been released.
I wouldn’t like to think Plod only arrested him because he was black…
Thanks for your reply Pears. If you did think that, I suspect you might be correct. However, the bizzies are claiming that they were informed ‘in good faith’ that he was involved.
The British (and Britain-born) guy described by police as being “of Caribbean descent” has been released and the police have made clear he was not involved with the attack. Meanwhile the cops are prancing about the whole area dressed in forensics suits to show how painstaking they are. But in a crowded train carriage with lots of witnesses and surveillance film, they still managed to arrest an innocent victim. I don’t know whether he was injured or not – perhaps he was one of the passengers who took refuge in the toilet, perhaps he physically confronted the attacker, who knows? – but surely every person in the carriage other than the attacker was a victim, for obvious reasons. Yet the MSM are saying that the police decided to take “no further action”, as if they had something on this person but decided to let it drop (which the police themselves haven’t said).
Elsewhere on the web, people who think they’ve read things they haven’t are saying the guy was described by police as being “of Caribbean origin”. Well, no he wasn’t. He was described as being “of Caribbean descent”, which is basically government talk for having both black and white ancestors – the black ones being from the Caribbean – I reckon, like very many people in Britain. He was born in Britain, and Britain is not in the Caribbean.
Anyone who writes in public about such things (or who cares about having an intellect) should understand the difference between coming from somewhere and having at least one ancestor who was from there. But maybe such understanding is too hard for those who are intending to vote Reform?
Why TF was this victim arrested?
Meanwhile of course the regime’s media are going on about a “heroic rail worker”, because in times like this they don’t want the authority structure of society breaking down. Britain being Britain, even if a psychotic nutter is stabbing people in front of you, they want you to wait for someone further up the hierarchy to tell you what to do. Indeed you mustn’t even “speculate”.
Remember when they stopped parents getting into the school in Dunblane for hours on end. Meanwhile they were telling the media stuff. (This kind of thing wouldn’t happen in Russia. Probably wouldn’t happen in the USA either.) Of course the headmaster got lots of praise. Someone presumably took him in a new pair of trousers because he’d probably filled the pair he was wearing, even from his faraway location.
First they had a war on inanimate chemicals (drugs).
Then they had a war on an emotion (terror).
Now they’re banning wondering what kind of things might be going on (speculation).
“Why TF was this victim arrested?”
It’s looking increasingly likely that it was because he was black and that the term “of Caribbean descent” was used as even then, the police knew that his arrest was dubious. Some police officer f*cked up and the police are trying to extricate themselves without making things worse. Mind you, some people “of Caribbean descent” have no African ancestry: before there were black slaves in the islands, there were white “indentured servants”.
‘Why TF was this victim arrested?’
As I told Pears, the cops are claiming that they received information that he was involved in the stabbings, Brian. If it’s of any interest, I’d wager that he is black and they used the phrase ‘of Caribbean descent’ in an attempt to spare their blushes at having wrongly arrested a black person. If his biological parents had been Black-Caribbean and white, he’d probably have been described as mixed-race, whereas if he’d had one Black-Caribbean grandparent and three white ones – like the actor Stephen Graham, the footballer Cole Palmer, and (amusingly) one of the two England First Party* candidates that got elected as councillors in Blackburn a couple decades ago – he’d very likely have been described as white.
* To give you an idea of what they were like, the EFP was a spin-out from the short-lived White Nationalist Party, who memorably referred to the BNP as ‘race traitors’.
They were looking for a black guy and didn’t know which one was which. Happens all the time to black guys who are assumed to be criminals if they have nice clothes, a decent car, or a house in a decent neighbourhood. The bank manager whose social worker mother’s house was invaded at 6.00am on 3 occasions by armed police determined to find drugs, and who was pulled over in his nice car, and searched so many times, he had a complete breakdown and went off sick from the bank where he worked, is just one example.
The alleged attacker this time is also charged with previous knife attacks on London Transport. It is deemed to be in the public interest to prosecute him for these crimes. He has been remanded in Custody.
