As the trial finished at Woolwich Crown Court of the six Palestine Action activists who entered the Filton factory to destroy Israeli killer drones, Starmer, Cooper, Lammy and Mahmood are left bereft of a single guilty verdict in the case on which they relied heavily to label Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

I could not, on pain of imprisonment, tell you this during the trial. One item produced by the prosecution as evidence was the notebook of Charlotte Head, on which she had written details from her training session with Palestine Action and of the proposed direct action against Elbit’s drone factory.

The first ten pages of her notes were about the Israeli weapons company Elbit, their footprint in the UK, their corporate structure and the weapons they manufacture, and the evidence of the use of their weaponry in the genocide in Gaza.

The jury were shown the notebook but were specifically not allowed to see the first ten pages. Throughout the trial anything that referred to the crimes of Elbit, their role in the mass killing and mutilation of women and children, and their cosy relationship with the British government, was excluded from the jury. The judge continually stopped the defence lawyers from asking or saying anything about who Elbit are or why their property was being attacked.

The defendants were not permitted therefore to explain to the jury why they did what they did – which you might have believed was a pretty fundamental right. The jury were additionally, in effect, instructed by Judge Johnson to convict on the least serious charge, that of criminal damage.

But despite the state taking every possible precaution to ensure that the state got its convictions in this show trial, the jury refused to find that trying to stop Genocide is a crime.

This trial was fundamental to the government’s argument that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation. And the key to that was the accusation that Palestine Action from the start intended harm to people, not just to property. That is why these defendants were all charged with “aggravated burglary”.

Aggravated burglary is an extremely serious charge, carrying a potential life sentence. It is the offence of breaking into a property with the intent to use a weapon. On aggravated burglary, all six defendants were found resoundingly Not Guilty.

So the attempt to portray Palestine Action as an organisation involved in violence against persons has fallen flat on its face. Because the jury could see it was stupid and obviously untrue.

When it comes to events after the activists were attacked by security guards, three of the six were found not guilty of the charge of “violent disorder”. On three others the jury could not reach a verdict.

Most interesting of all perhaps was the charge of criminal damage to Elbit’s machinery and instruments of genocide. Here Judge Johnson to all intents and purposes had instructed the jury to convict. Yet enough of the jury could not accept that stopping Genocide is a crime.

The final question was the charge against Samuel Corner of Grievous Bodily Harm with Intent. This was the famous incident where the security guards attacked the defendants with weapons and there was a melee as they defended themselves.

It is worth stating that the tabloid stories and right-wing meme of “a policewoman’s spine was fractured” was always utter nonsense. As the defence closing speech stated:

The prosecution have said it was a fracture to the spine, a deliberate choice of words which although technically accurate, conjure up a break, a snapping of the spinal vertebrae. Maybe that’s what the jury had in mind until they saw the CT scan – it was actually an injury that wasn’t obvious. The doctors looking at the first X-rays didn’t identify any bone damage, nor in an MRI later.

The injury didn’t require surgery and Sergeant Evans was advised to take painkillers and do physiotherapy. The agreed facts state from medical evidence that you’d expect such a fracture to heal in six to twelve weeks, with full healing in three to six months, and no long-term consequences.

The unfortunate policewoman suffered no damage at all to her spinal cord. She had a possible hairline fracture to the wing of one vertebra. That there was any fracture at all was never definitive from the X-rays and MRIs. Whether it reached the bar of grievous bodily harm was disputed; how it was caused was disputed; and whether there was any intent to harm was disputed. The refusal of the jury to convict was completely consistent with the evidence heard in court.

This has driven right-wingers into a frenzy with completely false claims about the extent of the injury, and continued reference to a highly edited brief video clip.

That video clip is extremely important because it represents the height of the state’s attempt to use this incident to demonise Palestine Action. The police were permitted, during the course of the trial, to release a single and highly edited clip of video said to represent the injury of Sergeant Evans by a sledgehammer. A great deal of other video evidence was not released. This resulted in a massive media frenzy.

Even before this, Yvette Cooper and Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Mark Rowley had caused massive prejudice by stating that a policewoman had been attacked with a sledgehammer.

None of these deliberate attempts to affect the trial was censured by the judge nor resulted in any proceedings for contempt of court. Yet we were strictly told we absolutely could not mention that the judge was withholding the evidence about Elbit from the jury, as that would prejudice the trial and we would face contempt of court proceedings.

On Sergeant Evans, she has become a cause célèbre for the right, but I should say there is no evidence she is herself whipping this up. Her behaviour on the night was admirable. She was not herself involved in the excessive use of force – and, despite her own painful back, tended to others after the event quietened.

In my view, this prosecution was doomed by the overcharging and exaggeration used by the government to demonise Palestine Action. The “aggravated burglary” charge was ludicrous. To attempt to claim that the activists entered the factory with the intent of using weapons against people, went so far against the evidence it was bound to fail.

The massive over-exaggeration of the extent of Sergeant Evans’s injury has successfully whipped up right-wing hysteria, but did not really meet the threshold of grievous bodily harm, and the decision to add intent to that charge was again not backed by evidence.

On criminal damage, the jury plainly refused to accept the destruction of weapons of genocide was a crime. For that, I salute them. For the rest, they simply applied robust common sense to the evidence before them.

The “policewoman attacked with a sledgehammer” nonsense of course featured heavily in the English judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. In the Scottish judicial review, they cannot really use this – not without a caveat that a jury did not agree with them.

The Filton result is great news for the Scottish judicial review. We have to submit all the paperwork for that, in just seven working days. I hate to say this, but we are now desperately short of funds to continue this action. I cannot keep asking the same supporters to give more, but if you know people who can afford it and will contribute please activate them.

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I have now been here a week and I think that I have absorbed enough to attempt a little analysis, as opposed to the simple impressions I gave shortly after arrival.

Those impressions remain valid however: this is not a repressive state. I was on the Randy Credico show live on WBAI New York on Friday, and by chance my friend, the renowned FBI whistleblower Colleen Rowley was also on, from Minnesota (where I have stayed with Colleen and her husband in their home).

I was explaining that, in a week of going all round Caracas, I had yet to see a checkpoint, that nobody had at any stage asked me who I am, what I was doing or prevented me from going anywhere, and that the shops, bars and restaurants are all functioning normally.

Colleen reported from Minneapolis that there were checkpoints everywhere, that the streets are full of heavily armed men, that people are frequently stopped, questioned, asked to produce documents, and diverted, and that many shops bars and restaurants are closed because the staff are afraid to venture out into the streets. Colleen is heavily involved in detainee support and in getting supplies to people sheltering in their homes.

Remind me again, which of us is in a supposed dictatorship?

I want to tell you a couple of things to help explain Venezuela. I visited the mausoleum of Simon Bolivar, a genuinely heroic man. He has now been removed from the main Venezuelan Pantheon into a connected dedicated modern mausoleum. The Pantheon itself contains the remains of many of the heroes of the Venezuelan War of Independence, and monuments to all of them.

The Venezuelan War of Independence was, of course, in many respects similar to the United States war given the same name. It was a war between colonial elites and their metropolitan masters. Unlike the founders of the USA, Bolivar himself was genuinely opposed to slavery, but that was not true of many of his key allies.

So the Pantheon as originally conceived in the late 19th century was inhabited by the remains and memories almost entirely of those heroic people of Spanish descent who fought against the colonial control of Spain. This is the great founding ideal of Venezuela.

When Chavez and Maduro came to power, they made a very important change. They added a monument to the liberated slaves who had fought against the Spanish. Then Chavez and Maduro each added an extra monument: to leaders of the Native Americans who had fought against Spanish invasion in the first place.

This caused outrage among right wingers furious that the purity of the Pantheon, the great focus of Venezuelan nationalism, was being desecrated for what they viewed as political purposes. Which brings me to what I think is a fundamental observation. Politics in Venezuela are basically racial.

I am treading on eggshells here, but in 2019 I published this post noticing the contrast between opposition and government group photos. The leadership of the right wing are basically whiter. That is simply who they are.

Of course the divide is not absolute, and individual exceptions exist. But it is there. Politics in Venezuela are strongly class based, and in this post-colonial society it is difficult to disentangle race from class.

What the opposition want is simply to turn back the clock and restore economic apartheid in Venezuela. I had a very interesting talk with Ricardo Vaz of Venezuela Analysis. He explained how Chavez’s revolutionary policies had brought people into political discourse who had always been ignored in what was historically an extremely unequal society:

“The rulers, now the opposition, suddenly found that their cook, their cleaner, their driver and even their gardener were learning to read and write and starting to get political ideas. They did not like this at all”.

They still don’t like that. It is not possible for me here now to capture what happened exactly in the 2024 elections. Plainly the opposition performed relatively well, though I do not in the least believe they got 68% of the result. Maduro’s closing rally had 1 million people while the opposition’s had 50,000.

For the government to remain in power against the will of 68% of the population would require a degree of state repression which simply does not exist here. There is very little surveillance compared to Western states, let alone to acknowledged dictatorships. There are no politicised police or militias in the streets. There are no restrictions on people moving around and mingling.

Machado has discredited herself, as effectively as she has discredited the Nobel peace prize. Giving the prize to Trump made her look foolish and suppliant, and praising the bombing of her own country which killed fellow citizens has really not gone down well at all, even with opposition supporters.

But even that has not harmed her nearly as much as her remark to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee that 60% of Venezuelans are involved in narcotics or prostitution. This is not quite what she said, but it is near enough and it really annoyed people here:

We have the Colombian guerrilla, the drug cartels that have taken over 60% of our populations, and not only involving drug trafficking, but in human trafficking, in networks of prostitution. So this has turned Venezuela into the criminal hub of the Americas…

Which takes me back to personal impressions. I have, as those who follow me would expect, assiduously been checking out the bars of Caracas. I have found some very beautiful ones – Juan Sebastian Bar is one of the most lovely bars that I have ever seen. A piece of stunning interior design. I took these photos before it opened one evening. It serves mojitos even better than you can get in Havana.

That is not a mirror, those are two grand pianos!

The point is that not in my hotel, not in any bar, not on any street, have I seen a single person who appeared to be operating as a sex worker. Not one – and I might perhaps be viewed as a pretty archetypal target. Similarly I have not seen any sign at all of narcotics abuse. In two days in Salisbury investigating the Skripal hoax I was shocked by how many obvious drug addicts we saw on the streets. There is nothing of the kind in Caracas.

While I appreciate that the allegation is that Venezuela exports narcotics rather than consumes them, you always get clusters of addiction around production points and transit nodes. I just see no evidence that the common tropes about Venezuela and Venezuelans are true: and I am a trained and seasoned observer.

Sanctions against Venezuela did not start after the disputed 2024 election; they have been applied by the Western powers more or less since the very start of Chavez’s socialist experiment. The repression of socialism in Latin America has been US policy for a century, and the more Chavez succeeded the more the West sought to suppress it. France refused to provide spares for the Mirage jets of the Venezuelan air force, and equally refused to supply spare parts for the trains of the Metro service.

The gold and foreign currency reserves abroad of the government of Venezuela have simply been stolen by foreign governments, and the blocking of Venezuela from the Swift bank transfer system for a while caused havoc. It has however spurred BRICS to develop an alternative, not fully adopted, not finished but working in Venezuela, which accounts for the full stocks in the shops and ultimately might represent a significant moment in international economics.

Slowly, unwillingly, the Socialist Party under Maduro has been forced precisely by the crippling effect of sanctions to allow more space for the private sector and move from a fully socialist to a more social democratic model – though to describe the reforms under Maduro as “neoliberal” is ridiculous. It may theoretically be possible to build socialism in one country, but if the major economic powers join forces to destroy you, it becomes very difficult indeed.

A dangerously simplistic narrative about what has happened in Venezuela has taken hold in the West, fuelled by Trump, CIA and Machado/Miami sources.

On this reading, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez is in collusion with Trump, betrayed Maduro and stood down defences on the night of his kidnap, and is now instituting neoliberal policies, including a new petroleum law which states only the USA may ship Venezuelan oil and that payments for it will go exclusively through the US in Qatar.

In fact this is not true at all. Venezuela’s new petroleum legislation contains no provisions banning oil exports to China or Russia and no provision for payments to be routed through the USA. The new petroleum law is in fact legislation which sets out a new commercial basis for the operation of the Venezuelan petroleum sector on the same kind of concession, licensing and royalty basis as pertains in almost every other oil producer.

The key point is that the legislation was drafted under Maduro, with extensive consultation and debate. It came for its first reading to the Assembly literally the day after Maduro was kidnapped. That was already scheduled, not a result of the kidnapping. The notion that Maduro opposed the legislation and Rodríguez had to get rid of him to get it through is patent nonsense.

The legislation is unrelated to the United States’ current hijack of the sale of Venezuelan oil. This is proceeding through simple piracy. Trump decreed that only two companies, Vitol and Trafigura, would be allowed to load Venezuelan oil, and those companies would pay for the oil to the United States, into a special account held in Qatar under Trump’s name.

This new scheme has been enforced by simple piracy. Any tankers carrying oil not owned by Vitol and Trafigura from Venezuela have been illegally seized at sea by the US Navy, sometimes assisted by the UK government. The United States has been claiming that Venezuela agrees to this arrangement. That is not true. Or it is true in the sense that a hostage held at gunpoint agrees to stay put, rather than get a bullet through the skull.

The Venezuelan government simply has no physical ability to prevent the United States Navy from seizing oil tankers.

Nor is it true that the Venezuelan government gave the United States information on non-Vitol and -Trafigura tankers and requested their interception. Obviously the United States could get the information on “rogue” tankers from Vitol and Trafigura.

Trafigura have featured in my writing for decades as the archetypal extremely corrupt Western corporation. Their record for deliberate pollution and corruption in Africa is appalling, including in Angola and Ivory Coast. They have frequently been involved in CIA schemes for regime change.

How Vitol and Trafigura came to be the beneficiaries of a duopoly, and what backhanders that may have involved, is another question. In fact this is the one area of domestic pressure that has forced a step back from Trump, and last Friday it was announced that the arrangement will be expanded to include more companies.

It is worth noting that the system has not just been invented for Venezuela. It is almost identical to the system imposed on Iraq after its destruction by the United States and its allies, with payments for Iraqi oil made to the USA and a percentage of them returned to the Iraqi government.

The difference is that the Iraqi revenues were paid to the US Treasury, whereas the Venezuelan funds are going to a Qatar account under Trump’s personal control, removed from the reach of Congress. At its most charitable reading, it gives him a massive slush fund to pursue policy outside the United States legal framework. It is like Iran-Contra on a massive scale.

To reiterate: none of this sales arrangement has been agreed by Rodríguez and none of it is contained in the new Venezuelan hydrocarbon legislation on concessions and royalties. There are two separate things being widely conflated.

The line that Delcy Rodríguez agrees both to the kidnap of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia, and to the hijacking of Venezuelan oil sales and revenues, has been deliberately spread by the US and its acolytes, despite Delcy Rodríguez’s furious denials.

If Rodríguez really was Trump’s placed woman, then boasting about it would fatally undermine her within Venezuela and bring about her downfall – which obviously would be entirely counterproductive were there any truth in the claim.

So why is this rumour being spread? Well the obvious reason is precisely to undermine Rodríguez and destabilise the government of Venezuela.

But perhaps a more important factor is Trump’s obsessive need to claim victory. He gathered a massive military force off the coast of Venezuela, and stood in danger of mockery as the Grand Old Duke of York if he simply sailed it away again.

The seizure of Maduro has in fact changed nothing in policy terms within Venezuela, but it has provided a spectacular operation for Trump to claim as a victory. In truth, as a demonstration of the capabilities of the United States’ offensive military technology, it was indeed technically impressive.

For the removal of Maduro to be portrayed as a triumph, Trump has to claim that Rodríguez is solidly pro-USA, even though this is plainly not true. It is merely a part of the parade of triumph that is an essential component both of Trump’s ego and of the bombastic Trump method.

What now happens to Maduro and Cilia is, on this reading, not really relevant. The entirely false narrative of the non-existent Cartel de los Soles has already been abandoned as part of the prosecution. In the USA’s misnamed “justice” system, they have a variety of witness accusations from diverse figures prepared to sign nonsense against Maduro as part of a plea bargain agreement. These include rococo Trump-pleasing standouts such as testimony that Maduro was involved in fixing the 2020 US Presidential election on behalf of Biden.

My prediction is that Trump will “pardon” Maduro before the prosecution gets too silly, and present that as another part of his triumph. But who can predict a madman?

That is precisely the conundrum now facing Delcy Rodríguez. She is dealing with two imponderable equations.

The first was already difficult enough. Historians and ideologues will debate for centuries whether Chavismo could have succeeded economically with its full-on socialist programme, had the Western world not determined to destroy it with crippling sanctions.

