Good afternoon, it's Friday the 23rd of January 2026, just after
1:00. Welcome to UK column News.
I'm your host, Mike Robinson, my Co host in the studio today,
Patrick Henickson welcomes the program.
Patrick. Great to be with you, Mike.
And we'll be joined today once again by Basil Valentine.
Now later in the program, we're going to be covering the latest
on the Holocaust Memorial, local elections, more from Davos,
including Trump's Board of Peace and the situation with ICE in
the United States. But we're going to begin today
with the NHS and Palantir Patrick.
Well, this is a really important story for for people in the UK
and I think we are going to be able to lay out the facts here.
And I want to get comment from from both you and Basil
Valentine on this. But the NHS and Palantir, this
is a relationship that is now inextricably linked and we're
going to point to an excellent report here by an independent
media called the People's Dispatch.
The British government pressures NHS institutions to adopt the
quote Palantir plan and it's getting a lot of pushback from
independent advocates, civil liberties people, people
concerned with rights and using people's data.
And what's going to happen to that data?
The dangers of which of allowing Palantir to access all NHS data
And Keir * what, what is his position on this?
What is the Starmer government's position on this?
Let's look at a couple of takeaways from this issue right
here. First of all, the government
officials have attempted to reassure patients and staff that
safeguards would prevent misuse of NHS data, claiming that data
would be anonymized or pseudo. This is a tongue twister right
there, however, that such assurances can be misleaded.
The nature of health data is that it's so personal that it's
actually very difficult to fully anonymize.
And we'll go on here. The analysis continues
Palantir's business strategy, offering new users initial
access at minimal cost. Users were talking about
governments and institutions here, then raises the prices
while locking them into dependence by retaining
intellectual property rights and limiting compatibility with
other systems. Government and public services
are a favorite target under the strategy.
Mike that can only be described as rent seeking.
Rent seeking. Now I want to bring Basil Valley
Valentine on for this. Basil, this is a incredible
story. This issue seems to have
advanced down the road and a lot of people just aren't even aware
that this has already happened. Give us your your thoughts on
this important story. Yes, thank you, Patrick.
Well, this contract was initially awarded by the
Conservative government in 2023, although Palantia is also known
to have close ties to the Labour Party, and it's been reported
that they hired Peter Mandelson to lobby the Labour government
to help it win more government contracts.
This particular contract is up for renewal in February of next
year. And last year, in 2025, the
British Medical Association passed a formal resolution
calling for the cancellation of the contract.
The BMA of course, the organization that represents
British doctors. The resolution said the
involvement in Palantir in the NHS threatens to undermine
public trust in NHS data systems due to a lack of transparency in
how the data will be stored and processed, a track record of
creating discriminatory policing software in the US.
That of course is Palantir's other speciality and close links
to AUS government, which shows little regard for international
law. The British doctors, they're
making a sideways reference to Palantir's involvement in the
Gaza genocide. Now I'm pleased to say there is
increasing push back here in the UK against it.
Zach Polanski wrote to Alex Karp of CEO of Palantir earlier this
week putting the company on notice and saying that should
the Greens form any part of a future British government, they
would be terminating the contract forthwith.
And meanwhile, there's resistance from within side the
NH chess. Although the government are
trying to force this down everybody's throats, it does
require the cooperation of patients and staff and that
cooperation is being withheld. Duncan McCann of a good law
project, Stretch the patients, healthcare workers and policy
Lakers. We must understand that this
deal has real impacts on NHS functioning.
It's not just esoteric concerns. So if we choose to opt out then
I hope and believe we can. But why is the British
government so dead set on working with Palantir?
There are dozens of companies that provide the same services.
Why pick Palantir? That's, that's a good question,
Basil, but but I want to put this to you as well because it's
at the end of the day, Palantir, a US based company with close
ties to Israel. Other data, other similar types
of companies exist, of course. But none of this would have been
possible if if the UK Parliament had not passed the Data Use and
Access Bill as the Data Use and Access Act, because that was the
legislation which amended the data protection legislation to
allow this data to be exported. And well, the UK column, amongst
others, were highlighting the dangers of this right the way
through its process through Parliament.
Nobody seemed to notice. So what is it?
What actually does it take to get people to notice this stuff?
And, you know, it's at this point it's already too late
because that legislation is on the statute books, as it were.
Well, you make a very good point, Mike.
There's so much of this that goes on behind closed doors in
the corridors of Whitehall, but I just want to make reference as
well to the sort of tangential situation with the Home Office.
Shabana Mahmoud, Panopticon of surveillance This is a white
paper on policing expected next week, which will dramatically
expand the use of artificial intelligence with the aim of
keeping the eyes of the state on offenders at all times.
Police could soon be stopping criminals before they even
commit offences, and the sweeping reforms to be unveiled
next week. Now the reason I mention it is
because it's all part of this privatisation of data and it's
subsequent potential for misuse by the authorities.
You never know something in your NHS record might identify you as
a potential criminal. The that then ends up with you
being arrested before you've committed any crime.
This is Minority Report. And Patrick, the other question
is, will it will it remain with crime or will it be, will these
people of interest, let's call them, include people that are
speaking out in ways that government doesn't like?
Well, there's that, Mike, but not, not just the targeting
aspect, which becomes incredibly easy with this system, but in
what I said at the digital ID protest a couple of weeks ago
before Christmas, I said that it's already too late.
The data sets are already being shared across departments.
It's it's it's already happened. The only thing that hasn't been
implemented is the front end in our interaction officially with
it via the digital ID for instance, but that system is
already constructed. The back end is already done.
The data is already ubiquitous and who knows who has access to
it. It could be being processed in
U.S. data centers certainly would be, you know, US cloud
power that's going to drive this with with Palantir.