Black on black knife crime in London is also too commonplace and early Sunday mornings bodies are sometimes found lying on the pavement, just covered with a coat. Still waiting for an ambulance.
Is Dominic Cummings mental?
He’s saying Margaret Thatcher, so ably advised by John Hoskyns, really faced up to the problem of falling investment.
In actual fact her government abolished controls on capital export (“exchange controls”) within a few months of taking office in 1979, leading to a huge amount of money leaving the country right away – both individual money and institutional money, e.g. in the hands of pension funds.
Whole areas of the country were left to go to rack and ruin. Many have never recovered. That’s not investment.
Perhaps he means Japanese finance companies buying up Old Masters?
” Is Dominic Cummings mental? ”
It’s been obvious for some time that the man is deranged.
” The country has been living off the wealth generated by the Thatcher project ~1976-1985.. ”
I rest my case.
What case? What on earth are you on about?
It’s a quote from Cummings’s latest Substack post, to which I was referring.
Pears is right. Sufficient proof of derangement.
“In actual fact her government abolished controls on capital export (“exchange controls”) within a few months of taking office in 1979, ”
Yeah, but that’s unlikely to be what was causing falling investment. Much more likely it was her kicking off the era of “financial engineering” where it was more profitable to use capital to speculate in the financial markets that it was to invest it in anything meaningful, like anything that added value. That would have been behind much of the capital flight, too.
Imagine if someone made something like Peter Cook’s biased judge sketch today. The sketch was about the trial of Liberal party politician Jeremy Thorpe for conspiracy to murder, of which Thorpe was guilty but acquitted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyos-M48B8U
Make that today and you’d be straight into Belmarsh or Bronzefield.
That sketch was very well done – thank you for providing.
It was of course done before the days of the internet/YouTube/social media and a satirical programme of that sort (I think it was a television programme?) was probably the only outlet for suggestions of that kind. Following, such suggestions would be made on the internet nowadays and there are indeed examples of similar “heresies” – and much worse – even on this website/blog.
Whatever the medium, though , what makes you say that someone disseminating similar suggestions or accusations would end up in gaol?
What would the charges or offences be?
PS – I could only find one spot in the video which might, just possibly, be the object of a complaint of defamation or libel. But perhaps I’m behind the curve.
I’m not sure what the charge would be now. Up until 2013 it could have been prosecuted as “scandalising the judiciary”, which came under contempt of court. I can’t believe saying “The judge in trial X was utterly biased and prejudiced” wouldn’t be treated as an offence nowadays. It’s an interesting area. My guess is they’d use the Communications Act.
Craig, you keep avoiding the question. Are you going to step down as Scotland’s ambassador to the UN? You have no right to be there now you’re a member of a unionist party. Even Scottish Prism is talking about whether you’re the right person for the job. This isn’t the first time you’ve joined a unionist party.
If you’re not going to stand down, then I’m going to write to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the C-24 committee stating that your action isn’t in line with what Liberation Scotland is trying to achieve, and you no longer represent the Scottish people.
Your only interest is selfish interest and fortune. You knew when you joined Your Party what you were doing, then decided to write a blog justifying it. If you are indeed the person you claim to represent, then we can expect you to resign from the job Liberation Scotland has given you.
Yo! calm doon, ma man.I’m sure Craig is giving ‘ all that ‘ serious consideration: nae need to be haranguing the man and demanding he account for himself. Don’t forget he has suffered much more than most of us in the pursuit of truth and in furtherance of our cause.
Robert hughes, If someone was to tell you the Aliens were coming you’d be running and shouting through the street screaming your English head of, wanting to surrender before you knew the facts, get my point. If this man was all he claim to be he’d answer for himself and he’s not he’s a unionist.
” English head ” WTF you on about?
