Good afternoon. It's Friday, the 25th of April
2025, just just after 1:00. And welcome to UK Column News.
I'm your host, Mike Robinson. Joining me in the studio today
is Patrick Annexon. Welcome to the program, Patrick.
Great to be with you, Mike. And by video link, we have Mark
Anderson. Now, later in the program, we're
going to be covering Ukraine, Syria, international trade and
censorship, but we are going to begin today with recruitment
into the military here in the UK.
Now back in December, uh, the Telegraph carried an article,
uh, saying that thousands of military personnel were and are
leaving their jobs. Umm, hardly surprising under the
circumstances and the drive for war.
But uh, as we reported over the past year, the threat of
conscription is ever present and although overt discussion of
conscription has basically dropped off the news agenda now,
it's very much still a thing. So I just wanted to highlight
communication that a long time UK columns supporter has had
with their MP on the issue. So they wrote to their MP and
said this. I heard the debate in the House
about the increase in youth unemployment.
Mark Pritchard MP put it to Liz Kendall, the one way of
attracting some people back into work is for her to have
discussions with her colleagues in the Ministry of Defence and
that getting more into the more young people into the armed
forces would be a starting place.
Uh, Liz Kendall our, uh, our members.
UK called members said to her MP Liz Kendall then claimed I'll be
having more conversations with colleagues in the Ministry of
Defence to make sure we put this plan into action.
The question to you, that's to her MP, what plan and whose
plan? Well, Mark himself wrote back
and said this or sorry, David Smith is the MP here.
The government recognises the armed forces as not only a vital
institution for National Defence, but also as a potential
career path that offers structure, skills and prospects
for young people. He went on to say the plan
involves collaboration across different governmental
departments, including the MOD, to facilitate recruitment
processes and make military careers more accessible and
appealing to the youth. So basically, you know, the idea
of they're, they're there to sell the idea of death and
destruction to young people by going into schools and
propagandizing them. That's certainly what I would
suggest. David Smith went on to say
discussions involving the MOD are part part of a broader
strategy to diversify employment opportunities available to young
Britons. So Smith is discussing a plan.
It's absolutely clear that this issue of recruitment in the
military is therefore being taken very seriously.
And why would it not be? Because certainly the regime has
a a plan for what we are going to do internationally on the
global stage with boots on the ground and so on, except we
don't have any boots to put on the ground.
So I don't see any outcome. Patrick, I don't know what your
view is on this, but I don't see any outcome then some kind of
forced entry into the military, whether you call that
conscription or national service or whatever.
I don't see that that we're going to end up in any other
destination. Well, some some countries have
national service, many used to, but they rolled it back in
recent years. I remember I was approached in
high school by the US Marines and the Army and not the Navy,
but you know, definitely Marines in the Army.
And then they probe you. They look at your profile and
they say, I was an art student and at the times we need artists
in the military. We need people like you.
And they say, and you're an athlete.
Oh my gosh, look at that. You're a regional swimmer and
whatnot. We need, we need swimmers for,
you know, frog men and Navy Seals and stuff like that.
So they're really, they're really aggressively recruiting
you in America from a very young age.
They come on campus on to school and they have a little booth
there. They'll even pick you up at
lunchtime as you're sitting around with your mates, you
know, so that it's it's very organized here.
I'm not as aggressive, obviously, because you've had a
professional military for so many years.
But but the the question everyone has on their mind in
the age of social media and all the jet Gen.
Zers have phones and are all kind of au fait with a lot of
geopolitics. What wars are we fighting?
Who are we going to be fighting against?
Why are we fighting? Is there going to be a European
war? Is it going to be against the
Russians? Does that mean I'm going to end
up in a in Ukraine? Is that, is that my fate here?
I mean, let's get serious. In the age of missiles,
hypersonic missiles, why all the infantry?
What's it all about? And that's a legit question.
It certainly is. Well, look, Speaking of
propaganda propagandizing children, the Starmer regime has
announced that thousands of school children across the UK
and Ukraine have applied to take part in a landmark 100 year
partnership program between the two countries.
So more than 750 schools from across the UK and Ukraine
applied to take part in this program.
And they said that this is all about fostering classroom
friendships, cultural understanding and inspiring
future generations of world leaders, diplomats and business
leaders. So children are going to they
they said in their press release that the children will also mark
the launch of a new commemorative stamp.
Isn't that great? So that's designed by both the
UK and Ukrainian governments and it's going to be entered into
circulation by the Ukrainian Post Post Office by the end of
the month. And this is all being
facilitated by EU KS premier soft power outlet, the British
Council. The British Council is, is
Britain's version of USAID in a way you could say there's been
some other choice stamps that have been issued by the
Postmaster General in Kiev, Mike, and some of them are not
very nice. Some venerating Nazi war
criminals in World War 2 and Stefan Bandera and these types
of people. That's the sort of country
you're dealing with. So if I was going to sign 100
year pact with a country like Ukraine, I'd want them to kind
of try to denotify a little bit. That'd be just for optics, you
know. It's not, it's not a good look.
And if you had kids in in school in the UK, would you be
encouraging them to to run some kind of exchange program?
Maybe we could twin, you know, the hometown of Stefan Bandera
with some village in England and have an nice cultural exchange.
What's that going to be? What sort of paraphernalia is
going to be exchanged there? Like, I mean, these are like
legitimate questions because you've seen the indoctrination
camps in Ukraine. They get them very young and
they're doing Roman salutes and stuff like that.
It's not, it's not pleasant to look at, but that's a reality,
especially in Western Ukraine. So let's be real about it.
Have a genuine, real adult conversation about what's really
going on there. The stuff that the BBC
themselves reported in 2015, 2016.
You can go look it up on YouTube.
Nobody talks about the Nazi problem in Ukraine, but the BBC
sure knew about it right around Maidan.
