Good afternoon, it's Friday the 4th of July 2025.
Happy Independence Day, Patrick. Thanks for remembering, Mike.
Yeah, just after 1:00. And welcome to UK Column News.
I'm your host, Mike Robinson. My Co host today in the studio
is Patrick Henningson. And journalist Mark Anderson
joins us by video link from the United States.
Now let's get straight on Palestine.
Action is at the Royal Courts of Justice for what they describe
as the last opportunity to stop their prescription as
terrorists. This follows the agreement by
the House of Lords yesterday to prescribe the group.
Now, in an act of sheer hypocrisy, Yvette Cooper,
amongst others, attended the House of Commons on Wednesday
wearing a sash to celebrate the suffragettes who used even worse
tactics, including explosives, than Palestine Action to make
their point. So absolute hypocrisy because
most of the lot in that photograph there then went on to
vote to prescribe Palestine Action as a terrorist
organization. Now we are hoping at some point
during the course of the programme to have some life.
In fact, Willsey is just joining us as we speak.
Willsey, I don't know if you can hear us at the moment.
Hello. So we're just down near the
protest today at the High Court and we've got a massive crowd
down here and we've just been interviewing people.
A lot of people are extremely concerned that this is going to
be the thin end of the wedge in terms of protests in this
country. And as you can see, there's an
absolutely massive crowd here down at the High Court.
We weren't sure the turn out was going to be this big, but it's
absolutely massive. Well, let's, let's hold on one
second. Let's make a formal welcome to
the program. This is Willsey from Resistance
GB. As you say, a massive crowd
there, Willsey, And has it been well behaved so far?
How how are things going at the court?
Are the crowds protesting well? You can see there are a huge
amount of people. It's an absolutely massive
crowd. I'm sorry that it's slightly
harder to hear you down here, but you can see there's a huge
crowd. They've got speakers, they've
got a sound system and I'm estimating there might be.
It's maybe 1000 people down here.
It's a really big crowd. And is there any indication yet
as to what the likely outcome of this is going to be?
People are very unsure what the likely outcome is going to be.
People aren't certain, given that they've been talking
especially about Israeli infiltration and they say there
is a lot of Zionist control within the government.
And so they're worried that no matter how many numbers they
have down here that it will just be ignored.
But they do have hopes. They believe that there's a
human rights argument on this and I think hopefully, fingers
crossed, they can win, but no one really knows.
And does anybody know how long this is, this hearing is likely
to take? Are we going to get a result
today? You know, hoping to get a result
today, hoping to get a result today.
And a lot of people are very angry at the and the fact that
they're going to be designated terrorists.
And people have expressed to me that they're happy to continue
with Palestine action despite the terrorist designation A
potentially challenging that under human rights grounds.
Well, we'll see. I've got to say, thank you very
much for joining us today. That has been extremely
interesting. It's great to see that number of
people out on the streets. And we have, you have sent us a
little video report. We're going to put that out
during extra today and that'll go out alongside the news
program later on. So thank you for joining us
today. Thank you.
Very. Much.
OK. Thank you.
Now that is quite the situation there, Patrick.
The, the, the issue as I mentioned on Wednesday is aside
from the hypocrisy of Yvette Cooper and so on it went wearing
the, the sash, honouring the suffragettes at the same time
that they're making this vote. Of course, the action, the, the
actual activities of Palestine action no different to others,
including Just Stop Oil and others.
This this was not terrorism by any definition.
No. So the criminalization of what
used to be legal protest in the country.
And I think that's let's just underline the point here that
the government, the Yvette Cooper, the Starmer, the Israeli
lobby strong arming parliament, strong arming parliament in
order to criminalize protest on behalf of it looks like
according to their their involvement with the various
law, Israeli lobby actors Mike it on behalf of a foreign
government. Yes.
So, well, look, we are going to talk more about the context of
this in a little set in a little moment, but you've got more on
the Palestine action situation here.
As you can see, there's a shot here from the High Court, of
course. So as Wilsey was reporting,
there a lot more people. This was earlier from a previous
hearing, I believe. So this is the scene and there's
a lot going on here. There's a lot going on here.
And the government is is not looking good on all any of this.
Let's just look at chapter 1 here revealed how the Israel
lobby got Keir Starmer to ban Palestine action.
So clearly there is activity in the background here with regards
to the various Israeli lobby organizations and they're
playing a pivotal role, Mike, in pushing for the banning of
Palestine action or worse than banning, labeling them a
terrorist organization here. But here's what we spoke about
before and this is what you need to pay attention to.
And this is again from Yvette Cooper's statement here she is
the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Home Office
there. This the disgraceful attack on
Brize Nortney talking about RAF Brize Norton Air Base in the
early hours of the morning on Friday the 20th of June where I
guess they put red paint on one of the.