If someone told me YOU were coming I would be ” running and shouting through the streets…..”. I’d be shouting ” Run! there’s a mad man on the loose wanting to burn people at the stake for the sin of being insufficiently dogmatic “
It’s one of those irregular verbs again.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vladimir-putin-ukraine-russia-zelensky-troops-pokrovsk-b2856537.html
Ukraine is “fighting back by hitting targets inside Russia to disrupt military logistics and make Russian civilians feel the effects of war.”
Russia is “destroying energy production and distribution capacity as winter starts (which) clearly impacts the civilian population and is a form of terror“.
This is from the Independent. They seem to be one of the c*ntiest British “newspapers” on the block. During Covid when people were going on lawful protest demonstrations, the Independent were reporting that people had been “observed” doing this, and “spotted” doing that. The feeling was as if readers were supposed to imagine themselves in military helicopters, spotting enemies of the people so they could be shot.
The MSM/Political Class Imaginary War continues to inflict mortal damage on – what used to be known as – Reality.
Can only be a matter of days before the Azov Evangelists enter the gates of St Petersburg astride magnificent Aryan stallions
Zelly is crowned Emperor of all the Russias – Tsar Vlod The Ridiculous.The 3 Dim Men – Starmalade,Macaroon&old Sour Kraut come from the West bearing gifts, eg water-pistols,pointy sticks and maybe a heavy arquebus or two. Oh, and fistfuls of I,O.Us
Hard to say what will occur first, the collapse of the Russian economy ( no, this time, it’s for real. honest ), V to-tha-MFkn P dying – again. HA!
or Trump converting The Hermitage into one of his eponymous hotels.
Any day now………..:)
When the Independent began it was the only British paper worth a damn. The Sindy fell by the wayside in the 90s and the daily went down the drain in the early 2000s. Ever since it has been the Inderelictependent. Ah well, at least it isn’t the Graun.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c93dwq33vkwt
“The Nottingham Forest football fan is being hailed a hero after he confronted the train attacker”
Never miss a chance to promote a brand. Is he a Starbucks patron too? Does he buy his underwear at Marks and Spencer?
Genocide Starmer is saying ordinary people are such heroes.
It’s enough to make you want to vomit.
Indeed Stephen Crean is a hero, a splendid example for young people. I shouldn’t wonder if he gets an Appointment in London for this!
The BBC reports another hero, Samir Zitouni. He also may well have an Appointment in London in the future.
Most likely, the reference to football club was the explanation of why Mr Crean was travelling by this train.
The Occupation’s defence minister Israel Katz has said that Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the army general who allowed the “leak” of a video showing the torture of a Palestinian prisoner by Occupation soldiers, is guilty of spreading a “blood libel”.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0kpd97qqko
Probably after being subjected to an assault of that nature, the victim may well have to use a colostomy bag for life.
The genuineness of the video is not in dispute. The “blood libel” is in revealing it. Basically the defence minister is calling her a shanda fur die goyim.
Makes you think, huh?
There was speculation for a time among the settlers that Tomer-Yerushalm had “disappeared”. Police searched for her on a beach. She has resurfaced, though.
I am not even sure that she was involved in putting out the video. All I know is she has accepted responsibility for it getting out. Perhaps it simply got out on her watch. And that is sufficient to be considered an extremely serious crime against the Jews – hence the use of the term “blood libel”.
This is a gangster state, all right. It is a gangster state from top to bottom of how it operates, and in the mentality and beliefs of those who support its existence.
Bit of a broad question here, but is torture more common in colonial regimes than home country ones?
Something to do with dehumanising “the natives”?
Again and again regarding the Occupation regime in Palestine one reaches for Algerie Francaise as a comparator.
Rassenschande
Zersetzung.
Hochverrat.
Makes me think of that famous couplet,
“Whatever happens we have got,
The Maxim gun and they have not,”
“we” being the authorities in this case.
Dick Cheney is dead. Largely responsible for the decision to invade Iraq, defended the use of waterboarding torture against detainees after 9/11. But he condemned Trump as a threat to American democracy and endorsed Kamala Harris.
