As the UK national Covid death continues its deadly climb towards 130,000, beyond the early reflections on what went wrong we should start with our preparedness, including the central role of that critical emergency stockpile of Personal Protective Equipment: PPE. Politicians are eager to proclaim what is universally accepted, that the first duty of any and all Governments is to protect the population of this country from harm. But, despite all of the warnings indicating that a consensus of opinion on the greatest threat to our national security was a global Pandemic the leadership in power for the last decade slashed the funding required to maintain this vital PPE preparedness. Instead of vigilantly monitored and upgraded the PPE supplies required to protect our NHS and care workforce so that they were ready to combat that threat they abandoned that duty, putting us all at risk. We are now living with the single worst consequence of warped Tory austerity: the highest Covid death toll in Europe and among the very highest globally.
Although there is always empty talk of ‘lessons learned’ sadly we are encumbered with a rogue Tory Government even more toxic than past iterations of the political far-right: robust scrutiny and accountability are not in their lexicon and they never learn from their repeated catastrophic mistakes. Beyond the unforgivable failure of their ideologically driven economic disaster that rendered the UK so critically unprepared, they are seeking a new way to rebrand their dire austerity agenda. Contrast the cuts to public services and frozen wages with the relentless squandering of public funds on failed programs led by trusted cronies or the reckless ‘money is no object’ spending spree on the Downing Street propaganda suite, but even that is not the worst obscenity. No, while we are barely even beginning to emerge from the ignored Pandemic threat, there’s another stockpile Tories want to prioritize by increasing our nuclear arsenal by 40%, allegedly to protect us from a mirage of threats from biological to cyber from unspecified ‘hostile states!’
“Bearns not bombs” intoned the furious SNP Leader at the last Prime Minister’s Questions; no wonder the Scottish people are so desperately eager to disconnect from this insane Westminster cabal: they do not want more nuclear warheads stockpiled in their backyard. The ominous threat that the UK might actually consider deploying such deadly weapons of mass destruction not just to deter a direct nuclear, but to ward off a biological incident or a pesky cyber nuisance from one of our confected enemies, no doubt identified by former panty salesman turned self-proclaimed search-engine sleuth Belingcat. Will the Tories adopt the ‘Bethlehem Doctrine’ of shoot first ask questions later in their ‘MAD’ Mutual Assured Destruction’s march towards global armageddon? Most of the major military confrontations of the past century have been deliberately engineered in response to a False Flag incident, Iraq and Vietnam being two clear examples. Now the annihilation of life on this planet could come down to the bum-steer of Belingcat!
This destructive Tory brinksmanship is the latest ‘willy-wagging’ from insecure politicians eager to assert the forgotten dominance of our extinct empire with their ‘wet-dream’ fantasies of grandeur. Putting future nuclear disarmament into screeching reverse our current international commitment to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty would be abandoned with any pretense of a purely defensive motivation highly questionable. This unjustified and unprovoked unilateral turbocharging of the arms race obliterates our diplomatic trustworthiness globally just as we are seeking partners for new trade agreements. The US have rid themselves of their populist petulant child in the White House, but the UK is destined to endure decades of Tory Sovereign Dictatorship under a narcissistic tyrant and his Machiavelian side-kick Cummings. It is not too late to fight back; we must derail this deadly juggernaut with mass protests, Legal challenges, demanding a full Investigation into the Covert 2019 Rigged Election and all ongoing Tory corruption.
A few days ago I received this email from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It said “Dear Friend, The Government has announced a 40% increase in Britain’s nuclear arsenal – I’m sure you’re as appalled by this news as I am. Today the arsenal stands at around 200 nuclear warheads, each about eight times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. How can Boris Johnson conceivably justify that arsenal, never mind increasing it? A key question being asked across media and parliament is: is it legal? The answer is a resounding No. Increasing Britain’s nuclear arsenal contravenes our legal obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Britain ratified in 1970. The NPT requires countries that have nuclear weapons to disarm, and those that don’t have them not to acquire them. There is no way in which increasing a nuclear arsenal is legitimate under the treaty.”
CND rightly insist that “Johnson’s decision to increase Britain’s nuclear arsenal is a serious problem. It’s not just that we would rather the money was spent on something more useful; or that this flagrant breach of the NPT may encourage others to pursue nuclear weapons; it’s a question of what kind of world we want to see, what role we want Britain to play and what it actually stands for. Rearming with weapons of mass destruction is not something that we can accept. I know that this is not the kind of world that you want. CND will be actively campaigning to stop this illegal action on the part of the Government. We’ll be calling on all our members to get active, lobby MPs and, when we can, collectively demonstrate to not only oppose this increase, but to stop Trident altogether.” They asked “Will you join CND and help us campaign for a nuclear-free world?”
