I went through yesterday’s preliminary hearing in the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action with a sense of mounting horror. We had the same judge as at the permission hearing, Lord Young. We had exactly the same arguments and the same case law being deployed again by the UK government as at the permission hearing. But there the sense of déjà vu ended. The judge, Lord Young, appeared to be rowing backwards from his decision to grant the judicial review, as fast as he possibly could.
I may be wrong – we will have his decision in three hours’ time. I hope I am wrong. I quite often am wrong.
But every indication was that I am not wrong. English proceedings at an advanced stage seemed in his mind to have shifted, from an irrelevance in a different jurisdiction, to a fundamental reason not to proceed. The costs of holding a physical review, in terms of the actual pounds and pennies of having courts, had been dismissed contemptuously by Lord Young when advanced by the government as a reason not to hold a judicial review at the permission hearing.
Lord Young now himself raised the cost of a Scottish judicial review as a potential reason for not having one. Three times.
He also made plain from the outset that he was considering the Starmer regime motion for sisting (postponing in effect forever) the Scottish judicial review as a matter of case management, not as a matter of principle of whether the court had jurisdiction. For that reason, if he decided to sist he would not be contradicting his previous decision that the review could go ahead.
The solution was not openly to deny Scotland’s rights, but administrative delay. Forever.
The main obvious thing that had changed was not the government arguments, but the person making them. This hearing had itself been postponed almost three weeks to fit the diary of the Advocate General, Catherine Smith KC, who was representing the Starmer regime in person because – as the Government submission directly stated – of the great constitutional importance of the case.
Catherine Smith KC is political royalty. Daughter of former Labour leader the late John Smith and of Baroness Smith, sister of the BBC’s Washington correspondent Sarah Smith, and sister-in-law of the son of former Secretary General of NATO, Lord Robertson. I could go on.
She is also rubbish in court. She presented the government’s arguments much worse that they had originally been presented, with a really revolting mix of personal arrogance and profound lack of articulacy. She sometimes appeared unable to put a coherent sentence together, and on the rare occasions when she did so, we were generally left wondering in what way it linked to the last one. Lord Young frequently rescued her by expressing the idea she had been groping her way towards with all the alacrity of a blindfolded person in handcuffs.
At one point Lord Young actually said to the Advocate General: “You haven’t explained that very well”.
Nevertheless, he took it that there was great force behind her arguments, now that it had been made very plain by the despatch of this august personage that London took this very seriously indeed. He gave every indication of a willingness to be herded. It merely made his life so difficult that they had despatched such an incompetent shepherd.
Very early in proceedings Lord Young had been at great pains to point out that his agreement that we had the right to a Scottish judicial review had always been subject to possible cancellation for reasons of “case management”. In principle there was a right to a Scottish judicial review. But there were practicalities of case management to consider, and one of those practicalities was the existence in England of the Ammori case which was now at a much more advanced stage, with the English Court of Appeal going to announce its decision on 15 June. It may then proceed to the UK Supreme Court which covers Scotland anyway.
In the course of the day, Joanna Cherry pointed out that our Scottish judicial review had been due to happen back in March – and the reason it had been delayed was the UK government introducing “secret intelligence” evidence which had been heard in closed sessions. To “sist” or postpone the case until the end of UK proceedings meant to drop it forever. To do this on procedural grounds because of delays introduced by the government being reviewed would be unfair on the petitioner.
In the Cherry and Miller cases the UK Supreme Court had been faced with different decisions of the English and Scottish courts on the same issue. The English court could be wrong. Mr Murray as a resident of Scotland was entitled to the protection of the courts of his place of domicile. Scotland and England were separate jurisdictions with separate legal systems and separate legal traditions.
Catherine Smith for the Starmer regime took a hardline unionist position. It was undesirable for Palestine Action to be legal in Scotland and not in England, and she did not believe that such a position could be “competent” as terrorism was a reserved matter under the Scotland Act. She was very scathing about the evidence that, two months before the proscription, the Scottish CONTEST board (the official counter-terrorism strategy board of the Scottish government, which includes Police Scotland and the security services) had minuted that Palestine Action in Scotland “did not come close” to meeting the definition of a terrorist organisation. The Scottish board is a “local board”, she said, which did not have access to all the intelligence available to the main counter terrorism bodies in London.
London sent a regime minister to overawe the court in Edinburgh and remind us of our position in the world. We have been telt.
The Starmer regime’s arguments were founded on “judicial comity”, which amounted to simply an argument that the judiciaries of the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom should not disagree with each other, as expressed by the High Court of England in the “liberty case”. This was almost word for word the argument they had made, and was the case they had advanced, at the permission hearing. Even Lord Young rather bridled at this.
“Are you saying I got this wrong?” he asked.
“Yes”, Smith replied.
There was so much more to report, but my current state of health doesn’t allow me to spend long days in court followed by long evenings writing up, and I suppose the decision today will overtake much of it. I paste below the original decision by Lord Young to grant the appeal – you will notice that is quite a ringing declaration that citizens in Scotland are entitled to the protection of the Scottish courts – is indeed then undercut by an escape route that issues of “case management” may make proceeding with the review undesirable and are a different question.
I hope I am wrong, but I suspect that Lord Young will today rule that I was entitled to a judicial review but “case management” means it should be shelved in favour of the English case.
The one time I was actually furious during the proceedings yesterday was when Catherine Smith said that the Scottish judicial review should be closed down for reasons of cost, and specifically stated that the closed evidence sessions – on which I am given no information and do not even know when they happen – are costing the court system £10,000 a day.
The UK government is introducing spurious and fake intelligence material – making who-knows-what allegations about Palestine Action – and using the cost of fake intelligence hearings to close down scrutiny. It stinks.
We desperately need more money to continue this legal case. Each stage of hearing like this costs us about £30,000 and the eventual judicial review will cost much more.
Again please contribute if you can but do not contribute if it causes you difficulty. If you know people who are able to afford to help and likely to be sympathetic, please do contact them and ask their assistance. We are trying to keep a lot of very good people out of prison.
You can donate through the link via Crowd Justice, which goes straight to the lawyers, or through this blog.
The proscription of Palestine Action was sold to MPs and the media on the basis of a deliberate campaign of lies, fronted by Yvette Cooper, then Home Secretary, and Mark Rowley, Commissioner of the Metropolitan police. Both have deep commitment to Israel. Cooper is owned by the Israel lobby.