Democrats think being endorsed by Dick Cheney is a vote winner.
That’s who they are.
Good riddance.
Hell has just got that bit more overcrowded. But don’t worry, there’ll be room for Blair and Bush when the time comes, to say nothing of a good many more.
It seems that Tommy Robinson has had the charge of tewwawism against him dismissed by the District Judge (= magistrate, thank you Brian Red!).
There are at least two interpretations possible – and perhaps more.
It could be that the charge was brought against him in good faith (so to speak), with the state intent on continuing to try to silence him (some would say “persecute” him) and so curb free speech, and that the dismissal of the charge was because the District Judge was not convinced.
It could on the other hand all have been a bit of a charade, with the state wishing to demonstrate that it will act as strongly against fascists as it has already done against left-wingers and anti-Zionist/pro-Palestinian activists. Having demonstrated its even handedness and impartiality, it can tighten the screw even further on the latter activists. Under this scenario, the state would have had a pretty good idea that the charge would not stick and would not have exhausted itself during the trail attempting to make it stick.
Thoughts?
Powerful friends in high places, ensuring lack of or insufficient evidence, probably…
Thank you Mr Murry for your courage and integrity. I feel unable to support financially as I’m surrounded by pirates but you have my solid support as your position has truth.
This Psychologist (Dr Gartner) thinks Trump will not make it to the end of this term because he is showing signs of dementia and he is a malignant narcissist, along with some other very serious traits which we are all well aware of, he thinks what we see of Trump today is the best there will be, it will be downhill from here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OtO-cypKmY (Video Link)
I agree with this Doctor, in my opinion Trump is a lot worse than Biden, God help us all.
The morning after New Yorks working class has spoken loud and clear, how long will it take before the bones come tumbling out of the Epstein cupboard and our very own, most unpopular Government, is crumbling in front of our eyes.
Despite having lived here for over half of my life, I have no vote to help determine any outcome.
I very much hope that the forces and stooges in both houses propping up this Governments fascist policies, will soon realise that people here might want to copy Mamdani’s win by joining forces with the Greens, Corbyn or the finally growing idea of running as Independents.
Lets see the judiciary and police wake up and smell the unhappiness they create with their ludicrous war mongering and bearing down on lawful non-violent protests. Be rest assured they are not happy themselves having to carry constant diversions and protractions to give the fake impression of law and order.
They know it looks ridiculous, but can’t see the cliffs for the fog on their brains, walking forward looking dafter and dafter.
Talking of the judiciary, I just came across the following on JVLs website, posted yesterday:
Climate trials continue as temperatures rise and justice withers
JVL Introduction
Ludi Simpson, JVL member and environmental activist was arrested with two others in September 2022 for throwing soup at the glass and frames of two Van Gogh paintings to publicise climate breakdown in the face of insufficient action by the UK government to keep fossil fuels grounded.
His trial will take place at the beginning of 2026. His action marked the conviction of two other activists, Phoebe and Anna, for a similar action in 2022. They received sentences of two years and 20 months respectively from Judge Hehir who had previously given suspended sentences to two “thugs” who beat up two off-duty police officers, one of whom “required major surgery”.
Here Ludi gives his final update before his trial at a time when global heating, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are rising at a faster rate than ever.
Whether Ludi gets a custodial sentence or not will depend in part on the sympathies of the particular judge and the view of the jury on the proportionality of the actions in the face of the hurricane of climate breakdown.
Jewish Voice for Liberation publishes the update in solidarity with Ludi and other climate and Palestine activists facing trial.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/climate-trials-continue-as-temperatures-rise-and-justice-withers-1/
Mamdani won. Hallelujah!
It’s nice to see rich bastards get a poke in the eye but when has reformism done the working class any good?
The last time in America may have been Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s to reverse the Depression caused by the First Gilded Age. Hopefully this will be the beginning of the end of the Second Gilded Age that began when in the 70s the Democrats made the serious mistake of getting into the pockets of billionaires as the Republicans were doing in an even bigger way. They need to come out now, and get big money out of politics as well.