What is I think beyond dispute is that the sanctions were so crippling that they caused considerable public hardship, and massive inflation. At the same time, the very fact that Venezuela is not highly dictatorial and both Chavez and Maduro broadly allowed debate, free opposition political parties and media, and the operation of Western-funded NGOs, meant that the Venezuelan population were continually bombarded with Western propaganda which blamed the problems caused by sanctions on the Bolivarian Revolution.

This eroded support for the socialist project, which though still intact, has crumbled at the edges. The Bolivarian government has been obliged to try to mitigate the effects of the sanctions which stole the government’s own capital, and to seek the removal of some sanctions, by the opening up of more space for capitalist investment and operation in the economy, notably but by no means only in the oil sector.

In other words the government has been forced to concede some ground to the West by inching along the spectrum from socialist to social democratic, while attempting to maintain the massive social gains of the Chavez revolution.

This is an exercise in which Nicolás Maduro himself was fully engaged. I believe that both Maduro and Rodríguez have the intention of inching back from social democracy towards socialism over time, once pressures have eased. Theirs is a game of strategy, not of tactics.

To this already extremely sensitive calculation is added the extraordinary factor of Trump. His willingness to simply kill innocent people, to shatter international law, and to impose his will by exploiting massive United States military advantage over a small country, changed all the rules of the game.

The pressure to make changes faster to appease somebody who is plainly mentally unstable, the difficulty of understanding his limits and true goals, is an excruciating experience when the lives and deaths of Venezuelans are in your hands. Trump’s incredible bombast, his wild claims that Venezuelan land and oil is stolen from the USA, are not contained within the realm of normal diplomatic negotiation.

Delcy Rodríguez is not so much walking a tightrope, as navigating an Indiana Jones tunnel full of traps.

One thing that Trump has in fact got right is his contention that Machado does not have the public support to rule. This seems to me indisputable, and an attempt to impose her would result in civil war. This of course in itself undermines the contention that Machado’s team massively won the 2024 election.

Meanwhile life in Venezuela goes on for ordinary people. I had the great pleasure to attend a concert by the National Symphony Orchestra on Sunday. It was very accomplished, and the auditorium was full. The programme was entirely of Venezuelan composers, and I had never heard any of the music before. The opening symphonic poem by Juan Bautista Plaza would stand alongside the European repertoire without blushing.

I make no apologies for bringing little slices of ordinary life to you, because the picture we have been given of Venezuela is so strangely and massively distorted, it requires multiple points of correction.

Chavez instituted a programme of musical education for working-class children that became the envy of the classical music world, known simply as La Sistema. Much more heart-rending examples of Western sanctions might be found, involving medical provision. But as an example of the cruel absurdity of the sanctions regime, the youth orchestra of Venezuela has difficulties getting hold of simple consumables – strings, reeds, plectra – because of sanctions.

In bringing violin strings to a child I should be committing a crime in the United States of America. Let that be a testament to the absurdity of using sanctions to crush human spirit.

I am very aware I have not left Caracas yet and of the limitations of my experience so far. But I am already struck by the great advantage of being here over commentators in the West who I see daily, even when well-intentioned, getting it all wrong. The mainstream media of course produce a fake narrative entirely as a matter of policy.

I am delighted to say that today our new videographer and editor are starting and we will be able to bring you video content. I also hope today to conclude rent of an office/studio space.

We now have a Venezuela reporting crowdfunder. I have simply edited the Lebanese GoFundMe crowdfunder, because that took many weeks to be approved and I don’t want to go through all that again. So its starting baseline is the £35,000 we raised and spent in Lebanon.

I do very much appreciate that I have been simultaneously crowdfunding to fight the UK government in the Scottish courts over the proscription of Palestine Action. We fight forces that have unlimited funds. We can only succeed if we spread the load. 98% of those who read my articles never contribute financially. This would be a good moment to change that. It is just the simple baseline subscriptions to my blog that have got me to Venezuela, and that remains the foundation for all my work.

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I attach the full text of Lord Young’s decision granting the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine.

A few points. Judicial Review can only be granted where the judge believes it has a realistic chance of success. Lord Young evidently believes that we have a realistic chance of success on our three grounds – failure to consult, disproportionate limitation of freedom of assembly, disproportionate limitation of freedom of speech.

This was not even disputed at hearing.

On the disputed points – my standing and the jurisdiction of the court – we won on all points.

Lord Young’s ruling explicitly means that a Scot can always go to Scottish courts against an infringement of their human rights, no matter if identical action is being taken in England. It emphasises the independence and equality of the Scottish judicial system.

On consultation, there is one outstanding fact that I wish to bring to your attention. In England it is being argued – correctly – that while the Home Office consulted the Israeli Embassy, weapons manufacturers and communities including for some reason Lebanese Christians, they failed to consult any Palestinians, any pro-Palestinian organisation, any human rights organisation. They plainly and selectively consulted only those they thought would agree with them.

And to the point here they consulted with nobody – literally nobody – in Scotland. Not the Scottish Government. Not Police Scotland. Not the Scottish counter terrorist strategy board (CONTEST). Yvette Cooper just imposed the proscription on Scotland with no consultation at all.

COS-P1017-25 Pet: Craig Murray for J/R
Halliday Campbell WS Office of the Advocate General
26 January 2026 Lord Young

The Lord Ordinary, having considered the petition and answers thereto, and being satisfied that the test in Section 27B(2) of the Court of Session Act 1988 has been met, and for the reasons given in the note attached hereto, grants permission for the petition to proceed; assigns 23 February 2026 at 10am as the date for the procedural hearing; assigns 17 and 18 of March 2026 at 10am as the dates for the substantive hearing; both hearings within the Court of Session, Parliament Square, Edinburgh, and to be held before the Hon. Lord Young; further, makes the following case management orders:-

1. allows parties to adjust their pleadings until two weeks prior to the date of the procedural hearing; and to lodge final versions of their pleadings no later than one week prior to the procedural hearing;
2. appoints parties to mark up any relevant documents to indicate the parts they intend to rely on no later than one week prior to the procedural hearing;
3. appoints notes of argument to be lodged no later than one week prior to the procedural hearing;
4. appoints statements of issues to be lodged no later than one week prior to the procedural hearing;
5. appoints affidavits to be lodged in respect of those facts founded on by a party at the substantive hearing no later than one week prior to the procedural hearing;
6. appoints parties to write to the court to confirm whether they are ready to proceed to the substantive hearing no later than one week prior to the procedural hearing;
7. appoints parties to lodge a list and bundle of authorities, which should be marked up to indicate the parts the party intends to rely on no later than 10 days prior to the substantive hearing.

Andrew Young

Note –

1. By interlocutor of even date, and following an oral hearing, I granted permission for the petitioner to proceed with his petition for judicial review as required by section 27B of the Court of Session Act 1988. In this Note, I set out the reasons for my decision.
2. By interlocutor dated 11 December 2025, I asked to be addressed by parties in relation to two issues raised in the Answers lodged by the respondent, namely (i) whether the petitioner had a sufficient interest to give him standing to proceed with this petition, and (ii) whether it was appropriate or necessary for these proceedings to proceed given the existence of identical proceedings in England.
3. At the oral hearing, senior counsel for the respondent took a somewhat neutral position on the question of standing. He noted that the averments in the petition in relation to the petitioner’s standing were brief but acknowledged that affidavits had now been produced which provided more information as to the petitioner’s role as a supporter of Palestine Action. He accepted that the affidavits were truthful and that the petitioner did not have the “busybody” characteristic referred to in some of the legal authorities. After noting that standing is context specific, senior counsel was content to leave the matter for the court’s decision. I did not require to be addressed by senior counsel for the petitioner on this issue. I am satisfied that the petitioner’s role over recent years as an active supporter of Palestine Action and his strategic involvement in some of their protest actions, provides him with standing in relation to an organisation which does not have a conventional structure.
4. On behalf of the respondent, I was informed that the judicial review proceedings before the High Court in England had involved a hearing over three days in November and December 2025. One day of those proceedings had taken place under the closed material procedure. The judgment was still awaited. An appeal might reasonably be anticipated to the Court of Appeal, or potentially direct to the Supreme Court. On behalf of the respondent, it was argued that the issues within the current petition are identical to those heard in the English court. There is no bespoke Scottish argument which merits separate proceedings in Scotland. Any proceedings in Scotland are likely to require closed material procedure for part of the hearing which will present practical difficulties. I was referred to R (Liberty) v Prime Minister & Anor [2020] 1 WLR 1193 at paras [26]-[31] in which the Court of Appeal discussed certain matters of policy where issues common throughout the UK are the subject of judicial review proceedings in more than one UK jurisdiction. Senior counsel for the respondent identified three potential ways forward. The first option was to refuse the petitioner permission to proceed. The second option was to reserve the issue of permission and sist the current cause until a decision was available in the English proceedings. The third option was to grant permission followed by an immediate sist until the decision in the English proceedings was available and had been digested.
5. Senior counsel for the petitioner submitted that the relevancy of the English proceedings was unfocussed in the respondent’s Answers. The existence of the English proceedings had not been advanced as the basis for any plea-in-law challenging this court’s jurisdiction. It was observed that any decision in England could not found a plea of res judicata in Scotland. A Scottish court would not be required by precedent to follow any decision of the High Court in England. There had been a number of recent examples of important constitutional challenges proceeding in parallel in Scotland and England. Those cases demonstrated that different decisions might be taken in the lower courts for ultimate adjudication in the Supreme Court. While the current petition did not include an argument peculiar to Scots law, it could not be ruled out that adjustment of the petition might introduce an issue which was not before the English courts. In relation to the decision in R (Liberty) v Prime Minister, this was a decision of the Court of Appeal on a case management issue. The Court of Appeal had not had the benefit of a full citation of the relevant authorities. The proscription of Palestine Action directly affected a number of individuals in Scotland who were facing criminal prosecutions. They had a right to have this restriction on their legal rights challenged before a court in Scotland. The court should grant permission. The respondent’s subsidiary motions for a sist should also be refused for the same reasons.
6. I am satisfied that it is appropriate to grant permission for this judicial review to proceed in Scotland notwithstanding the existence of English proceedings which are at a more advanced stage. As a matter of principle, a petitioner who has standing and whose petition sets out arguments of sufficient merit to satisfy s27B(2)(b) of the 1988 Act should not be refused permission because of the existence of parallel proceedings in another UK jurisdiction. The petitioner claims that his legal rights have been illegally circumscribed by the 2025 Order.
   He is entitled to look to the courts of his place of residence for a determination of that complaint. The cases of Cherry v Advocate General 2020 SC 37 and R (Miller) v Prime Minister [2019] EWHC 2381 support the petitioner’s argument that there is nothing inherently objectionable with proceedings on the same issue progressing through different jurisdictions within the UK at the same time. There is no suggestion that these proceedings are being advanced for an improper or abusive purpose such as a campaign to swamp the respondent with a multitude of proceedings. The possibility that any substantive hearing in this petition will require the adoption of closed material procedure is not a factor of any weight to the issue of permission. The necessary arrangements will be put in place if the closed material procedure is required.
7. I did not find the decision in R (Liberty) v The Prime Minister to be of any direct assistance to the issue before me. It involved discussion of a request for an expediated hearing in judicial review proceedings where similar proceedings had already been completed before the Outer and Inner Houses of the Court of Session. The case was not concerned with the granting of permission to proceed under the relevant English rules. It involved a discussion of case management issues in a case already proceeding through the courts. Wider issues are involved, including judicial resources, when an issue of case management is under consideration.
8. For these reasons, I grant permission for the petition to proceed. For the avoidance of any doubt, my decision is not influenced by the suggestion tentatively floated by senior counsel for the petitioner that the petition might yet be developed to include a Scottish angle to the arguments.
9. I also refuse, in hoc statu, the respondent’s motion that these proceedings should be sisted. As observed above, case management may involve consideration of factors beyond those relevant at the permission stage. I am not satisfied that it is appropriate to sist these proceedings immediately after granting permission. The better course of action is for parties to proceed through the usual stages of a procedural hearing towards a full substantive hearing which I shall provisionally fix for 2 days. This procedure will enable the final shape of these proceedings to be better understood. It is, of course, open to either party to seek a sist or some alternative procedure once there is clarity as to the position in England. Any such motion would be considered on its merits at that time.

Author: Lauren Bell Cunningham
This document has been electronically authenticated and requires no wet signature.

IN THE COURT OF SESSION
AFFIDAVIT OF HUDA AMMORI
IN THE PETITION
of
CRAIG MURRAY, residing at Edinburgh EH10
PETITIONER

For judicial review of the Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025

At on the NINTH day of JANUARY 2026, in the presence by way of remote video conferencing software of Lynn Littlejohn McMahon, solicitor and notary public, Halliday Campbell WS, solicitors, Edinburgh, EH16,
COMPEARED HUDA AMMORI, who being solemnly sworn hereby DEPONES as follows:-

1. My name is Huda Ammori, I am a co-founder of Palestine Action.
2. Palestine Action was a network of individuals and groups which supported, and took, direct action against weapons companies which were involved in the destruction of Palestine and the ongoing massacres of the Palestinian people.
3. The group’s main focus was the Israeli weapons industry operating in Britain. Specifcally, Elbit Systems, which is Israel’s biggest weapons manufacturer.
4. Craig Murray and I had met in person when myself, Richard Barnard (also a co-founder of Palestine Action), and others, were housed together for The World Transformed festival in Liverpool. We were all there as speakers for various parts of the event.
5. During this time, we had exchanged contact details and I had asked Craig Murray if he would support us in increasing awareness of the various court cases that were taking place as part of Palestine Action. He was happy to help, and ever since, had become very involved in Palestine Action.
6. In May 2023, Craig Murray was also part of a mass protest action by Palestine Action against UAV Tactical Systems, a subsidiary of Elbit Systems. The protest was publicly called for by Palestine Action, for supporters of the network to attend and be a part of the action, all of which was under the Palestine Action banner.
7. The purpose of the mass action, was for people to hold a constant presence outside the factory to disrupt the production of Israeli drones. Not only was Craig Murray a part of this action, he had also reported on it for his blog: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/05/freedom-of-speech-elbit-and-fascist-policing/ (print-out annexed hereto)
8. In the summer of 2023, both myself, Richard Barnard and Craig Murray were speakers at ‘The Rebel Tent’, a part of the Beautiful Days festival. During this time, Craig Murray had also spoken to the crowd about Palestine Action’s aims and objectives.
9. As part of his solidarity work with Palestine Action, Craig Murray would also attend trial in support of those facing criminal charges for taking direct action. This included the plea hearing of Richard Barnard, who was facing charges relating to two speeches he had made in support of Palestine Action in October 2023.
10. Craig Murray had supported Richard Barnard, as he did with many people facing criminal charges for their involvement with Palestine Action. He was part of the protest at the Old Bailey for Richard Barnard, with myself. He had also raised awareness of the proceedings online, through his large platform, which also significantly helped mobilise support for the case.
11. It’s important to note that the slogan ‘We are all Palestine Action’ was popularised, as the network encompassed those taking direct action and joining protests, and those also supporting the court cases and spreading awareness of the aims of the group and the challenges we faced.
12. Not only was Craig Murray actively supporting Palestine Action online, sharing actions, and raising awareness of Palestine Action’s aims and strategy, he also had joined the mass action himself against Elbit Systems’ UAV Tactical Systems factory.
13. I also consider him a close friend and a confidant, who I would regularly speak to about the challenges myself and others personally faced due to state repression of Palestine Action. For the above reasons, I believe it is clear that Craig Murray was both involved and an active supporter of Palestine Action and is therefore extremely well placed to legally challenge the proscription of Palestine Action.

All of which is truth as the deponent shall answer to God.