But they seemed to have forgotten about it very
conveniently. Well, look, in the meantime,
Mercy Levander Leyen has been back in town kissing Keir
Starmer, not in this particular photograph, but in others.
So welcome her to Downing St., Starmer said.
We're working with our allies to make British people safer, more
secure and more prosperous. And so the question is how well
he's making us all more prosperous by signing us up to a
€150 billion joint defence procurement program.
And he said that we'll discuss work on a strategic security and
defence partnership agreement which might pave the way to
joint procurement and UK participation in the SAFE
program in, in, in the EU. Now procurement is a key part of
the European Defence Union, which as we've been highlighted
for years, it's something that Britain has been a key driver of
alongside the French. In fact, Britain's involvement
in EU defence union is a prerequisite of participation in
the in the joint procurement program, which UK based defence
companies are obviously very keen to get involved with as
efforts to reorient away from Trump's USA continue.
So, you know, I don't know how real that reorientation is away
from the United States, whether it's smoke and mirrors in order
to try to build this this European infrastructure, but
nonetheless, that's the excuses being used.
Yeah. The, the other thing is, you
know, the, the who's going to benefit from that?
There may be some jobs in the UK, Mike, but the industry's
financialized. It's all based on share prices
and stock market gains. It's completely financialized.
So, you know, if you're in that industry and you're a private
equity firm, you're in the defense industry or you're,
you're invested in that, your portfolio and index funds,
you're going to do great. But how's that going to help the
average person? How's that going to help the
baseline of the working class of the economy?
I don't think very much at all. And in fact, it is completely
global. Mobilize the internal EU market
between EU countries, separation, compartmentalization
of industries, plus stuff that's being manufactured
internationally to get the best price.
Why? To get the best bottom line.
Why? To make sure that you pay out
the best dividends to your shareholders?
Absolutely. That's what it's really all
about. Ask Nigel Farage.
He worked in the City of London. He certainly should.
Know he should know, yes. Now, this is important because
the UK is filling the void left by the United States and
providing logistical and intelligence support to Ukraine,
as the Guardian was reporting a few months a couple of months
ago. It's important though, to see
this, I think, in the context of Britain's role in Ukraine over
the last couple of years and that is to keep the meat grinder
going. And to illustrate that point, I
want to highlight this article from The Grey Zone and Kit
Clarenberg. It's headlined UK Intel behind
Ukraine's disastrous Krinky. Is that how you pronounce it?
Krinky invasion, leaked documents reveal.
Now this is extremely interesting article and really
this story should be top building in the mainstream
press. But it isn't.
And I wonder why. And I wonder that why, with a
sense of irony perhaps. But one reason is, is it
Klarenberg is citing leaked documents.
And of course, British media, mainstream media doesn't really
want to go there. But Klarenberg writes that the
leaked documents that he has seen detail a blueprint for
Ukraine's failed effort to capture the village of Krinky.
He says the plan was pulled together by an organization
called Project Alchemy, which he describes as a secret military
intelligence cell created by the Ministry of Defence, Which, and
this is a quote, they sought at all costs to keep Ukraine
fighting. Now, we've known that the UK has
been seeking at all costs to keep Ukraine fighting for, well,
basically since Boris Johnson went to Zolensky and said do not
do the peace deal. Yeah, yeah, that's that's been
that's been the raison d'etre the entire project from there.
You know, this the the Krinsky the Krinky story Mike has been
around for a couple of months. These latest revelations
basically confirm Britain played the central role in basically
egging on Ukrainian marine units to keep going into what was
clearly a meat grinder, a total losing effort to retake part of
this territory. I believe it's by the along the
diet mere river in this area and to know avail and thousands of
Ukrainians perished for absolutely no reason to try to
capture territory that just wasn't available to be captured.
It turned out to be a massive trap.
And not only that, there's also reports about Britains role in
the Kursk region in Russia, sending Ukrainians into that
cauldron, that infamous cauldron where I don't know how many
thousands died. What are the numbers up to
10,000, maybe more something ridiculous numbers.
That was again, British trainers, British commanders.
So it's already leaked, Mike, from the, from the USA
revelations in recent weeks that NATO has played an integral role
in all command and control of all operations for Ukraine.
So that's US and Britain ostensibly.
And now the US has pulled back, Britain has moved into
logistical driving seat for Ukraine.
So any operations you're going to see from here forward, it's
probably most likely going to be Britain going to be running it,
calling the shots for Ukraine. And it it's not a, it's not a
winning gambit, certainly not for the Ukrainians, Maybe for
the vanity of NATO or the vanity of former imperial powers.
It might be, you know, worth doing to keep the military
industrial complex buoyant. But how much good is it doing
for the people of Ukraine, especially the ones that get
conscripted off the street? They're literally grabbing them
off the streets of Ukraine. There's hundreds, thousands of
videos circulating online of this.
OK, they don't want to fight. Polling suggests that the
majority of Ukrainians no longer want to fight a war with Russia.
They would like to see some kind of peaceful resolution.
But that's not what European leaders want.
That's not what British leaders want, and certainly not what the
military industrial complex wants.
Absolutely. So as you've said, the
allegations that Britain was responsible for these mass, mass
casualties are cranky originated with this report in Ukraine's
Ukraine. Skip Pravda.
Now, this is a publication which has recently alleged huge
pressure from the office of the President of Ukraine to be
somewhat more partisan than it's reporting that it wants to be.
It's by no means pro Russian, certainly a lot less pro Russian
than it was a few years ago, sorry, a lot less pro Ukrainian
than it was a few years ago. But it's it's certainly not pro
Russian, but it's and it's certainly not pro Zelenski
enough for the Ukraine government at the moment.