The CND stance is supported in the London Economic Article entitled “Boris Johnson ‘in violation of international law’ with plan to build more nuclear warheads,” where Henry Goodwin lays out the facts saying that “Britain plans to increase the size of its nuclear stockpile by 40 percent, to 260 warheads, Johnson announced. Boris Johnson wants to increase the size of the UK’s nuclear weapons arsenal, a move which could amount to a violation of international law, campaigners and experts have warned. The government’s integrated defense review, published on Tuesday, revealed Britain would be increasing the size of its nuclear stockpile by 40 percent, to 260 warheads. The UK had previously committed to cutting its arsenal to 180 warheads by ‘the mid-2020s’, but the review said this stance would be changed ‘in recognition of the evolving security environment, including the developing range of technological and doctrinal threats’.”
Goodwin says “Johnson’s announcement comes despite the UK being a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which commits the government to gradual nuclear disarmament under international law. Successive administrations have stuck to the policy. Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project, said the UK’s plan was ‘deeply disappointing. ‘This will put Britain in violation of its Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Article 6 obligations,’ he said. Government ministers had publicly acknowledged, as recently as 2015, that cuts to the size of the country’s nuclear arsenal were part of its obligations under the treaty. Speaking at a United Nations conference in 2015, Baroness Anelay, a Foreign Office minister, said the UK ‘remains firmly committed to step-by-step disarmament, and our obligations under Article 6’. She suggested action would soon follow, including cutting “our total number of operationally available warheads to no more than 120” and reducing the ‘overall nuclear warhead stockpile to not more than 180 by the mid-2020s’.”
This sounds like more typical Tory double-speak like the copious boasts of ‘levelling up’ while in the blatantly obvious process of ‘Decimating Down’ targeting the working poor, disabled, vulnerable and disadvantaged. Goodwin reports that “Reacting to the new announcement, Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said: ‘A decision by the United Kingdom to increase its stockpile of weapons of mass destruction in the middle of a pandemic is irresponsible, dangerous and violates international law. ‘While the British people are struggling to cope with the pandemic, an economic crisis, violence against women, and racism, the government chooses to increase insecurity and threats in the world. This is toxic masculinity on display. ‘While the majority of the world’s nations are leading the way to a safer future without nuclear weapons by joining the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the United Kingdom is pushing for a dangerous new nuclear arms race’.”
Goodwin noted “In a further statement, the organization suggested that Britain would face censure at the upcoming NPT Review conference, which is due to take place at the United Nations in August. ‘The United Kingdom is legally obligated under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to pursue disarmament. States will meet soon to review the NPT’s success and when they do, the UK will have to answer for its actions,’ the statement said. Kate Hudson, the general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said: ‘A decision to increase Britain’s nuclear arsenal absolutely goes against our legal obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. ‘Not only is the UK failing to take the required steps towards disarmament, it is willfully and actively embarking on a new nuclear arms race, at a time when Presidents Biden and Putin have renewed their bilateral nuclear reductions Treaty.”
Goodwin also quotes Hudson saying that “Britain must not be responsible for pushing the world towards nuclear war. This is a dangerous and irresponsible move, and must be reversed. Speaking ahead of the review’s release, Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, said increasing the stockpile was the ‘ultimate insurance policy’. Asked why the government wanted to end three decades of gradual disarmament, Raab said: ‘Because over time as the circumstances change and the threats change, we need to maintain a minimum credible level of deterrent’. Why? ‘Because it is the ultimate guarantee, the ultimate insurance policy against the worst threat from hostile states’.” Meanwhile the single most credible threat remains the potential for future global Pandemics, but this Tory Government have yet to admit and apologize for letting the most vital UK stockpile of PPE, in logical preparedness for the most serious threat that we faced as a nation, dwindle, abandoned and neglected till this vacant stockpile took 130,000 lives!