What is worse, they then attempted to reinforce these lies by fitting up young activists with false charges and corrupting all principles of justice in an effort to obtain false convictions. This was brought home to me most forcefully in examining thousands of pages of documents released to me by the Home Office as disclosure in the Scottish judicial review of the legality of the proscription of Palestine Action.
I am not allowed to reveal these thousands of pages to you, even though they have already been redacted, with large sections blacked out, and in some instances gisted, or given in precis, removing “sensitive” information.
But I shall reveal one single paragraph of one single document because I think it is overwhelmingly in the public interest to do so. It is an essential illustration of the appalling behaviour which our Israeli-controlled Establishment has been exhibiting throughout this attack on Palestine Action – an organisation which, I would remind you, is trying to prevent the provision of arms to a genocide.
That screenshot paragraph is from the Proscription Advisory Group, prepared by the Counter Terrorism Police, recommending proscription. It is part of a narrative they seek to build of an “escalating pattern of violence”. The claim is in essence that Palestine Action has moved from violence against property to violence against people.
The problem is, it is not true.
In the Filton trial the attempts to convict activists of violence against people – the aggravated burglary and violent disorder charges – all failed before a jury. There were twelve charges between aggravated burglary and violent disorder – and twelve acquittals. In the other incident referenced in the above paragraph – the Sandwich action – the charges of personal violence have all quietly been dropped.
So let us go through the extremely alarming list of serious charges involving violence that were given in that essential paragraph, from the internal Home Office documents arguing for proscription. And let us mark up the actual truth.
Aggravated Burglary – no convictions
Violent Disorder – no convictions
Administering a Noxious Substance – no convictions
Threats to Kill – no convictions
Actual Bodily Harm – no convictions
Grievous Bodily Harm – no convictions
Participating in Activities of an Organised Crime Group – no convictions
The only footnote to this is that there is one single conviction of GBH, but the jury specifically found not guilty of intent, in relation to the melee that developed at Filton after the security guards attacked the activists.
This is an astonishing, lengthy list of fabrication – offences in which the jury found as a matter of fact against the Crown. Non-existent offences were listed by the Police to recommend the proscription.
The proscription was based on an entire litany of offences which never happened.
But much worse than this is the attempt to enforce convictions under false pretences in the Filton trial. The catalogue of how this was done is well known now.
Judge Johnson ruled that the defendants were not permitted to refer to their motives. He ruled that the jury may not be informed of their absolute right to acquit. He attempted to have the leading defence barrister, Rajiv Menon KC, prosecuted for contempt of court for informing the jury of their rights. He ruled that terms including “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” may not be used in court. He ordered that the notebooks and other writings of the accused be redacted to withhold from the jury any information related to Elbit’s supply of weapons to Israel. He enforced the concealment from the jury of the nature of the weapons and equipment that had been damaged. He granted anonymity to senior Elbit staff and admitted their evidence without the defence being able to cross-examine. He ruled that the trial had not been prejudiced by the Secretary of State and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police stating the offences as fact throughout national media. He allowed the release to the media of highly edited and selective prosecution video footage during the trial which gave a false impression of events. He permitted the admission of Metropolitan Police video evidence which they had given over to Elbit’s sole custody for an entire year. He ruled that the jury must not be told of his stated intention to consider adding terrorist aggravation to any convictions – which adds 150% to time served in jail.
That is an astonishing list of nefarious actions by Judge Johnson. Read it again. Many people will surely conclude, it is Judge Johnson who should be in jail.
Despite all of Johnson’s attempts to rig the trial, despite the state trying the defendants twice when it failed to achieve convictions the first time, the Crown failed to attain its convictions on Aggravated Burglary, Violent Disorder and GBH with Intent.
But my God, they tried. How they tried!
Yvette Cooper specifically relied on the specific police litany of lies in her article for the Observer to promote the proscription, where she wrote:
Palestine Action has claimed responsibility for – and promoted on its website – attacks that have seen those allegedly involved subsequently charged with violent disorder, grievous bodily harm with intent, actual bodily harm, criminal damage and aggravated burglary. Charges that include, in the assessment of the independent Crown Prosecution Service, a terrorism connection.
The “independent” Crown Prosecution Service is of course a joke, the independence of both the prosecutor and of judges like Johnson being a polite fiction of the British Establishment. The executive does not issue direct orders to judges like Johnson nor to the Director of Public Prosecutions. They don’t have to issue direct orders. Those people are only in their positions because they know what is expected of them.
The one thing they cannot reliably control is a jury, however much they may try to manipulate the information available to them. The charges in the Filton trial of aggravated burglary (which means going equipped with a weapon intending to use it against a person), of violent disorder and of GBH with Intent were always massive, politically motivated overcharging.
They were never likely to be got through a jury – given the total lack of evidence for them – no matter how much Judge Johnson attempted to manipulate the trial.
Yvette Cooper was prepared to disregard legal advice that her article would prejudice the trial, safe in the knowledge that Johnson would only ever bring contempt of court charges against the defence and not against the State.
Our hearing in the Scottish Court of Session tomorrow will hear our motion that the proscription in Scotland should be suspended pending the Scottish judicial review, because in the meantime hundreds of people are having their civil liberties restricted and facing possible arrest, and scores are facing charges for terrorist offences merely for exercising their right of free speech.
The UK government is opposing with a counter motion to sist (postpone) the entire Scottish judicial review until all English proceedings are concluded, including a probable eventual Supreme Court decision. Their key argument is that it is constitutionally undesirable for English and Scottish courts to reach opposing decisions in a matter of “national security”.
That Scottish courts should respect English decisions they present not as colonialism, but as “Comity”.
They state that the constitutional argument is so important that the Advocate General herself, Catherine Smith KC, will represent the UK government in person. Indeed this hearing was delayed by two weeks to fit her diary.
Their argument is of course disingenuous. They are not seeking to postpone the Scottish hearing, they are seeking to stop it altogether. If it is constitutionally unacceptable to reach a different decision from the English court, then what would be the point of a Scottish judicial review at any stage?
Furthermore they are entirely illogical because the status quo is that the government has lost to Palestine Action in England at the High Court. It is the government which is appealing there. So if they really believed in “comity” they would drop the government case in Scotland to achieve the same position as England!
Most of the argument we have submitted to court consists of analysis of the effects of the proscription and the impact of suspending it.