And they stated that the UK, perhaps Ukraine's most active
and determined ally, had been pressuring Kiev to use marines
for waterborne operations and deceptive maneuvers since the
proxy conflict began. The Ukraine military was
skeptical about this and they were pushing back, but they
caved under the pressure. And the result is you've just
said Patrick was complete disaster.
And I absolutely recommend reading this article.
It'll be in the show notes under the program on the UK column
Outside. But just briefly getting back to
the Gray zone, Clare Kleinberg highlights a document published
in June 2022 entitled Building a Ukrainian Maritime Rating
Capability in which the project Alchemy Planners proposed quotes
a new maritime rating forced to be trained specifically in the
operational area of the South Coast region of Ukraine to the
Kersh Strait. And he talks.
He talks about Britain putting pressure on Ukraine to relax its
policy that no fighting age men should leave the country so that
some could be brought to Britain for training.
And they were trained in a variety of sites, mostly in
Scotland. And then beginning in October
2023, these poorly trained and I'll equipped Ukrainian marines
began to be ferried en masse, as Kleinberg says to Krenke.
And they were lamps to the slaughter.
So, you know, it is it is disgusting.
It is our tax dollars that has gone into this and that needs to
change. It is, it's it's very sad.
You know, when you the trainers in the British military, I
wonder if they think about where they're dispatching these young
Ukrainian men back to what sort of environment to fight in and
do they really care? Or is it just a case of, hey, my
orders are I need to teach these guys how to kill Russians.
So that's the end of that. That's just not, this is not
good for Ukraine. And in the long run, I think
they'll resent some of these NATO countries for for for this
sordid chapter in in European history.
OK. But you've got more in Ukraine
then? Well, yes, And we'll start off
with the commander in chief in the United States.
Here he is. And he has been tweeting up a
storm on Truth Social. This is a true a truth.
I think they call them truths now.
Calls them truths, not tweets. Says I'm happy with.
I'm happy with Russias. No, I'm not.
I'm not happy with Russians strikes on Kiev.
Not not necessary and very bad timing.
Vladimir stop 5000 soldiers a week are dying.
Let's get the peace deal done. I mean, this is such an
embarrassment to have the president tweeting out stuff
like this. It's really, it humiliates the
country. It's not good for him and he's
sabotaging his own peace negotiations.
Plus, Chinese are looking at this, Moscow's looking at this.
And by the way, the Iranians are also looking at this.
And let me tell you, they're not impressed.
Forget about the Europeans. That's a different story here.
But on the point you were saying, Mike, while there's all
this hawkish talk coming from Europe, from Britain, about the
coalition of the willing, this is the reality here.
We are the UK. This is in the Times, This is
just yesterday. In fact, the UK could scrap
plans to send thousands of troops to Ukraine, British
sources said. That was deemed too risky, too
risky to send ground forces because the risk of a wider
conflict and ceasefire deal with Russia breaks down.
And it looks like it is. And so let's look at this for a
moment here. There they are, Mike.
That is the Coalition of the Willing.
It's great that they borrowed that title because it certainly
doesn't have any bad connotations from the past.
There it is. But it unfortunately, it's
disintegrating. And as every day and every week
goes by, they they, they put on a big brave front.
Didn't they remember last month? Real tough talk, especially from
Mehdi Fredrickson and the Euro Coven there.
There's a few members. I won't put Georgia Maloney in
that category because she seems to be a lot more reasonable.
But Ursula certainly is lurking in the background whispering
into Keir Starmer and Macro shoulder here.
But as they disintegrate and there they are.
That is effectively this is the new coalition of the Willing.
You're looking at it right there, the three of them.
That's it. But this is what the Times also
reported. Sir Keir Starmer and President
Macron have offered to deploy troops to Ukraine to keep to
keep the peace as part of the coalition of the willing.
During talks in London, sources told the Times there appeared to
be a softening. Of the commitment, so the rowing
back is beginning. Isn't that interesting?
Because who have they got the sand?
Well, this is another thing, you know, what sort of battalions
could Britain or France really deploy and where would they send
them? And they would actually be
definitely legitimate targets. And again, that's the reminder
here. Russia's warned that it will
consider such a true presence as a NATO deployment.
Underline that point, please. And under the guise of
peacekeeping or otherwise it will treat it as a quote, valid
military target. So that's not us saying that.
That's what the Russian Federation's saying.
So it's it'll behoove you to listen to what they're saying,
especially if you're sending your boys into a hostile
environment where maybe diplomacy might be a better
option. That's just me.
I'm old fashioned. I believe in diplomacy.
But meanwhile the propaganda rolls on and talk about
Orwellian. Look at this, The Telegraph is
spending its money wisely, buying up bad space in the UK.
Mike here, and this is what they're saying.
There's a bit of fear mongering here.
Ever heard of Riga, Talon or Vilnius?
If we abandoned Kiev, you will, says the Telegraph.
Wow, that's that sheer propaganda.
That's not journalism. What what?
What are they playing at? This is this is Orwellian.
But this is like more. This is beyond Orwellian, Mike.
This is Starship Troopers. Level propaganda here
unbelievable from the Telegraph. So they you know what their
stance is. They want to see this war go.
It's been good for their business, I guess.
But let's let's look at why is this rowing back happening Mike.
Why maybe has something to do with this?
Ukraine fails to reach a deal with quote, investors, I'm going
to say receivers, but we'll say investors to restructure 2.6
billion of debt. Kiev is due to make an estimated
600 million payment on GDP warrants next month.
So financing the debt, interest payments are due.
This is the big question though here, Mike, who is going to pick
up the dinner bill? Do you see anybody lining up
wanting to pay for this or what? Is this going to have to be
bundled into some sort of new debt package?
So that's the opera, the operative question, ladies and
gentlemen, who's going to pick up the dinner bill?
And I can tell you right now, it's definitely not going to be
these guys. German authorities slash
economic growth forecast for 2025 to a whopping 0 percent.