Declared by way of video conference, and signed electronically
this NINTH day of January 2026 at Glasgow
before me, Lynn Littlejohn McMahon, Solicitor and Notary Public, via video conference
which I attended at Glasgow, G11
Lynn Littlejohn McMahon
Edinburgh
Solicitor and Notary Public

IN THE COURT OF SESSION
AFFIDAVIT OF CRAIG JOHN MURRAY
IN THE PETITION
of
CRAIG MURRAY, residing at Edinburgh EH10
PETITIONER

For judicial review of the Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025

At Edinburgh on the NINTH day of JANUARY 2026, in the presence of David James Finlay Halliday, solicitor and notary public, Halliday Campbell WS, solicitors, Edinburgh, EH16 5PQ, COMPEARED CRAIG JOHN MURRAY, residing at Edinburgh, EH10 who being solemnly sworn hereby DEPONES as follows:-

1. I am Craig John Murray, born 17 October 1958, resident at Edinburgh EH10.
2. I am a journalist in alternative media, retired diplomat and British Ambassador, and a campaigning political activist.
3. I have a particular interest in Palestine, having campaigned on the issue since I first joined the Friends of Palestine in 1977, with a hiatus during my period in the FCO. I also have a particular long-term interest in freedom of speech issues.
4. I supported Palestine Action since its inception. I had frequently for decades expressed the view that Palestinians have been subject to ethnic cleansing and genocide for over seven decades. This did not start on October 7 2023. I therefore strongly supported the efforts of Palestine Action to disrupt the Israeli defence industry’s procurement and manufacturing infrastructure in this country.
5. I still support direct action against Israeli interests, in particular in view of the accelerated genocide of the last two years. I believe that the proscription of Palestine Action constrains my human right to freedom of expression, as a part of its general chilling effect upon journalism and upon individuals.
6. As my main income comes from subscriptions to my published blog, the curtailment of my ability there to write of redacted Palestine Action also affects my professional career and directly my income.
7. I do not support terrorism nor violence against individuals; neither does Palestine Action. The notion that constraining my human right to express my views is a necessary measure to combat terrorism is, in my view, absurd.
8. I was myself subject to detention under Section 7 of the Terrorism Act at Glasgow Airport on 19 October 2023, and questioned by police on my views and activism on Palestine. My mobile telephone and laptop computer were confiscated and I received a letter stating I am under continued investigation (which to my knowledge has not been closed).
9. The United Nations has queried with the British government the arbitrary nature of my de facto arrest in a letter dated 4 December 2024 which it sent to the British Government. A copy of the letter is produced as Annex 1 to this Affidavit.
10. On 10 and 11 May 2023 – over two years before proscription – I participated in a Palestine Action picket at the Elbit factory outside the city of Leicester. Elbit is Israel’s leading weapons manufacturer and responsible for many of the weapons that have been massacring tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza.
11. As is the case with the vast majority of Palestine Action events, this was an entirely peaceful protest. Over the two days I was there it consisted of nine people, on the pavement opposite the factory, causing no disruption whatsoever. Nonetheless the police attempted to disperse us, my first encounter with the gross abuse and denial of citizens’ rights in the UK in support of the Israeli defence industry.
12. I published immediately two articles on my website detailing my experience, stating that this was a specifically Palestine Action event and providing a link to Palestine Action’s website. My articles make clear that I was there as a supporter and activist, not merely as a journalist. Copies of the articles, titled “Freedom of Speech: Elbit and Fascist Policing” and “Now Protest Is a Moral Duty”, are produced as, respectively, Annex 2 and Annex 3 to this Affidavit.
13. Almost since its foundation I have had direct contact with Palestine Action’s founders, Richard Barnard and Huda Ammori. I have shared a flat with them when lobbying the Labour Party conference in Liverpool almost three years ago. I have advised them on legal representation. I have turned up to support Richard when he was charged with terrorism offences at the Old Bailey, and spent some hours strategising with them after that event.
14. I have attended the hearings at the High Court and Court of Appeal in London on the proscription of Palestine Action, reported on them, and discussed legal strategy for the plaintiff Huda Ammori with both Huda Ammori and, with Huda’s consent, directly with Gareth Peirce, Raza Husain KC and Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC.
15. Palestine Action did not have a membership structure. I was therefore not a member before its dissolution. I was however an active collaborator.
16. I was in the public gallery at the International Court of Justice in the Hague for the hearings in South Africa v Israel on Israel’s alleged breach of the Genocide Convention.
17. From October 2024 to February 2025 (with a short festive season break) I was resident in Lebanon reporting from the ground on Israeli attacks on Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and Southern Lebanon.
18. I am concerned at the extreme and disproportionate effect of the proscription of Palestine Action not just as a supporter of Palestine, but also as a supporter of free speech. I have written frequently on freedom of speech and assembly issues.
19. Notably I have published articles on individual attacks on free speech, such as the prosecution of Mark Hirst. On March 21 2024 I published an article attacking Scotland’s new hate speech legislation on freedom of speech grounds. I take the unfashionable view of defending the free speech even of those with whose views I profoundly disagree – for example I published an article against the imprisonment of Lucy Connolly. A copy of these articles, titled “Scotland’s Hate Speech Act and Abuse of Process and “Lucy Connolly Should Be Released” are produced as, respectively, Annex 4 and Annex 5 to this Affidavit.
20. I would argue that anybody whose rights are constrained by the proscription of Palestine Action should have standing to challenge it. That an executive action which limits the rights of everybody equally cannot be challenged as it therefore does not limit the rights of anybody in particular, is an absurd contention.
21. But if particular status is needed I have it. I have participated in Palestine Action protests and have demonstrably supported them. I am a colleague and collaborator of Palestine Action’s founders. I am a journalist whose freedom of expression is being curtailed disproportionately. I have a demonstrable long-term particular interest in Palestine and in Article X and XI freedoms.
22. I am a Scot. I live in Scotland. Scotland is where I wish to publish my views redacted Palestine Action. Scotland is where my established Article X and XI human rights are being infringed.
23. I wish to seek the protection of the courts in my own jurisdiction against executive infringement of my rights within this jurisdiction.
24. As I understand it, the Scottish courts are not subservient or junior to the courts of England and Wales. Their opinion is equally valid and – crucially – the courts of Scotland have the absolute right to take a different view, even in a very similar or identical matter, to the court of England and Wales.
25. The disproportionate effect of the proscription of Palestine Action on individuals in Scotland has been appalling. Scores of peaceful people of entirely good character have been arrested on absurd pretence of “terrorism”.
26. Terrorism-related charges are life changing. They do not only bring potential imprisonment. They bring loss of employment, debanking and loss of access to money, and severe international travel restriction.
27. I have met entirely decent people in Scotland who have suffered all these consequences of the proscription. I have met an elderly female pensioner whose home was raided and searched by counter terrorism police in the early hours in front of her young grandchildren.
28. On 18 August 2025 I travelled to Dunoon for the court appearance of Bill Williamson, aged 73. Bill had been arrested in Dunoon High Street on 16 August 2025 at a regular weekly vigil for Palestine, for displaying a sign allegedly supporting Palestine Action. He was handcuffed in public and led away by four policemen. He was told he was arrested for a terrorism offence.
29. Bill, a man of impeccable character who is a stroke victim, was kept in the police cells all weekend, for two nights, with no food given to him suitable to his diet. He was produced at Dunoon Sherrif Court on Monday afternoon but released without – so far – any charge. This kind of disgusting treatment of a respectable elderly Scottish citizen exercising the right of peaceful protest and assembly in a small town like Dunoon is precisely the kind of disproportionate nonsense I want a judicial review to stop. A copy of the article published on the website of the Dunoon Observer and Argyllshire Standard on 21 August 2025, titled “Dunoon’s pro-Palestine protestor ‘liberated’” is produced as Annex 6 to this Affidavit.
30. It is not only those accused of supporting Palestine Action who have suffered dreadful abuse of their rights in Scotland since the proscription. Prior to the proscription, nobody taking direct action against the Israeli arms supply chain in Scotland had been charged with terrorism-related offences.
31. On 17 July 2025 three women were arrested in a direct action at Leonardo weapons factory in Edinburgh which allegedly slightly damaged a security fence. The action is not alleged to relate to Palestine Action.
32. Nevertheless the women were treated as terrorism offenders and their treatment by police was appalling. They were transferred to Govan Police Station where they were held in the special terrorism unit without charge for five days. They were held incommunicado in this time.
33. At the request of the support group for the women and of the women’s families, with which I had direct contact, I arranged for the best available legal representation for the women. However the police refused to pass on the details of the arranged legal representatives to the women.
34. They also refused to allow their families to contact the women. I had given details of the arranged legal representatives to the families but the police also refused to allow the families to communicate this to the women. They therefore arrived in court for charging unaware that alternative legal representation had been arranged for them to the standard duty solicitors with which they had been provided.
35. I understand that this keeping of the women incommunicado and therefore not allowing them information on choice of legal representation was entirely because of the different way alleged “terrorists” are treated.
36. The women were informed by police they were being charged under the Terrorism Act, but at the court itself they learned that this had been replaced by charges “aggravated” by terrorism.
37. The Scottish Counter Terrorism Strategy Board (CONTEST) includes the Scottish Government, Police Scotland, security services, COSLA and others (I believe including the Crown Office). The CONTEST minutes for May 2025, released under the Freedom of Information Act, include the following:

“Palestine Action Group (PAG)

Palestine Action are extremely active in Scotland, particularly within the protest activity space. This is a co-ordinated group, which is known for escalating violence in other parts of the UK.

Currently within Scotland, this group has been focused on protest activity which has not been close to meeting the statutory definition of terrorism; CT policing continues to monitor their activity and are prepared to intervene where necessary”

A copy of the extract of the minutes is produced as Annex 7 to this Affidavit.

38. Five UN Special Rapporteurs have submitted to the English judicial review that UK counter-terrorism legislation fails to meet international standards in conflating property damage not endangering life with terrorism. A copy of a press release titled “UN experts urge United Kingdom not to misuse terrorism laws against protest group Palestine Action” issued by The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on 1 July 2025 is produced as Annex 8 to this Affidavit.
39. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights himself, Mr Volker Turk, has urged the UK government to rescind the proscription, stating:

“I urge the UK Government to rescind its decision to proscribe Palestine Action and to halt investigations and further proceedings against protesters who have been arrested on the basis of this proscription. I also call on the UK Government to review and revise its counter-terrorism legislation, including its definition of terrorist acts, to bring it fully in line with international human rights norms and standards.”

A copy of a press release titled “UK: Palestine Action ban ‘disturbing’ misuse of UK counter-terrorism legislation, Türk warns” issued by The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on 1 July 2025 is produced as Annex 9 to this Affidavit.

40. In the Scottish legal tradition sovereignty rests with the people, not with the Crown in parliament.
41. In the English legal and constitutional tradition, parliament may do anything, be it ever so authoritarian. Parliament could legislate to repeal the Human Rights Act or cancel elections, and English courts would likely uphold that if properly passed through parliament and approved by the Crown.
42. I believe that the Scottish tradition of legal thought and practice should and does provide greater protection for the people from arbitrary and oppressive government, as expressed in the still in force Claim of Right. That is why I believe it is important for a Scottish court to hear this judicial review in Scotland for the protection of the people of Scotland from what I see as an arbitrary, oppressive, politically motivated and intellectually absurd executive action.
43. This affidavit addresses the issues of standing for the hearing on 12 January, not the whole matter for judicial review.

All of which is truth as the deponent shall answer to God.

Signed this ninth day of January 2026 at Edinburgh
before me, David James Finlay Halliday, Solicitor and Notary Public
Edinburgh

IN THE COURT OF SESSION
AFFIDAVIT OF DR ELIZABETH JANE ELDRIDGE
IN THE PETITION
of
CRAIG MURRAY, residing at Edinburgh EH10
PETITIONER

For judicial review of the Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025

At GLASGOW on the EIGHTH day of JANUARY 2026, in the presence of Lynn Littlejohn McMahon, solicitor and notary public, Halliday Campbell WS, solicitors, Edinburgh, EH16 COMPEARED DR ELIZABETH JANE ELDRIDGE, Glasgow, G44 who being solemnly sworn hereby DEPONES as follows:–

My full name is Dr Elizabeth Jane Eldridge. I am also known as Lizzie Eldridge. My date of birth is 4 December 1967. My home address is Glasgow, G44.

1. I am a writer, a business English teacher and a former university lecturer. I obtained an MA(Hons) from the University of Glasgow in sociology and theatre in 1988,and then obtained a PHD from Lancaster University in 1993.
2. 1 am currently the Vice President of the Scottish branch of PEN International. PEN is an organisation that defends freedom of expression and campaigns on behalf of writers suffering censorship, oppression, imprisonment and even death. I lived in Malta for 12 years and came back to Scotland at the end of 2019. I got involved with Scottish PEN almost immediately upon my return, and I have been Vice President for one year now.
3. I’ve always been involved in Human Rights since I was in my teens. To my shame, Palestine largely disappeared from my line of vision for a while until the May 2022 assassination of the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by the IDF. I was heavily involved with Scottish PEN by then. I alerted them and we arranged for a statement to be put out. When the genocide of the Palestinian people began in Oct 2023, I got involved in protests at that stage, and I have been doing everything that I can since then to help, including writing for the Palestine Chronicle and appearing on the Palestine International Broadcast.
4. I know of the Palestine Action group, but I am not directly involved with them. I do have connections with people formerly involved with Palestine Action, but I have never been involved in any direct action or anything like that myself.
5. I have a friend from Edinburgh who has been in prison since August 2024. She was allegedly one of the activists who took direct action at the Elbit Systems factory in Filton, Bristol. She is known now as one of the “Filton 24”. Arrested under the Terrorism Act (2000), she has been detained since then without trial, and has been deprived of basic prison rights and bail. Her period of detention, like that of her co-defendants, far exceeds the maximum 6 month period of detention, and the treatment of the Filton 24 (then Filton 18) has been strongly criticised by UN Human Rights experts [https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/un-experts-intervene-filton-18-palestine-action-case] (Annex 1 hereto)
6. The Filton action was prior to the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group, but I feel this was part of the build up to proscription.
7. In the space of one year, since November 2024, I have been arrested three times. I had never been arrested or in any trouble with the law before that.
8. Since the genocide in Palestine began, the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee (“GGEC”) have been holding weekly protests outside 8arclays Bank in Glasgow. I participate in the protests weekly. On 2 November 2024, the protest had just ended, and we were all heading home,when suddenly people started shouting about someone being arrested. It was a young Palestinian woman who is a friend of mine. I asked the police what they were doing, and under what powers they were arresting my friend. There were three male police officers arresting her. I put my hand on her arm whilst I was talking. The police said that if l didn’t remove my hand they would arrest me. I said that she hasn’t done anything wrong. They arrested me for“obstruction” and put me and my friend in handcuffs in Argyll Street, put us in a van, and took us to Govan Police Station. I was held in a cell for 5hours. It was not a nice experience. I was given very restrictive bail conditions, which I eventually had to accept, rather than stay in the cell until Monday. One bail condition was that I wasn’t allowed in Glasgow City Centre at all. Three weeks later, I went to court and thankfully the Sheriff agreed that the bail condition was too restrictive and that was overturned.
9. I was back in court in January 2025 for a pre-hearing, and that’s when I discovered that a new charge of breach of the peace had been added to the obstruction charge. I represented myself, and I pled not guilty. The next time I appeared in court was in May 2025. The police gave evidence saying”all hell broke loose” but the video evidence showed very clearly that we were not causing any problems at all. The Sheriff said that senior police “gave unreliable evidence” which I understand to be as close as a Sheriff can get to saying that they lied. The Sheriff also allowed evidence from the bank manager of Barclays, who said that he didn’t see me cause any disturbance. I was acquitted of Breach of the Peace, but I had to return to court in August with letters of support re the obstruction charge. The Sheriff was satisfied that I was of good character, and gave me an absolute discharge. It was a huge relief.
10. In between all that, in April 2025, I took part in a protest at Aberdeen Bowling Club, against an Israeli player taking part in an International Bowling Competition. Petitions had been signed trying to prevent him taking part, but he did anyway. In the end, I ran onto the green with a Palestine flag my friend had hidden when we went in as spectators. I made my objections clear by shouting, and I was arrested and put in a van. The police never did take me to a police station though, they just let me out the van. I call this my “invisible arrest”.
11. My third arrest was on 6 September 2025. I was attending a protest in front of Queen Elizabeth House on Sibbald Walk in Edinburgh. It was a protest organised jointly by Defend our Juries, and the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Some people had placards saying, ”I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action. I didn’t have a placard. I was standing at the back, wearing a t-shirt, which read “Genocide in Palestine, Time to Take Action”. The words “Palestine” and “Action” were both written in a larger font. According to the police citation, ’you LIZZIE ELDRIDGE did wear an item of clothing namely, t-shirt in such a way or in such Circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that you were a member or Supporter of a proscribed organisation as defined by the aforementioned Act namely, Palestine Action, in that you did wear said t-shirt; CONTRARY to the Terrorism Act 2000, Section 1 3 (1) (a) as amended’
12. I was not arrested there and then, nobody was. I was actually thinking at the time, “what a shame for the placard guys, no doubt they will cop trouble for that”, as I knew Palestine Action has been proscribed as a terrorist group by then. However, nearly two weeks later, there was a knock at my door whilst I was teaching a student business English in an online session. It was two plain clothed police officers. They started talking about the protest in Edinburgh, and I said the timing “was inconvenient, could they come back in 10 minutes, after my lesson”, and they agreed. When I opened the door 10 minutes later, they were standing in precisely the same positions I had left them. They said they were there to arrest me under the Terrorism Act. Again, I said the timing was inconvenient, I had other lessons, and asked them to come back at 1pm. They agreed. It was all a bit farcical. as the police were very apologetic when they came back, and they were perfectly nice, and even asked me for directions to Cathcart Police Station, as they were from Edinburgh. I wasn’t handcuffed, I was only in the police station for an hour, and after taking my mugshot and fingerprints, they let me go, with no bail conditions. Which I found to be pretty surreat if they really thought me to be a terrorist.
13. In December, a counter terrorism police document was leaked, which gave advice to the police on how to deal with protestors post proscription of Palestine Action. The wording on my t-shirt was specifically referred to, and was said explicitly not to be an arrestable offence. https://www.declassifieduk.org/palestine-action-policing-guidance-suggests-protesters-wrongly arrested/j (Annex 2 hereto) However,I (together with a number of others in a similar situation) received letters from the police, claiming that they could take action against us, but they would offer to just give us a warning for potential terrorism instead. We all decided that there was no way we were agreeing to that. A warning stays on your record for 2 years and can be used against you. We met and symbolically burned our letters at a public protest in Edinburgh on 22 November 2025.
14. Then, on the Saturday before Christmas there, I received a police citation giving me a court hearing date of 21 January 2026.
15. On a personal and professional level, I would say that thèse experiences have led me to be shocked at the erosion of human rights and civil liberties in our country.