Goodwin says “The Scottish National Party, which is responsible for the territory where the arsenal is actually based, slammed the plans. Stewart McDonald, the party’s defense spokesperson, said it ‘beggars belief’ for ‘Boris Johnson to stand up and champion the international rules-based system before announcing in the same breath that the UK plans to violate its commitments to the international treaty on non-proliferation’. ‘Renewing Trident nuclear weapons was already a shameful and regressive decision, however, increasing the cap on the number of Trident weapons the UK can stockpile by more than 40 percent is nothing short of abhorrent,’ he added. ‘It speaks volumes of the Tory government’s spending priorities that it is intent on increasing its collection of weapons of mass destruction, which will sit and gather dust unless the UK has plans to indiscriminately wipe out entire populations, rather than address the serious challenges and inequalities in our society that have been further exposed by the pandemic’.”
A massive hornets nest erupted with another stunning Raab revelation featured in the HuffPost UK Article entitled “Exclusive: Raab Says UK Wants Trade Deals With Nations That Violate Human Rights.” Captured on record the “Foreign secretary told staff that ‘restricting’ trade because of human rights abuses would mean missing out on ‘growth markets’. Dominic Raab has told officials in a leaked video call that Britain will seek trade deals with countries around the world that violate international standards on human rights. The foreign secretary told staff in his department that only trading with countries that meet European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) standards would mean the UK missing out on trade with future ‘growth markets’.” Obviously our Fascist regime cannot afford to be too picky after ‘cutting off our nose to spite our face’ over Brexit. Atrocities be damned, Glow ball Britain will be rushing to fulfill the arms trade requirements of like-minded foreign despots from Saudi, to Israel to Turkey and beyond…
Reporting that “In a question and answer session with Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) staff, a recording of which has been heard by HuffPost UK, Raab said: ‘I squarely believe we ought to be trading liberally around the world. ‘If we restrict it to countries with ECHR-level standards of human rights, we’re not going to do many trade deals with the growth markets of the future’. HuffPost UK understands the foreign secretary also used the meeting to name countries where the UK had raised human rights issues with key trade partners. It is understood that Raab also said: ‘We don’t junk whole relationships because we’ve got issues, we have a conversation because we want to change the behavior and I think we’re in a much better position to do that if we’re willing to engage. I can think of behavior that would cross the line and render a country beyond the pale.”
Obviously sending in a specialized team to hack an outspoken journalist to bits in one of their foreign embassies didn’t quite cross the line as a human rights abuse. The UK will keep sending munitions to Saudi so that they can bomb innocent civilians and their young children, in Yemen into a previous century and starving their population into submission because it is too lucrative a trade deal to pass up. How does Raab plan to use trade as a bargaining chip to ‘modify’ the carnage in Yemen and take a strong stand against the embassy slaughter? There are now more authoritarian states than genuine democracies in the world, but far from setting an impressive human rights and diplomatic example the Tories are demonstrating their eagerness to join the rogue gallery with autocratic policies both at home and abroad and a decimation of our free speech, protest and legal protections being rammed through Parliament.
Raab has the background to know better, but HuffPost report he claims “Fundamentally I’m a big believer in engaging to try and exert positive influence even if it’s only a moderating influence, and I hope that calibrated approach gives you a sense that it’s not just words, we back it up with action.” HuffPost say that “Raab’s words came after the government published a major review of foreign policy, which includes plans for post-Brexit Britain to tilt towards the Indo-Pacific region as the world’s ‘geopolitical and economic center of gravity moves east. The increased focus on the region is an acknowledgment of Chinese influence, as well as the importance of countries including India and Japan. The shift will be underlined by the deployment of the HMS Queen Elizabeth carrier strike group to the region on its maiden operational mission later this year and a visit by Boris Johnson to India in April.” This is Johnson’s “let’s pretend we are a super power” imperialist bullshit bravado shining through to cloud common sense.
The HuffPost report that “The prime minister said Brexit marked a ‘new chapter in our history’ and the UK was now ‘open to the world, free to tread our own path’ as the integrated review of security, defense, development and foreign policy was published. Responding to Raab’s comments, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said it was the second time in as many weeks that ‘that the foreign secretary has exposed for talking up trade deals with countries that abuse human rights’. The Times reported last week that Raab had said the UK would be open to signing a future trade deal ‘with our Chinese friends’ at an event attended by senior Beijing diplomats. Nandy said: ‘This is the second time in as many weeks that the foreign secretary has exposed for talking up trade deals with countries that abuse human rights. “It is the latest example of a government entirely devoid of a moral compass and riddled with inconsistency, happy to say one thing in public and another behind closed doors?”