That is the supposed industrial powerhouse, the engine of the
EU, the thing that makes the ECB run Germany. 0% growth.
For the first time in modern history, German's economy is set
to stagnate and for three consecutive years, a scenario
unseen even during World War 2. The the humiliation of self
hating Germany continues even within the EU.
Mercedes-Benz has also announced plans to cut jobs in Germany and
relocate them to Hungary. So Orban is laughing all the way
to the election polls next election.
So look at this. Hungary by the way, did not
reject Russian fuel making production therefore more cost
effective. That's Mats Nilsson from Sweden,
great geopolitical analyst. So nobody is really gagging to
take up the slack on Ukraine here.
Back to kit Clarence, Mike. So high level Ukraine, peace
talks in London scratched after the US pull out.
So the US is threatening to pull out.
And So what happened? They cancelled it.
Where is this coalition of the willing?
Where are they? Are they anywhere without the
United States? Are they really willing to go
toe to toe with Russia or has this all been a big front?
That's the question. But the cracks don't stop there.
Mike, look at this. It gets worse.
Donald Trump's move on the Russia occupied Crimea forces
Europe to choose sides. US has offered to recognize the
annexation of Crimea. Wow.
And this has created huge problems.
A senior European diplomat told the Financial Times that it
would be, quote, impossible to accept the US proposal to
recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea.
Other EU officials claim that Crimea and future NATO
membership aspirations are red lines.
For us, that's a non starter. So there's where?
Where? Can you go from here?
This is basically status quo. We're reverting status quo.
The proxy war continues, but without the United States.
How much mileage does Europe actually have in this?
This is the legit question. NATO membership?
I highly doubt it now. NBC sent a reporter to Crimea.
This is fairly recent. Watch this clip.
These are people in in Crimea. We went around and did vox pops
and this was the answer. Is Crimea Russian or Ukrainian?
Crimea is Russian of course. Russian 73 year old Prack Soviet
tells me Zelensky will not get Crimea back because we have our
commander in chief. Putin.
Every one of them told us that they are Russian and that if
President Zelensky thinks Ukrainian forces can come here,
they will fight them. President Zelensky has said that
the Ukraine war started here and it will end here, but no one was
able to tell us how it will end and how much more blood will be
spilt. And we're told that NBC reporter
got put on a Ukraine hit list after he issued this report,
which broadcast on USTV. So that's not going to help US
support for Ukraine either. It's probably a USAID funded hit
list, by the way. But Mike, the recognition of
Crimea is really important because that's what sanctions
are tied to. A lot of US and EU sanctions are
tied to Crimea. And if the US recognizes Crimea
as part of Russia, that's going to nullify a lot of U.S.
sanctions, but it's also going to put pressure on Europe to re
evaluate. Are they going to go against the
United States on the recognition of Crimea?
I mean, this could be a massive international problem in terms
of international relations here. But it doesn't end there.
And we'll we'll continue here. Oops, sorry, I jumped ahead.
The ICC International Criminal Court arrest warrant is invalid
in Italy. There was a filing error, it
turns out. So as it stands right now,
Vladimir Putin could go to Italy and not be arrested under this
ICC case. And by the way, back to, you
know, the Gray zone on that ICC case here.
This is a fantastic piece of journalism that a lot of people
missed. This was in March 31st, 2023.
The IC CS Putin arrest warrant is based on a State Department
funded document that has been totally debunked.
They issued this arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin and his
commissioner for the for Children's Rights, Maria Lova
Bilova, accusing them of, quote, unlawful deportation of
thousands of Ukrainian children to a network of camps inside
Russia. It turns out that the warrant
the case that the IC was based on a shoddy report by Nathaniel
Raymond at the Yale University Human Rights Center and it's
funded by the US State Department.
A completely bogus report. I have looked into this myself
and it's pretty shocking how bad it is.
Yale based all of their research on satellite data, Telegram
postings, and rush Russian media reports, relying on Google
Translate to interpret them, and they say they admit their work
does not conduct any ground level investigation and
therefore did not request access to any of these quote camps.
Jeremy Lafredo, the journalist who did this with Max
Blumenthal. Turns out these were places
where families would send their kids to get them out of the war
zone. And of course, in the Donbass
regions, there'll be more Russian residents, Russian
speaking. So this is a, this is the basis
of the ICC case, Mike. I mean, make up your own mind.
I encourage people to go to the grey zone and look at the
reports for yourself. And the links will be in the
show notes. Mark, let me welcome you to the
program then. And, well, sticking with the
United States for a little while, what's the latest on the
tariffs and trade? Well, actually, gentlemen, I've
been looking a little bit beyond tariffs in a way.
There's been so much on that. And I had listened to recent
testimony of the US Trade Representative of the House of
Ways committees, House Ways and Means Committee, you might
recall. And I looked at what the USTR is
up to in the broader sense. And this stuck out the USTR
Section 3 O1 action on China's targeting of the maritime
logistics and shipbuilding sectors for dominance, alleging
Chinese dominance in these areas.
And there is some truth to that. 17 April, Washington U.S. trade
Representative took targeted actions to restore American
shipbuilding and address China's, what they're calling
unreasonable policies and practices to dominate maritime
logistics, shipbuilding, etcetera.
Emphasis here. These responsive actions come
after what's being described as a year long Section 3 O1
investigation, which included the US trade Rep convening A2
day public hearing and receiving, they say, nearly 600
public comments. And we'll move on from there.
I wrote a news brief here. I'm just going to cite this a
little bit. The topic of tariffs has
dominated trade and financial news in recent weeks.
But trade officials are claiming in the US that while they're
sustaining their efforts via applicable tariffs toward
achieving what they call fair and balanced trade goals and
more industrial self-sufficiency, China's
maritime policies, particularly shipbuilding, are prompting the
Section 3 O1 actions under the Trade Act of 1974.