Truth as solemnly declared
before me, Lynn Littlejohn McMahon, Solicitor and Notary Public
Edinburgh, EH16

I am very optimistic now we have won this stage. But I am afraid the full judicial review is going to be very expensive. We need everyone who can contribute to contribute, even if it is only a pound, dollar or euro. And we need everyone who already contributed to think of another person who they can ask to contribute. All of us have to look towards people we know of good heart with means.

If we succeed, we will save many scores of people from the life-changing consequences of a terrorism sentence and from possible jail. But PLEASE do not contribute if you really cannot afford it – we are trying to make people’s lives better, not worse.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/scottish-challenge-to-proscription/

I know these are the most difficult of times. But that is why we have to keep fighting. The sums needed to mount a successful legal challenge to the power of the state can be eye-watering. But we are the many. Every penny helps, but please do not cause yourself hardship. You can contribute via the crowdfunder above or via these methods:

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Venezuela GoFundMe

I have now been in Caracas for 48 hours and the contrast between what I have seen, and what I had read in the mainstream media, could not be more stark.

I drove right through Caracas, from the airport through the city centre and up to posh Las Mercedes. The next morning I walked all through and weaved my way within the working class district of San Agustin. I joined in the “Afrodescendants festival”, and spent hours mingling with the people. I was made extremely welcome and invited into many homes – this from a district they tell you is extremely dangerous.

I must admit I had great fun at this bit.

After this I continued on for miles walking through the residential area and through the heart of the city centre, including Bolivar Square and the National Assembly.

In all of this I have not seen one single checkpoint, whether police or military. I have seen almost no guns; fewer than you would see on a similar tour taking in Whitehall. I have not been stopped once, whether on foot or in a car. I have seen absolutely zero sign of “Chavista militia” whether in poor, wealthy or central areas. I drove extensively round the opposition strongholds of Las Mercedes and Altamira and quite literally saw not a single armed policemen, not one militia man and not one soldier. People were out and about quite happily and normally. There was no feeling of repression whatsoever.

Again, nobody stopped me or asked who I am or why I was taking pictures. I did ask the Venezuelan authorities whether I needed a permit to take photos and publish articles, and their reply was a puzzled “why would you?”

The military checkpoints to maintain control, the roving gangs of Chavista armed groups, all the media descriptions of Caracas today are entirely a figment of CIA and Machado propaganda, simply regurgitated by a complicit billionaire and state media.

Do you know what else do not exist? The famous “shortages.” The only thing in short supply is shortage. There is a shortage of shortage. There is no shortage of anything in Venezuela.

A few weeks ago I saw on Twitter a photo of a supermarket in Caracas which somebody had put up to demonstrate that the shelves are extremely well stocked. It received hundreds of replies, either claiming it was a fake, or that it was an elite supermarket for the wealthy and that the shops for the majority were empty.

So I made a point, in working-class districts, of going into the neighbourhood, front room stores where ordinary people do their shopping. They were all very well stocked. There were no empty places on shelves. I also went round outdoor and covered markets, including an improbably huge one with over a hundred stalls catering solely for children’s birthday parties!

Everyone was quite happy to let me photograph anything I wanted. It is not just groceries. Hardware stores, opticians, clothes and shoe shops, electronic goods, auto parts. Everything is freely available.

There is a lack of physical currency. Sanctions have limited the Venezuelan government’s access to secure printing. To get round this, everybody does secure payment with their phones via QR code using the Venezuelan Central Bank’s own ingenious app. This is incredibly well established – even the most basic street vendors have their QR code displayed and get their payments this way. Can you spot the QR codes on these street stalls?

To get a Venezuelan phone and sim card for the internet I went to a mall which specialises in phones. It was extraordinary. Four storeys of little phone and computer shops, all packed with goods, organised in three concentric circles of tiered balconies. This photo is just the inner circle. I picked up a phone, sim card, lapel microphones, power bank, multi-system extension lead and ethernet to USB adapter, all in the first little store I entered.

Registering the sim was quick and simple. There is good 4G everywhere I have been in Caracas, and some spots of 5G.

“Relaxed” is a word I would use for Venezuelans. You could forgive paranoia, the country having been bombed by the Americans just three weeks ago and many people killed. You might expect hostility to a rather strange old gringo wandering around inexplicably snapping random things. But I have experienced no sense of hostility at all, from people or officials.

The African festival was instructive. A community event and not a political rally, there were nevertheless numerous spontaneous shouts and chants for Maduro. The Catholic priest giving the blessing at the festivities suddenly started talking of the genocide in Gaza and everybody prayed for Palestine. Community and cultural figures continually referenced socialism.

This is the natural environment here. None of it is forced. Chavez empowered the downtrodden and improved their lives in a spectacular manner, for which there are few parallels. The result is genuine popular enthusiasm and a level of public working-class engagement with political thought that it is impossible to compare to the UK today. It is the antithesis of the hollowed out culture that has spawned Reform.

I am very wary of Western journalists who parachute into a country and become instant experts. Although the stark contradiction between actual Caracas and Western-media Caracas is so extreme that I can bring it to you immediately.

Pretty well everything that I have read by Western journalists which can be immediately checked – checkpoints, armed political gangs, climate of fear, shortages of food and goods – turns out to be an absolute lie. I did not know this before I came. Possibly neither did you. We both do now.

I had lived for years in Nigeria and Uzbekistan under real dictatorships and I know what they feel like. I can tell sullen compliance from real engagement. I can tell spontaneous from programmed political expression. This is no dictatorship.

I am, so far as I can judge, the only Western journalist in Venezuela now. The idea that you should actually see for yourself what is happening, rather than reproduce what the Western governments and their agents tell you is happening, appears utterly out of fashion with our mainstream media. I am sure this is deliberate.

When I was in Lebanon a year ago, the mainstream media were entirely absent as Israel devastated Dahiya, the Bekaa Valley, and Southern Lebanon, because it was a narrative they did not want to report.

Disgracefully, the only time the BBC entered Southern Lebanon was from the Israeli side, embedded with the IDF.

The BBC, Guardian or New York Times simply will not send a correspondent to Caracas because the reality is so starkly different from the official narrative.

One narrative which the Western powers are desperate to have you believe is that Acting President Delcy Rodríguez betrayed Maduro and facilitated his capture. That is not what Maduro believes. It is not what his party believes, and I have been unable to find the slightest indication that anybody believes this in Venezuela.

The security services house journal, the Guardian, published about their fifth article making this claim, and flagged it as front-page lead and a major scoop. Yet all of the sources for the Guardian story are still the same US government sources, or Machado supporters from the wealthy Miami community of exiled capitalist parasites.

What is interesting is why the security services wish you to believe that Delcy Rodríguez and her brother Jorge, Speaker of the National Assembly, are agents for the USA. Opposition to US Imperialism has defined their entire lives since their father was tortured to death at the behest of the CIA when they were infants. They are both vocal in their continuing support for the Bolivarian Revolution and personally for Maduro.

The obvious American motive is to split and weaken the ruling party in Caracas and undermine the government of Venezuela. That was my reading. But it has also been suggested to me that Trump is pushing heavily the line that Rodríguez is pro-American in order both to claim victory, and to justify his lack of support for Machado. Rubio and many like him are keen to see Machado installed, but Trump’s assessment that she does not have the support to run the country seems from here entirely correct.

A variation on this that has also been suggested to me is that Trump wants to portray Rodríguez as pro-American to reassure American oil companies it is safe to invest (though exactly why he wants that is something of a mystery).

Meanwhile of course the USA seizes, steals and sells Venezuelan oil with no justification at all in international law. The proceeds are kept in Qatar under Trump’s personal control and are building up a huge slush fund he can use to bypass Congress. For those with long memories, it is like Iran/Contra on a massively inflated scale.

I am trying to get established in Venezuela to report to you and dive much deeper into the truth from Venezuela. I am afraid I am going to say it takes money. I am looking to hire a local cinematographer so we can start to produce videos. The first may be on what happened the night of the murderous US bombings and kidnap.

I did not want to crowdfund until I was sure it was viable to produce worthwhile content for you. The expenses of getting and living here, and building the required team, to produce good work do add up. I was very proud of the content we produced from Lebanon, but ultimately disappointed that we could not crowdfund sufficiently to sustain permanent independent reporting from there.

So we now have a Venezuela reporting crowdfunder. I have simply edited the Lebanese GoFundMe crowdfunder, because that took many weeks to be approved and I don’t want to go through all that again. So its starting baseline is the £35,000 we raised and spent in Lebanon.

I do very much appreciate that I have been simultaneously crowdfunding to fight the UK government in the Scottish courts over the proscription of Palestine Action. We fight forces that have unlimited funds. We can only succeed if we spread the load. 98% of those who read my articles never contribute financially. This would be a good moment to change that. It is just the simple baseline subscriptions to my blog that have got me to Venezuela, and that remains the foundation for all my work.

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To my great surprise, the video recording of yesterday’s Court of Session hearing on the judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action is still active on the court’s website, and you can watch it. I do not know how long this will last.

https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/livestream/court-of-session/case-p1017-25/#6dcfe87a-d9b7-49ba-9f01-ad69b8ad9c45

I have been used to the ludicrous restrictions on the English court hearings, where passwords were needed to access the video and it disappeared instantly after the livestream, despite these being public courts.

This in Edinburgh was a preliminary hearing on permission for a judicial review and the judge wished to consider only two questions:
Firstly, whether I had standing to bring the case.
Secondly, whether the Scottish court had jurisdiction in the light of the English judicial review.

I should be genuinely grateful for people’s opinions after watching the video, but my initial thoughts are these:

Firstly and most importantly, my legal team’s Note of Argument had asserted that they assumed that, as the judge only wished to have two points discussed, he was already satisfied on the most important point that this was a well-founded petition for judicial review with a genuine prospect of success.

The judge did not contradict this and the respondent (the UK government) did not contest this.

This is absolutely crucial. I am sure that the judicial review will proceed if the two points of standing and jurisdiction go our way.

Still more crucial, the UK government appeared almost to concede on standing, in the light of an affidavit from Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, to the effect that I was involved in Palestine Action almost from the start.

The judge told my KC, Joanna Cherry, that she did not need to address him on standing. This appears to a certainty to mean he does accept my standing.

On jurisdiction, the UK government did not claim that the Scottish courts do not have jurisdiction. They also did not claim that the Scottish courts may not hear a matter being heard concurrently in England.

They instead fell back on two arguments. The first was the timing, convenience and cost (sic) of a Scottish judicial review. The judge appeared to give this short shrift.

The second argument – and it was the UK government’s main point – was “comity”. This was defined as “good neighbourliness between jurisdictions”, “politeness”, “courtesy” and even as mutual respect between labourers in neighbouring vineyards (honestly). The need to avoid “contradictory judgments” within the UK was advanced. All these were quotes from English judgments.

Joanna Cherry KC punctured this with one phrase: “that rather assumes the English court will get it right”.

She also directly quoted in full my own assertion from my own affidavit:

22. I am a Scot. I live in Scotland. Scotland is where I wish to publish my views in support of Palestine Action. Scotland is where my established Article X and XI human rights are being infringed.

23. I wish to seek the protection of the courts in my own jurisdiction against executive infringement of my rights within this jurisdiction.

24. As I understand it, the Scottish courts are not subservient or junior to the courts of England and Wales. Their opinion is equally valid and – crucially – the courts of Scotland have the absolute right to take a different view, even in a very similar or identical matter, to the court of England and Wales.

25. The disproportionate effect of the proscription of Palestine Action on individuals in Scotland has been appalling. Scores of peaceful people of entirely good character have been arrested on absurd pretence of “terrorism”.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/25520722000941647

There was a wonderful turnout of support on a cold, wet Monday morning at 9am. The court was packed. The judge promised to give a decision this week if possible, or very shortly thereafter.

As I said outside the courtroom, this was not about my standing or rights; it was about the abuse of the human rights to free speech and free assembly of everybody in Scotland. It was about those scores of decent people in Scotland being ludicrously treated as terrorists. It was about the lives of the hunger strikers. Above all it was about the right to act to stop genocide, and about the 100,000 or more Palestinians massacred by Israel.

The rigged judicial panel on the parallel case in England has still not delivered its ruling in their judicial review.

The jury is out on the Filton Six trial in Woolwich Crown Court, which includes the incident where a policewoman was unfortunately injured.

I have no doubt that what is happening is this: the Court of Appeal is awaiting that verdict and a massive media blitz of “Palestine Action Terrorists attacked policewoman with sledgehammer”.

After that it will quickly be announced that the proscription of Palestine Action has been upheld.

On the Filton trial, I do urge you to read the astounding defence speech of Rajiv Menon KC on behalf of Charlotte Head.

Here is a little bit of it:

So that’s what His Lordship said to you, and Ms Heer in her closing speech, on much the same theme, told you that the defendants who had given evidence had not raised any real challenge to the charge of criminal damage. I’m sorry, but it is not right to say that the defendants who gave evidence did not raise any challenge. They did raise a challenge. They maintained that they had a lawful excuse. That was their challenge. But what’s happened is that His Lordship has withdrawn that defence as a matter of law, and that’s the true position that we find ourselves in. Their challenge was lawful excuse and the court has withdrawn that as a lawful defence. So where does that leave you, the members of the jury?

You could be forgiven for thinking that His Lordship is in fact directing you, as a matter of law, to convict Charlotte, who I’ll focus on for now, of criminal damage. But you’d be wrong to think that. His Lordship is not directing you to convict. In fact, not only is he not directing you to convict, but he’s also absolutely forbidden from doing so as a matter of law. The law is crystal clear on this point. No judge in any criminal case is allowed to direct a jury to convict any defendant of any criminal charge, whatever the evidence might be. That is the law.

Please remember that fundamental principle at all times when you retire. Please don’t misinterpret anything in His Lordship’s directions or summing up (which will follow the defence speeches) as amounting to a legal direction to convict. That would be a terrible mistake to make. I repeat, His Lordship is absolutely not directing you to convict, because he’s barred as a matter of law from doing so.

The jury has every right to be confused about this because it is confusing. You have every right to think that the distinction between withdrawing the only available defence to a criminal charge on the facts, and a direction to convict, is at best a distinction without a difference. You have every right to think that the two effectively amount to the same thing. But the fact of the matter is they are absolutely not the same thing. They are fundamentally different. Let me try and explain it.

If you look at the legal directions and the first section, headed Functions Of Judge And Jury, you’ll see it’s quite lengthy. I’m not going to go through it point by point, but I’d ask you to read it carefully when you retire. All the directions in this document are important, but I’d suggest that the directions on the function of judge and jury are particularly important in this case. The key point to summarise is that the facts, and the verdicts you return having considered the facts, are solely for you.

So nobody, not even His Lordship, can direct you as to what factual conclusions to reach. Nobody, not even His Lordship, can direct you to convict. It’s as simple as that. That’s the law. So, for the avoidance of any doubt about this, I am absolutely not asking you to disregard His Lordship’s legal directions. On the contrary, I’m asking you to follow them, in particular this section on functions of judge and jury, and remind you that nobody, not even His Lordship, can dictate to you what factual conclusions to reach in this case, nor direct you to convict the defendants of any of the charges they face.

This is the one of the greatest legal speeches – including historical speeches – I have ever read. Its strength lies in its brazen defiance of the judge and brilliant footwork along the edge of contempt of court.

It is precisely what lawyers need to be doing to resist galloping authoritarianism and the complicity in it of the judiciary. I shall return to the question of what was withheld from the Woolwich jury about Elbit, just as soon as the verdict is in and I may do so without imprisonment.