Zionists in Britain are arguing with each other about Dawn French because she said genocide was wrong:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/dawn-frenchs-ms-christmas-ad-is-an-insult-to-jews/
For those who don’t know already, Marks and Spencer is a deeply Zionist and criminal-related, thuggish operation and nobody should shop there.
How TF they managed to get premises at major transport interchanges such as railway termini and motorway service stations is an interesting question and one that may at some point have major significance, if anyone cares to ask it. Former MI5 director Stella Rimington who joined the board of Marks and Spencer has died, so she won’t be telling us.
No flies on Angela Epstein when she says “M&S” (what a cuddly soubriquet) have a “carefully cultivated reputation as a brand predicated on integrity, respect, and communal responsibility.” Really? I thought everyone who knew anything about Marks and Spencer detested them.
You can almost hear the foam bubble out of Epstein’s insane ultra-xenophobic mouth as she writes “7 October may not be on everyone’s radar, so it’s worth remembering this: it wasn’t just an attack on Israel; it was a genocidal attempt to murder Jews and march on the West.”
No, luvvie. It was an admirable, well-organised, and totally justified concentration camp breakout against Nazi-style colonial settlers.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/dawn-frenchs-ms-christmas-ad-is-an-insult-to-jews/
Epstein is probably putting the boot in against Christmas too, whatever she says. Her blood probably boils at this time of year. There may well be other such pieces in what remains of the “British” media.
Don’t forget that Jesus was a Palestinian refugee.
PS I have not watched the above-mentioned company’s Christmas advert, although I have watched Dawn French’s own video in which she clearly stands against genocide. She was wrong to apologise for what she said. She should have said it again and louder. Nonetheless, French has got more integrity in her little finger than a Nazi like Epstein has got in her entire body (Epstein should not even use the word “integrity”) and she deserves respect for turning down a monarchist Order of the British Empire medal, which is more than a lot of British entertainers have done.
France Plans To Deploy Troops To Ukraine Risk Sparking A Major Crisis. There is word about that 2000 troops of the French Foreign Legion (FFL) are about to embark on a mission to Ukraine, this contingent would be Latino assault troops of the FFL now undergoing intensive training in Poland. Macron believes this threat could add leverage to Trumps recent oil sanctions. The French have already been warned by Putin that any French troops in Ukraine would be a legitimate target for Russian troops. I think Hegseth said not long ago that NATO troops in Ukraine could not claim article 5 NATO protection in that scenario.
My advice to Macron and ‘boots on the ground’ Starmer is to remember Laurel and Hardy joined the French Foreign Legion in the 1939 film ‘The flying Deuces’. I recon these two comedians could give Laurel and Hardy a run for their money.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/frances-plans-deploy-troops-ukraine-risk-sparking-major-crisis
The mysterious ‘impossible to capture’ drones over airports are causing mayhem. Belgium , Germany; Denmark, Sweden(tonight) all report sightings over airports causing disruption. They are allegedly on the so-called Russian ‘shadow fleet’ oil tankers, providing convenient justification to board them and impound. Yet no evidence, despite said tankers having been boarded.
Though, if this is the more environmentally friendly way, than the method considered, outlined below, it’s probably the least bad option. If true, we’ve got Prince William and Starmer bleating about saving the environment in Brazil, and hotheads in military intelligence, plotting environmental disasters:
Anonymous sources claim British intelligence is allegedly preparing two scenarios to justify a mass crackdown. The first involves creating a blockage and oil spill in a key shipping lane using a deliberately compromised tanker, while the second envisions a tanker being set ablaze during loading operations at a port in a Russian-friendly country, causing extensive damage to port infrastructure and prompting international outrage.
https://dailytelegraph.co.nz/world/u-k-accused-of-plotting-false-flag-attacks-on-russian-tankers-to-justify-nato-action/