The government by contrast have not addressed the proscription at all. They are depending entirely on the constitutional argument that the court should not be hearing the case. But these exact arguments were already dismissed by the court at the permission stage. They do not become any more compelling just because a UK government minister is stating them.
Why is the government so confident it will win on the constitutional point and does not need to address the proscription?
I fear the appearance of the minister is evidence of an Establishment stitch-up. My hackles rise particularly at the remarkable fact that, while the permission hearing was livestreamed and in Court No 1, this much more important hearing is not being livestreamed and is relegated to court No 6, with a much smaller public gallery. If the case is, as the government itself states, of such constitutional importance that the minister must appear in person, why is it being hidden from the public gaze?
Unfortunately I can’t think of any answers to that question which are not deeply troubling.
We desperately need more money to continue this legal case. Each stage of hearing like this costs about £30,000 and the eventual judicial review will cost much more.
Again please contribute if you can but do not contribute if it causes you difficulty. If you know people who are able to afford to help and likely to be sympathetic, please do contact them and ask their assistance. We are trying to keep a lot of very good people out of prison.
You can donate through the link via Crowd Justice, which goes straight to the lawyers, or through this blog.
The furore around the election of Dr Manivannan to the Scottish Parliament is deeply troubling. There is no argument whatsoever that they were eligible to stand for election. The law was changed specifically in order for those on temporary visas to be able to stand in Scottish parliamentary elections.
I confess I am not sure that is altogether a good idea. I can see arguments both ways. There are far too many people amongst our neighbours who have to manage their lives through the Home Office’s discriminatory, hostile and prohibitively expensive immigration application systems. It is good to see such people given a voice.
On the other hand, there is a reasonable expectation of legislators having a fixed stake in the country for which they legislate.
I suspect like most people, the question had never even occurred to me until the current furore over Dr Manivannan and I have to give it some thought.
But whatever view one takes on what the law ought to be, the law as it stands is clear. Dr Manivannan was eligible, stood, and was duly elected.
That Scotland has subsequently been rocked by shrill calls for Dr Manivannan to be deported by the immigration authorities, I therefore find appalling. It is not only a denial of democracy, it is without doubt motivated by the most basic hatred and bigotry, both racist and anti-trans. To see such sentiments so openly espoused in Scotland I find deeply disturbing.
Almost amusing is the argument that, while it was perfectly legal for Dr Manivannan to stand for election, it is illegal for them to be elected.
This argument was first adopted by the radical anti-trans campaigning group For Women Scotland. This group was founded in order to oppose self-ID for trans people. 99% of its output is anti-trans rights argument. They would, however, have us believe that their objection to Dr Manivannan is nothing to do with their being trans, but a longstanding, though hitherto silent, interest in the minutiae of immigration legislation.
The practical reality is straightforward. The Scottish elections happened to fall just after Dr Manivannan completed their PhD.
There is the usual short gap between finishing the thesis and the formal end of the academic year. They are therefore still on their student visa.
They are in the process of applying for the next graduate visa. This would be the position whether or not they had been elected.
A new visa will be needed. It seems highly improbable that the Home Office would refuse one.
A seat in the Scottish Parliament is hardly unrelated to a PhD in Political Science. Quite apart from that, the democratic mandate ought to carry considerable weight.
I know Reform UK has coarsened political discourse across the UK. But to hear gleeful demands for an elected immigrant to be thrown out is dispiriting. Some of these voices even come from within the Scottish independence movement.
I also find the extreme anti-trans positions being put forward in relation to this case downright depressing. The Workers Party of Britain simply tweeted “Trans women are men”, while their lead candidate for Edinburgh argued directly that gender dysphoria is a mental illness and mentally ill people should be banned from parliament.
I have frequently complained that the gender identity question is dominated by such extreme and unreasonable positions. The complete denial of the validity of any trans people is an extreme position. It also rolls back 40 years of broad societal acceptance.
I first met Jan Morris in the 1980s, and have known several other trans people since. For decades, there was little open intolerance. I can’t recall anybody ever suggesting Jan Morris should not use women’s bathrooms – least of all the feminist movement of those times.
Feminism then was about breaking down sexual barriers, not erecting them.
The extraordinary attempt of the US-originated movement to erect differing gender identities into a compulsory and strange ideology transformed the situation. Attempting to introduce compelled speech is not something I support – I try to use people’s preferred pronouns out of politeness, for example, but it is not a matter for the state. The purpose of a pronoun is to specify an individual, not to signal political correctness.
The issue of self-ID led to a real political fracture. Personally I favour treating people as they wish to be treated, which favours self-ID. That is polite, tolerant and kind. But most people find the idea of people self-identifying themselves into women’s elite sports, or reserved women’s positions on boards, to be not obviously desirable.
Personally, I have always specifically opposed the idea that those who have used violence, including but not only sexual violence, against women should be able to self-identify into women’s prisons. That seems to me a blindingly practical exclusion.
The problem is the pro-trans lobby is equally dominated by extremists. They argue that any restriction on the ability of the individual to immediately self-identify is unacceptable, and any restriction on their being treated as their gender of choice is discrimination.
The problem with this position is that it assumes nobody ever lies. The problems for the trans movement has been caused by their inability to accept the existence of fake trans people. You cannot deny by ideology the existence of human criminal behaviour.
In practice, there are a number of men who pretend to be trans, but are not really trans, in order to gain access to women in various situations. I took the position that these were extremely rare and wrongly used to introduce smears against trans people as criminal into the debate.
But then, a succession of shocking cases in Scotland made me realise that my initial views had given insufficient weight to the need for protection of women from fake trans people.
I have had arguments with trans advocates who simply refuse to accept that such people exist. The cases of Isla Bryson, Serenity Francis Johnston, Katie Dolatowski and Alexandra Stewart are notorious and they do exist. They cannot simply be wished away.
They are certainly not representative of trans people in any way, but the debate could helpfully be shifted from the deliberate confusion of trans people with sexual perverts, if only the trans lobby would recognise that men falsely pretending to be trans do actually exist and this needs to be guarded against.
My own position is that anybody guilty of a sexual or violent offence should lose their right to change gender. I believe changing gender should be a right, but some rights are normally lost when you commit a serious crime. It seems to me that is the coherent basis for policy.
However I also believe that nobody should have their rights circumscribed before they have committed any crime, and the mantra of “you can’t tell which man is a rapist” is deeply wrong. It is as offensive and dangerous as racial or other profiling.