I am afraid to say I still have to ask for donations. If we get a judicial review of the proscription in Scotland we are going to need to put in a huge fundraising effort for the actual review. If we lose the decision, I am liable to have the UK government’s costs awarded against me. Either way, this is about to get very expensive – which is of course precisely what the authorities rely on to crush opposition.

If we can spread the burden across enough small contributions, we can do it.

I am extremely grateful to approximately 670 people who have already contributed. 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:

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MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
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In the Western world today, fighting for freedom feels Quixotic, but I shall nevertheless wake early tomorrow to be at the Court of Session in Edinburgh by 9am to fight the proscription in Scotland of Palestine Action.

I remain extremely concerned for the lives of the Palestine Action hunger strikers. As I predicted, Starmer’s government sees their potential deaths as an opportunity to burnish their populist, right-wing and Zionist credentials.

Tomorrow morning’s hearing is limited by the judge to two points of UK government objection: that I have no standing to bring the case as I am not a member of Palestine Action, and that the Scottish courts should not hear an issue that is already being decided in the courts of England and Wales.

On standing, I give evidence by affidavit that there is no “Membership”. Palestine Action never had a membership structure. But I collaborated with and assisted the co-founders, Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard, almost from the start of the organisation. I spoke together with them on public platforms to urge support for Palestine Action (while it was legal), participated in a Palestine Action protest at an Elbit factory and provided advice and support.

Huda Ammori has submitted an affidavit which concludes thus:

12. Not only was Craig Murray actively supporting Palestine Action online, sharing
actions, and raising awareness of Palestine Action’s aims and strategy, he also
had joined the mass action himself against Elbit Systems’ UAV Tactical Systems
factory.
13. I also consider him a close friend and a confidant, who I would regularly speak
to about the challenges myself and others personally faced due to state
repression of Palestine Action. For the above reasons, I believe it is clear that
Craig Murray was both involved and an active supporter of Palestine Action and
is therefore extremely well placed to legally challenge the proscription of
Palestine Action.

I believe it would be an extremely illiberal interpretation of standing to throw out the case on the grounds I have no standing.

There is a Kafkaesque twist to this court case that shows the outrageous effects of the proscription. I wished to demonstrate the chilling effect on journalism, and limiting effect on freedom of speech, by illustrating the things I should like to write now on Palestine Action that the proscription makes it illegal to write.

My lawyers strongly advised me not to do this as it would lead to arrest and terrorism charges. Evidence in court is not privileged speech.

So I cannot tell the court what it is that the attack on my freedom of speech prevents me from saying. I thus cannot illustrate the absurd disproportionality of the restriction.

That is an example of the extraordinary black hole, sucking in freedoms, down which this proscription of a non-violent group has led us.

To move on to the second part of the argument, this is what my affidavit says on the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts:

21. But if particular status is needed I have it. I have participated in Palestine Action protests and have demonstrably supported them. I am a colleague and collaborator of Palestine Action’s founders. I am a journalist whose freedom of expression is being curtailed disproportionately. I have a demonstrable long-term particular interest in Palestine and in Article X and XI freedoms.

22. I am a Scot. I live in Scotland. Scotland is where I wish to publish my views in support of Palestine Action. Scotland is where my established Article X and XI human rights are being infringed.

23. I wish to seek the protection of the courts in my own jurisdiction against executive infringement of my rights within this jurisdiction.

24. As I understand it, the Scottish courts are not subservient or junior to the courts of England and Wales. Their opinion is equally valid and – crucially – the courts of Scotland have the absolute right to take a different view, even in a very similar or identical matter, to the court of England and Wales.

25. The disproportionate effect of the proscription of Palestine Action on individuals in Scotland has been appalling. Scores of peaceful people of entirely good character have been arrested on absurd pretence of “terrorism”.

26. Terrorism related charges are life changing. They do not only bring potential imprisonment. They bring loss of employment, debanking and loss of access to money, and severe international travel restriction….

40. In the Scottish legal tradition sovereignty rests with the people, not with the Crown in parliament.

41. In the English legal and constitutional tradition, parliament may do anything, be it ever so authoritarian. Parliament could legislate to repeal the Human Rights Act or cancel elections, and English courts would likely uphold that if properly passed through parliament and approved by the Crown.

42. I believe that the Scottish tradition of legal thought and practice should and does provide greater protection for the people from arbitrary and oppressive government, as expressed in the still in force Claim of Right. That is why I believe it is important for a Scottish court to hear this judicial review in Scotland for the protection of the people of Scotland from what I see as an arbitrary, oppressive, politically motivated and intellectually absurd executive action

We have been allocated Court No 1 in the Court of Session. This has a large public gallery, and I hope those able to do so will turn up for the hearing. It starts at 9.30am on Monday morning and we are asking people to rally outside from 9am. I realise that 9am on a Monday morning in a stormy Edinburgh January is not an attractive prospect, but I do believe it is important to show the judge that people really do care about these issues.

If we win, then there will be a full judicial review looking at the wider questions of genocide prevention and the right to take direct action, and the disproportionate effect of the proscription on freedom of speech and assembly.

For those who cannot be here in person the hearing will be livestreamed from 9.30am on Monday morning.

I am sorry to say this but we do need to still 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.

I am extremely grateful to approximately 670 people who have already contributed. 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:

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MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
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The mainstream media covered Venezuela non-stop yesterday. They many times mentioned Delcy Rodríguez, Vice President, because Trump stated she is now in charge. They never mentioned that 2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the torture to death of her father, socialist activist Jorge Rodríguez, by the CIA-backed security services of the US-aligned Pérez regime in Venezuela.

That would of course spoil the evil communists versus nice democrats narrative that is being forced down everybody’s throats.

Nor did they mention that the elected governments of Hugo Chávez reduced extreme poverty by over 70%, reduced poverty by 50%, halved unemployment, quadrupled the number receiving a state pension and achieved 100% literacy. Chávez took Venezuela from the most unequal society for wealth distribution in Latin America to the most equal.

Nor have they mentioned that María Corina Machado is from one of Venezuela’s wealthiest families, which dominated the electricity and steel industries before nationalisation, and that her backers are the very families that were behind those CIA-controlled murderous regimes.

Economic sanctions imposed by the West – and another thing they have not mentioned is that the UK has confiscated over £2 billion of the Venezuelan government’s assets – have made it difficult for the Maduro government to do much more than shore up the gains of the Chávez years.

But that Venezuela is a major production or trafficking point for narcotics entering the USA is simply a nonsense. Nicolás Maduro has his faults, but he is not a drug trafficking kingpin. The claim is utter garbage.

The willingness of the West to accept the opposition’s dodgy vote tallies from the 2024 Presidential elections does not legitimise invasion and kidnap.

Yesterday almost every Western government came up with a statement that managed to endorse Trump’s bombing and kidnap – plainly grossly illegal in international law – and simultaneously claim to support international law. The hypocrisy is truly off the scale. It is also precisely the Western powers that support the genocide in Gaza that support the attack on Venezuela.

The genocide in Gaza demonstrated the end of hopes – which were extremely important to my own worldview – for the rule of international law to outweigh the brutal use of force in international relations. The kidnap of Maduro, the rush of Western powers to accept it, and the inability of the rest of the world to do anything about it, have underlined that international law is simply dead.

In the long list of appalling awards of the Nobel peace prize, none can be worse than the latest to the Venezuelan traitor María Corina Machado, intended actively to promote and bring forward the imperialist attack on Venezuela by the United States.

It takes a great deal of effort to come up with a worse decision than to award Kissinger immediately after the massive bombing of Laos and Cambodia. It was a dreadful award, but it was intended to recognise the putative Paris peace deal and prod the United States towards honouring the peace process. Initially it was a joint award with Vietnamese negotiator Lê Đức Thọ (who sensibly declined).

The Kissinger award was a terrible mistake, but the Committee were seeking to end a war, starting from a willingness to cooperate with unprincipled realpolitik. In the award to Machado, they are deliberately seeking to endorse and promote the start of a war. That is a very different thing.

Similarly the award to Obama was a crazed moment of hope after the despair of the invasion of Iraq. It was a combined mistaken belief that Obama would be better, with a mistaken idea it would encourage him to be so.

I accept that the line I am drawing is a thin one; rewarding the perpetrators of Western aggression is only a short step away from actually encouraging Western aggression. But nevertheless a line has been crossed.

The gross hypocrisy of the morally bankrupt Committee chairman, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, in claiming that the prize is for non-violent action on Venezuela, at the very moment that Trump gathered the largest invasion force since Iraq off Venezuela makes me feel thoughts towards Frydnes that ought not qualify me for any peace prize at all. I feel similarly towards Guterres and all those others abandoning their supposed international role to lick Trump’s boot today.

So what now for Venezuela? Well, on the most optimistic reading Trump’s action was performative. He had to do something to avoid the Grand Old Duke of York jibes after that immense concentration of forces off Venezuela, and he has produced a spectacular that actually changes little.

On this reading, the Americans may be making the same mistake they made in Iran, in believing that decapitation strategy and bombing will spark internal revolution. In Iran, they actually strengthened support for the Government.

As of yesterday afternoon, the Bolivarian government in Caracas genuinely did not yet know what had happened, how far there was collusion in the armed forces in Maduro’s kidnap, and whether they still had the control of the army.

Trump’s plain signal that the US views Rodríguez as in charge, and Trump’s contemptuous dismissal of Machado – the only bright point in an appalling day – might give pause to any in Venezuela expecting active US support for a coup.

To those who claim Maduro was a tyrant, I refer you to the comic opera Guaidó coup of 30 April 2019. Guaidó had been declared President of Venezuela by the western powers despite never even having been a candidate. He attempted a coup and wandered around Caracas with heavily armed henchmen, declaring himself President but just being laughed at by the army, police and population.

In any country in the world Guaidó would have been jailed for life for attempting an armed coup, and I expect in the majority he would have been executed. Maduro just patted him on the head and put him back on a plane.

So much for the evil dictatorship.

By pure chance, on Friday I had texted Delcy Rodríguez about arrangements for travel and accreditation so I could go and report from Venezuela and bring you more of the truth from that country that the media is hiding from you. I made plain I was not asking for financial support. Things are obviously fluid at the moment, but it is still my intention to get there.

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Fighting the proscription of Palestine Action has become more urgent as eight brave activists enter the crucial period of their hunger strike.

12 January has finally been set for the court hearing on holding a Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action.

I am frankly terrified for the hunger strikers.

• Qesser Zuhrah
• Amu Gib
• Heba Muraisi
• Jon Cink
• Teuta Hoxha
• Kamran Ahmed
• Muhammad Umer Khalid
• Lewie Chiaramello (a diabetic so on modified hunger strike or he would die very rapidly).

The Starmer government is quite prepared to let them die: to emphasise devotion to Israel, to show their Zionist donors they are earning their money, and to reinforce the hardline macho image they believe appeals to Reform voters.

Indeed I have no doubt that Starmer, Mahmood, Lammy and Cooper hope for their deaths as a political positive; just as Thatcher thought she would win plaudits for facing down IRA hunger strikers.

It is important to state that none of the hunger striking prisoners has been convicted of anything – all are on remand – and none of them was in any way involved in the incident in which a policewoman was allegedly injured.

The coordinated response from government and other Zionist troll farms and stenographers is that none of the hunger strikers deserve sympathy as “a policewoman was hit by a sledgehammer”.

It remains astonishing to me that this assertion is constantly and stridently made by the state and its myriad acolytes, despite the rules against prejudicing a jury trial. This stance ignores the detailed accounts of the trial itself which paint a far more complex picture.

As well as the real danger to the hunger strikers, there are thousands of entirely peaceful protestors facing terrorism charges simply for speech. These are life-changing, bringing not just jail sentences but loss of employment, debanking and travel restrictions.

All this while the genocide of Palestinians continues, with appalling conditions in Gaza, stringent restrictions on aid (which is still at less than half the required levels), and continued Israeli bombing – despite the “ceasefire”.

The judicial review of Palestine Action in the High Court of England and Wales appears to have been “fixed”. The last-minute change of judges – including the total removal of the original judge from the panel – and the conduct of the review, have left little room for optimism.

My own most striking impression from that judicial review is the difference in how the judges treated the counsel for Huda Ammori and the counsel for the UK government.

Counsel for Huda Ammori, Raza Husain KC, was treated with impatience and at times disdain. That is difficult to quantify, but one thing that could indeed be measured was this:

Every time Raza Husain KC referred the judges to a passage in a past judgment or other quoted authority, they quickly skated over it and moved on, frequently with a phrase like “Yes, we have seen it” or “We are familiar with that”.

Every time James Eadie KC for the government referred the judges to a written authority, they ostentatiously physically found it in their bundle and took time to peruse it, on one occasion taking over a minute to demonstrate they were reading and absorbing at the government’s direction, before Eadie moved on.

The contrast was stark. Not just once, but over and over.

My favourite moment in the English judicial review was when Raza Hussain quoted the Proscription Advisory Committee’s recommendation to Yvette Cooper that Palestine Action should be proscribed because “Palestine Action kept hiring good lawyers” and defendants kept being acquitted as it was difficult to prove guilt to the criminal standard.

Yes, they really did say that. Palestine Action should be proscribed because it was being found by juries not to be criminal.

By proscribing Palestine Action, this makes it a criminal offence of strict liability to support it, whether or not you were doing anything that a jury would have found criminal before the proscription.

Raza Hussain KC described this as “Not the Proscription Advisory Committee’s finest hour”. I thought much more could have been made of it, but a feature of the English judicial review – and I think a mistake – is that there was no playing to the gallery of public opinion.

It was conducted as a legal conversation between the lawyers and the judges, often incomprehensible to the onlooker because it was based on documents to which the public do not have access. Yet there is an extremely concerned public looking on.

The demands of the hunger strikers largely refer to the appalling prison conditions in which they are kept, despite the fact that none of them have been convicted and none of them have previous convictions, or can reasonably be said to present a danger to the public, or be a particular flight risk.

• Immediate bail/release on bail for the remand prisoners (many held longer than standard limits).
• The right to a fair trial, including access to all relevant documents and an end to demonization or “terrorist connection” claims.
• An end to prison censorship/restrictions on communications (e.g., blocking letters, phone calls, and books).
• De-proscription (lifting the ban) on Palestine Action as a terrorist organization.
• Shutdown of Elbit Systems’ UK sites (Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, accused of supplying weapons used in Gaza).

On right to a fair trial, it is worth noting that there is huge evidence of outside influence on the prosecutions, and there are communications between the police and prosecutorial authorities on the one hand, and Elbit, the Israeli Embassy, and various Zionist groups on the other, which have either not been released to the defence, or have only been released in very redacted form.

In the day of the Filton trial which I attended, I found the parts the jury was not allowed to know (when they were sent out) particularly interesting. I cannot tell you more than that until the trial is over.

We can help lift the proscription of Palestine Action if we win the judicial review in Scotland. We have finally been given a court date of 12 January at 9:30am in Edinburgh.

This hearing is to decide whether there will be a judicial review. It will look at only two points.

Firstly, whether I as an individual have sufficient connection to Palestine Action, or have my rights particularly infringed by the proscription, in order to have standing in the case.

The UK Government is arguing that I have no connection to Palestine Action. (I wish they would tell their police that!!)

We will however also be relying on the Supreme Court judgment in Walton vs Scottish ministers, which states that it “is sufficient that the applicant has a genuine concern about the legality of the act or decision, and that the issues raised are of general public importance”.

The second ground to be heard is whether there can be a separate judicial review in Scotland when there is already one in the High Court of England and Wales.

Our view is that the principle has already been established in the Joanna Cherry and Gina Miller cases, where judicial reviews in London and Edinburgh came to opposing decisions on the legality of Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament.

I am resident in Scotland, where the High Court of England and Wales has no jurisdiction. If my rights are infringed I am entitled, even within the United Kingdom, to the protection of my own courts of my own nation in first instance.

Scots law is different. Its intellectual basis and maxims are different. There is a reason why lawyers legally qualified to plead in courts in England and Wales are not automatically qualified to appear in Scotland; and vice versa. The Court of Session is not inferior to the High Court.

We intend to submit substantive evidence of the oppression of numerous individuals in Scotland as a result of the proscription.

We will need the maximum public support inside and outside the court of session at Parliament House, Edinburgh on 12 January from 9am.

Unfortunately we will not be able to go ahead if we do not raise sufficient funds. The crowdfunder has got us into court, but needs to supercharge to get us further. Please do help:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/scottish-challenge-to-proscription/

I know these are the most difficult of times. But that is why we have to keep fighting. The sums needed to mount a successful legal challenge to the power of the state can be eye-watering. But we are the many. Every penny helps, but please do not cause yourself hardship. You can contribute via the crowdfunder above or via these methods:

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“The policewoman attacked by a sledgehammer” has been the constant refrain of the government against Palestine Action. A couple of days before the judicial review of the proscription in England, and despite fierce reporting restrictions on the trial, the prosecution released to the media highly edited video footage from the current trial in Woolwich Crown Court of six activists accused of the attack inside Elbit Systems’ Filton factory on August 6 2024.