Yeah, I mean, to call it an attack, it's just ridiculous.
An attack. They broke in and they put some
red paint on a plane in the engine Bay and wait a minute,
what can we say? It's it's that used to be
considered legal and might be criminal damage.
We'll get to that in a minute. But back up on screen here is
saying that here we go this latest.
It is in a long history of unacceptable criminal damage
committed by Palestine action. So it's right there in the words
of the home Secretary, criminal damage.
It doesn't say terrorism. It's criminal damage, which is
legal is protected protest. OK, so and they go on here, and
this is also important, it says EU KS defense enterprise is
vital to the nation's national security and this government
will not tolerate those that put that security at risk.
So defense enterprise, What is the definition of enterprise?
Well, that's like industry. It's it's something productive.
It's profit driven industry enterprise.
So EU, KS, profit generating defense industry is vital to the
national security and anybody that touches it or disrupts it
for any reason is putting the national security at risk.
Or Mike, are they actually putting maybe that corporation's
profits or share prices at risk? Because are those two the same
thing? Now that's my question.
That's my question. So we're just looking at their
own statements and you know, you can draw your own conclusions
here and let's bring this in as well.
And of course, this one certainly is one for the books.
The UK High Court held back evidence whilst upholding the
F35 controversial exports to Israel.
So what exactly happened here? Let's take a look.
Well, it seems that the UK ignored its own spy footage when
assessing Israel's compliance with international law.
We're talking about human humanitarian law.
So are they guilty of war crimes or genocide?
Key documents withheld from court on Israel's shooting of
minors. That also happened.
And again, the Foreign Office paid according to documents that
are published. We'll show you in Declassified
UK, £750,000 for quote, independent analysis on Gaza.
And meanwhile, the firm contracted by the Foreign Office
happens to have been founded by a former UK embassy official in
Tel Aviv. So no conflict of interest
there. Nothing to see move along.
And here to the report by declassified UK withheld
evidence from court in Israel arms case and we'll take a
closer look here. This is just stunning, like
using data from Cir. and elsewhere, the Foreign Offices
IHL cell revealed over 400 incidents in Gaza, but found
only one attack to be impossible, breach of
international human rights law by Israel.
And that was Israel's airstrike on the World Central Kitchen
convoy, which killed 7 international aid workers,
including three Britons. That's the only one of all the
Israeli airstrikes that garnered any concern in this.
I can't believe I'm reading this.
But anyway, the other 412 incidents that were looked at,
those aren't the total Israeli incidents by the way.
Those are just the ones looked at were judged as, quote,
inconclusive. As such, the Foreign Office has
still not decided whether Israel has actually committed any
problems or, you know, is is not complying with international
human rights law in its general war conduct.
And here's the one obviously that was left out.
They refused to submit one of CIR's research reports, long
range shooting or shooting of minors, IE sniping at children,
to the court despite a duty to disclose and explicit requests
made for its disclosure. It didn't make it into the
evidence. So I mean, what kind of a legal
process is going on here? Sure, that's the question.
Here's low. Oh, go ahead.
No. I would say it's obviously a
fitted up legal process. I mean there is no legal
process. It completely subverts the legal
process. We've seen this in other areas
like the the fact that MI 5 was prepared to lie to court
recently. It doesn't matter what the
circumstances where they lied. And so we're just saying this,
you know, this is the the government or the regime that
has, no matter what color the the political party has said
we're standing for the rule of law.
Well, that's long out the window.
So they're they're willing to dismantle the rule of law, all
for Israel. They're willing to dismantle and
to destroy the international legal system, the international
post World War 2 legal system, the Genocide Convention,
international humanitarian law to protect Israel and to protect
the corporations supplying weapons to Israel as its
committing A genocide. Did I get any of that wrong?
Nope, I'm not sure that I did. Let's look at Loki, the great UK
based rapper and poet, entertainer and happens to be an
amazing journalist. This is just a clip of a report
he did recently for Double Down News.
Take a listen. In addition to that, we believe
in Israel has even boasted about being given access to classified
police information from a counter terror investigation
into Palestine action in 2022. Why would a lobby group for a
foreign power not only be so deeply involved in the security
state of this country, but why would it have access to
classified documents? We Believe in Israel came out of
Icon, Israel's largest lobby group in Britain, which is
currently led by Richard Pater, a reserve in the Israeli
military who previously was employed by the Israeli Prime
Minister's Office. We Believe in Israel campaigned
to remove my music from Spotify. At the time it was led by Luke
Acurst, now serving as a Labour MP.
Here is Israeli political officer from the embassy
discussing Luke Acurst. And We Believe in Israel.
So Lukas is the director of We Believe in Israel.
He's a great guy. He's.