That's absolutely the case, yes. So is this is just rent seeking,
really just incredibly entrapment, corporate entrapment
and rent seeking because as it said, it gets you hooked on it
dependent. And this is what's happened in
the US. This is that that's their
business model. It's a predatory, very
manipulative, manipulative business model.
And they'll they'll have you in perpetuity.
It's impossible to migrate out of that system once you once you
start, turn the key and start that down that road.
Yeah. When you say that it's not
technically impossible, it is absolutely financially
impossible because once you're stuck in that, it is extremely
expensive to try to get out of it, take a very long time.
In the meantime, of course that you have to continue the service
with that company and and they're they're not going to
cooperate with, with the migration process either.
So it it is, you know, very, very difficult.
And politics are involved and money is involved in the back
end. Now there's a petition which
we'll bring up on screen right now.
This is a petition which was created by Jemma Smith in the UK
and it's about introducing an NHS data opt out and requiring A
consultation for system expansion.
So introducing a clear national opt out for your NHS data which
is being processed on the Federated data platform, as well
as the national data integration tenant, the ND IT.
So have a look at this. We've got the links to this in
the show description. It doesn't have a lot of
signatures now, but it I've seen the argument for this as well as
by the creator of this and it seems to make sense.
I mean, these are things that are just not even available
through this whole process. They've completely might bypass
the public at every turn. And this is just one of a number
of efforts here to try to claw back some accountability or some
data sovereignty terms of the individual.
I think Mike, this is just paving the way for the
privatization or the automation of the NHS, whereby AI will be
your doctor in the future and your access to actual real
people in the system will be severely restricted 100%.
Absolutely, 100%. But I think I think if there's
going to be some kind of data opt out, it can't be left as a
matter of trust. It's got to have a statutory
basis and and some kind of legal accountability in the event that
perhaps you take the opt out box and that gets ignored.
Because at the end of the day, do we trust any of these people
to to absolutely actually adhere to any wish to opt out?
I don't. Is that a trick question?
Well. Indeed, yeah.
OK, well, we move on. We shall now let's move on then
to the Holocaust Memorial Bill. Now it's received.
It has now received royal assent, which the UK government
says helps pave the way for a memorial and a Learning Center
in Victoria Tower Gardens. Now, this has been extremely
controversial, as Charles in particular has been reporting on
for quite some time now. This was done, they say, just in
time for Holocaust Memorial Day, which is on the 27th of January.
And they're saying that once built, the memorial will stand
at the heart of our democracy. That's their words.
It's going to stand at the heart of our democracy.
Now. The bill was first introduced in
2023 and it recommitted that the government, it was, it was a
recommitment by the by the Starmer regime from something
that the previous Tories government had decided to to run
with. It removes a legal blockage
caused by historic legislation which was preventing this being
built in Victoria Tower Gardens because of of planning
permission limitations. So those planning permission
limitations have been removed. So let's just have a look at
what Keir Starmer had to say before we get some comments here
from from Patrick and and Basil. He said we must do everything
possible to advance Holocaust education while we still have
survivors able to guide us, located at the heart of our
democracy. So he repeated that again.
It will strengthen our national commitment to challenge
prejudice wherever it appears and defend the values that bind
us together. Does it do those things?
I mean, no, irony is an irony proof zone we're going into
here. Well exactly Basil, what are
your thoughts on this? Because this has been highly
controversial and quite a number of people don't want it, bearing
in mind we already have a Holocaust Memorial in the
country. Well, I take it he's referring
to the Gaza Holocaust, and that's what this memorial is
for, surely? Yeah.
Well, that's that is a good question.
I'll just. That's a good idea by Basil.
Maybe there should be two side by side.
I would support that. We have a memorial for the
tragedy and the the genocide in Gaza and a Holocaust Memorial.
That's fair. And then people can learn about
both and learn the lessons from history from both tragedies.
What do you think? Well, you know, the mantra is
never again. But as number of Israeli
spokespersons and associated assorted talking heads have
said, as far as they're concerned, it's never again.
Only for them, but not for thee, you know.
So it's the most appalling double standards being exhibited
here by Starmer, those utterly weasel words, while he himself
has been not just complicit but, as we know through the spy
flights over Gaza, actively involved in a genocide.
I mean, we'll come on later to the moral atavism of Trump.
Starmer is no better. Yeah.
And not only that, Mike, the the whole Elbit Systems controversy,
I mean, the government could have stepped in at any point,
absolutely, and just restricted arms sales and that type of
activity, while the case is in the ICC and the ICJI mean most
people would look at that as a no brainer, especially with the
Prime Minister that has a background as a human rights
lawyer as well. That's the shocking part about
it. Well, yes, but he's got other,
other loyalties, let's put it that way.
But let's just bring this on screen quickly because as I
said, there has been some pushback against this and the
main campaign as far as I know is St.
Victoria, Victoria Tower Gardens, preventing building in
this precious London park. The details of this campaign
group will be in the show notes as well.
So go and have a look at that if you want to find out more.
OK, let's move on then to local elections.
And of course the UK government has confirmed now that it's
going to bring forward legislation to postpone
elections for 29 councils. So if we just bring this on
screen, this this for 29 councils have provided
sufficient evidence on how postponement would would release
capacity to help deliver local government reorganization.
That's how they they were talking about it.
So 202429 government, sorry, 29 local authorities are postponing
elections, 34 councils are going to go ahead with elections and
that means, according to the government, they're very pleased
for us all to know that that means a majority of local
elections will go ahead as planned.
That should make us all feel a lot better.
Now what they say is that where elections are postponed,
existing councillors will have their terms extended.