So this is based on a 50 + a year old law.
And that law is designed, is designed to address unfair
foreign practices that quote, burden or restrict US commerce
and provides a domestic procedure through which
interested persons, even members of the public, can write in on
this and petition the US Trade Rep to investigate foreign
government action and take appropriate action to counter
that and to proceed from there. We have a quote from Jameson
Greer, the US Trade Rep Ships and shipping, he says, are vital
to American economic security and the free flow of commerce.
The Trump administration will begin to reverse Chinese
dominance, he says, address threats to the US supply chain
and send a demand signal for US built ships.
And there's of course a lot of talk about helping US workers in
this, the working class. Other things it describes here,
Section 3O1 enforcement actions for the 1st 180 days.
For example, any applicable fees will be set at 0.
Then in the first phase, these are these penalties against
China. After 180 days, fees on vessel
owners and operators out of China will be charged based on
net tonnage per US voyage. Such fees will increase
incrementally. Then the building of US car
carrier vessels will be incentivized along with charging
fees on similar foreign built vessels based on their capacity.
And there's a second phase, there'll be a three-year wait on
this intended to incentivize US built liquefied natural gas
vessels. Interesting, along with enacting
limited restrictions on transporting American liquefied
national gas via foreign vessels.
But these restrictions will increase incrementally, get
this, over 22 years. So they're looking long range on
this. All of that is under the rubric
of restoring America's maritime dominance.
That's a that's a presidential action that was launched April
9th. And then there's sort of an
associated thing going on that was released more recently,
another presidential action. And there are so many
presidential actions I'm I'm really working hard to keep up
on even the most important ones. Unleashing America's offshore
critical minerals and resources. This is another initiative
that's related more US effort to mine the seabeds and be more
independent in terms of rare minerals and things that are
considered strategic at any rate.
At any rate, the presidential declaration mentions this, that
recent data show the US constructs less than 1% of
commercial ships worldwide, while China produces
approximately half. And rectifying these issues, the
president says, and the USTR will include securing
consistent, predictable and durable federal funding, making
US flagged and US built ships, commercially competitive and
international commerce, rebuilding America's maritime
manufacturing capabilities, and expanding and strengthening the
relevant workforce. That would be the workforce to
build the ships and probably also the longshoremen who have
often complained of getting a raw deal in the US.
But I, I talked to some different people about different
aspects of this and I thought to myself, well, what about the
monetary system? How does that relate to trade
and tariffs and anything to do with what I'm talking about
today? And I asked the question here
based on a little bit based on an article I wrote recently for
UK column called Guernsey, the tiny island that beat the big
bankers for 20 years of monetary freedom.
Now, that was a couple 100 years ago, but Guernsey showed that
you can extricate yourself from the banksters if if you work at
it. Of course, it would be a lot
harder today than back then. May maybe.
But I asked the question, will the monetary system be an
impediment to these changes that the Trump administration wants
to make in terms of tariffs and related matters?
And I talked to Oliver Haydor and a noted monetary reform
expert. He's quoted in that Guernsey
story that I have posted at UKC. And he said this, among other
things, the rebalancing of trade may sound good, is being done on
the basis of the existing defective financial monetary
system controlled by the neoliberal elite.
And he had one additional quote, also very interesting.
And he said if each nation's financial system is not
sovereign and such systems are left to the international elite,
then you'll have to adopt trade and other related policies to
keep the elite happy. Neoliberalism probably made
economic nationalism at least seemingly irretrievable and on
purpose, Mr. Haydorn had to say. Now there was also talk a few
weeks ago on UKC about is there a plan amongst all this seeming
chaos by the Trump administration?
Is there a method to the madness?
I'm not going to say there is real firmly or that there isn't.
I looked around a lot and made some calls of this.
Money and macro site is pretty objective.
He's not totally sold on what Trump is doing.
He's trying to look at it as unbiasedly as he can.
The host of this, we have a video clip called he actually
has a plan and it has to do with the mega master plan to replace
the neoliberal order and things like that.
So let's watch a little bit of this.
It gives you some idea of what could be a plan, but the jury's
still out maybe in some respects.
I always say tariffs is the most beautiful word to me in the
dictionary. This is a direct attack.
Donald Trump, who changes his mind between, you know,
breakfast elevens his lunch and supper time.
What the heck is going on? Why is Trump hitting his closest
allies with tariffs? Why does he no longer care about
crashing the stock market? Does this guy actually have a
plan? Yes.
Believe it or not, I'm here to tell you that yes, as Trump's
new Treasury Secretary, Scott Basson recently put it.
President Trump's tariff policies have begun the process
of reoriented, reorienting our for international economic
relations. That's right, he says tariffs
have begun the process. In other words, his tariff chaos
is just the start of a much bigger plan, a plan that aims to
upend the entire world trading system that the US itself
created. This has really only happened
twice before, once in 1944, marking the start of the
Brettwood system, and then in the early 80s with Reagan and
Thatcher marking the beginnings of the neoliberal world order.
So here we are today, 2025. Is this the start of a
completely new global order, a new US centered order that will
emerge right after the current chaos in which countries are
divided in three groups? Or as Scott Bassett calls it.
I think we should make it very clear that there is a green, a
yellow and a red bucket and we let everyone know where they
are. In these buckets, it will become
very clear that some countries get low tariffs, military
protection and maybe even some preferred U.S. dollar access,
while others are left to fend for themselves.
So there you have it. People can make up their own
mind. We can provide the the link to
that rather long video. The whole thing is rather long
in the show notes, so again it makes a decent case, but even
the narrator in the end concedes that it's not altogether clear
if that's exactly how things are going.