One of the best of the inside. Why are we allowing a foreign
lobby group led by an alleged spy to dictate what is and isn't
acceptable protest in this country?
So the NGO he's talking about, We believe in Israel, are the
ones that look like they they pushed the initial push to ban
Palestine action. He's talking about an alleged
spy. Let's look at who that alleged
spy or who is referring to there.
And there's the organization we believe in Israel, it's trying
to ban Palestine action. This is a Israeli, clearly an
Israeli lobbying organization, whatever you want to call it
here. And this is the person, one of
the heads anyway, of this organization.
Her name is Catherine Shaktam. That name sounded familiar when
I first saw it. And lo and behold, it is this
woman, a woman of many faces who allegedly or apparently
converted to Shiite Islam and made her way onto Press TV and
RTV, RT International and other international networks posing as
a type of resistance journalist. And the allegations are that she
was an Israeli spy or British and Israeli spy infiltrated
those organizations. She on record has said, I
managed to infiltrate to the highest levels.
Quote. It's in Loki's report at Double
Down News. We'll give you the link to that
in a moment. But here she is there we are
executive director of We Believe in Israel.
So that's quite a jump from bring being a pro resistance
Shiite convert gallivanting around Tehran and returns to the
UK and is affiliated with the Henry Jackson Society and this
organization. I mean, that's just a little bit
fishy. I can see how the allegations of
her being a spy are certainly prevalent because it it it does
look very suspicious. So that's what's going on there.
If you want any more background on this story with her, this is
a great piece by Alan McLeod at MIN Press news entitled
Catherine Perez Shachtem, a French born UK, a Jewish French
Jewish and lives in the UK. Apparently here Israeli spy who
infiltrated Mint press so apparently made her way into
mint Press as well. So very effective.
And here's one of the people mentioned in Loki's report.
This is a former head of Labor Friends of Israel, John
Woodcock. He had to leave the party for
some reason, did he? He did.
There was a sexual harassment scandal as far as we could.
We could see apparently he left his his post after that, but he
he landed on his feet. Mike managed to get a, a title
there, a peerage, lifetime peerage there in the House of
Lords. Lord Walney, he is now known as,
so you know, there we are. But he, he's featured in this
report and it's quite damning actually.
And you can see the direct link with this gentleman and all of
these organizations and then the move to ban Palestine action.
So there we are. We see all these operatives
working pretty much in concert for the same ends.
There's Loki's report there. If you want to go look at this
double down news. He is just a fantastic
journalist. I I don't need to say any more
Mike, but all the receipts are there.
Yeah, OK. Thank you, Patrick.
Well, look, let's, let's just have a look at some of the
context behind this because of course, it shouldn't be really
surprising that the British government is behaving this way.
On Wednesday, we were discussing the fact that the inconveniences
of elections and representation of the electorate have been
removed from the MP's job description on the British
Parliament website. And this is just one of the
recent signs that we, in fact, do live in a dictatorship.
So let's just remind ourselves of where we're at.
So first of all, let's look, look, sorry, look at the
shutdown of any criticism of the state.
We have the Online Safety Act that everybody will be aware of.
We've got the new National Security Act, the Foreign
Influence Registration scheme, the Terrorism Act, as examples.
The Terrorism Act, as everybody knows, is increasingly used to
terrorize anyone who's speaking out through arrested borders
with interrogations, phone and laptop seizures and so on, and
of course, now with the prescription of organizations.
But it's the foreign influence and registration scheme that I
want to focus on for a second here because this is a subset of
the National Security Act that's just been made active yesterday.
The the land, Sorry, I'm just going to quote a little bit
here. This landmark measure introduces
an unprecedented enhanced tear protecting our economy and
society from covert, sorry activities by Iran and Russia.
That was from the Home Office. It is A2 tier scheme.
The political tier requires registration of any arrangements
to carry out political influence activities in the UK on behalf
of a foreign power, including political communications or
lobbying senior decision makers such as MPs and election
candidates. But a more straight stringent
enhanced tier applies to foreign powers considered to pose a risk
to UK safety of interests or interests.
The whole of the Russian and Iranian states have been placed
under this tier. Now there are limited exemptions
for journalists and so-called recognized news publishers.
But the Starmer regime says that quotes individuals and
organizations brackets, including news publishers and
journalists, who are required to register under the enhanced tier
if they are directed by a specified foreign power or
entity to carry out or arrange for others to carry out a
broader range of what are described as relevant activities
in the UK. Now, relevant activities in the
context of the media include, but they're not limited to
conducting or arranging interviews at the direction of a
specified foreign power or specified foreign power
controlled entity, publishing news reports at the direction of
a specified foreign power or specified foreign power
controlled entity, creating video reports at the direction
of a specified foreign power or specified foreign power
controlled entity, and investigative journalism
activities at the direction of a specified foreign power or
specified foreign power controlled entity.