In an embarrassing exposure of Tory hypocrisy the HuffPost document Lisa Nandy’s rebuke “Today the prime minister stood up in parliament and lauded the UK’s commitment to defending human rights around the world. This afternoon, the foreign secretary is sending a very clear message to countries engaged in appalling human rights abuses that this government welcomes them with open arms’.” They say “Labour’s shadow trade secretary Emily Thornberry added: ‘Just weeks ago, Dominic Raab told Andrew Marr that Britain should not be doing trade deals with human rights abuses overseas. Now in private he says the government is prepared to sign trade deals with any country, even those violating the laws drawn up by British officials after the horrors of the Second World War. No wonder the government are talking up the prospects of deeper trade links with China in their integrated review and continuing to block the genocide amendment to the trade bill’.”
HuffPost report that “Amnesty International UK said Raab’s ‘shocking’ comments would ‘send a chill down the spine of embattled human rights activists right across the globe’, and that they fit ‘a depressing pattern on human rights from this government’. Its director Kate Allen said: ‘So-called ‘growth markets,’ countries like India, Indonesia or Brazil, are often precisely places where human rights protections are fragile and under threat. And in some countries such as Myanmar, the army has control of economic activity which directly funds its military operations, including those implicated in human rights abuses. ‘Trade that arises from or contributes to human rights violations can never be truly sustainable. Companies will rightly worry about their obligations to avoid involvement in human rights abuse, investors will take fright and the whole edifice will come tumbling down.”
HuffPost note that “An FCDO spokesperson claimed the audio had been “deliberately and selectively clipped to distort the foreign secretary’s comments’. They added: ‘As he made crystal clear in his full answer, the UK always stands up for and speaks out on human rights. ‘In his full answer, in an internal meeting, he highlighted examples where the UK has applied Magnitsky sanctions [sanctions to specific individuals and organizations rather than entire countries] and raised issues at the UN regardless of trade interests, and that this was a responsible, targeted and carefully calibrated approach to bilateral relations’. In a Commons statement on the integrated review, Johnson insisted the UK had led international condemnation of China’s alleged ‘mass detention’ of Uighur people in Xinjiang and its actions in Hong Kong. ‘There is no question China will pose a great challenge for an open society such as ours,’ Johnson said.”
HuffPost report the PM continued “But we will also work with China where that is consistent with our values and interests, including building a stronger and positive economic relationship and in addressing climate change.’ The plans for closer engagement with China were criticized by senior Tory MPs, who warned Johnson to avoid the ‘grasping naivety’ of the David Cameron years. Julian Lewis, chair of the intelligence and security committee of parliament, also suggested the impact of the economic closeness with China sought by Cameron and his chancellor George Osborne was still evident. Lewis said: ‘It’s suggested on pages 62-3 [of the review] that our adversary Communist China […] is an increasingly important partner in tackling global challenges like pandemic preparedness, if you please, and that we want deeper trade links and more Chinese investment in the UK. ‘Doesn’t that unfortunately demonstrate that the grasping naivety of the Cameron-Osborne years still lingers on in some departments of state’?”
According to HuffPost “During the statement, Johnson also faced opposition MPs shouting ‘genocide’ when he described China’s treatment of the Uighur people in Xinjiang as ‘mass detention’. Responding to Lewis, the PM said: ‘Those who call for a new Cold War on China or for us to sequester our economy entirely from China, which seems to be the new policy of the opposition, weaving as they generally do from one position to the next, are, I think, mistaken. ‘We have a balance to strike, we need to have a clear-eyed relationship with China. ‘Of course we’re protecting our critical national infrastructure and we’ll continue to do that. We will take tough measures, as I have said, to call out China for what they’re doing in Xinjiang.” The HuffPost Editor’s note: “This story was updated to include a statement from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and a fuller excerpt of the foreign secretary’s words to officials.”
So when Tories winge into their BBC mouthpiece or preach to the press about their inability to afford any more than a 1% pay rise for the Nurses they betrayed by depleting and abandoning our vital stockpile of PPE, challenge them by questioning the need to increase that other entirely unnecessary stockpile of deadly weapons that could extinguish all life on this planet. When they plead that only when the economic crisis is over can they restore the Foreign Aid Budget, remind them that they are breaking their manifesto commitment. But demand to know, why while reducing vital Aid to Yemen they cannot halt arms sales to the ruthless Saudi regime? Ask how at a time when it took a football hero’s persistent begging to secure funds to supply impoverished children with free school meals, they still managed to find such an obscene amount of spare cash to splash out on revamping their Downing Street briefing room to spout relentless propaganda supporting their warped Tory priorities? We must Get The Tories Out ASAP! DO NOT MOVE ON!