The “gender-critical” faction in Scotland have, as usual, reacted to my defending Dr Manivannan on social media by accusing me of adopting all kinds of positions I have never held – like allowing convicted rapists to self-identify into women’s prison, supporting medical intervention in children, or trans women boxers to compete in the Olympics.
Neither side of the debate seems able to comprehend for a moment that people of good will might be trying, in good faith, to find compromises to balance rights so that trans people may lead full and happy lives while hard-won feminine rights – and safety – might not be endangered by faux opportunists.
But it is difficult to explain anything when everybody is screaming at you.
Here is a truth. Scottish people are not stupid. It is extremely well known by now that the Scottish Greens have a very strong line indeed on supporting trans rights and gender self- ID. The Scottish Greens regard my own position outlined above as extremely reactionary. They are fully signed up to the ideology of gender fluidity and its compulsory acceptance.
In the last two Scottish parliamentary elections, alternative pro-Independence parties have stood, noisily, on the very specific and openly stated position that “Trans women are men” and that they oppose trans rights. Most notably Alba in 2021, but also the Independence for Scotland Party and the Workers’ Party of Britain. Famous Independent candidates like Fergus Ewing and Ash Regan also made this a major plank of their platforms.
The party I stood for, Alliance to Liberate Scotland, while having no formal position on the issue, featured mostly candidates who are vocally anti-trans.
Next to nobody voted for them.
A lot of people voted Green.
All of the pro-Independence parties which adopted extreme anti-trans positions got derisory votes, fractions of one per cent. The Greens got many times as many votes. That is how democracy works.
Nicola Sturgeon derailed the SNP when she shifted its emphasis from Independence to identity politics. There is no doubt she shifted the emphasis on purpose. The toxicity of the trans issue in Scottish politics is her legacy – she approached it in the most abrasive and divisive way possible, and used it to force out of her party those not loyal to her. The single most important cause of hatred towards trans people in Scotland is Nicola Sturgeon.
None of which was the fault of Dr Manivannan, but they are the current lightning rod for the resultant hatred. Which is entirely unfair.
It is par for the course that the Tories and Reform are attacking Dr Manivannan. Bigotry is what they do. But for alleged socialists and Independence supporters to join in is deeply dispiriting,
Dr Manivannan has done nothing wrong and is by all accounts a very pleasant and gentle soul. They were elected. Please stop the hate. This member of the Scottish parliament, elected by the Scottish people, must be defended against any attack from the London-based UK Home Office.
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While the Court of Appeal has now stopped the High Court contempt of court action against Rajiv Menon KC for defending his client, this is purely on procedural grounds. They ruled that Judge Johnson had to go via the Attorney General to the High Court, not direct. It is now referred back to Johnson who can use the Attorney General route.
Given that Johnson is a vicious authoritarian, a former lawyer for the security services who did everything possible to rig the Filton trial against the defendants, and that the Attorney General “Lord” Helmer is a vicious pro-genocidal zionist who was Israel’s go-to lawyer on war crimes charges in the UK, this contempt of court action may well not be over.
In addition to barring the use of the terms genocide or ethnic cleansing at trial, barring the defence of necessity to stop war crimes, barring the defendants from explaining the motive of their actions, and barring the jury from being informed of their absolute legal right to acquit, Judge Johnson also barred the jury from being told that he intended to add the terrorism aggravation on sentencing.
This is incredibly important. The norm is in England that you serve 40% of a jail sentence in prison and 60% on parole. If the terrorism aggravation is applied, you serve 100% in jail. So it is the difference between two years in prison and five years in prison. This was hidden from the jury.
A terrorism aggravation will also lead to debanking, severe travel restrictions and very probably loss of career.
The Filton action against the Elbit weapons factory preceded the proscription of Palestine Action, but a judge can add a terrorism aggravation to any offence. (You may recall that in Scotland a young woman is facing charges of “dangerous driving aggravated by terrorism” for an action against the Leonardo weapons factory).
Violence against property can be construed as terrorism in the UK if the objective is to influence government. Extraordinarily, Judge Johnson has indicated that he believes that the actions against the Israeli weapons factories may be intended to influence the policy of the government of Israel. He will announce his final decision at sentencing but he has already told the court (but not the jury) that is his thinking.
The activists have already spent 16 months in jail on remand. In any precedent for a first time criminal damage conviction, including the sentences of Palestine Action and climate activists, they would be extremely unlikely to be given sentences of more than three years in jail. With the standard 40% tariff, that means they would not have further prison time but some remaining time on parole.
Therefore Judge Johnson’s decision to keep them in prison pending sentencing next month appears to indicate he is intending to impose abnormally long sentences and the terrorist aggravation.
Two of the six defendants were completely acquitted. Three were acquitted on all counts, except the most minor one of criminal damage. But for this Johnson can sentence them to ten years in prison, and use the terrorism aggravation to remove the possibility of parole.
This is astonishing for two reasons:
Firstly, the notion that those damaging Israeli weapons did so in the hope of changing Netanyahu’s mind about destroying Gaza – as opposed to destroying some of his weapons supply – is plainly nonsensical.
The second is that if they were trying to change Netanyahu’s mind, they were trying to influence him against committing Genocide.
Which only a hardwired zionist nutter like Judge Johnson can consider a bad thing.
The legal fight against the proscription of Palestine Action continues. We are back in court on 27 May in Edinburgh with a motion to suspend the proscription in Scotland. We urgently need funds to take on the power and unlimited resources of the state.
I am afraid these proceedings are horribly expensive to keep the legal battle going. Again please contribute if you can but do not contribute if it causes you difficulty. If you know people who are able to afford to help and likely to be sympathetic, please do contact them and ask their assistance. We are trying to keep a lot of very good people out of prison.
You can donate through the link via Crowd Justice, which goes straight to the lawyers, or through this blog.
Unquestioning Zionism has for decades been the entry ticket to the British political and media Establishment. Anybody who was not a fully certified and compliant zionist would find their career limited – as Jeremy Corbyn, Alan Duncan, Robin Cook and David Mellor all found. Most others, of course, were never allowed to progress that far.
In the media there are any number of examples – Antoinette Lattouf, Emily Wilder, Katie Halper, Gabriele Nunziante and Sangita Myska just from the top of my head. Lack of enthusiasm for Israel is career-destroying.