Of course, they can make up what at the direction of a specified
power or specified foreign power controlled entity means.
But I've seen nothing which suggests that Russia Today or
Press TV are not foreign power controlled entities.
I'm certain they are. But then we're left with what
the what at the direction of means this is.
This is still absolutely unclear.
But coming back to the dictatorship, let's look at the
next group of statute and those are designed, sorry, those
designed to criminalize protest. And we have here the Police
Crime Courts and Sentencing Act and the Public Order Act, which
both place major limitations on the ability of the public to
protest government or regime actions.
And now as we've highlighted on Wednesday and today, the Terror
Terrorism Act is being used in this area as well as Palestine
action represents. And finally, surveillance that
we'll talk about here. The investigatory powers in this
country continue to be used to surveil us all and with the
ongoing row with Apple over the use of end to end encryption,
it's clear that the Starmer regime wants no limitations on
bulk to the collection in this country.
Now in news related to this, then Brian Leveson has been
reappointed to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.
This is the body which is supposed to hold the use of
these powers to account. Leveson's been doing this job
for the past six years and has been appointed for a further 3
now. This is to a so-called
independent oversight tribunal, which has frankly at this point
upheld almost no cases brought against the state in recent
years. And even for the few cases that
they have found against the agencies, in fact, it turns out
there's nothing they can do about it anyway because they
apparently can't apply any kind of financial sanction or
anything like that. But coming back to this again,
the Data Use and Access Act recently passed is another
contribution to the dictatorship as well as it enables the
sharing of bulk data with private companies such as
Palantir and others that Patrick's already mentioned just
a few minutes ago, so that AI can be leveraged by the state.
So this is quite an incredible batch of legislation that we've
seen coming through in the last few years, although the
Terrorism Act goes back a bit further than that, but it's now
being used in a way that it was never intended.
But let's not forget the daddy of them all, and that is the
covert human intelligence sources brackets Criminal
Conduct Act. If you remember this, the short
text of this went on, it says a bill to make provision for and
in connection with the authorization of criminal
conduct in the course of or otherwise in connection with the
conduct of covert human intelligence sources.
Now, there are apparently no real restrictions on the types
of criminal conduct permitted by this act, and the range of
government agencies is virtually limited that can make use of
this as well. Now, it is true that there's an
undoubted decline in the use of covert human intelligence
sources, but they are still used.
And it's in this contact context that we, I think we should be
looking at the Palestine action issue because even if you
disagree with their aims, the fact that their right to protest
and express themselves is shut down in this way is as dangerous
as it gets for all of us. And anyone welcoming this regime
action, I think, does so at their own peril.
And to add to that, Mike, what Loki shared in that double down
report is Elbit Systems. Elbit Systems has their own
corporate intelligence cell which they used to surveil and
monitor members of Palestine Action and then report to the
government corporate intelligence.
So this is another layer to that whole thing that you just just
laid out there. So we we have got ourselves in
quite the pickle in this country with respect to the level of
power and the degree of power that the government has claimed
for itself just in the last few years.
And this isn't the labor thing. This is, this is cross party,
it's the UNI party in action and we really have to consider that
when we are making a judgement of whether whether we should be
supporting this court action on behalf of Palestine action or
not. And it is a dangerous situation
when I don't know how many judges are going to be involved
in making this decision. Probably 3 I suppose, but
nonetheless it comes down to those 3 individuals.
And it also the the the continued blurring of the line,
Mike, between national security and national interests and then
between national interests and corporate interests.
Ergo, corporate interests become national security because what
are we protecting here? What's all this surveillance
for? Why is the government need
license to break the law? Is anything in in in in
Palestine putting the UK at risk?
No. No, the danger is to the
entities that operate in this country.
To the corporations that are based here, as well as Leonardo
and other big defense contractors, which their stocks
are doing very well right now, OK, through the roof, European
defense stocks. And I wonder how many people in
government own those shares or have them indexed in their
various funds. So the performance of these
defense contractors that are killing people right now, let's
just kind of put it bluntly. Somehow, that's in the interest
of politicians in Britain, Europe and the United States to
keep the killing going. Sorry to be crude and blunt
about it, but that's what it looks like.
Right now, we were talking about foreign influence there a second
ago. Now, of course, when we're
looking at journalists who may be affected by this, there are a
number of British journalists who have worked with RT and with
Press TV, and those are the two countries sort of media outlets
which are absolutely on the list for foreign influence.
Now, one of the people who does is seen on Press TV from time to
time, if not actually regularly, is David Miller and of course, a
very outspoken critic of Zionism.
He's coming under increasing pressure, Patrick.
Yeah, and they're all going after David.