And they're saying that elections to the new unitary
councils are expected to take place in May 2027, with the new
councils expected to be up and running in April 2028.
But this was a bit, Basil, I really want to get your thoughts
on this because this was a bit that almost made me fall off my
chair because I'm going to quote what they said here.
They said these decisions follow precedent between 2019 and 2022.
The previous government postponed local local council
elections to protect local government reorganization work.
So postponement then, as now, they said, is to enable focused
work on implementing proposals. Now that had me in stitches
because this here's a man who is Prime Minister on the basis of
campaigning on the idea of change, that he was going to do
something different to the Tory government.
And here we are with him, actually, without a sense of a
thread of irony, using the Tory government as president for this
bad behavior. Well, as Thomas said, the heart
of our democracy, Mike, is the Holocaust Memorial, not
elections. What on earth makes you think
that elections at regular intervals should have anything
to do with democracy? Our democracy is defined by that
Holocaust Memorial and nothing more.
Yes, I'm not sure where to go after.
That there's nothing more democratic than postponing
elections. What do you think?
No, I think that's. That's a very Democratic thing
to do extremely Democrat, just like Zelensky in Ukraine.
He's he's, he's postponing now what he's over a year in 18
months in, yes, out of mandate. I mean, and that's the paragon
of democracy for Europe. We need to defend that, right,
Defend Zelensky because he's not having elections.
I can see where this is going by the way.
Seems to be a pattern emerging, not a good one.
No, indeed. OK, well that's local elections.
We will keep you posted as as that develops as well.
And of course that legislation will be coming forward very
soon. But let's move back across to
Switzerland and Davos Patrick. Well, yeah, this is this is the
great confab, isn't it, Mike? This is when the great and the
good get together. And this is quite prestigious.
It's now they're no longer calling it Davos.
It's now called the WEF and a lot of people are using this
term now. So they've really graduated
right up to the up the cultural ladder.
They've now got their own sort of quick nickname, if you will,
almost a hashtag the WEF. And so what's going on at the
WEF? All is not well at the WEF.
This has become the biggest slugfest at Davos in living
memory. And a lot of that's to do with
Donald Trump and his entourage that have descended onto the
slopes of Davos, once the pristine and serene liberal
neoliberal enclave in the Swiss Alps.
And here is the big controversy. And this is pretty, I, I think,
pretty significant. Christina Lagarde, she is the
central banker of Europe and she walked out after Howard
Lutnick's speech. Howard Lutnick is Donald Trump's
commerce secretary and we'll we'll look at him in a moment.
But apparently, and she left the Davos dinner.
I think she may have left the event full stop.
She was completely taken aback and offended by the comments
from Trump. Now, this is interesting too
because, you know, bankers are usually politically agnostic.
It wasn't the politics, though, that she was offended by.
It was the almost imposition of monetary policy coming from the
United States in terms of what Europe needs to do in terms of
accommodating American financial interests.
And that goes really flies in the face of everything that I
think any European bureaucrat, civil service or even technocrat
is willing to swallow. And we'll talk about that in a
moment. Now, here is the Howard Lutnick
railing against globalization. I want to comment on this
afterwards. Let's roll this.
And the Trump administration and myself, we are here to make a
very clear point. Globalization has failed the
West and the United States of America.
It's a failed policy. It is what the WEP has stood
for, which is export offshore, far shore, find the cheapest
labour in the world and the world is a better place for it.
The fact is it has left America behind.
It has left the American workers behind.
That is a bit rich coming from an investment banker from Wall
Street. Wall Street are the ones that
drove globalization and they all got filthy rich out of it by
financializing the American economy and they did the same in
Britain. Mike.
So Howard Lutnick in the City of London made out like bandits for
the last 30 years, and he has the temerity to then come and
pivot and say, oh, this globalization is hurting
Americans. It is really unbelievable.
These people are absolute shape shifters.
Playing psychological games, of course, because that that that
sentiment that he's expressed is going to be very, very popular
with, with the market base, of course, and, and all the other
people that are Trump supporters around the world.
And but he doesn't mean a word of it.
To to the uninformed and the the the neophytes in terms of
politics, economics and geopolitics, that might sound
like a good sound bite. Or to JD Vance, you know, people
who aren't that well steeped in such things.
But to educated people, he's not fooling anybody.
Now here he is. This is the thing that really
offended Christine Lagarde, we're told.
Roll this next one. And what we are here to say is
that America First is a different model, one that we
encourage other countries to consider, which is that our
workers come first. We can have policies that impact
our workers. Sovereignty is your borders.
You're entitled to have borders. You shouldn't offshore your
medicine. You shouldn't offshore your
semiconductors. You shouldn't offshore your
entire industrial base and have it be hollowed out beneath you.
You should not be dependent for that, which is fundamental to
your sovereignty on any other nation.
And if you're going to be dependent on someone, it darn
well better be your best allies, OK.
And so that is a different way of thinking.
And of course, he's absolutely right in what he says there.
I can't argue with anything that he said, but of course he is one
of the people that's implemented this offshoring policy over the
last decades. He is, but you know, if the US
is, is so self-sufficient, why do they need to steal a country
like Venezuela's oil and go and kidnap the president?
I mean, the, the hypocrisy and just the balderdash that's
coming out of these people is unprecedented.
And then why, why is he, why is the United States need to go and
grab Greenland if it's so self-sufficient?
And it's on short everything. They haven't on short
everything. This is a globalized economy and
you really can't get out of the fact that countries need to
trade. And then at the same time, he is
threatening the Trump administration's threatening
punitive tariffs against European countries.
So he's instrumentalized the whole purpose of the tariffs and
turned it into sanctions. Basically, there's no
credibility from any of these people.