One consequence is that now, as the UK political system retches to try and vomit up a new Prime Minister, every single one of the contenders – Andy Burnham, Angela Rayner, Ed Miliband and Wes Streeting – has a long history of nailed-on, certified zionism and relationship with both Israel and Labour Friends of Israel, and is a long-term recipient of zionist lobby cash.
The media have spent the last several days since the local elections studiously ignoring the fact that support for Genocide is a key factor in alienating the Labour Party’s traditional voting base – or when they do mention it, relating it only to Muslim voters. One thing we know for certain is that any probable new Prime Minister is not going to change Britain’s support for the genocidal zionist entity.
Zionism has long poisoned the central nervous system of the UK body politic. For many years, due to their media control, this system worked seamlessly. The media portrayed a benign image of Israel as a bastion of liberal democratic values under siege from corrupt and barbaric Arab peoples. The Genocide of Palestinians, which has been in progress almost 80 years, proceeded at a pace and by methods which rigorous media control made it possible to convince Western audiences was not really happening at all.
When a kickback against Genocide came on October 7th 2023, media gatekeeping made the declaration of condemnation of Hamas a ritual which had to be observed to ensure purity before you were permitted to express anything else at all. The media united around false atrocity stories of the events of October 7th. Then they united around false Israeli narratives in which every Gazan hospital, clinic, school, public utility and eventually home was a secret Hamas missile base.
At this point, something broke. There was a spectacular burst in public opinion. From being a lulling, soothing narrative of European civilisational superiority, the zionist propaganda was revealed as obvious lies in the service of the very worst atrocities man could do to man (and child).
The media covered up the horrors and the Israeli government raced to stem the flow of images out of Gaza by murdering every journalist there, but public belief in the zionist narrative was fatally damaged.
The result of that was western zionist governments became scared of their own populations. In virtually every western state, extreme authoritarian measures were adopted to limit free speech and punish pro-Palestinian protest. This was followed by attempts to reinforce the exclusion from public life of non-zionists by a new wave of accusations of anti-semitism, reinforced by waves of false flag or agent provocateur organised “anti-semitic incidents”.
Incidentally the Hasbara invented “Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyya” so-called terrorist group – actually an Israeli-operated Telegram account – was first “revealed” to the Western public by Joe Truzman of Israeli Washington front organisation the Foundation for Defending Democracy (FDD). Nick Stewart of FDD has subsequently been added to the Witkoff-Kushner negotiating team with Iran and flew to Islamabad with them.
The Iranians have entirely sensibly refused to engage with this group as simply representing Israel.
That is where we are now, with extraordinary developments like the effort to jail and debar Rajiv Menon KC for contempt of court for what I had called the greatest legal speech I ever read, and the charging of thousands of peaceful citizens under terrorism laws for supporting Palestine Action.
Those are but horrible symptoms of a wider malaise – and the fundamental shift is that the majority of the population, and above all of younger people, now realise that they are governed by a political and media class which acts in service of a zionist project which is truly evil.
The billionaire class was already allied with the far right. As the appalling fall in living standards of ordinary people since the 2008 banking crisis has been caused by the massive and artificially wrought concentration of wealth which followed, the efforts to divert attention from the hoarders of wealth instead to scapegoat immigrants have entailed massive financial and corporate media backing for racist politicians.
This now synchs neatly with their need for support for zionism. Zionism has found support through an easy alliance with the rampant Islamophobia that underpins much of the anti-migrant sentiment in the UK and rest of the Western world.
Israel’s core support now does not feel the need to hide the fact that Israel was always a deeply racist project. Israel’s core supporters now glory in racist Genocide, as the Tommy Robinson march this weekend will demonstrate and as the Israeli flags at Reform rallies show.
Israel flags at a Reform party leader’s speech is literally all you need to see.
On last week’s election coverage on all UK TV channels, every single time a Green representative came on they were immediately pushed to criticise Zack Polanski’s comments on the Golders Green incident – where a certified lunatic stabbed two Jewish men after stabbing a Muslim man. I was sad – and somewhat shocked – to hear every single Green party representative head immediately for the Jeremy Corbyn tactic of abject apology and condemnation of “anti-semitism”.
Only Jenny Jones then pushed back against the conflation of criticism of Israel with anti-semitism.
The exclusion of non-zionists is still in force within the political and media class. It will remain in force until we change the political and media class.
Personally, the disconnect between the revulsion of the large majority of people of the western world at the Genocide in Gaza, and the people’s complete lack of political power to stop their uniparty political leaderships from supporting Genocide, has fundamentally changed my view of politics. I now fully accept that the change the western world needs is revolutionary, not incremental.
The problem is those of the exploited classes who have reached breaking point, have so far been easily diverted down the track of racism and away from their true enemies. I fear that is a tactic not likely to fail soon.
We continue to fight with what weapons we have to hand. On 27 May at the Court of Session in Edinburgh we will continue our legal battle against the proscription of Palestine Action.
The 27 May hearing will be on our motion to suspend the proscription in Scotland pending the Scottish judicial review. Decent, caring people are still being dragged through the Scottish courts on potentially life-changing terrorism charges merely for expressing their support for Palestine Action’s attempts to stop Genocide. Many have been dragged to court again and again as their cases are continually put off, while the legal establishment havers over the proscription.
The Crown Office refuses to drop prosecutions and Police Scotland refuses to say it will not arrest people. Nobody has any certainty as to whether the law is being enforced or not. Arrests and prosecutions appear entirely at executive whim – the very definition of arbitrary government. We seek to end this uncertainty.
The UK government is bringing a counter motion to sist (suspend) the judicial review pending the conclusion of the English proceedings – a straight Unionist argument that these things should be decided in London for the whole of the UK.
I do hope you will come to the court in Edinburgh on 27 May, both to witness the proceedings and to demonstrate outside and show that public revulsion at Genocide is not going away, and is only increased by Israel’s illegal attacks on Iran and Lebanon.
I am afraid these proceedings are horribly expensive to keep the legal battle going. Again please contribute if you can but do not contribute if it causes you difficulty. If you know people who are able to afford to help and likely to be sympathetic, please do contact them and ask their assistance. We are trying to keep a lot of very good people out of prison.
You can donate through the link via Crowd Justice, which goes straight to the lawyers, or through this blog.
We get so trapped inside the logic of the UK’s crazy electoral systems we often do not see what is really happening. Two thirds of active voters, voted against Starmer’s Labour at the last general election. He was always highly unpopular.