But it is one plausible thesis behind it, and I I had one other
slide in there. We can put also another link to
the show notes, the roots of modern free trade.
This is just a historical note. A lot of the current trade
regime and the current trade practices started in 1962 under
JFK, under the Trade Expansion Act.
And that's just a quick historical footnote a people can
look that up to get an idea of where this all came from in the
modern sense. So back to you guys.
Thank you Mark, thank you. OK, if you like what the UK
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A reminder of Diane's conversation with Professor
Dennis Hayes on academic freedom that was put out 1:00 PM
yesterday. It's on the website if you'd
like to look at that on demand. A reminder of the standard of
the light event taking place in Cumbria.
The May bank holiday, 23rd to the 26th of May 2025.
Details on screen that'll be in the show notes as well.
And finally, dissidents meet up in Southwest Region on the 27th
of April that Andy was talking about on Wednesday.
The details on screen at the moment, if you can get along to
that. Now let's move on then to this
information and the censorship regime, because that has been
celebrated this week at the Cambridge at Cambridge
University with the Cambridge Disinformation Summit, which
they say is, quote, designed to convene global thought leaders
to discuss research regarding the efficacy of potential
interventions to mitigate the harms of disinformation.
So try not to laugh. The summit had three core
themes. New research on the harm
disinformation causes, how legislators can regulate this
information, and how information scientists and policymakers can
improve threat awareness and resilience in today's
geopolitical environment. These are their words, of
course, but also on the agenda where high crypto currencies
support exploitative actors. Uh talks about uh disinformation
as an instrument, as an instrument for author
authoritarianism. Sorry uh and quotes personal
experience from within a conspiracy community.
Now, the only person I know who is talking about personal
experience from within a conspiracy conspiratorial
community is someone that people may be familiar with.
That works for the BBC. But anyway, we'll, we'll, we'll
talk about that in a second. Quite a number of the sessions
were held under Chatham House rules.
OK, so we will never find out exactly what was discussed
there, but let's look at this disinformation client Shaw.
If we just put this back on screen here and here is the
circus, this infos circus. You've heard of Zip Circus Mike
that rolls into your local town or village, but this is Disinfos
Circus here. Here come the experts.
Here they are.
They will come there, but there they are.
And look who's in the top right hand corner there.
Well, that's Mariana Spring, isn't it?
And flanked by Nina Jankovitz in the middle.
Elliott Higgins. And I forgot this chap from.
Well, let's just trust and save through.
So we have Elliot Higgins, the CEO of Bellingcat.
Bellingcat doesn't seem to be doing very much these days, but
anyway. I like the beard, he makes them
look a lot more serious and a lot actually more masculine.
OK, whatever you say. Mariana.
Spring, of course, is the disinformation and social media
correspondent at the BBC, Y'all Roth.
That's the one. Vice president of trust and
safety at Match Group. But what was he part of that?
He worked under Jack Dorsey at the diabolical train wreck that
was Twitter, and when the Twitter Files came out and Elon
bought the company, y'all fled, unfortunately running an
absolute censorship farm there. Really really dark, dark moment
and in American tech free speech history.
Yes, Nina Jack, which is to say CEO of the American Sunlight
Project, whatever that is. Worked on the Zelensky campaign.
Absolutely. And former executive directory
for the Disinformation Governance Board at the US
Department for Homeland Security.
For what, about two weeks? She was even rivaling rivaling
less trust for being in position.
She the lettuce the the the rotten lettuce, head of lettuce.
She actually got done by her own TikTok videos, right?
Which was interesting. And Alexander Vindman.
That's Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman to you, Mike.
There he is, Mr. Russiagate himself.
OK. So these are all like kind of
Ukraine linked propagandists, quite a few of them.
So the conference is organized by Alan Jagger Lindser, a
professor of financial accounting at Cambridge Judge
Business School. And he said this disinformation
research has been effectively defunded by the United States
and now has to be conducted part time and underground.
This is one reason why our work is so important and we've
adopted A tagline that we, the Global Summit community, are
keeping the pilot light lit for evidence based learning and
inference, whatever that means. Now he claims the disinformation
drives geopolitical shifts and undermines democratic
institutional stability, increasing the risks of
terrorism and increasing the ability to marginalized targeted
communities, supporting forced human migration and integrate,
increasing the likelihood of violent and global conflict.
So there you go. Can I translate very quickly
what he just said? I'll put this in English, Mike,
he's talking about threats to the narrative, and he's talking
about resilience against threats to the narrative, resilience
against the truth, resilience against facts.
This is complete or inverted Orwellian news.
Speak here. Right.
Well, in the meantime, Ofcom has rolled out the next set of rules
for its censorship regime, following the illegal Online
Harms Framework a couple of weeks ago, which saw the
shutdown of many small forums online.
The latest codes of practice claim to protect children and in
designing them. Ofcom says that it has heard
from over 27,000 children and 13,000 parents, alongside A
consultation involving industry, civil society, charities and
child safety experts. And they say that they're
demanding a safety first approach to how tech firms
design and operate their services in the UK, including
safer feeds, safer data feeds, safer sorry, effective age
checks, fast action to review, assess and tackle harmful
content, undefined, more choice and support for children and
easier reporting of complaints, strong governance and so on.
And if companies fail to comply with their new duties, Ofcom has
the power to impose fines. And in serious cases, they say,
apply for a court order to prevent the site or app from
being available in the UK. And of course, that latter
sanction demonstrates the dangers inherent in, you know,
having a lack of diversity and competition for app stores on
Android and Apple platforms where you've only got one App
Store effectively in each of those.
It's very easy to to create a sort of great firewall with
respect to some of these apps. And of course, strong age checks
means identity checking and so on, most likely digitally and so
on. So which brings me back to to
you, Mark. And of course, on Wednesday, we
were talking about Real ID in the United States.