And we don't know where to start, Howard.
Howard Lutnick is a fanatic, is a political fanatic.
He is absolutely an Israeli pick.
Let's take a look at him for a moment.
So who is Howard Lutnick? That is the question.
An absolute Israeli lobby pick. And a lot of people are saying,
Mike, that he is Trump's handler.
You always see Howard Lutnick everywhere Donald Trump goes.
He's scanning every word that Trump says to the press.
You do you rarely see Trump without Lutnick present.
So that's why people are calling the him Trump's handler.
And he's just always around, like lurking in the background,
these sort of creepy pictures. This is from Air Force One here.
He's almost become a mem in his own right here.
And that's not the his endless creepy pictures.
Here he is again, but you might not be able to see him, but
believe it or not, there he is right behind Lindsey Graham.
I mean, so this is Trump's handler.
So this is basically Israel's eyes and ears in the White House
is effectively Howard Lutnick of Cantor Fitzgerald investment
banks who coincidentally had offices in the Twin Towers on
9/11. So among other.
But he wasn't there that day. No, he wasn't.
He, he was lucky. He I think he was no, I was told
to picking or taking his kid to school that morning.
So extremely fortunate in that regard.
Not everybody was a sadly on 9/11.
But the not to change the subject.
That's something people need to pay attention to.
You know, who is steering Donald Trump, who is Trump's handler.
And we believe, a lot of people now believe it's Howard Lutnick,
and it's kind of becoming obvious at this point.
OK, thank you for that, Patrick. OK, let's move on then.
If you like what the UK column does, we do need your continuing
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In fact, that's ours because that helps us beat the
censorship regime. Now tonight at 7:00 PM, Charles
and I are speaking to Jeremy again for our usual weekly
banter. So join us at that 7:00 PM and
then more from Carl's on Venezuela, geopolitics,
minerals, and the future of Latin America.
That's in Silk and Steel podcast at 9:00 PM and then 9:00 PM on
Sunday for members only, the third part of the 1000 Words
podcast with Abby Roberts. Jake speaking to Abby Robertson,
painting, Abby Roberts, and of course, the reveal at the end.
Quick reminder of the digital ID rally happening in Glasgow, 1:00
PM on at the Commonwealth Monument on Glasgow Green.
So join them at 1:00 PM in Glasgow if you're able to do
that. And if you're not that far
north, then there's going to be a digital ID meeting taking
place at the Chamberlain Square at 1:00 PM on Saturday at
Birmingham Square, Birmingham. Sorry, Chamberlain Square,
Birmingham. So join for that if you can as
well. OK, let's move on then to the
Board of Peace. And of course, yesterday at
Davos, Trump, well, he's, he announced it or he formally
formalized it and signed the document and created the Board
of Peace formally. This, of course, is to remind
you of the technocratic corporate body, which he clearly
envisages is going to replace the United Nations to some
extent. Now, his son-in-law and special
advisor, Jared Kushner unveiled a $30 billion plan for
rebuilding Gaza. And he was talking about amazing
investment opportunities so we can all buy shares in that.
The plan, he said, was going to begin with rebuilding the
southern city of Rafa within as little as two to three years.
And well, let's just get an idea of how this was presented.
So quickly I'll go through this 2 year war, 90,000 tons of
munitions, there's over 60 million tons of rubble there and
10s of thousands of fatalities. So on the aid I mentioned the
UN. So now people are talking about
famine, 100% of the, of the, of the food needs are are met and
that's been over abundance. The the cost of goods have gone
down tremendously. Over 55,000 trucks have gone in
and over 1.4 million pallets. So it's been the largest
humanitarian effort done into a war zone that anyone's been able
to tell us about. This really has been a great
joint effort that everyone's been able to do and and so it's
a great thing. So first of all, Patrick, do you
buy that this claim that 100% of of Gazan's food needs are met,
that this is the greatest humanitarian effort going into
and you notice he used the term war zone when in fact this in
fact is a genocide. So you know, what are your
thoughts on on his comments? He's absolutely lying.
He's lying right to the camera, he's lying to the world.
But these people have proven that they don't have really have
any conscious left when it comes to this area.
Besides being the president's son-in-law, the president in
law, he's also lifetime close friends with the Netanyahu
family. This is the last person you want
running point on such a a gaudy project.
And the problem, Mike, here is like the Abraham Accords, this
maneuver by Kushner basically leaves out any dialogue with the
Palestine, the native Palestinian population.
And that's why the Abraham Accords failed.
And that's why this is going to fail, because they haven't
learned a lesson from the past. Well, I mean, I, I don't know
how you can be right about that because it was all about the, it
was license lines as we saw there.
But he went, he went on to talk about the rebuilding and we've
got to be very clear because he was very clear that this was all
about the aspirations of the people of Gaza and nothing else.
Let's just have a listen. Rothful, we'll start with this
will show a lot of workforce housing.
We think this could be done in 2-3 years.
We've already started removing the rubble and doing some of the
demolition. And then new Gaza, it could be a
hope, It could be a destination, have a lot of industry and
really be a place that that the people there can thrive, have
great employment. Once this starts going, we think
there should be 100% full employment and opportunity for
everybody there. And we have a lot of data on
what can be. But we think that this really
gives the Gazan people an opportunity to to live their
aspiration. So it's not it's an opportunity
for the Gazan people to live their aspirations.
But as you're as you say, he's never spoken to any Gazan, so
how does he know what their aspirations are?
Just be clear, everybody, Jared Kushner, the Trump
administration, Steve Witkoff, the Israelis, Netanyahu, they
have no intention of allowing any Palestinians to live in
those pictures, which they are imagining they're going to build
in Gaza. They're going to continue to
push them out. When he says three years, he
means what every Israeli parliamentarian and ministerial
head have said and all the Hawks in Israel.