Just as Starmer’s landslide victory in the 2024 general election was based on only 33.7% of votes cast, as Reform fractured the right-wing vote across First Past the Post (FPTP) constituencies, so the SNP in Scotland stand to sweep to victory in tomorrow’s parliamentary elections under the D’Hondt system on an extremely similar percentage.
The D’Hondt system is modified FPTP. It consists of two parts. One part is simple, unadulterated FPTP. You elect a member of the Scottish parliament in a constituency, exactly as in a standard UK parliamentary election.
Then there is a second part. Constituencies are grouped into regions. You then have a second ballot paper to elect regional MSPs. On the second paper, you vote not for a person but for a party. As in the constituency vote, the regional vote is a simple X. The constituency MSPs won by a particular party in a region are discounted, and then the regional MSPs are divided between the parties on a basis broadly proportionate to that vote.
So if a party wins all or most of the constituency MSPs in the region, it is unlikely to get any regional candidates, unless it is polling at over 50%.
This is exactly what happened to the SNP in the 2021 Holyrood elections. It swept the constituencies, so 1.1 million regional list votes brought it only two regional list seats. By comparison, minority parties were able to pick up individual regional list seats with as few as 17,000 votes in a region.
This is definitely going to happen again. The SNP is only polling at 33% but will sweep almost all the constituencies, because the Tories, Reform and Labour are each polling between 16 and 20%. The parliament has 73 constituency seats and 56 regional seats.
But Tories, Reform and Labour could each pick up hatfuls of regional list seats because the SNP regional list votes will be discounted by the constituency seats they have won.
The D’Hondt system can be gamed, very easily. If SNP voters were all to cast their regional list seats for a different pro-Independence party, the unionist parties could be virtually eliminated from the Scottish parliament.
There is an argument this is “cheating”. Well it isn’t, because it is within the rules. The UK has rotten electoral systems. That usually assists us to get terrible governments, like the Starmer regime. If we can play the system to some good for once – and we can, perfectly legally – let us do so.
Unfortunately it is extremely difficult to persuade SNP voters to do this. They are very loyal to their party. The tragedy of this is that they view casting “both votes SNP” as a declaration of support for Scottish Independence.
Why this is tragedy is that the SNP’s careerist leadership has only a performative commitment to Independence. They know it is Independence support that gets them elected, so they remember it around elections. Their policy is to ask London for permission to hold another Independence referendum, through what is called a Section 30 process.
The problem is that everybody knows that Starmer, and all the other UK parties, will refuse a Scottish referendum. When that happens, the SNP’s John Swinney and his clique will huff and puff a little, then go back to enjoying their “ministerial” limousines and salaries, and forget Independence until the next election in 2031.
This has been happening for over a decade. The tragedy is the SNP voters who still remain do not see an alternative.
As I said, we get so trapped by these electoral systems that we do not notice what is really happening in politics. What is really happening in Scotland – the biggest single voter movement in decades – is the disconnection between Independence support and SNP support.
Independence support is, across the large majority of opinion polls in the last year, steady around 52%, with polls falling within the margin of error of that figure.
By contrast SNP support is only around 34%, with polls falling within the margin of error of that figure.
There is a profound, long-term gap of 18% between Independence support and SNP support.
Over one third of Independence supporters do not vote SNP.
Where is that Independence support going?
Well, it is with other political parties. Most significantly with Labour, with over 25% of Labour voters regularly showing in polls as supporting Independence. The figure for Reform appears to be at least as high. There is also Independence support for the Green Party, which is significant in D’Hondt.
But unfortunately a great many of the third of Independence supporters who do not vote SNP have given up. They won’t vote at all in the elections. They will just sit on their hands.
The significant tactical voting under D’Hondt is from SNP to Scottish Green. The fifth or so of SNP voters who have worked out that their regional vote is wasted if they cast it for the SNP, mainly intend to vote Scottish Green on the regional list. Indeed, this is the only thing that puts the Scottish Greens into Holyrood.
SNP voters tend to do this because the Scottish Greens have been in coalition with the SNP. But I believe this to be mistaken.
The Scottish Greens are only very lightly committed to Independence. It is point 27 in their 38 point manifesto – and their Scottish Deputy Leader has already stated that the moratorium on hydrocarbon projects is more important to them than Independence in forming a government. They have not ruled out joining a unionist coalition.
I have much time for the Greens in England. The Scottish Greens are an entirely separate party and frankly (remember all politics is personal) are dominated by some extremely weird and unpleasant people who should be nowhere near political power.
Scottish politics desperately need shaking up. That is why I am standing as a candidate for the Alliance to Liberate Scotland, an eight-week-old political party which has one single policy: Scottish Independence. We do not accept a London veto and believe the Scottish people should act immediately on their right of self-determination.
You cannot believe both that Scots are a people with the right of self-determination under the UN charter, and that London should have a veto. The UK Establishment will never voluntarily give up Scotland’s magnificent resources. If we want Independence, we must take it.
That is why I urge people to vote to put real radical firebrands into the Scottish parliament, like myself, Tommy Sheridan, Eva Comrie and many others. You can vote for the Alliance to Liberate Scotland in many constituencies, and on all regional lists.
Now, unfortunately I suffered heart problems and was hospitalised at the start of this election, and was unable to campaign. Had I been well, even a result equivalent to my 2005 Blackburn General Election vote (5%) would have probably seen me elected on the regional list and my 2024 vote (18%) would have seen me not just elected but bringing in at least one other regional MSP with me.
But illness means there has been not one speech, not one hustings, not one interview, not one door knocked, not one leaflet delivered beyond the single Election Communication.
But I have not pulled out because I think it is essential to give people the chance to vote for Scottish Independence if they wish to do so – and genuinely vote for somebody who actually intends to do something about it.
I hope you cherish every vote you give to the Alliance to Liberate Scotland as much as we will cherish your trust. Just do the honest thing with your vote.
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A vast cloying morass of injustice has visibly submerged the British legal systems in anything connected to Palestine.
In a quite incredible series of linked and kinked events this week, the senior KC representing one of the Palestine Action activists in the Filton trial was in the Court of Appeal arguing against being found in contempt of court for his summing up in that case – a speech which I described at the time as the greatest legal speech I had ever read.