You've got some more on that. What it might be the official
announcement here, Mike, that's the most important thing.
What we're showing here is the Transportation Security
Administration. Of course, it's one of the major
agencies created in the wake of 911.
The DHS itself was another one, and most of those other entities
are under that. And of course, we had the
Patriot Act back then and a number of unpleasant memories in
the wake of 9/11, and we thought that this dragon had been slain.
I remember working on it in O Six O 7 and writing about it.
But I'll cite this TSA announcement because this is the
most important part of my presentation today.
Starting the 7th of May, it's right around the corner.
A state issued driver's license or ID that's not Real ID
compliant in the US will no longer be accepted as valid ID
at airports and certain federal buildings.
Passengers traveling after this enforcement deadline should
either travel with an acceptable ID like a passport, or enroll
for a state issued REAL ID. Passengers that lack these
things or some other acceptable form can expect delays,
additional harassment, screening, possibly not being
allowed into security checkpoints.
And this, this even includes, get this, the pre-check
passengers of TSA, people that fly frequently, whose
backgrounds are well known and they're usually given the, the,
the express entry to get on the plane.
So they don't have to wait as much, even they're going to be
bogged down if they don't have the right papers in order and so
on and so forth. So if, if your identity can't be
confirmed, you can't enter the checkpoint and you may be
subject to even more screening. So this is something that we
thought was going to die on the vine, and it didn't.
But anyway, Chuck Baldwin, the noted Christian pastor, activist
and columnist, he's notorious for keeping a close eye on these
things. He said this.
The real reason the REAL ID hadn't gone into effect after
the GOP Congress moronically passed this super surveillance
atrocity until now is because conservatives and libertarians
rose up en masse in opposition to it, forcing George W Bush to
back down. And since then, neither Obama
nor Biden wanted to awaken the American people, the sleeping
giant on this issue. And Chuck Baldwin, a
constitutional Christian conservative, is quite critical
of Donald Trump in many areas and especially in this area.
Even Fox News, according to Baldwin, is is got kind of a
furrow brow on this, thinking that the Donald wouldn't let
this through. Fox News noted conservatives are
speaking out against Trump administration's plans to
finally enact the long shelved Real ID laws in a quote to crack
down an illegal immigration. This is one of the reported
reasons for this. There's also been talk that
maybe this has something to do with identity at the voting
polls, neither of which are really relevant.
It's not altogether clear why they're letting this become law.
But Thomas Massie, the retrograde back backbencher in
Congress, he, he makes a number of important counter arguments
in Congress. He said this.
If you think real ideas about election integrity, you're going
to be sorely disappointed. Someone has lied to you and
you're engaged in wishful thinking.
Please don't shoot the messenger.
And Sarah Palin, too long thought to be a Trump supporter
is scratching her head saying evidently existing ID
requirements for American citizens just aren't adequate
now. So big brother's forcing us
through more hoops for the right to travel within our own
country. And Palin continued other
administration's delayed this newfangled there are some real
ID requirement. Are you curious why it's
implementation is so imperative now?
And the this stems from 911 which I'll be talking about
later today, I presume. But at any rate, it's a
troubling development after 20 plus years to see this thing not
only survive, but it's apparently going to be passed.
So back to you guys. Thank you, Mark.
Thanks. We'll talk about that in Extra.
No doubt we'll be talking quite a number of things in Extra
today. But Patrick, let's move back to
international affairs in Syria. Well, disturbing news, but big
news nonetheless. Let's have a look at this up on
screen if we can. The UK lifts sanctions on Syrian
ministries and intelligence agencies.
There is Muhammad Al Jalani AKA Ahmed al Sharar, the Saudi born
self-proclaimed president, quote UN quote, of Syria.
And so basically the president there has urged Western
countries to relieve his country of sanctions and allow it to
rebuild after 14 years of war, war that he himself is
responsible for fomenting. So the UK is taking this bold
step here. What has brought this on?
But not to be outdone, this is Corey Mills, part of Trump's
inner circle. He's been meeting with the al
Qaeda and former ISIS deputy who is head of the military junta in
Damascus, a terrorist on the FBI, I think a bounty on the
FBI's most wonderless, if I'm not mistaken there.
He's spoken with him and they're open to the Abraham Accords
normalization with the state of Israel.
That's really what this is all about.
And This is why there was sanctions before on Syria.
And so let's look at this and to, to to top this off, Al
Jilani has obeyed US, Israeli orders and arrested Palestinian
Islamic Jihad officials, PIJ officials.
So this is a major step here. So this is clearly at the behest
of Israel and the US. This was a precondition.
If you note, that was last week. So this was a precondition for
this next step. So I think this is also part of
where Britain evaluation of their statuses as well here.
And according to a former British diplomat, Craig Murray,
the terrorist leader, self appointed president was
privately assured that the UK that Syria will normalize ties
with Israel, thus formal recognizing the illegal
occupation state and even exchanging ambassadors by the
end of 2026. So my question is and let's go
to the to the UK Gov website here.
This is how they're announcing it.
UK bolsters support for the quote, Syrian people by amending
Syrian sanctions. So they're lifting sanctions on
Syria. OK Previously it was because of
quote, Assad. We're going to ask a legit
question, Mike here. Is the UK formally recognizing
al Qaeda HTS terrorists when took government in Damascus, a
government, a self-proclaimed government that said there will
be no elections in the country. So this is a terrorist group, A
terrorist leader, Al Baghdadi's deputy, ISIS, the founder of al
Qaeda in Syria and you're now formally recognizing this
government that took force and is currently running pogroms in
the coastal regions of Syria against religious minorities and
ethnic minorities. I mean, everything I'm saying is
absolutely ironclad fact. The question is, is this a
formal recognition of a terrorist?
It looks like. A terrorist regime, that's what
it looks like. Why is that?