We need to get rid of the Palestinians from Gaza.
We need to exterminate them. They say we need to push them
out. We need to ethnically cleanse
them. And whoever is left are going to
be killed, quite frankly. And they'll, they'll have
hopefully they in their mind, some cheap labor by Palestinians
would still push into camps, into like concentration camps or
labor housing or labor camps. And they'll, they believe that
they'll voluntarily or want to rebuild Gaza as a new Dubai for
foreigners with tons of money and for Israelis to move in and
Americans. And they believe that somehow
that Palestinians are going to be OK with building this new
Dubai on top of the dead bodies and remains of potentially
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, including women
and children. That's basically the gaudy,
audacious move that's going on here.
And you know, Mike, it's going to fail for a number of reasons
which I could talk about afterwards, but.
Well, we'll talk about that in Extra.
But then Kushner went on to say that the plan assumes that Hamas
has agreed to demilitarize. So let's see what he said on
that point. So demilitarization, this is
something we're starting now. We have a new government in
Gaza. This government will be working
with Hamas on the demilitarization to really take
the principles that were agreed to in the document to the next
phase, and hopefully that will be successful.
Without that, we can't rebuild. So if Hamas does not
demilitarize, that will be what holds back Gaza and the people
of Gaza from achieving their aspiration.
So, again, more aspirations there.
He went on to say that Hamas had signed a deal to demilitarize.
Well, that's the first I've heard about that.
And he then went on to say that that is what that the United
States is going to enforce. So he's implying that if there's
no demilitarization, that in fact we'll not only see Israeli,
direct Israeli activity in Gaza, but we're going to see United
States activity in Gaza. That's an absolute lie, what he
said there, there is no deal. There's no new government.
They haven't. The US and Israel have installed
a new government in Gaza. Hamas has not signed anything to
disarm. It hasn't happened.
So this, the level of lying here and and gaslighting is quite
extraordinary. And where, how come our
governments and the mainstream media aren't pushing back on
this? Not that I'm surprised.
Because they basically agree with it.
It's, it's really, I mean this, this is really amazing.
Well then, then the question is who's in and who's out?
And of course, the big question is, is Russia in?
Oh, before, before we go to Russia.
Yeah. So, so Belgium, they they
claimed Belgium was in and Belgian leader just said, whoa,
whoa, whoa, we're not in. And they rejected it.
So the, the, the Trump administration's making up
people, they're, they're telling us people who have joined that
haven't never joined. So there's no credibility at all
with this. So Belgium's out, Britain's out.
Well, we're going to currently, we'll talk about that.
Canada's out. It looks like the France is out,
Germany's out. Now China has basically said
we're looking at it, we're reviewing it.
But they said, they warned the Chinese.
This has major implications for international law, and Russia
has said more or less the same thing, but you have more.
On Well, let's have a look at what Putin said because this is
what he said yesterday, he said. As for the peace council, yes,
we really did receive a personal message from the president of
the United States, Donald Trump, inviting us to join a new
international body he's setting up.
As for whether Russia will take part in this peace council, the
Foreign Ministry has been instructed to carefully review
the documents we've been sent, same, same as as China at this
point. And he said and to consult with
our strategic partners. And then he said then here's the
main point, whatever process is launched must actually help move
things forward, sorry, towards a long term settlement of the
Israeli Palestinian conflict based on relevant UN decisions.
So in other words, he's very clear this is not going to
replace the United Nations. And all the resolutions that
have ruled on Palestine, OK, dozens of them.
Yeah, but he ended his comments with a bit of a Barb because he
said so. Even before we decide whether to
formally take part in the Peace Council, we could, I believe
send 1 billion U.S. dollars to the council were frozen under
the previous US administration. So that's that's pretty clear.
But then finally, Britain's position as expressed by our
wonderful Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.
Let's have a listen we. Want to be part?
Of the second phase of the peace plan for Gaza, we've strongly
supported the 20 point plan. We won't be one of the
signatories for what is a a legally binding treaty today
that raises other constitutional issues, but also are concerned
about suggestions that President Putin might be part of this
because, frankly, we need pressure on President Putin to
deliver peace in Ukraine, which so far he is refusing to do.
So Britain not wanting to. Get in So Britain's not going to
join the. New Doral on the Med Country
Club with the $1 billion joining fee.
That's it's the Golf Club model and he wants to franchise it to
other conflict zones around the world.
Maybe we don't have a billion dollars to give.
I don't know. But anyway, OK, look, let's move
on then because over the last couple of weeks we have been
talking quite a bit about ICE and the immigration situation in
the United States and the way that ICE is behaving as a
federal agency. What have you got on this,
Patrick? I had the pleasure of sitting.
Down recently, Mike and talking to the founder and director of
Mint Press news in the United States, Minar Adley.
A lot of people are familiar with Mint Press and she she's
been very busy covering this invasion in Minneapolis.
She's based in Minneapolis. As luck would have it, the story
came to her and her team are there and they've been covering
it doing an incredible job. This is a a very moving and
powerful discussion, a part of that discussion I had with Minar
just yesterday, Minar Addley. And we're going to, we're going
to play this now and we'll come back with more details on this
story in just a few minutes. Well, it's.
Really just a horrific. Scene here on the streets of
Minneapolis. Trump has unleashed his Gestapo
federal agents onto our city here and what we would describe
accurately as an ICE invasion. We're witnessing massive and
horrific domestic police repression.