He fell foul of the quite incredible conditions imposed on the defence in that trial – they must not refer to the motive of their clients for action against Elbit, they must not refer to Elbit’s role in the Israeli defence industry, they must not refer to genocide or to ethnic cleansing in relation to Gaza.
Compare this to the public statements of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley and of then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper where they claimed that one of the defendants had attacked a policewoman with a sledgehammer – a blatant attempt to influence the jury in the Filton trial.
What is very plain in the Filton case, as in the Alex Salmond case, is that contempt of court rules are only applied to the defence and not to the prosecution.
Juries had been shown by the prosecution the notebooks of the defendants, with all information about Elbit and their operations removed.
The barristers were also forbidden from telling the jury that they have the right to acquit according to their conscience, irrespective of the direction of the judge.
The first Filton trial famously failed to return any guilty verdicts at all, and all defendants were found not guilty of aggravated burglary, with no verdict returned on more minor charges.
This was extremely important as the aggravated burglary charge carries the meaning of a deliberate purpose to cause harm to persons, not just to property (the phrase “aggravated burglary” does not obviously carry the connotation of intent to harm persons to the layman, but that is the purport in English law).
The acquittals on aggravated burglary were particularly annoying to the Starmer regime because this accusation about intent to harm people was a key part of Yvette Cooper’s entirely dishonest argument for proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.
The Filton verdicts were a major setback for the government, and the unfortunate KC was dragged in by the judge for the unforgivable offence of securing the acquittal of his client in a situation which was extremely embarrassing to Starmer and Cooper.
The subsequent contempt case could lead to both the KC being disbarred and to his imprisonment. To add to the incredibly sinister story, this case is entirely secret. It is illegal to mention the contempt case at all – and could lead to imprisonment for contempt of anyone who mentions it.
Yet that is only the first layer of the heaving mass of injustice around this case.
The government has attempted to make it illegal to inform jurors of their established right to acquit according to their conscience.
In 2023 Trudi Warner was arrested standing outside a Crown Court in a climate activist trial, for holding a sign which said “Jurors. You have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience”. This legal principle is on a marble plaque in the Old Bailey.
The High Court dismissed the case against Warner, stating that she was informing the jury of an established legal principle. In 2024 the government dropped its appeal against the High Court ruling in Warner’s favour.
Yet astonishingly, the Metropolitan Police have again arrested Trudi Warner, for standing outside the Filton Trial holding the exact same sign. They arrested others holding the same wording as well.
The Metropolitan Police claim different grounds for arrest this time: under section 14 of the 1986 Public Order Act they banned the small protest by Trudy and a handful of others. That the protest threatened serious disruption or intimidation – the bar under the Public Order Act – is plainly a nonsense.
The increasingly fascist Metropolitan Police are simply seeking to find a way to get round the High Court judgment and prevent the jury being informed of their right to acquit.
In Judge Johnson the government have an entirely complicit judge in limiting what the jury may hear, and in the Metropolitan Police they have an entirely compliant tool in keeping knowledge of their rights from the jury.
Now we have to delve still another layer deeper into the stench of corruption around this case. The government decided to go for a retrial of the Filton case on the more minor charges on which the jury had been unable to reach a verdict, having returned not guilty on the major ones.
The limitations of what the barristers could say in their defence speeches were so extreme, that five of the six defendants in the Filton Trial decided to dismiss their barristers before the end of their case and make their closing speeches themselves.
Yes, you read that right. The barristers were forbidden from making the defence case, so the defendants had to speak for themselves.
To be plain, the defendants equally face the risk of possible imprisonment for contempt of court for breaching Judge Johnson’s orders in what they said to the jury, but unlike the barristers they do not of course face professional disbarment.
And what great speeches they all made. The Real Media website has done a fantastic job in documenting the trial, and I highly recommend you to read the closing speeches in full. But just this little segment from Charlotte Head’s closing speech in the Filton trial casts some light on what a monumental attempted stitch-up the egregious Judge Johnson has presided over:
The first thing that you might have noticed about the prosecution case is that they didn’t call a single security guard to give evidence. The prosecutor asked you to see things from Volante’s perspective [described in evidence as the most violent of the Elbit security guards], and you could have. She chose not to call him or any security guard to actually give evidence, because they know that they were the ones intimidating us. And if that wasn’t true, they would have called them to the stand.
The truth is that the security guards, like Elbit itself, have been shielded and sheltered by the state.
If this was a shop that we’d broken into, which I would never do by the way, then you’d expect the owner to come to court. You’d expect him to list all of the items that were damaged, and describe the impact it’s had on his business. But where is Elbit? You’ve heard a very detailed and very boring inventory of the tools we brought to dismantle the weapons. You even have – behind Tab 10 – pictures with information like the brand and the weight and the material of every single tool. So where is that information about the weapons that we dismantled? If this case is supposedly only about damage, then where is the inventory?
And I think that brings me to the CCTV. Everything that we’ve heard about the CCTV system came second-hand from PC Sarah Grant. Once again, the prosecution did not want to put an Elbit Systems employee in front of you to answer for themselves. They know that the explanation of why there is missing footage doesn’t make sense. The low frame rate cannot explain the missing footage. You’ve seen it. We spent way longer than a minute in that alcove. No matter how low the frame rate was, it’s impossible that nobody was pictured on that camera, where Volante was being incredibly violent. Coincidentally, we don’t have any body-worn footage from the alcove either. We also don’t have CCTV of the area where Luke [another Elbit guard] had Lottie screaming on the floor, or body-worn. Or when Mr. Volante hit Jordan in the neck with a sledgehammer – you only saw that because it’s captured on police body-worn.
PC Phoebe Webber accepted that there were CCTV cameras that covered all of these areas, and we know that security all had body-worn cameras. Sarah Grant accepted that someone would have to set the frame rates, but of course, Witness Alpha [described as a senior Elbit employee whose identity has been withheld from defence lawyers] , who hasn’t been here at all, couldn’t remember the password to access the settings. Could anyone really believe that a multi-million pound weapons and technology company that specializes in surveillance drones didn’t have a CCTV system that worked?
Not only were Elbit shielded from anything at all being said about their supply of weapons to Israel, not only was it forbidden to mention genocide and ethnic cleansing, but some key Elbit witnesses – I presume from Mossad or the IDF – were granted anonymity.
I previously reported that the police left the recordings of the video evidence, in their police evidence bags, in the custody of Elbit for over a year. Throughout this prosecution the Metropolitan Police, Elbit, the Crown Prosecution Service and the judge have been a part of a seamless zionist security operation.