One of the reasons they're going after David Miller is because
he's stood up and he has fought them and won at least in the
tribunal earlier regarding his dismissal of Bristol University.
But this latest challenge is a whole another level.
We've got a video message which David posted on his ex account.
Everybody listen to this very closely and we'll tell you how
you can help. But go ahead and roll this.
So I'm here at Westminster Magistrates Court where I came
this morning for the first hearing in the case being
brought against me by the Campaign against anti-Semitism.
They have accused me of sending 3 menacing tweets under the
Communications Act of 2003. It was the case hearing today,
there was no pleading done and we will come back in a couple of
months for further discussions and hearings before a trial date
has been set for the 15th of December.
They will try and silence me. They'll try and silence me
through this whole procedure. And of course what we're doing
is fighting back against the Zionist attempt to completely
destroy any speeches, support of the Palestinians and against the
existence of the Zionist movement, which is of course a
fundamentally racist, genocidal movement.
Obviously this is yet another court case which I'm fighting,
which will have significant legal costs.
We have a great legal team from Bermberg Pierce and we need to
raise funds to support both the Bermberg Pierce team and the
barristers who are acting from the influential, well known and
high profile barrister. So I would appeal to everyone
who could afford it to supply us with anything they can afford to
support the legal fees in this case to the left,
legalfightingfunds@fightingfund.org. Yeah.
So just just to get some more details on this, we'll bring
this up on screen. This is the basis this is
attempted a private prosecution and it's a strategic lawsuit
against public participation or a slap.
Talk about an acronym there. And an act of desperation by the
state of Israel in a propaganda war it has already lost.
This is up on David Miller's crowdfunding site here and this
is what he says and this is basically the gist of it, that
they say that some of my posts on this platform X were quote
menacing against Jews and Zionists says David Miller.
Now if you want to help out in this legal challenge here,
there's his crowdfunding campaign right there, Left Legal
Fighting Fund, Stop the CAA. The campaign against
anti-Semitism is what's being used to try to skewer David
Miller here once again. And again, take a closer look at
the URL. We'll bring that up on screen.
That's the URL. If you want to get involved
fightingfund.org/stop the CAA and.
It'll be in the show notes. This will be on the show notes
as well. And for those of you who don't
want to use the online facility, think they have a facility.
If you want to send a check, if you prefer to send a check,
there's the address right there. Take a screenshot of this right
now on the program and that's in Darby, England.
That address there. Please indicate on the back of
the check what is for IE right David Miller on the back of the
check so they know when you send it to that address.
But of that was posted by David Miller himself on his ex
account. So we are just copying that
information and sharing it with you.
Very important precedent. Obviously, they're really going
after David. They lost in the tribunal.
They tried to take him down. He fought back and he won.
And now they're coming at him to try to shut down his free
speech, to deny him of his rights of freedom of expression
as an academic and also as a journalist as well.
Now, let's welcome Mark to the program.
And Mark, the protest against what's going on in Gaza isn't
restricted to the UK. Many other countries as well are
protesting what's been going on in the Netherlands.
Good day, gentlemen. I was looking into similar
things and I happened to find an item from NDTV World News out of
Holland and it's very poignant. It kind of speaks for speaks for
itself. There's a video clip we can roll
in a moment. It also comes as an Irish
politician who was falsely labeled as the Prime Minister
spoke out in the Irish parliament very emotionally
about Benjamin Netanyahu's targeting of children.
He believes in Palestine with, with basically murder, you know,
with all the, all the blunt force of the IDF.
Anyway, this, this is very poignant.
A lot of shoes were recently laid out, 10s of thousands of
pair of shoes in Holland to symbolize the deaths of children
in Palestine. So let's let that roll.
This is a 12th time that we are organizing a memorial protest in
the Netherlands. We are in Almira.
This time we are saying 18,000 shoes.
That's the official numbers right now.
But we know that more children and that way more children than
that have been murdered. They are under the rubble.
They have not been found yet or not been registered because the
system just can't do it anymore. I felt angry today coming here
that we have to do this again and again.
A year and a half and the genocide is not ending.
Actually our family today said to each other maybe we will not
wake up tomorrow when they went to sleep in Raza last night,
Hamdulillah, they are alive, but we don't know how many more
people we are going to be losing.
So I am devastated that we are commemorating all of these
children, shoes represent children and that it's not
stopping. So I am calling the anybody in
power, anybody who can do anything, but also normal
people, to keep raising attention and put pressure on
governments to end this genocide by Israel in Palestine.
So again, a very poignant reminder of the death toll in
Palestine, particularly against children as she mentioned so
many of them under the rubble. A truly devastating and tragic
outcome. But of course, you know, not
unexpected given the ID FS absolutely relentless and
barbaric approach to this. So that puts a lot of icing on
the cake of what we've already seen.
