Monthly archives: April 2026

An Inspiring Story 240

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In 2018, at the height of the economic crisis in Venezuela through crippling sanctions, Kellogg’s announced the overnight closure of their Maracay factory with hundreds of redundancies – and massive knock-on effects in the local community.

The workers refused to accept the closure and, with government assistance, restarted the factory. It is still running eight years later, employing hundreds of people. Not only has it expanded production, it now uses 100% Venezuelan raw materials – not only local maize and sugar, but packaging also.

The head of the trade union council in the factory is now fulfilling the role of Managing Director.

This is how governments should deal with the whims of multinational capital, rather than allowing invaluable plants and equipment to go to scrap. If the Grangemouth refinery had been treated this way, when Ratcliffe decided he could make more profit in the Netherlands, then Scotland and the UK would not be facing potential jet fuel shortages now.

I hope you enjoy the video as much as I did my visit there.

This visit was of course before I was taken ill. I am extremely grateful to the Venezuelan medics who saved my life, and to all those many people who have been so kind in helping me. I should say that everything, from the qualifications of the medical staff to the facilities and the hospital services, has been really good. Again the stories of this country as a failed state so vividly and consistently painted by the West are shown to be a complete lie.

I today (20 April) had the pacemaker checked out and it is performing properly, operating at 21% (which I think means that one in five of my heartbeats is pacemaker triggered). The wound is also healing well, but doctors advise the internal healing takes longer and they are keeping me a few more days to make sure everything is OK before I fly back to Scotland.

 

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As I end my second Venezuelan visit, we have now spent substantially more on this than we raised and I am personally out of pocket. There is still quite a lot of video footage and the editing process is stalled for lack of funds. Please help if you are able – Our GoFundMe link for the Venezuelan operation is here:

This is the same crowdfunding account we used for Lebanon so discount the first £35,000 raised as it was spent in Lebanon.

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

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of subscription 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 to this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations



PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

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

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

Venezuela GoFundMe

 

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Vote for the Alliance to Liberate Scotland 141

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It was not my intention to run for election to the Scottish parliament from a hospital bed in Caracas, but sometimes we have to take what life gives us.

I went to a clinic a week ago feeling dizzy and was immediately rushed to hospital. My heart rate was fluttering and below 20 bpm. I have since had an emergency procedure to fit a pacemaker.

Long-term followers of this blog (and readers of Murder in Samarkand or The Catholic Orangemen of Togo) know that I am dogged by long-term heart problems which I have to work through. I try to avoid hospitals because such is the apparent seriousness of my condition it is very hard to get out of them again.

In 2005 I was given three years to live with pulmonary hypertension, but I am still here and still fighting for good causes. Now with electronic enhancement.

I can’t however type much as both my hands look like this.

I am not withdrawing from the election, as I believe it is essential to give voters in Edinburgh Central the opportunity to vote for someone genuinely committed to Scottish Independence and who intends to do something about it.

You cannot believe both that Scotland is a nation with the right of self-determination and that London should have a veto.

London cannot afford to lose Scotland’s vast resources and will never agree. Independence will not be given to us, we must take it. When Independence comes, it will be in contravention of UK domestic law. Scottish Independence is therefore a revolutionary cause or it is nothing.

With opinion polls routinely showing a majority for Independence, the SNP will handily win this election on the pretence they will work for Independence. But they have no intention of actually doing so – still less have the neoliberal, Freeport-supporting Scottish Greens.

What will happen is that they will beg London for a referendum, which Starmer has made crystal clear he will refuse, and then they will claim to have tried. The SNP will then yet again forget Independence until the next election needs a slogan, while going back to pocketing their large salaries from the British state for running the colonial administration at Holyrood.

With US bombers taking off from British airports loaded with 2,000 lb bombs for the destruction of children in Iran, with the RAF giving targeting intelligence to the Israelis for the Genocide in Gaza, there is a moral urgency to breaking up the UK. Scotland needs at least some people in its Parliament who feel that urgency.

That is why I am giving people a chance to vote for me as part of the Alliance to Liberate Scotland – an umbrella group for all who support Independence, with other policy choices left to the individual. The party is precisely eight weeks old.

(I had intended to stand for Your Party, which decided firmly in favour of Scottish Independence, but it is not fighting these elections).

Were I able to campaign I would have a good chance of being elected. Scottish parliamentary elections are run under the D’Hondt system. This is a form of (not very) proportional representation in which there are FPTP constituencies, grouped into regions. The voter has two ballots, both marked with a simple X.

The first ballot is a standard FPTP constituent vote. On the second you vote for a party of your choice. This is used to make the regional vote roughly proportional, subtracting the constituency seats won from each party’s vote share, then electing individuals from a party ranked list.

It removes the individual voter choice you get with STV and is not as proportional.

The Alliance to Liberate Scotland commissioned a 2,500-person, properly weighted poll from Find Out Now. This found that – and this is an essential point – when prompted with the existence of Alliance to Liberate Scotland, 7% of voters across Scotland would vote for ATLS and 8% would vote for me, by name, in Edinburgh and Lothians (and similar for my friend Tommy Sheridan in Glasgow).

As I am number one on the list for ATLS in the Edinburgh and Lothians Region that figure would almost certainly see me elected.

BUT real voters are not prompted with the existence of ATLS, and of course the media will keep it that way. That is why an active campaign was so essential and it is so frustrating to be stuck here in hospital in Caracas.

I have not, though, given up. My colleagues are fighting a great campaign and I will get back to join in as soon as I can fly.

Finally, there is really interesting news about the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action, and I will post on that when able.

 

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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.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations



PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

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

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

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Published by Craig Murray on behalf of the Alliance to Liberate Scotland, Oxgangs Road, Edinburgh EH10 7BD

 

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The Strait of Hormuz 422

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In international law, Tehran has every right to close the strait of Hormuz to nations with which it is in armed conflict. Two vital points:

1) States who permit attacks on Iran to be launched from their territory can be blocked

2) Iran can block neutral ships from trading with states with which it is in conflict.

Plainly UK ships can be blocked under 1). But it is also undeniable that Gulf states have permitted attacks to be launched from their territory. A-10 Warthog attack jets have been routinely used against Iranian ships and were used in the extraordinary operation at the weekend involving special forces on the ground in Iran.

(If you believe that was a pilot rescue I have a bridge to sell you).

Multiple types of helicopter have also been used. The 5th fleet having run away well into the Indian ocean, these short-range aircraft can only be operating out of the Gulf states.

HIMARS short-range missiles were also used against Kharg Island – again this has to be from the Gulf states.

Iran has the right therefore to close the Strait of Hormuz to ships trading with those Gulf States that are hosting US forces attacking Iran. Which effectively means an almost complete closure of the straits.

The remaining legal obligation – from Article 34 of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea – is to allow free passage to neutral vessels which are not trading with states with which Iran is in armed conflict. That is not likely to be a large number of vessels.

 

A week ago I participated in a discussion on Al Jazeera in which I was able to make some of these points. I also pointed out the hypocrisy of the Western powers’ sudden interest in freedom of navigation, when they have been supporting or ignoring illegal blockades of Gaza, Cuba and Venezuela, and illegal action against the misnamed “Russian shadow fleet”.

 

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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.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations



PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

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

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

 

 

 

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