I mean, for whatever it's worth, whatever police state we have
witnessed in the past, we are seeing it put on steroids right
here in Minneapolis with these domestic police, federal agents
that are going literally door to door and walking up to people
asking them to show them their papers to prove their
citizenship. I mean, this is unlike anything
that we've seen before here in the US, at least not in my time
in my generation. I was born and raised here in
Minneapolis, and this is the first time I've heard or seen
anything like this in the United States.
Right now we have over, not even a minimum, but over 2000,
perhaps 3000 federal agents with ICE that are here on the ground
supposedly targeting, you know, criminals, undocumented
immigrants. But the truth is is that they
are kidnapping and abducting in many.
Cases American. Citizens, we just saw them, you
know, live with Jonathan Ross, the federal ICE agent, shooting
an American citizen, Renee Good, on the streets of Minneapolis.
And they are kidnapping and abducting immigrants that have
lived here for decades who might be, who might have work visas,
who might be here on refugee status.
And they're very specifically targeting brown people.
I mean, they're not targeting like Ukrainians, for example, or
Irish immigrants that are living here.
Minneapolis holds the largest refugee population from the
Somali community. And many of these people are
here because the United States history is, you know, operating
its War on Terror in their country for decades has
destroyed their country. And so they get refugee status.
And many people are, many of the Somalis are here.
Many of them are American citizens.
And just to share a a story, I mean my friend Segundo, a good
friend of mine, his name is Segundo.
He's from Ecuador and his wife Maria were on their way to
church about a month and a half ago.
They are Ecuadorian immigrants on a work visa here with their
eight-year old son in their car. And they were abducted or the
husband Segundo was abducted in his car as they were pulling up
to their church to go to church. These are law abiding people.
And just how devastating and traumatic for that wife and for
their son to witness ICE federal agents pull up, surround their
vehicle with their masks on, burying their guns, pulling
Segundo out of his car. He didn't even get to say
goodbye to his family and his wife and his son are just
looking at what's happening to their father, to their to her
husband. An absolute horror.
And he disappeared for over 2 weeks.
They had no idea where Ice had taken him.
They didn't hear anything from him.
And several weeks later, Segundo finally called them from a
holding center and I believe it was in Texas to let them know
that he was being deported back to to Ecuador, where he was from
originally from. But as you know, Ecuador as well
as a nation that has been completely destroyed by U.S.
economic policies and that country is strife with crime and
corruption. And Segundo and his wife, Maria,
and their eight-year old son, they have another daughter here
who's going to college. They've now been separated from
their families, from their dad. And this is the story of so many
of these people that are being abducted and taken.
By ICE, they're being kidnapped, they're being disappeared.
And in many cases, the people that they're kidnapping are not
even being sent to their home, you know, their home country.
They're being sent to a prison holding cell in El Salvador.
And a lot of times these people have committed no crimes.
And so for Trump to go on this rampage to send in these federal
agents and its crackdown against, you know, criminals and
illegal immigration, this is clearly rooted in white
supremacy and racism. Because as they abducted Segundo
in that church parking lot, he was on his way to church right
now. Nikima Levy Armstrong was just
arrested by the DOJ because she LED a protest in a church here
in St. Paul, MN.
By the way, she is a reverend herself, OK?
And she is a civil rights attorney, an African American
sister who led a protest inside the Saint Paul church against a
pastor who's also the regional director of ICE.
And she was arrested for disrupting a church service.
And the right, right now, the far right is going absolutely
insane saying that she went too far by disrupting, you know,
Christians, right, to be, you know, sitting in their service
peacefully without being disrupted while they are
literally abducting other Christians who just happened to
be brown skinned and Hispanic and Latino.
And that's OK. Segundo was abducted in a church
parking lot and he was sent back and, you know, completely
terrorizing his family. And now they just arrested
Nikima because she LED that protest inside of a church.
And they're quoting the Bible. That's what they're doing.
They're quoting the Bible. People on the far right are
quoting the Bible like this isn't Christianity.
Well, what's not Christianity is prevent is, is having an ice
pasture connected with ice terrorizing our communities.
And many times they're also Christian, just like Segundo's
story. And you know, that story's on my
mind, Patrick, because it's a good friend of mine.
Every single person here in Minneapolis knows somebody who
has been kidnapped and deported by ICE.
And something that's really interesting that interesting
that has happened is that ICE federal agents have actually
stopped off duty police officers here in Minneapolis and asked
them to show them their papers. And this has triggered the
police departments to kind of say like, what is going on?
And this is not OK, you've gone too far.
Because now they're seeing that it's it's affecting even their
off duty police officers. And there's just one story where
one of the police officers from the city of Brooklyn Park was
stopped. And I believe she was Latina,
you know, American Latina, And she was off duty.
She was just in her regular clothes.
And a federal ICE agent stopped her and asked her to show her
her papers. Well, most people don't walk
around with their birth certificate or their passport.
Like, that's like, not a thing. And so she didn't have anything
to show him except for her driver's license.
And she pulled out the camera to start recording her because
recording him because he became aggressive with her and he
actually knocked that phone out of her hand and detained her.
And so this is a perfect example of how for.
Even for those who might support.
What ICE is doing in this, you know, their so-called crackdown,
it's not just going to affect immigrants or undocumented
immigrants or people who are here as residents or, you know,
visas. It's going to affect U.S.
citizens. And we already saw that from the
first day when a few weeks ago Renee Goode was killed.
She was shot by a federal agent. And they are being extremely
aggressive, extremely aggressive.
And this is absolutely overreach.
And it's really scary for people who are living here.
There are many people who are afraid to leave their house in
the state of Minnesota. Even American citizens now feel
that they're afraid to leave their house because they don't
want to be detained by ICE. So yesterday I went actually to
the Somali Mall to join a press conference.
Literally one block down from US, ICE had abducted two
teenagers, slammed them to the ground on the ice here because
it is very cold here in Minneapolis.