And the protests are in the United States as well, but
they're pretty scattered. And of course, we always have to
believe, believe or understand that agent provocateurs or
infiltrators will occasionally get into these protests and lead
people to do things they otherwise wouldn't do, maybe
acts of vandalism. So then they can be labeled as
terrorists. That does happen from time to
time, but that'll do it for now. Back to you guys.
Thank you, Mark Patrick. Sticking with the Gaza genocide
then. Yeah, I'll give you an update on
that. And just just to just to let you
know there are good people in Holland.
Don't, don't let the secretary general of NATO give you the
wrong impression in that country.
There's wonderful people in Holland and we just showed you
one of them there. Now, let's bring this up here.
And just just just so people are aware, this is no longer
speculation. It's not video tricks you're
seeing on social media. US contractors say their
colleagues are firing live munition at Palestinians seeking
food in Gaza. As you can see, they've created
a concentration camp here funded by the US government and the
Israelis. They're calling this
humanitarian aid. They're letting them loose to go
find and run to get food and then shooting them the number
dead. It's running at a clip,
including from these sites as well as the bombing raids by
Israel, around 100 Palestinians a day it seems, Mike, like it's
a quota by the IDF. They need to kill 100 per day
because that's what it's averaging out at over the last
few few weeks. Is that all Hamas?
I don't think it is. Of course it's not.
It's ridiculous to even say so. So the UN has issued a, the
Human Rights Council's issued a new report.
We've seen the draft of that. I think the final has been
published already. If it hasn't, it's probably up
on their website. But here's Francesca Albanese,
the UN special rapporteur for human rights, talking about
what's in this report and why it's so significant and why the
time for debate, discussion and trepidation of oh, is it a
genocide? Oh, is it not?
Oh, is Israel intending to kill civilians on an industrial
scale? Or is it just a mistake and it's
just all this collateral damage? That time for that debate has
long since passed. Listen.
My report exposes a system, something that is so structural
and so widespread and so systemic that there is no
possibility to fix it and redress it.
It is to be dismantled and you know, had businesses and had the
corporate sector observed due diligence, had it honored its
commitment to do due diligence even before October 7/20/23, he
would have disengaged completely and totally from its
entanglement with the with the Israeli economy.
Because first of all, it's a fiction that there is a line
dividing, separating the good Israel within Israel and the bad
Israel in the occupied territory.
No, the economy is 1. Israel's economy is 1 and one
only and encapsulates the colonies.
The colonies do not exist because some fringy part of the
Israeli society is pioneering into the wild, Wild West Bank.
No, it's because this is resolving the housing crisis in
Israel. These people live and trying
within a system that is so connected that it's part of the
Israeli state. That's the special rapporteur
for Palestine and the occupied Territories, Francesca Albanese
here. Let's take a look at the draft
edited version here. This is just the clips that I
took from it. We'll bring this up on screen.
The UNS Special Rapporteur's 27 page report shows in granular
detail how Israel's war economy has mutated from occupation to
an economy of genocide, powered by a tight knit web of global
corporations and investors. Well, let's take a look at that
tight knit web. They're right here.
The document names more than 60 firms among them.
Drum roll, please. Ladies and gentlemen, tech Bros,
stand by. Google, Amazon, Microsoft,
Palantir. Anybody own volunteer shares?
I had a chance to buy at 60. I passed.
I'm glad I did. Lockheed Martin, Elbit Systems,
well, we were just talking about them.
Caterpillar HD, Hyundai, Volvo. Good cars, but I'm not sure
about what they're doing with the Israelis.
Chevron, Drummond and Glencore. Of course, Glencore is in there
as direct beneficiaries and enablers of the deconstruction
of Gaza and the entrenchment of West Bank settlements.
Well, there you have it. It's an economy.
So it's it's beyond debate. And what why there is not
sanctions already? Why there is not full blown
embargo on arms? They're in violation of the Arms
Trade Treaty UK signed to that right, the genocide treaty,
Genocide Convention UK assigned to that, as is the United
States. They're fully in violation of
all of that. So why are governments still
shipping weapons? What?
And shipping, Anything we did, we everyone sanctioned South
Africa for far less in comparison.
Although the apartheid regime was bad, although it was brutal,
but they weren't doing anything near to the level of violence
that Israel has been doing for the last 20 months.
So what are we waiting for? That's the question.
That's a good question. OK, let's leave that there now I
move on. If you like what the UK column
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OK? Let's move on then to Ukraine.
And what do we have here? Well, lots of bombing going on.
Trump was on the phone again to Putin yesterday.
He seems to have offered, well, not very much actually, in fact.
So the Western media is presenting this as Putin being
unwilling to do a deal. But in the early hours of this
morning, then Kiev was under bombardment again.