While that video has fuelled tens of thousands of Zionist troll posts on social media, the remarkable thing is that it is almost impossible to establish what it shows.

In fact, had it been put out without the prosecution narrative, nobody would have discerned that is what they were looking at. It shows chaotic fast-moving footage from bodycams.

The first sledgehammer seen is plainly in the hands of a security guard – as testimony in the trial, ignored by the MSM, has explained.

Here are some key facts:

• Every single prosecution witness who gave evidence about the melee was obliged to change their statement when confronted by the defence with video evidence which contradicted it. This included much more video than was released by the prosecution.
• The prosecution produced a misleading account of the number and location of CCTV cameras in the factory. They were obliged to present a new map showing more cameras.
• The video evidence was left in or given into the hands of Elbit. A search of Elbit’s premises in November 2025 found the USB sticks of video in their Metropolitan Police evidence bags in Elbit’s safe.

The last fact is simply astonishing. The evidence collected and apparently correctly bagged by the police had simply been handed over to Elbit, apparently for over a year. This is only a part of a much wider collusion between Elbit and the UK state, including the police.

One of the key demands of the Palestine Action hunger strikers in other cases – of whom I will write further shortly – is the full release of correspondence between Elbit and UK authorities including the counter-terrorism police, which has been partially released and in very heavily redacted format.

Judge Johnson has directed the jury that the events in the Filton trial predated the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist action and they must not allow that subsequent development to influence them in any way.

There are six defendants in the current Woolwich trial, allegedly members of the “overt group” or “red group” who entered inside the facility to do damage, while a second “black” or “covert group” allegedly carried out a noisy distractive action.

Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin are charged with aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder.

In addition Samuel Corner is charged with grievous bodily harm with intent, an offence potentially resulting in life imprisonment.

I must at this stage congratulate Real Media, who have been doing a wonderful job of reporting the key events in the trial. As is to be expected, the mainstream media has published nothing except what has been served up to them on behalf of the prosecution and the state.

I am going to publish some key extracts that give you an idea of what has been going on:

Extract from the cross examination of Elbit security guard Mr Shaw:

After a break for lunch, it was time for Mr. Shaw to be cross-examined by defence barristers, beginning with Mr. Menon, who first asked him whether he knew at the time of the incident that “Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer”. The prosecution immediately objected, and Judge Johnson told Menon that if he wanted to ask questions like this they would need to have a discussion about it later. Mr. Menon requested an answer from Mr. Shaw, but the judge insisted he move on. The context appeared to be that Menon went on to ask whether the guard was aware of Palestine Action’s protests and actions against the company, and whether he’d been given specific training in relation to protest. Shaw said he’d received verbal instruction to call police and to intervene if it was safe to do so.

Menon then went on to the first interaction, after the van had been seen and heard hitting the shutters. There was then a very confused exchange in which Shaw was adamant he had had a struggle with an Arabic-looking man wielding an axe, prior to the point at which he is seen in footage running at someone and hitting them several times with an umbrella and bringing them to the ground. His recollection didn’t seem to be backed up by evidence, and Menon reminded him he’d told the jury earlier about a man with an axe, but he maintained that in his mind that was a separate incident before what we saw on video. He was asked whether any injuries he received had occurred inside the factory, and he affirmed they had all happened before he went in, that is, he didn’t receive any contact from anyone in the ‘red team’.

Barrister Mr Wainwright, acting for Samuel Corner, picked up on the answers just given. In Shaw’s witness statement (given later in the day after the event) he had referred to just one incident outside the building, but now seemed confused as to whether there were two. He agreed there didn’t seem to be any evidence of two incidents.

Moving on, once he was in the building, we’d seen Shaw running towards people wielding his umbrella. His evidence had suggested he was threatened and attacked – he also said the group had tried to get him to open a door to give them access to offices. On reviewing the footage and under cross-examination he conceded they were telling him to leave, to ‘fuck off’, and not to give them access. He was also shown footage of Samuel Corner leading the way and showing him how he could go out via the shutter – a female, thought to be Kamio, also asks him if he’s OK and tells him he needs to go because he is bleeding. Mr. Shaw concedes what is being evidenced, and also that he then followed Mr Corner who had begun smashing a toilet area, and tried to trap him in there by holding the door for a while before deciding to go outside. Shaw agreed that no-one in the building had struck him.

Extract from cross-examination of security guard Mr Volante

In evidence yesterday, Volante had claimed that Kamio approached him with an angle grinder. He was shown footage in which she actually appeared to be holding a sledgehammer, while it was Volante himself who appeared to hold an angle grinder in one hand and a small hammer in the other, and was swinging them. Ms Hammad accused Volante of being very angry, causing one of the activists, Mr. Devlin, to tell him to ‘calm down’. The guard said he was ‘animated’ rather than angry, wasn’t using the tools as weapons, and was attempting to disarm the intruders. It can be seen that that Mr. Devlin is actually unarmed. Kamio is seen moving around with a sledgehammer, and then using it to smash up some computer equipment. Volante agrees that at no point is she seen with an angle grinder, let alone threatening him with it.

Barrister for Zoe Rogers, Ms Mogan shows footage of Volante in the corridor with a whip in his hand screaming at Ms Rogers and others that they were “being recorded”. Mogan reminded him that he was aware of previous Palestine Action protests aimed at damaging Elbit equipment, and that yesterday he had said he had grabbed a sledgehammer off Mr Devlin. Playing footage, it seemed to show him actually seizing the sledgehammer off Zoe, and she gets flung towards a wall. It also looks like he is then holding the sledgehammer with its head out in front of him, and Zoe picks up another sledgehammer from the floor, struggling with its weight and turning through 360 degrees as he approaches her with his hammer in front of him.

Yesterday Volante told the court that her hammer made contact with him, but now he accepts that that wasn’t in his statement to the police, and that it may not have done. Ms Mogan suggested he had swung his sledgehammer at Zoe, showing some more footage, in which the shadow of the hammer appeared as though raised, and Zoe covering her face in response. He had already accepted that he had kicked Mr Devlin, and he now acceded that Zoe might have “thought” that the hammer would hit her, but maintained he hadn’t swung it at her. Volante also agreed that, although his BWV was no longer recording at that time, it was “possible” that Ms Rogers ended up on the ground.

Mr Morris, barrister for Jordan Devlin, then asked Mr Volante to acknowledge that police officers had shown him unedited footage from his own BWV a few days before trial, and asked whether he noticed anything additional to what he’d described in his original statement at the time, especially that when he entered the building he clearly had one of the whips in his hand. Volante said he hadn’t noticed that. Mr. Morris suggested that Volante had run down the corridor with whip in hand, screaming at Mr. Devlin who was unarmed, and inquired whether Volante had used any de-escalation training, rather than engaging in force on first contact with Devlin and Rogers. Morris asked whether he was registered with the Security Industries Association (SIA) and whether their training included hitting someone in the face with the handle of a sledgehammer. Volante said that any such contact was unintentional and that that was why he also hadn’t mentioned it in his police statement.

Mr. Morris showed the court a screenshot from footage, that appeared to show contact described, and then handed out several photos of injuries that Mr. Devlin had sustained. One shows a round red mark that Mr. Morris suggests is the shape of a sledgehammer head. Volante is also asked about any conversation they had in the struggle, and whether when they were face-to-face, he had tried to bite Mr. Devlin on the neck. He said Mr. Devlin had likened the struggle to Star Wars and that he was a rebel or Jedi to Mr. Volante’s empire, but that no bite had occurred.

After the struggle in the alcove, the next time Devlin and Volante engaged was when the police had arrived. Volante denies he hit Devlin in the face with the edge of the hammer, but admits he then put him in a choke hold, which under further questioning he reveals he learnt from martial arts training which he’d done when younger, reaching a blue belt in JuJitsu but only a white belt in TaeKwondo. Volante described the manoeuvre as a ‘rear naked choke hold’, which could be dangerous if not administered properly. He is shown a further photograph of marks to Devlin’s neck, but says he hadn’t caused those. A police BWV video sequence is shown where Mr. Devlin attempts to stand up, and Volante uses the handle of the sledgehammer against his neck to force him back down. A disagreement ensues, in which Volante claims he was defending himself and trying to prevent Devlin from grabbing the sledgehammer, while Morris argues that Devlin poses no threat at the time and Volante was performing an aggressive and dangerous act. Another photo showed Devlin’s bruised face and black eye, corresponding to the side of his face that Volante was accused of hitting. Volante admits that he struck him and that he fell back.

Footage shows Devlin telling the police Volante had assaulted him and pointing at his face. Mr. Morris also notes to the court, that although referred to throughout as Scottish, Mr. Devlin’s accent is actually Northern Irish.

Now we have extracts from the cross-examination of a third security guard. Mr Luke:

After a short break, Mr Menon cross-examines Mr. Luke and takes him through the footage once more. He agrees that the first woman is holding a whip and he seizes it off her – and although he claims she used it against him there doesn’t appear to be video of that. While he’s grappling with the woman who originally held a sledgehammer, the other woman hands her hammer to the male and runs off somewhere. After a bit more confusion, Mr. Luke agrees that the next time he sees the two women, it is after what Menon describes as Mr. Volante’s ‘Incredible Hulk’ moment, and that they remain on the ground compliant until they are arrested by police.

Samuel Corner’s barrister, Mr. Wainright, then speaks to Mr. Luke pointing out that several of his assertions have turned out to be wrong. He was wrong about the sequence of events, he was wrong that a female passed a sledgehammer to a male who tried to use it against him. In his police statement Mr. Luke said he disarmed two women of a sledgehammer and an angle grinder, but later accepted this was wrong too. Mr. Wainwright took Luke through footage once more and showed that he had mixed which of the two males had the sledgehammer, which direction they had come from, and indeed whether anyone had actually tried to hit him.

Ms Hammad (for Leona Kamio) tried to clear up confusion of the order of events, and particularly at what point Mr. Luke had actually switched his camera on. He had said he started recording after hitting the panic button in the control room, but Ms Hammad showed footage that appeared to show him entering the warehouse from the loading bay area before that. She suggested that he had had some sort of tussle with one of the females at that point (before switching on his BWV) and then he went to the control room. Mr. Luke was adamant this was not the case. Ms Hammad finished her questioning by asking him whether he had been hit by the woman with the sledgehammer – he said he thought it had grazed him, but accepted it hadn’t hit him. Ms Hammad suggested he had merely grabbed it.

Next, Ms Oborne asked some questions about the allegation that Fatema Rajwani had a bag of fireworks and was intending to throw one at him. Taking him through his BWV footage once more, he acceded there didn’t appear to be any bag, or possibly any fireworks, and that in fact Ms Rajwani had taken a simple flare out of her pocket.

Now we have an extract from the evidence of a policeman, PC Buxton, under cross-examination:

The barrister reminds Buxton that when he entered the building there was loud noise and a horrible smell, and then shows the officer some video of the confrontation between the security guard and the intruder. The guard (Volante) is seen pushing the handle of the sledgehammer against the brown-haired male’s neck, and Buxton is asked if he remembered seeing that – he said he didn’t remember it. Wainright (who acts for Mr. Corner, the blonde man) shows footage showing Corner swing his hammer in order to hit the hammer held by the guard, and Buxton accedes that is what it looks like.

Next, Buxton is seen in the footage using his spray, and he agrees that Corner is not wearing any eye protection at that moment. Wainright asks him about the struggle with the brown-haired male on the floor, and about the moment that Corner returns. Buxton had given a video statement a couple of days after the incident, in which he describes Corner swinging the sledgehammer, and saying that although he wasn’t absolutely sure if it had hit him, he thought it probably had, because he remembered feeling pain, and because a bruise appeared a few days later. Mr. Wainright remarks that the officer also hadn’t mentioned damage to the radio in any earlier evidence, and Buxton agreed that it could have been away from his body on the floor somewhere.

Mr. Wainright also asked the jury to note that in Buxton’s evidence he said “I remember a horrible scream” which referred to the point at which one of the women was tazered.

Mr. Morris (acting for brown-haired Jordan Devlin) then takes over cross-examination, and asks Buxton to look once more at the footage, this time slowed down. When the video first shows the three people in red, Mr. Morris asks the officer whether he had noticed the security guard on his right holding a sledgehammer. He replies that he can’t remember. He was also asked when he’d first seen the footage and whether it was before writing his first statement. After challenging Mr. Morris as to whether it was a strike or whether it was a push that the guard administered with the sledgehammer on Devlin’s neck, Buxton does agree that his statement claimed the sledgehammer was in Devlin’s hands, but now realises that it was the guard who was actually holding it. The barrister asked the officer whether he knew why the guard had a sledgehammer, and he answered that he didn’t.

Now, it is not in dispute that the Palestine Action team entered the factory with sledgehammers and other equipment, intending to damage machinery and weapons in order to disrupt Israeli arms supply. It is also not in dispute that a policewoman, Sergeant Evans, was injured. But how she got injured, how the melee developed and who hit who is a key question.

What is evident from these exchanges is that the security guards and police are unreliable witnesses.

It is not merely that their evidence differs from what is shown by the video cameras.

It is that, consistently, their sworn evidence is untrue in a way that always makes the Palestine Action activists more aggressive, and themselves more passive, than in fact was the case.

Whether this is malicious, or merely the natural tendency of the human brain in a chaotic and scary situation to see things in the way it wishes, is not immediately evident. The answer to that will become plain when the defendants give evidence, and we start to see whether they too gave accounts inconsistent with the video evidence.

There is also the question of major gaps in video recordings and of the cameras in the “alcove” where much of the action took place apparently producing no footage, as so often happens when convenient to the authorities.

The cross-examination about the police handling of the video evidence is also highly revealing, here with PC Grant:

Menon asked her to confirm that Elbit had sole control of the footage and the system for two days – she agreed, but said the recordings on the system would have been the same and there was no evidence they had edited anything. She confirmed that she had not asked Elbit about the footage from cameras 22-25 until “much later” and that they were “quite shocked when I pointed it out”.

The name of her contact at Elbit Systems has been withheld from the defence barristers and he is known as Witness A. Grant was asked about her contact with him and referred her to email correspondence between them. On 11th Aug she’d sent an email headed ‘CCTV update Saturday’ stating that the police hadn’t checked the frame rate of all the cameras, just dipping in to get an interview, but she was concerned that “ There’s a huge opportunity for the defence counsel to use the gaps and jumps to their advantage”.

It is hard to imagine a plainer admission that a serving British police officer saw her primary duty as helping Israel’s largest arms manufacturer to secure convictions, rather than establishing the truth.

Menon asked why on earth the police were chatting with Israel’s largest arms manufacturer about what the defence counsel might do. She replied it was just her experience there was potential for that and that the system was so bad she was concerned about possible future incidents.

One of the other defence barristers picked up the baton, asking about the supposed independence of the police, and about the integrity of independent investigation and storage of exhibits. They referred to a police search of a safe at Filton carried out on 22nd November just before the trial, which found a number of USB sticks in Metropolitan Police evidence bags. Ms Grant said she was not aware of that. But one of the bags had written on it “provided to Elbit Systems by PC Grant.” The officer said the only stuff they’d given back was the material offloaded to create space. She said she couldn’t recall the labelling of the bag, that it wasn’t normal practice and couldn’t understand it at all.

….Mr Wainwright asked PC Grant whether she’d been made aware that the security guard Mr. Volante had run into the factory towards one of the defendants with a whip in his hand, and there was another incident in which a security guard used a sledgehammer. He asked her whether she’d searched for footage of that. She said she’d been told about it when she was there, but didn’t look for it specifically as she had downloaded everything that happened in that hour and a half between 3 and 4.30am. She couldn’t remember seeing a security guard with a whip.

Mr. Wainwright showed an image of the view from C24, asking if she’d looked at that footage and whether she’d seen Volante running with a whip in his hand and screaming. Ms Grant said that if the camera had been operating properly regarding the frame rate, she’d have seen it, but had made no notes of frame rates etc. Asked about C28, and the security guard running into the alcove, she was asked whether she’d seen that or made any notes on it. She said she couldn’t remember. Effectively it wasn’t her job, and she handed all the footage over to her Sergeant, Ken Crawley.

And this from the cross-examination of Detective Constable Hammersley from the Counter Terrorism Police:

Mr. Morris noted that Hammersley had made several statements over the past year, but only the latest, served during this trial, mentioned that he was a ‘viewing manager’. He said that he hadn’t thought it relevant. Mr. Morris then showed the unedited clip of Mr. Volante running in with the whip in his hand and asked Hammersley why he hadn’t put this in the compilation. The response was that the technician Sarah Bentley had a degree of autonomy in what went in. Asked whether the edit was deliberate Mr. Hammersley said no.