This is from the closing speech of Zoe Rogers:
After hearing the 6 of us give evidence you might think it odd that what’s happening in Palestine has gone completely unmentioned, you might have noticed certain words that have been blacklisted, that until our closing speeches the word genocide wasn’t said once. There have been interruptions from the prosecution, quick subject changes from our barristers – it’s almost as if whole topics of conversation have been banned. The prosecution know full well that we are right that this factory is supplying weapons to Israel to be used in Gaza. That is why they are choosing to suppress it rather than contest it. The prosecution have decided that the legality of Israel’s actions is irrelevant in this trial. Because they know you could not in good conscience find us guilty of anything if you were allowed to hear the whole truth.
…Now I’m an ordinary person, with friends, family, a place at university, a cat I love, basically a whole lot to lose by going to prison. But you know that we all actually intended to be arrested on the 6th of August. We intended to go to trial. And I won’t speak for the others here, but the reason I was willing and confident enough to allow that, was because I knew that now, 20 months in the future, I would be standing in front of 12 ordinary people like you. Not politicians, not legal experts, not barristers and judges wearing 400 yr old horsehair on their heads, but a panel of my equals. You are the best counterweight to power and tyranny within the legal system as it exists today. It is a privilege to be judged by you. And I don’t say that to flatter you, but because as you’ve already heard, the right to trial by jury is under threat, with a Bill passing through the House of Commons as I speak. Juries as we know them today may not be around for much longer, precisely because your pockets cannot be weighed down by bribes from the rich and powerful. (And also because juries often refuse to convict in these kinds of cases). And that is a very powerful position for you to be in.
No one can tell you to convict in this case, not even the judge. In fact, the judge is explicitly not allowed to tell you to convict! You, and only you, can decide on your verdicts. But not only can you acquit us, but you have the RIGHT to acquit us. No one can punish you for your decision. No one can even ask you why.
On Tuesday the jury will start its third day of deliberation. Once the verdicts are in, it is going to be fascinating to see if Johnson attempts to find any of the defendants in contempt of court for their closing speeches. They went further than the barrister who has already been attacked in this way.
Let us now leave Woolwich Crown Court (a physical adjunct of Belmarsh prison) and head to the Royal Courts of Justice, where the Starmer regime held this week its appeal against the High Court finding that the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful.
I have always suspected that the British deep state will ensure the proscription is upheld at the end of a charade of a legal procedure. I was not diminished in that belief by this article by Joshua Rozenberg, partner of lunatic uber-zionist Melanie Phillips, in which he argues that the extremely unusual forming of a five-judge court of appeal, including England and Wales’s two most senior judges, is to bolster the court with sufficient seniority convincingly to overturn Dame Victoria Sharp and her three-judge panel.
The hearing did not on the surface go terribly well for the Starmer regime. Their primary argument was that the proscription had been democratically approved by parliament and the courts had no right to interfere.
In terms of judicial consideration, the assertion that, in effect, the European Convention on Human Rights does not apply if parliament approves an Order which contravenes it, is problematic (though the English courts would probably uphold it in primary legislation).
In the real world, of course, the sham of democracy ignores the fact that Cooper, Starmer, Lammy and the lot of them are bought and paid for by the zionist lobby.
Huda Ammori’s (co-founder of Palestine Action) legal team made the obvious points of the effect of the proscription on human rights and freedom of expression. This was bolstered by a letter of 1500 signatories openly defying the law and declaring support for Palestine Action and opposition to genocide.
Ammori’s team were able to make rather more of a couple of points that had, in my view, been given insufficient prominence at earlier hearings.
The first is the argument that the measure has a disproportionately severe effect on the Palestinian community in the UK, who feel suppressed in protesting against the devastating attacks on their own people and risk false classification as terrorist.
It is worth noting that Israeli interests were extensively consulted before the ban was imposed, but not one single Palestinian was consulted.
The second is a more pointed emphasis on the astonishing argument by the Metropolitan Police and the Joint Terrorism Assessment Centre in the papers recommending proscription, that designation as terrorism is necessary because Palestine Action keep appointing good defence lawyers and achieving acquittals.
This acknowledgement that the proscription is an attempt to undermine the criminal justice system should be key to the case. It is not a point that to date the judges have been willing to tackle – no judicial decision has acknowledged it so far.
The Starmer regime is intent on the entire subversion of the supposed protections of British justice. It is operating purely in the interests of a foreign state, in order to protect Israel from any potential consequences of the public revulsion against its genocidal onslaught on the Palestinians.
To complete this circle of crazed authoritarianism, after the open hearings on the government appeal over the proscription of Palestine Action concluded, there was a day of “closed hearing” where secret evidence is heard. Huda Ammori will never be told what was alleged in these hearings and never have a chance to answer.
I am the “petitioner” in the parallel judicial review in Scotland. That case should have concluded by now, except the Starmer regime has been introducing “secret evidence” in closed session. I do not even know when such sessions are happening, let alone what is said in them.
My “interests” are “represented” by regime-approved lawyers who are forbidden from any communication with me. We can guess at the lies that are being told in these closed sessions – such guesses might range from Iranian funding to bomb manufacture – but we cannot even testify they are lies.
The Starmer regime has now, for the third time, introduced a motion to “sist” the Scottish judicial review until after the English case has concluded, on the basis that it is undesirable for Scottish and English courts to reach differing conclusions.
This is the third time they have attempted to sist the case, so far without success.
We have applied for interim relief – that the proscription should be suspended in Scotland pending the judicial review, because it is so delayed, in order to avoid people being convicted of terrorism on the basis of an Order subsequently found unlawful.
The Starmer regime is making the process as long and drawn out as possible, partly to postpone a potential politically damaging defeat, but mostly as a matter of lawfare. Each hearing drains our financial resources. I am afraid this tactic against us does have the potential to succeed.
Unless we can widen our donor base we are not going to get this case over the line. That would be a great shame, because it is crucial not only for freedom of expression, not only as a stand against the genocide in Palestine, but as an assertion of the independent rights of Scotland and its legal system.
If you can help fund the case please do so. But if you know anybody else who has the means to make a contribution, and who supports the principles for which we are fighting, please speak to them and see if they can help. I am extremely grateful to the thousands who have contributed so far.
You can donate through the link via Crowd Justice, which goes straight to the lawyers, or through this blog.