It's like -10°. Today they slammed them both on
on ice. We have video footage of this.
None. Great reporting by Men Press.
News that's Menorah Addley she's an award-winning journalist and
I would say in terms of independent media men press is
probably one of the best organizations in the world and
has been been like that really for like over 10 years.
So she's an incredible reporter and that's just a few she
provide me with a lot of footage, Mike.
And that was there was stuff even more shocking than what we
showed there. I mean, that was pretty light.
But you know, perhaps we'll you know, we'll there's some other
clips from this interview on future programs.
But suffice to say, Mike, that's that's about as good of a clear
account as you can get on the ground there from Minneapolis.
And we'll we'll be getting more like that as well.
We'll undoubtedly be talking about.
This an extra. Now I want to bring this on
screen. This is whistleblower aid.
Now. They describe themselves as a
pioneering nonprofit legal organization that helps public
and private sector workers report and expose wrongdoing.
It was founded in 2017, and they say they've supported and
advocated for whistleblowers across government.
This is in the United States, big tech and other parts of the
private sector and so on. Right now, the organization does
seem to be primarily funded just for transparency here by
individuals. But they have also received in
the past funding from the Omadire Network and from
Democracy Fund Voice. But foundation funding doesn't
seem to be routine for them, though.
Now they've published a document, which is a report.
So let's bring it on screen by two anonymous whistleblowers.
And they say whistleblower is represents 2 anonymous United
States government officials disclosing a secretive and a
seemingly unconstitutional policy directive.
This policy directive authorizes Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agents to enter homes and residences without
consent in order to conduct arrests and removals without a
warrant issued by a federal judge.
And it's the without a warrant, but which is the important
thing. Now the memo was was dated May
the 12th, 2025 and was signed by the then acting ICE Director
Todd Lyons. And that was recently determined
that the the Constitution and immigration law do not prohibit
using administrative warrants to enter, resist to enter a
residence. So that's their position.
And the memo instructs officers to knock, identify themselves
and give occupants a reasonable chance to comply, but allows all
necessary and reasonable force if entry is refused.
So that's what the memo was alleged to have said.
Now, the assistant secretary of Homeland Defense, Tricia
McLaughlin, took the X, and she said in every case that DHS uses
an administrative warrant to enter a residence, an illegal
alien has already had their full due process and final order of
removal by a federal immigration judge.
That's their claim. The officer also has probable
cause. And then the official Homeland
Security X account posted that in every case we serve an
administrative warrant, there's probable cause and the illegal
alien has had full full due process and a final order of
removal. So that's the claim from them.
But that's strange because according to the whistleblowers,
it appears that the acting ICE director has authorized the
very, the very conduct, sorry, the very conduct that the DHS in
2025 legal training materials has called the chief evil
against which the wording of the 4th Amendment is directed.
Physical entry of the home without consent or a proper
warrant and administrative warrant doesn't cut it.
But in the meantime, as Patrick was highlighting last week, ICE
has become a major employer in the United States with a with
apparently no particular restrictions on who can apply.
And we should also recall the press release from Homeland
Security Secretary Christy Nob last year, which not only
removed its restrictions on who could apply, but also all
ordered, sorry, offered all kinds of incentives.
So it including a maximum $50,000 signing bonus, a student
loan repayment and forgiveness opportunity, 25% law enforcement
availability, pay uncontrollable overtime for enforcement removal
operations, so basically unlimited overtime and enhanced
retirement benefits. And Patrick, the question then
is where, where is this coming from?
Where has it come from? And the source seems to be the
Heritage Foundation's Project 2025.
And the key objectives in this document include clarifying and
expanding ICE authority, removing restrictions on ICE
operations, expanding expedited removal, reorganizing
immigration functions, pushing for aggressive interior
enforcement. This is all the the key features
of this. And we're seeing that on the
streets of the United States at the moment.
And, and, you know, I would just, we're going to talk about
this more an extra, but just for those that are sort of saying,
well, these people shouldn't be there there anyway and
abductions equals arrests. I'm just going to make the point
once again, once you start removing the rule of law and you
start get working your way around the regulations and the
the, the workflows that you're supposed to follow in the US
Constitution and the. Constitution you are.
In a lawless state, the people that are accepting this because
they happen to not like the levels of immigration in a
country or because they happen to support the.
Current president occupying the White House or party right that
powers will be retained. By whoever.
It follows follows them in office in fact will get worse.
This is a slippery. Slope.
It's a direction of travel you've got to be looking at and
you've got to be considering where this ends up and, and, and
accepting this kind of behavior just because you don't like
immigrants is being in your country is not.
That's not the way to think about it.
Yeah, that's that's a very jingoistic.
Xenophobic way of looking at it, Mike.
And I will add, when they say illegal aliens, as Minar showed
us in her interview, they're not illegal aliens.
Some of the people being kidnapped, they're legal.
So that shows you right there that there was no due process.
And that's why and a lot of civil liberties attorneys now
are being flooded, Mike, with this is this is going to the
Supreme Court and the 4th Amendment will be upheld on all
of these cases because this is just reckless what's going on
here. And it's taking the rights away
from all Americans, American citizens, not just quote
illegals. And that's the sort of short
sighted ignorant viewpoint that unfortunately a lot of people
have because there is a lot of ignorance out there on this
issue. Because people are consuming
really low IQ mega media and following bots on social media
and being gaslit 24/7 on their favorite channels when in fact
there's a real world out there that I should remind people that
exists. Absolutely.
Okay, where does that take us then?
Filtered. Let's let's come back to the UK
and the filtered jury. We'll get a quick a quick.
Update on this and again, we're going to point to this excellent
Instagram channel. He'll free the Filton 24.