After a busy week of traveling I had intended to attend the start of the defence case on Wednesday, but the trial was suspended due to a juror suffering a bereavement. I therefore only managed to attend the trial in person on Thursday morning, with the evidence of the first defendant, Charlotte Head.

Again, Real Media have done a superb job of covering Charlotte’s testimony. I would add only a few atmospherics.

This was my first time back in Woolwich Crown Court, attached to Belmarsh jail, since it hosted the first week of Julian Assange’s extradition proceedings six years ago.

The area is still as bleak, the weather still cold, wet and windy, and the court as unremittingly gulag worthy, as six years ago.

I was slightly worried on arrival that I did not have a passport on me, but as in proceedings at the High Court it was not required for entry. When I had attended the Assange hearings here they had insisted on passports and entered everyone’s details. They had also attempted to confiscate notebooks and pens in the public gallery. This Filton trial however was much more normal.

The courtroom is a mirror image of that used for the Assange case. The six accused were seated in a glass box at the back, spaced out evenly perhaps two metres apart from each other. The public gallery is raised at a mezzanine level, running down the left-hand side of the court, but completely sealed off with security glass. The courtroom sound is piped in to the public gallery through loudspeakers.

We could not see the jury, who are directly below the public gallery. Judge James Johnson, in his long wig and scarlet gown, presided from a dais. There was plainly great tension between the judge and the various defence counsel (each defendant having a team). I have never seen a judge spoken to with such obvious intonation of disrespect. Johnson’s face repeatedly flushed as crimson as his robe.

Some of the highest drama in this trial consists in the discussions on admissibility of evidence when the jury is sent out. This was again the case on Thursday when I was there. Unfortunately reporting restrictions prevent me from telling you what this is about, until the trial is over, when I shall have much to say.

Charlotte Head was plainly extremely nervous. Before moving from the glass case to the witness box, she vigorously shook out her arms and particularly her hands to relieve the tension, and did so as though unaware she could be observed. At several points she was visibly struggling to collect herself.

She did however come over as intelligent, competent and concerned. How far the jury can connect with people coming from an activist background and sensibility will be a key factor in the outcome.

The key point of Head’s very full evidence is that absolutely at no point was violence against people planned or envisaged. As at similar actions the expectation was that the security guards would not physically intervene and that they would have 20 minutes or so to cause property damage before the police arrived.

In the event it had all instead escalated extremely quickly.

This trial is a real ordeal for the female prisoners. Their journey in the extremely uncomfortable prison van from Bronzefield Prison takes between three and five hours each way, every day. On a typical day they are awoken at 5:30am and do not get back into their individual cells until 10:30pm, with only the limited lunch at Woolwich Crown Court as hot food; this five days a week.

It is also important to highlight the injuries Jordan Devlin suffered from the security guards. This from Charlotte Head:

Andrew Morris (representing Jordan Devlin) asks Ms Head to look at the photograph of Devlin’s right arm, and asks her whether when she attended court on 13th August had she seen his injury. She said he had a pure black bruise all over one side, “like nothing she’d seen before”, over mostly his ribs and underarm. He also had a bad black eye. Shown another picture of his face, she confirmed that’s what it looked like, but said she was so shocked about the body bruising that she hardly remembered the eye.

These are noted in this description of the agreed facts of the case between prosecution and defence:

Mr Devlin’s numerous injuries were recorded and on the following evening the custody officer authorised his escorted transfer to hospital, noting that large bruises were forming which Devlin said were caused by a sledgehammer.

The defendants were moved to Hammersmith Police Station the next day, and a list of Devlin’s injuries were recorded there, which included hight shoulder tricep area was swollen, injuries to both wrists and his right cheek, a bump on his head, black right eye, bruised shins, thighs, and left arm, a bruised right elbow, and his left pectoral.

You will recall the police did not think Mr Devlin’s injuries worth noting in their statements. In addition to which one female activist, Leona Kamio, was twice tasered, the second time “by accident” while prone and restrained.

Remember this is a case in which the prosecution narrative has been put forward as fact by both the Home Secretary and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Where there has been so much said by senior figures to the defendants’ detriment, the running sore of the matters to be kept from the jury become still more problematic.

It is also simply remarkable that the prosecution’s highly selective and edited video evidence has been put into the public domain and has notably affected the public narrative, but that the defence video evidence may not be made public.

But then I gave up on expecting justice from the system long ago. Happily juries often represent the last defence of a true spirit of fairness.

The trial continues. Do follow on Real Media – the state and corporate media will never give you the truth of it.

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I am confident that over 2 million people in the UK have shared thoughts on the Genocide in Gaza that are stronger than anything Natalie Strecker has expressed.

I am quite certain that I am one of those 2 million.

Yet Natalie Strecker, an avowed pacifist, today faces up to ten years in prison under the Terrorism Act when the verdict in her case comes in.

Strecker is charged with eliciting support for Hamas and Hezbollah, based on 8 tweets, cherry-picked by police and prosecutors from an astounding 51,000 tweets she sent, mainly from the Jersey Palestine Solidarity Committee account.

The tweets were rather rattled off in court and referred to occasionally again in whole and in part. There may be minor inaccuracies not affecting sense, but this is the best reconstruction of those tweets that I can make (they were not displayed to the public):

“People will be individually resisting: otherwise we would be asking them to submit to genocide on their knees”

“Solidarity with the people of Lebanon and Hezbollah has the right to resist in international law, I remind you the occupier does not, and are legally obligated to try to prevent Genocide.”

“Solidarity with the resistance. In the same way that the resistance fought the Nazis in Europe, we must support the fight against the Nazis of our generation”.

“Resistance is their legal right under moral and international law. If you don’t want resistance, then don’t create the circumstances which require it. Solidarity with the Resistance.”

“This nonsense our nation has descended into, where one side is committing genocide, and the other is proscribed for fighting it. I believe Hezbollah may be Palestine’s last hope”.

“Hamas the resistance did not break out of their concentration camp to attack Jews as Jews. We can debate whether armed resistance is legitimate. Of course there should be no attacks on civilians.”

“I am sick of the MSM propaganda about “Hamas-run health ministry figures”. Hamas is the government in Gaza. Every health ministry in the world is run by its government.”

“Are you awake? So it is down to ordinary people like you an me to end it. We must take our power back. Join me in solidarity with the people of Lebanon and Palestine. Solidarity with the Resistance.”

That is it. The prosecution case is that these tweets, both collectively and individually, amount to an invitation of support for Hamas and Hezbollah resulting in up to ten years in jail in Jersey, or 14 years in jail on the UK mainland.

The prosecution explicitly stated, and the judge notably intervened to make sure that everybody understood, that it is the offence of supporting terrorism to state that the Palestinians have the right to armed resistance in international law.

Judge John Saunders interrupted the prosecution to ask whether they were saying that he would be guilty of support for terrorism if, in a lecture, he told an international law class that Palestinians have the right to armed resistance in international law.

After some kerfuffle when faced with such an awkward question, the prosecution replied that yes, it could be the offence to tell law students that.

I should point out, at risk of dying in jail, that the Palestinians are beyond doubt an occupied people in international law, and equally beyond doubt an occupied people have the right of armed resistance.

To state that the Palestinians have the right of armed resistance in international law is not in the least controversial as a statement of law. A few Zionist nutters would try to differ, but 95% of international lawyers on this planet would agree.

I assume by perfectly logical extension that this means the prosecution must believe it is a terrorist crime in UK law, for example, to quote UN General Assembly Resolution 37/43, which:

2. Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle;

3. Reaffirms the inalienable right of the Namibian people, the Palestinian people and all peoples under foreign and colonial domination to self-determination, national independence, territorial integrity, national unity and sovereignty without outside interference;

It is also worth stating that on Friday the prosecution stated, in these precise words, that “Resistance is synonymous with Hamas and Hezbollah” and that any support for, or justification of, Palestinian resistance is support for a proscribed organisation.

To repeat, there are millions of people in the UK who have stated stronger things than the tweets above. Including me. And, as the defence pointed out repeatedly, just eight tweets had been found after hundreds of hours of police time, and found amidst tens of thousands of other tweets on the Middle East, hundreds of which specifically urge non-violence.

So why are the police doing this to Natalie? Why did six armed police storm her apartment and rouse her at 7am a year ago, seizing all her electronics and papers, arresting her and not allowing her to have a pee without leaving the bathroom door open so she could be observed?

This is where the story gets very dark indeed.

This is not a local Jersey initiative.

The prosecution is directed from London and Alison Morgan KC, senior Treasury counsel (UK government lawyer) is seated beside the local prosecuting counsel, openly puppeteering him every step of the way.

So why has the UK government chosen Jersey to prosecute a local pacifist whose statements provide possibly the weakest case of support for terrorism that has ever been heard in any court in the Western world?

The answer is that here in Jersey there is no jury.

Facing this charge on the UK mainland Natalie would have a jury, and there is not a jury in the UK that would not throw this self-evidently vindictive nonsense out in 5 minutes.

Why is it worth the time and expense for Whitehall to send Alison Morgan KC here to direct a weak case against somebody who is obviously not a terrorist?

The plain answer is that this is a pilot for what they can get away with on the mainland when they abolish juries in such trials, as “Justice Secretary” David Lammy has announced that they will indeed do.

In Jersey the system is inherited from the Normans. The judge sits with two “jurats” or lay magistrates. They determine innocence or guilt. These come from a pool of 12 permanent jurats. In practice these are retired professionals and frequently have strong connections to the financial services industry.

What the jurats emphatically are not is Natalie Strecker’s working class peers of a kind who would be represented on a jury. I strongly recommend this brief article on the corruption of Jersey society by a man who was for 11 years the Government of Jersey’s economic adviser.

The judge, Sir John Saunders, seems a decent old stick in a headmasterly sort of way. He has told the court that “Mrs Strecker’s good character is not in doubt”. On Friday he stated that this was “A very difficult and in many ways a very sad case for the court to deal with. But I have to construe it according to strict legal principles”.

In the Palestine Action proscription case, as I reported, counsel for the UK government openly stated “We do not deny that the law is draconian. It is supposed to be”. In the mass arrests of decent people over Palestine Action, people have understood what a dreadfully authoritarian law the proscription regime is.

An intelligent observer cannot sit in Judge Saunders’ courtroom without realising that he thinks this is a dreadful law, but accepts that it is his job to enforce it. He reminds me of the caricature of the lugubrious headmaster stating “This is going to hurt me more than it is going to hurt you”.

In effect, Alison Morgan and the UK government are attempting through this prosecution to make even the most basic expression of support for Palestine a serious criminal offence. Remember that a terrorism conviction destroys your life – it almost certainly brings loss of employment, debanking and severe travel restrictions.

The International Court of Justice has decided that Israel has a real case to answer on Genocide, and most experts believe that Israel is committing Genocide. In Natalie’s correct image, the UK government is trying to make it a terrorist offence to say anything other than that the Palestinians should quietly submit to Genocide on their knees.

The danger is that the hubris of lay magistrates will lead the jurats to try cleverly to construe Natalie’s comments as support for terrorism in line with the government’s wishes. Natalie has, however, one defence in Jersey not available in mainland UK: here in Jersey the prosecution has to show intent – that she intended to cause support for terrorist organisations.

The prosecution has also relied on the extremely wide definition of support adopted in UK terrorist cases, that “support of” merely means “expression of agreement with”.

In defending the tweet about Hamas-run health ministry figures, Natalie Strecker’s counsel Mark Boothman countered this rather well when he said: “there is no offence of causing people to think less badly of Hamas”

I confess however I am slightly puzzled that I have not heard the defence argue that the prosecution positions are grossly disproportionate violations of freedom of expression in terms of Article X of the European Convention of Human Rights.

I would have thought, for example, that was the natural thing to say in response to the prosecution’s contention that it would be a crime for a law lecturer to tell his class that the Palestinian people had the right of armed resistance in international law.

The verdict was decided yesterday afternoon between the judge and jurats. It will be presented in full written judgment in an hour’s time.

This is a truly horrifying case for Natalie, who cannot afford to lose her job with a Jersey government agency and most certainly does not wish to be jailed. I pinch myself to be sure that this is all really happening.

It is a truly horrifying case in terms of what the Starmer government intends to do on the mainland in further criminalising support for Palestine.

I do not support Hamas nor Hezbollah, being opposed to theocracy. But for it to be illegal to discuss the Genocide in Gaza and the role of these two organisations, unless you do it absolutely without either context or nuance, is Orwellian.

Western dissent is also a victim of the Zionist Genocide.

———————————

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The Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action – funded so far by readers of this blog – has been simply shelved by delay tactics that plainly break the Scottish legal system’s own rules.

Our case was ruled competent for us to serve the petition on the UK government. They replied in the last hour of their two-week deadline. The court itself then had a two-week deadline to grant a judicial review, or to call a hearing on whether to grant it.

Instead the judge has simply sat on it, preventing a judicial review by administrative delay.

This is the absolutely plain rule the court is breaking:

The permission stage

58.7.—(1) Within 14 days from the end of the period for lodging answers the Lord Ordinary must—

(a) decide whether to—

(i) grant permission (including permission subject to conditions or only on particular grounds);

(ii) grant an extension to the time limit under section 27A of the 1988 Act; or
(b) order an oral hearing (for the purpose of making those decisions) to take place within 14 days.

The emphasis is mine but the word “must” is obviously very important here!

The extraordinary thing is that our legal team is struggling to come up with actions we can take to force the court to act. The judges can freeze this out for a very long time.

The absurd proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, and the appalling legal consequences on freedom of expression and in criminalising thousands of highly respectable citizens as terrorists, has faced the state with a dilemma which, at least in Scotland, it prefers not to resolve head on.

In Scotland, the prosecuting authorities have therefore written to over 20 activists charged for wearing T-shirts with the slogan

“Genocide in Palestine, Time to take Action”

offering to drop charges if they accept a prosecutorial warning.

In Scotland, this warning does not involve an acknowledgement of guilt (unlike a police caution), but sits on your record for two years and can be used against you in future court cases. All twenty-plus individuals we know of who have been offered the warning have responded by saying they will not accept the warning. The state’s attempt to dodge the court cases is therefore not working.

I am also hearing of activists charged for holding the Defend Our Juries signs saying

“I oppose Genocide, I support Palestine Action”

being offered deals on non-custodial outcomes in Scotland if they accept guilt, but as such prosecution deals are dubiously legal I have not yet fully managed to stand this story up.

But what is plain to me is that the authorities in Scotland are determined to keep both the judicial review of the proscription, and individual terrorist cases from the proscription, out of court.

The reason for this is that there is no confidence the Scottish judiciary, let alone Scottish juries, will uphold the proscription. The whole farce is falling apart on the basis of societal resistance to this draconian governmental overreach. This resistance runs vertically through the classes in Scotland.

I am currently in England for the judicial review of the proscription in the High Court of England and Wales. Here a different approach is being taken. They have simply switched the judges at the last minute to load the dice for Israel.

Judge Chamberlain granted the judicial review, a decision which was upheld by the Court of Appeal. As I have previously reported, he has a reputation for independence from the state, having even called MI5 out for producing dishonest evidence. I found his manner in court rather overbearing, but that self-confidence is perhaps needed to take anti-Establishment positions as a High Court judge.

Chamberlain plainly was expecting to hear the case. He has handled it all the way through, it was scheduled according to his diary, and just eight days ago he was still corresponding with counsel as the judge in the case. He has been replaced by a horror show of top Zionists. Judge Swift is the poster boy of security-service controlled judges, with a history of pro-government decisions in the Assange and Rwanda cases. He was a lawyer for the security services for many years and stated in interview that they were his favourite clients.

Swift was forced to recuse himself in the Graham Phillips case, when it was discovered he had been secretly meeting to discuss the case with the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, one of the parties, without informing the defence. That is judicial behaviour so bad I cannot begin to describe the magnitude of it.

Here is what I wrote about Swift on 21 February 2024:

The blocking of Assange’s appeal was done by Judge Swift, a judge who used to represent the security services, and said they were his favourite clients. In the subsequent Graham Phillips case, where Mr Phillips was suing the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) for sanctions being imposed upon him without any legal case made against him, Swift actually met FCDO officials – one of the parties to the case – and discussed matters relating to it privately with them before giving judgment. He did not tell the defence he had done this. They found out, and Swift was forced to recuse himself.

Personally I am surprised Swift is not in jail, let alone still a High Court judge. But then what do I know of justice?

Another of the new panel for the Palestine Action case is Judge Karen Steyn, who ruled that UK export of F35 parts was legal even though they may end up being used in Israeli attacks on Gaza. Steyn ruled that such decisions were political and a matter for ministers and not for the courts – an attitude which the government are evidently confident she will continue in the Palestine Action case.