As we could see on screen at the moment, there were several waves
of attacks lasting for hours. And according to Ukrainian Air
Force, his Telegram channel, Kiev was the main target of the
strikes. As the landscape, of course,
piped up, he condemned it. He said that this was one of the
most, quote, demonstratively significant and cynical attacks
of the war. He was very unhappy, in fact,
that the sleep was disrupted. He said it was a harsh,
sleepless night. So he also complained that the
attacks came directly following Putin's call with Trump.
And he wrote on his Telegram channel that Russia once again
demonstrates that it does not intend to end the war.
Now, in related news, Mark Rutte, secretary general, gave
an interview to interview to Fox News on Wednesday.
Now let's just get a feel for how unhinged he actually is.
And then to Lavrov, I mean, he's foreign minister of Russia, I
think, since the birth of Jesus Christ.
And since then, nothing, anything usual came out of his
mouth. So let's not pay too much
attention to Mr. Lavrov. This is just quite incredible to
be coming out of the mouth of Mark Ruta, the biggest
propagandist on the face of the earth as far as I can see.
I could also interpret that as he's basically inferring that
Sergey Lavrov is the Messiah. So if that's the case, we should
organize some prayer. Lavrov prayer candles.
They're coming to you by next week, so look out for those.
OK, well anyway, Rhoda's bad message for the United States
was around his continuing whingeing that Trump appears to
have withdrawn support for Ukraine.
In fact, the Department of Defense has only announced a
pause in deliveries of some weapon systems, including
Patriot missiles and precision guided artillery shells,
Hellfire missiles, and munitions compatible with F16.
I mean, there's the F16's been shot down, so it hardly matters.
But anyway, Ruda said. I totally understand that the US
always has to make sure it's interests are covered when it
comes to Ukraine. In the short term, Ukraine
cannot do without all the support it can get.
I understand the US has to take care of its stockpiles and at
the same time we have to allow for some flexibility here.
Europeans in the meantime are really stepping up.
Well, my question mark, if we can bring you back on screen is
are they stepping up? Well, that is certainly the
plan. There is a major move in Europe
and I mentioned it, but we can show this first slide.
I mentioned it in a couple of reports ago on the 20th of June
when I talked about a Bilderberg attendee citing the Savings and
Investment Union as part of a greater stockpile of cash and
credit to leverage or collateralize to completely
revolutionize and enlarge European defense.
And that is to be based on largely European production and
far less reliance, they say, on American weapons and American
weapons systems. Let's go back to that first
slide, because that's the important report.
The Commission, European Commission unveils the White
Paper for European Defense and the Rearm Europe Plan and
Readiness 2030. The Commission and the High
Representative have presented a White Paper for European Defense
as part of the Rearm Europe Plan, an ambitious defense
package providing financial levers, including the Savings
and Investment Union to EU member states to drive an
investment surge in defense capabilities.
So this is about rumors of war, the possibility of war, real
war. It's it's about basically basing
the entire planned economic boost of Europe and basing it
all on defense and military. It it seems that we cannot have
peace and economic prosperity at the same time.
We have to put the entirety of Europe on a war footing, a war
production footing. Only then can we have that
military based, relatively good economic health, economic
vitality. Anyway, here's some key quotes
from that European Defence and Rearmament Plan Readiness 2030.
This plan also relies on the European Investment Bank Group
to widen the scope if it's lending to defence and security
projects while safeguarding its financial capacity.
On top of unlocking substantial funding, this will send a
positive signal to the all important markets.
And we have another call out, I believe, from that same plan.
And this relates again to that Savings and Investment Union,
providing further validation that that's happening.
Public investment alone will not be sufficient to fill the
defense industry's investment needs from startups to large
established companies. For this, the Savings and
Investments Union strategy will make it easier to mobilize
private savings into more efficient capital markets and
channel investments into critical sectors of the economy
such as defense. And they're saying for now in
this report that the Savings and Investment Union would be
putting forth money voluntarily from European savers, you know,
everyday citizens and their savings accounts and their time
deposits and things like that. This next slide is basically
just a source that people can access from the show notes.
This is a very in depth report in a lot of ways the economic
impact of higher defense spending and it admits pretty
clearly here that Europe will go significantly into debt and
incur much more debt to do this European wide major defense
manufacturing rearmament plan. And so that's very significant
to keep in mind. The next slide also reiterates
from a couple of reports ago from me, the Bilderberg link
leveraging or collateralizing the savings of Europeans, which
numbers in the 10s of trillions in the amount that came up
initially in this European financial stability and
integration review plan that Maria Albuquerque, a Bilderberg
attendee this year in Sweden announced on the eve of
Bilderberg. So we've got solid proof that
they're going to leverage savings and it's just a matter
of how they'll do it. The next thing is just a basic
graph. I only have one of these.