They've got already 40,000 followers, jury updates.
And also I want to give a shout out to this excellent website.
If you want a real time like trial summaries from court
reporting here, Real media has just done an excellent job here.
And you can go down and just Scroll down from each week right
down to week #8 on this trial coverage.
Now, there's been some delays with regards to what's happening
this week. And this is happening over at
Willage Crown Court, which is adjacent to Belmarsh Prison.
I want to bring Basil Valentine on the line right now.
Basil, can you just give us an update?
There's been some problems with the jury.
Deliberation of major issues have come up.
Just fill us in on the details. Basil.
Yes, unfortunately. Up to the middle of this week,
the jury had had only been able to deliberate the two days out
of a possible 7. Now it's worth remembering, of
course, the The defendants are held under terrorism
legislation, which means that conditions are particularly
harsh. They're woken up at 5:00 AM.
The women spend around six hours a day travelling in a prison van
to and from HMP Bronze Field. The men face extensive security
at Belmarsh, where they're X-rayed and strip searched twice
a day, and then at court they're held in filthy holding cells
with nothing but a bench. They've also been denied food by
Serco, the privatised prison supplier, and they aren't
allowed to shower because they get back to prison too late.
So, as was the case with Julian Assange, the process is very
much part of the punishment. Last week, as a result of family
commitments, illness amongst members of the jury, the
deliberations were cancelled on more than one occasion.
It's to be hoped that they can come to conclusions sooner
rather than later. Of course, this goes back to why
the hunger strikes took place in the 1st place, which was to get
bail. Some of these people have been
on remand, held in these appalling conditions for two
years and the jury may find them guilty of no offence at all.
Will they ever get any compensation for two years, not
just of imprisonment, but imprisonment in very harsh
conditions as terrorists and. Also Basil on.
This on this update as well. What about the the timeline on
this? We also have the judicial review
which is simmering off to the side with regards to the
prescription of Palestine action.
These two are politically linked.
One could influence the other your your thoughts and just
briefly, Basil. Well, strictly speaking.
The judicial review shouldn't draw its conclusions conclusions
entirely from what the jury decide at Bullish Crown Court,
although it's likely that it will play a part.
The Filton 24 were prosecuted under terrorism legislation in
advance of the prescription of Palestine action because the
British government wanted to see if it could use terrorism powers
to quash people who take direct action against the genocide.
Thank you. Very much Basil.
Valentine. Now, just briefly, finally,
Basil, this is an incredible story.
We'll bring this up on screen right now.
Israel pays for UK adverts attacking Doctors Without
Borders. This is an international charity
that provides free medical services in war zones.
Explain to us what's happening here.
Great report by Declassified UK. Basil, what do you what do you
know about this? Well.
If you type Medicine Sol Frontier into Google, you'll
find a link directly to an Israeli government website which
accuses the the organization which does terrific work for
gardens. By the way, you can find out
about more about what they've been doing over the last few
months. It claims that they failed to
adequately adequately condemn the war crimes of October the
7th 2023 and that the pronouncements, public
pronouncements have become too politicised, too critical of
Israel. At the moment they only have a
licence to continue practicing until the 1st of March.
After that they may be kicked out.
This of course comes after the Israelis demolished the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency building in East Jerusalem this
week and also denied access to dozens of other humanitarian
organisations. So the plan obviously is to
punish the Palestinians by denying them healthcare because
one of the few organisations have been able to help people
injured by Israeli action, of course by gunfire, by shells.
Punish the Palestinians because they mentioned some Fontiere.
Have the temerity to offer some milk toast criticism of what the
Israelis describe as defensive operations.
This is really the agenda. Thank you, Basil.
This is the agenda, Mike, is to restrict any outsiders going
into Gaza, journalists, NGOs, Doctors Without Borders, because
of what they'll say to the world about the true or the images
they might beam to the world about the true state of affairs
in Gaza, which is really been met.
We've seen a lot. But that's only a fraction of
what we could see if there were major media organizations there.
But of course, Israel wouldn't be bombing, would they, if there
were BBC crews running around and and ABC and CBS crews
running around, right? Very likely they would not be
able to, but of course the other thing that they can then do is
stand up at a Board of Peace event and make claims about the
humanitarian response. Well, in fact, nobody has been
in Gaza to see the humanitarian response, so nobody can.
Nobody in the mainstream media is going to criticize that
comment because they've had nobody there to look.
And we saw the Gaza humanitarian.
Foundation and what they did with their rap runs.
Exactly. And concentration camps.
But lastly, my Israel's buying up ads on YouTube and running
the worst propaganda you can imagine, demonizing Palestinians
and also attacking different people.
And even there was a report about Israelis who ran ads to
collect donations, pretending to be Palestinian to collect
donations for a fake charity for Gaza.
So literally running scams trying to take advantage of
Palestinian suffering. And YouTube is running these ads
and all these social media platforms have a hard time
policing this stuff. We have seen so many reports of
this since October 7th and it's but of course we have to go back
to that to. Netanyahu meeting with the
young, the youth in the United Nations and explaining how they
were going to be funding thousands of influencers, never
mind the ads, influencers as well on with, you know, host of
YouTube channels and so on. And we saw those influencers.
Mobilized and kicked into action with the Iran riots and they've
been flooding social media being paid $7000 per post.
Good work if you can get it anyway.
It is indeed. Well, look, we have to.
Leave it there for today. I'm going to say thank you very
much to Basil and Patrick and for everybody that's watched.
We'll be back in a few minutes. If you're UK column member for
some news extra, we'll see you then with Basil Valentine.
Absolutely. Yes.
We'll see you then. Thanks for joining.
US bye bye.