Dame Victoria Sharp, who will chair the judicial review, is a puzzle. Completely integrated in the top Tory Establishment, her twin brother Richard gave a large personal loan to Boris Johnson and shortly thereafter, and doubtless by total coincidence, was appointed by Johnson as chairman of the BBC.

Richard Sharp has long been associated with Zionist super-donor Trevor Chinn. They served together as advisors to Boris Johnson while he was Mayor of London. Victoria Sharp moves in an entirely Zionist and high-Tory milieu, but I must say that I was struck by her honesty and good sense in the Assange hearings. Perhaps, from the Establishment point of view, Israel is a subject on which she will be “safer”.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the last-minute change of judging panel is a panicked effort by the government and its deep-state controllers, to seize control of the narrative, following the carefully timed and illegal public release of highly edited and confused police footage of the Filton action.

It may prevail with this immediate panel, but will not prevail in London in the longer term. Meanwhile, we have in Scotland to continue to press the courts to stop hiding and to face the burning questions highlighted by this crazed authoritarianism in the name of Israel.

———————————

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

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

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In fascist lockstep, the entire British media, broadcast and print, corporate and state, is leading with a Ministry of Defence press release about a “Russian spy ship” inside “British waters”.

No British media appears to have been able to speak to anybody who knows the first thing about the Law of the Sea.

Here are the facts:

The Exclusive Economic Zone extends 200 miles from the coastal baselines. The Continental Shelf can extend still further, as a fact of geology, not an imposed maximum.

On the Continental Shelf the coastal state is entitled to the mineral resources. In the Exclusive Economic Zone the coastal state is entitled to the fisheries and mineral resources.

For purposes of navigation, both the Continental Shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone are part of the High Seas. There is freedom of navigation on the High Seas. Foreign ships, including foreign military ships, may come and go as they please. Nor is there any ban on “spying” – exactly as there is no restriction on spying from satellites.

The Territorial Waters of a state extend out to just twelve miles. These are subject to the internal legislation of the coastal state. There is freedom for foreign vessels, including military vessels, to pass through them but only subject to the rule of “innocent passage” – which specifically rules out spying and reconnaissance. In the territorial sea, vessels have to be genuinely just passing through on their way somewhere, otherwise they may need coastal state permission for their activity.

The Exclusive Economic Zone is subject to the rules of the coastal state only in relation to the reserved economic activities to which the state is entitled. Scientific research is specifically free for all states within the Exclusive Economic Zone.

The Russian ship Yantar has been just outside the UK territorial waters. It is therefore under “freedom of navigation” and not under “innocent passage”. It is free to do scientific research.

I don’t doubt it is really gathering intelligence on military, energy and communications facilities. That is what states do. The UK does it to Russia all the time, on the Black Sea, the Barents Sea, the Baltic, and elsewhere. Not to mention 24/7 satellite surveillance.

It is perfectly legal for the Yantar to do this. Personally I wish the entire world would stop such activity, but to blame the Russians given the massive levels of surveillance and encirclement they suffer from NATO assets is simply ludicrous.

Not to mention the ultimate hypocrisy that the UK has been flying intelligence missions over Gaza every single day and feeding targeting information to aid the Gaza genocide.

The UK’s allies blew up Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline. The UK is now accusing the Yantar precisely of scouting this same kind of attack – which we endorsed when the pipeline was Russian.

For example HMS Sutherland, accompanied by Royal Fleet Auxiliary Tidespring, and two other NATO warships penetrated 160 miles into Russia’s Exclusive Economic Zone and lingered 40 miles from Russia’s Severomorsk naval base. There was no pretence they were doing anything other than gathering intelligence and sounding out defences.

In armed forces media the UK boasted it was an assertion of freedom of navigation. Yet we harass the Russian vessel equally on the High Seas for exercising its freedom of navigation.

That was also perfectly legal. The idea that the same activity is worthy when we do it, but a pretext for war if the Russians do it, is so childish as to be beyond ridicule. But there is not one single mainstream journalist willing to call it out.

As this photo of HMS Somerset illegally threatening the Yantar on the High Seas shows, forcing it into dangerous moves, the aggression is not from the Russians. That British jets illegally buzzing the Yantar have been met with lasers designed to disrupt attacks. That is not the Russian aggression John Healy claims. The nonsense about dazzling pilots’ eyes is sheer invention.

Unless the plane is extremely, extremely low or a very long way away it is a physical impossibility to shine a laser into a pilot’s eyes in a modern warplane, from below in a ship. The pilot won’t be looking at the ship out of the window, but will be looking at his screens and the image from the cameras under the plane. These might be disrupted by the lasers – and a perfectly valid and sensible defensive measure that is too.

This is the Eurofighter Typhoon.

Imagine it in the skies way above you and look at its body, particularly the front end – how would you get line of sight on the pilot? You couldn’t. Lasers only go in straight lines.

Most sinister of all is the universal state control of media that gets every single mainstream outlet booming out the propaganda narrative, all entirely without question.

This war talk is of course the normal refuge of extremely unpopular governments. But it is part of a wider tightening of the grip of the military-industrial complex on the state. Starmer is committed to increasing military expenditure by tens of billions of pounds a year, while imposing austerity on the rest of the economy. In Scotland, we are told that the closure of major industrial sites like Grangemouth and Mossmorran will be compensated by opening new weapons factories.

Beating ploughshares into swords.

The rise of domestic racism and authoritarianism is accompanied by the increase in militarism and the desire to portray Russia and China as enemy states with whom we are already in a state of proto-war. The state has a mainstream media which is showing itself willing to pump out even the most thin propaganda to this end with no interrogation whatsoever.

Western democracy has already died. Not everybody has yet noticed.

———————————

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

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

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As Godfather to Prince William, heir to the British throne, Prince Charles chose his close friend and adviser Laurens van der Post. A paedophile.

Van der Post raped a 14 year old girl who had been given into his care for the sea voyage from South Africa to London. He then installed her in a flat in London as his mistress, but abandoned her when she became pregnant age 15 (though he sent a monthly payment). She was not the only one. The victim later stated that van der Post was “sick” and “he knew how to pick his victims”.

In a sycophantic authorised biography of then-Prince Charles written thirty years ago, Jonathan Dimbleby wrote that “for Prince Charles there was a missing dimension”, that he felt his life lacked a spiritual awareness. At age 25 Charles sought out Van der Post after reading his books, and Van der Post became his spiritual Guru. Charles continually sought his advice and absorbed his mystic teachings. Not only is Van der Post William’s Godfather, he gave marriage counselling to Charles and Diana and was a frequent guest at Highgrove, Sandringham and Balmoral. On his death Charles initiated the Van der Post Memorial Lectures, held inside St James’s Palace.

There is a question which will run throughout this article, which is how much did people know? In the 1970s and 1980s it was not public knowledge that Van der Post was a paedophile. But then Charles was not the public. Then, as now, if somebody becomes very close to the heir to the throne with frequent access to Royal palaces, they are going to be under close investigation by the security services.

I find it wildly improbable that the security services did not find out about Van der Post’s predilection for young girls and that he had been paying the expenses of an illegitimate daughter originally fathered on a young teenage mother. There is also the question of Van der Post’s wider lies. It is possibly neither here nor there that in fact Van der Post had only ever spent a fortnight with The Bushmen of the Kalahari when he penned his famous book, full of lies and plagiarism.

But that he was actually a Lieutenant (and at times acting Captain) rather than a Lieutenant Colonel as he claimed, would have been instantly discovered. It is worth noting here that Van der Post’s famous military memoir, which became the film Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence starring David Bowie, was massively embellished, not just in terms of his rank.

The Royalist defence of Charles’ associations rests, rather peculiarly, on the claim that any huckster and paedophile can just get entry to the Palace inner circle without any checks. That is just not true. What appears to be true is that paedophilia was treated as a peccadillo.

Before Van der Post, the man credited by all biographers as the greatest influence in shaping Charles’ character was his great uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten. Born in Austria as Prince Louis of Battenberg, Charles can hardly be blamed for Mountbatten, who was thrust upon him as a child.

I hope not too literally.

Mountbatten was a paedophile, which was an open secret in upper class society – including the diplomatic service – long before his death. He benefited from the lifetime protection of the inner Royal circle, which was absolute in his lifetime. It has only become mainstream acknowledged in the past very few years.

That is deliberately phrased as “acknowledged”, not “knowledge” – there was not a Fleet Street Editor in 50 years who did not know; they just did not publish it. Mountbatten’s paedophilia was fuelled by his access to underprivileged children, from New Delhi to Rabat to Kincora Boy’s Home.

Mountbatten spent more time with Charles in his childhood and early adulthood than Charles’ own parents did, including encouraging and coaching him to have as much sex with as many “non-marriageable” girls as possible, and providing a venue for it in his homes. After he died Charles said, “Life will never be the same now that he is gone”. It is not a stretch to think that Van der Post – whom he first met four years before Mountbatten’s death – filled the emotional void.

A 1944 FBI dossier described Mountbatten as “a homosexual with a perversion for small boys”. This was two years before his appointment as Viceroy of India, where the open debauchery of the Mountbattens was an open secret in high-level Indian society.

It is worth noting that in this period his military aide-de-camp was one Willie McRae. I have always believed that the murder of McRae by the British state was related to his knowledge of Mountbatten and elite paedophile rings: in this context McRae’s ties with Irish Nationalists may be relevant, as they assassinated Mountbatten over the abuse at Kincora.

In Mountbatten’s case there is no doubt at all that the security services knew all about his paedophile, and covered for him.

So at the death of van der Post in 1996, Charles had lost two men he viewed, exclusively, as guides and spiritual mentors, and from whom he took the most intimate personal device. There is nobody else who fits this description. Both were extremely vicious and calculating paedophiles, shielded by class privilege from the consequences. So, in 1996, to whom did Charles turn as his new “mentor”?

Jimmy Savile was introduced to a 17-year-old Charles in 1966 by Mountbatten, who vouched for him. The official story is that Mountbatten had met Savile through military veteran fundraising.

You can believe that was the primary shared interest of two prolific paedophiles, if you so please.

Savile cultivated the relationship long-term, and by the 1980s was corresponding assiduously with Charles, which continued for over 20 years. Savile was yet another person to whom Charles turned for marriage counselling. In scores of letters, it is always Charles seeking Savile’s advice and adulating him. There is no record of Charles using the word “mentor” to describe his relationship with Savile, but Diana literally stated that Savile was a “sort of mentor” to Charles.

I presume I do not have to explain that Savile was throughout this period one of the most prolific paedophiles in British history. It is widely believed the royal cachet helped to protect him from prosecution. A huge amount was known to the police, to BBC managers and to various other branches of the British establishment, but Savile was untouchable.

In 2000 Charles constructed a chapel at his home at Highgrove, and a stained glass window in it commemorates Laurens van der Post. Before that window, Charles kneeled for long prayer vigils with his new spiritual guide, Bishop Peter Ball – who was also a friend of Jimmy Savile. It was Savile who introduced Ball to Charles.

Rather like Epstein, Ball was a known paedophile who had got off the first time without incarceration. He had, in 1993, accepted a police caution for a ceremony in which he had forced a 17-year-old novitiate, Neil Todd, to kneel naked in the snow for hours, whipped him, and then forced him to perform a sex act. The police also investigated at that time numerous other allegations, including two very similar ones.

The decision to caution was taken on the advice of the Crown Prosecution Service. As the Independent Inquiry into Child Abuse Report 2022 primly noted (p.378):

The first report on the Anglican Church investigation – The Anglican Church Case Studies 1. The Diocese of Chichester 2. The Response to Allegations Against Peter Ball Investigation Report – was published in May 2019. It considered the Diocese of Chichester, where there were multiple allegations of child sexual abuse, and whether there were inappropriate attempts by people of prominence to interfere in the criminal justice process after Bishop Peter Ball was first accused of child sexual offences.

I cannot, though, identify the passage referred to of the Diocese of Chichester Report.

Yet immediately after this, and for the next 17 years, Charles provided Ball with rather splendid rent-free accommodation on Charles’ estate. Ball was suspended by the Church of England as a priest and, astonishingly, Charles asked him to officiate at services and perform the Eucharist at his personal chapel in Highgrove, as reported in the Church Times. Ball was frequently in his company and was a personal guest at Charles’ 2005 wedding to Camilla.

In 2015, Charles gifted Ball £20,000. This was said to be simply a friendly gesture – exactly why is unclear. Charles is very definitely not known for personal generosity.

In 2015, Bishop Ball was finally convicted of 12 horrific instances of sexual abuse of boys and young men, all under the guise of religious ritual. Prince Charles put out a public denial that he had interfered in the 1993 decision not to prosecute. My surmise is that he had not done so directly, but rather let it be known through others. That is how it works.

The BBC actually reported that:

Ball’s court case heard that a member of the royal family – who has never been named – was among a host of public figures who supported him when he avoided charges in 1993.

The article goes on to carry this extremely over-specific and narrow denial from the Crown Prosecution Service:

The Crown Prosecution Service has publicly stated that it had neither received nor seen any correspondence from a member of the Royal Family when Ball was under investigation in 1992–93.

Note this very deliberately does not rule out a word in the ear at a function, a phone call, or – as it would be done – getting a friend known to be close to Charles to give the message.

Charles in fact in 1997, two years after his police caution, told Ball that he would directly intervene against Ball victim Neil Todd. “I will see off this horrible man if he tries anything again,” Charles wrote to Ball.

Todd did not live to see Ball ultimately convicted. He committed suicide in 2012. This was convenient for Ball, but there were plenty of other victims who testified in 2015.

I have no doubt the Royal Family will have known about Uncle Louis’s sins – he had an official entourage and was plugged in to the system. The immediate civil servants and close protection officers always know everything. I have already explained why I do not believe van der Post’s paedophilia was unknown. That goes double for Savile – about whom authorities had a huge amount of knowledge, but whose royal connections were a key part of his protection.

While there is no doubt whatsoever Charles knew about Bishop Peter Ball, Ball’s royal circle protection appears to have broken the surface.

To the best of my knowledge and belief, I do not know any paedophiles – but none of us can be absolutely certain we do not. Of one thing, however, I feel extremely confident. The four most-valued advisers in my life, the people whose advice I have most craved and to whom I have turned in times of crisis, are not all paedophiles. I should be astonished if any of them were.

You just can’t have your four closest non-official life guides as paedophiles by accident. You just can’t. It has been put to me that Charles, by nature of his role, knows vastly more people than ordinary folk. That may or may not be true (there is a counter-argument about privilege and protection). But if it were true, it does not improve things. If there is a much larger-than-normal pool from whom Charles could have chosen, it makes it even weirder he chose four prolific paedophiles.

To be clear, prolific paedophilia is extremely abnormal behaviour.

What I do not understand is why paedophilia appears so prevalent and attractive to politicians and the ruling class. People who have much more power and wealth than the rest of us, have the ability (rightly or wrongly) to get attractive adult consenting partners more easily. So why do they, apparently in disproportionate numbers, seek to prey on the young and defenceless?

It is more than time we got rid of the Medieval system of monarchy. That will not solve the corruption of corporate interests controlling the state, or redress the appalling inequality of wealth. It will not even do much to end elite class paedophilia. But as one clear demonstration of the rotten nature of British society, the tale of the King’s four paedophile mentors is extremely instructive.

———————————

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

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The draft Your Party constitution is for a highly centralised, London-based party which echoes the Labour Party. It “devolves” – they literally use the word – power from the centre to non-autonomous entities in Scotland and Wales.

We need a Federal party – a completely different approach – where authority lies with the members, and is granted to the executives firstly of the Scottish, Welsh and English parties, and then to the Federal executive, as the members wish.

The current draft reflects the British nationalist ideal that the UK is essentially England and that Scotland and Wales are some sort of add-ons for which special provision must be made. Therefore there are supposed to be Scottish and Welsh subsidiary – not equal – parties, whereas England does not have a separate party but is presumed to be the main body of the organisation.

Scotland and Wales are treated separately as “nations” while England isn’t. It is just assumed to be identical with the party as a whole. This is typical of the unthinking Anglocentrism of the authors.

I do not see how any Scot can respectably subscribe to the party on its currently drafted constitution.

I have therefore sent my written suggestion for Amendment to a true Federal format.

This is the original:

This is the amendment which I have submitted:

The draft constitution does not include the north of Ireland at all. I do not know if the party plans to operate there. I assume the omission means not.

I would urge members – not just those in Scotland and Wales – to support this fundamental change in the way the party is structured. Unless there is a genuine federal structure, Your Party will be dead in the water in Scotland. The pledge it will not be a “branch office” needs to have concrete form.

———————————

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.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

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
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