We don't know, but just just remind people this is on the
cradle. This is actually just this week.
Serious stolen daughters. The HTS Jolani campaign to
enslave Alawite women. Whole list of women have been
abducted, killed, abused, missing, missing.
There's a whole list of them. And that's what's happening
here. And I'll go to Joshua Landis
here and he is at with the Quincy Institute in the United
States, University of Oklahoma. And this is a evangelical
Islamic festival. They're calling for Syrians to
sacrifice their blood and lives for Islam.
And they'll deliver a heavy blow of the sword will fall soon
against religious minorities and what they call enemies of Islam.
That's 60% of people living in Latakia who are Christian.
And Alawi, OK, That's what's going on in plain sight.
So why is the US government in Syria not doing anything to stop
these programs? Or do they actually care?
That's the question. Here's another disturbing video,
again, posted by Joshua Landis. Go ahead and look at this.
I love my little Hamdi Arab. It's only it's only 20 seconds
long, but we saw enough there. It's it's, it's beyond the pale
and there's not a word of condemnation from any of our
political leaders about the slaughter of Alawites and
Christians by the AL Sharar AKA al Jilani HTS al Qaeda junta.
By definition, it's a junta in Syria.
Why is that? Why is this?
This is not eligible for any condemnation or comment.
This wasn't happening under the quote Assad regime.
This wasn't happening. It was a pluralistic society.
Everybody received equal protection.
Because we've been funding them and training them and supporting
them for since 2011 effectively. So we're not going to criticize
our own proxies. So and in Israel obviously wants
to normalize of course, because Syria, this new regime has given
away a large percentage of its territory voluntarily to Israel.
So like a donation to the state of Israel.
Anyway, Speaking of Israel here, look at this.
Senior Israeli officers leaked classified data including
preparations for an attack on Iran.
This shows you that all is not well in Tel Aviv, Mike, and more
to come. There are the brew the
beginnings of what a lot of people are calling the potential
civil war within Israeli society.
So just that descent of leaking Iran attack plans shows you that
there is major upheavals going on within the defense
establishment and between Netanyahu and other opposition
figures there. So more on that later.
OK. Thank you, Patrick.
Mark, let's come back to you then to finish off.
And is there going to be a new hearing on 9/11?
It's difficult to stay, gentlemen, just how far this
will go. Of course, people have been
stumping for this and promoting this and asking for this,
demanding it for a very long time.
There's a independent journalist named Benny Johnson, one of the
few that picked this up and gave it any semblance of fairness.
This headline a bombshell. Senator Ron Johnson signals the
intention to hold a hearing on 9/11 with emphasis on Building
7. This was actually published by
the International Center for 911 Justice, which gave Benny
Johnson a fair shake here. And in the interest of time, we
might want to go right to the video clip.
Mike, I could talk about, you know, what this is focusing on,
but I think it might be best just to hear the clip.
They deserve the truth. It's been hidden from them way
too long. But again, that's just in one
area. I think it's interesting.
I've been following you. You're starting to open up the
aperture on 9/11 World Trade Center #7 you know what the
firefighters are telling us. I mean, that's something that
needs to be explored as well. Now I know you and I are both be
considered conspiracy theorists, but that's exactly how they keep
this stuff covered up is they accuse those of us to want to
expose the truth that we're just a bunch of conspiracy theorists.
Well, members of Congress are now coming forward on Tucker's
show and saying, hey, they've completely attacked my family
and destroyed my career because I questioned the official story
of September 11th. And none of it makes sense.
And so the only way to find the truth is to ask the right
questions. And this is the, this is the
single most consequential moment in America.
America changed forever, not for the better after September 11th.
And it's worth understanding what truly happened, just like
on January 6th to try and find the truth.
You have to ask, you have to be able to ask the right question.
You go back to the, the firefighters, every firefighter
inside of those buildings was saying, including Donald Trump
was saying that this, this, this official narrative cannot be
true. And so, you know, we, we hope
that there's some disclosures there as as well.
One final thing. And it, you brought it up and it
was chilling. You said that they've destroyed
the documents and you're just talking about COVID documents.
So do we have any hope of ever getting like a proper Epstein
document dump? Is there, is there like actual
hope here of getting any true documents that are related to
events of September 11th or JFK? Or have have those things been
so black boxed and so decimated that we'll never know the real
truth? Well, again, just like we have
thousands of recordings versus 1 Zapruder film, it's not just the
sender that has a record of emailed.
So that gives you some flavor of what's going on so far.
Now, Ron Johnson made a lot of big promises recently that he
would make sure that the pandemic agreement was labeled
and defined as a treaty and the Senate constitutionally would
act authority. But those stories are in a
rearview mirror a couple of years old and he doesn't seem to
be pressing that matter right now.
So we can hope Mr. Johnson has the intestinal fortitude to move
forward on 9/11. Lastly, the other media, besides
people like ourselves, Benny Johnson and very few others, the
other media are treating this in the very expected way.
This is a typical specimen. Wisconsin senator wants 911
probe sites, conspiracy theories.
New York leaders react by some local paper, the Rockland Watch
Rockland, Westchester Journal News.
At any rate, all these stories are the same whether it's CNN,
you name it, they simply present what Johnson is saying and they
simply criticize them, they shoot them down, they bring in
no supportive speakers or anything that would give any
credence to what Senator Johnson is proposing.
So it's all the same character assassination in the mainstream
legacy media cartel guys. So it's going to be a very
uphill battle and we can hope there's a lot of reality to this
and it's not just rhetoric. So this is something to follow
obviously along with Real ID long term.
OK, Mark, thank you. Thank you for that.
Well, we're going to have to leave it there for today.
We've got lots to talk about in UK Column News Extra and if
you're AUK column member, stay on the live stream for that.
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Bye bye.