It shows from 2014 to 2024. That was the initial commitment
a little over 10 years ago for 2% of GDP to be spent on defense
by European countries. And by the time you get to 2022
where Russia invades Ukraine, you see the speed up and
increase of defense landing from NATO countries.
And so another key point here is that it's pretty much all
predicated on Ukraine and Russia.
Russia's this big threat. They, they alone wore the black
hats when they invaded Ukraine. Therefore, that's kind of the
whole central motivating point of this is Ukraine wears the
white hats. They can do nothing wrong.
And so because of what happened to them, Europe must rearm in a
very broad and long term sense with with profiteering being at
the top of the game. Anyway, there's some other
important aspects to cover here on breaking Defense.
This is a trade journal. Let's look at this.
There was a recent Paris Air show where a lot of these, of
course, weapons are put out like in an exhibit kind of way.
Europe is pouring money into defense, The headline says.
Can US firms reap the reward amid transatlantic tensions?
And so the US, of course, is chomping at the bit now that it
motivated Europe to spend not just 2%, but up to 5% of its
GDP. European nations on defense.
But that's a 10 year timeline. That's that's supposed to be up
to about 2035. They're giving them 10 years to
read that reach that 5% percent threshold.
Excuse me, but the Financial Post noted in this 27 June item,
European allies are wary of buying American as they plan
this defense build up. So the US may or may not totally
cash in on this rearming, rearming and remilitarizing of
Europe, where they're going to try and build the entire
economic prosperity of Europe pretty much on on military
matters, the armaments, AI systems, ammunition, you name
it. Now, Andreas Kabulius, the EU
Commissioner for Defense in space, had a couple interest
interesting things to say. And I'll mention that before I
quote him, that Ursula Vander Leyen, the president of the
European Commission, is saying the peace dividend is over.
The peace dividend is no more. In order for Europe to prosper,
we must be on a war footing, a war military production footing.
But anyway, here's what Andreas had to say.
The defense package, the white paper for European Defense and
Rearmament of Europe plan that I mentioned marks a defining
moment for our Union, a defining moment Europe can no longer
afford to be a bystander in its own security.
And he also had this to say. We must take our defense into
our own hands, reinforcing our commitments to collective
security and standing firm against those who seek to
challenge our sovereignty. And a real irony of this, of
course, is the the very creation of the EU, which Bilderberg had
at least a small hand in, was a, in a lot of ways, the
overturning of individual European nations sovereignty.
So the European Union really doesn't have a leg to stand on
in terms of talking about sovereignty because even for it
to exist, it had to at least lessen the sovereignty of its
member states. So that pretty much sums up
what's going on. The savings and Investment Union
has now been confirmed as one definite way that they'll
finance this and Europeans better hold tight on to their
money or at the at least they better get a lot more
information about how this is going to work.
There is one more slide if you want, Mike, we can save it for
extra. But at at the Paris Air Show,
they put baffling and, you know, opaque baffles around the
Israeli booths at that Paris Air Armament show in a move that
Israel called outrageous and unprecedented, evidently a
active protest in some respect against what the Israeli
military's been doing unless they were somehow protecting
them or maybe even a little bit of both.
But Israel did protest about that.
But that's an interesting twist on the end of this story for
today. Just on the defense thing, Mike,
this, this 5% target, the likelihood that any of these
countries are going to actually meet that they're talking about
all these, as Mark said, all the bail insurance or you know,
stealing savings to find they're, they're looking for all
these schemes because the cash isn't there.
Italy, Italy's doing about 1.5% at the moment.
And they're so desperate to add to the, to the NATO tally.
There's a bridge that's planned to join the mainland Italy to
Sicily, and Maloney's trying to bundle that in as a NATO expense
in order to get up closer to her 5%.
And Trump just threatens the Spanish.
The Spanish said no way are we going to spend 5% of GDP on
military, and Trump threatened them with tariffs.
So talk about an attack on sovereignty.
The United States is going to determine whether you're going
to go into massive debt to pay for this bloated 5% defense
budget to fight a phantom menace, the beast from the East.
Talk about an attack on sovereignty.
So you can't decide what you spend your money on anymore.
Is this the new Europe? It absolutely is.
Yeah. Unbelievable.
No, it is the new Europe and you
know, it's, it's absolutely clear Patrick, the UK claims to
to be spending 2 1/2% already 2.7% whatever it is at the
moment. And there's, they say they're
going to go to 3 1/2% whatever in order to, to even come to
that number. They are including pensions in,
in the, in the figure. So, so, and I'm sure all the
other European countries are doing something similar.
So, you know, we are faced with Russia if Russia is our enemy,
which I absolutely say they are not.
But von der Leyen and the rest and Starmer claim that Russia is
our enemy. Now Russia has weaponry with
much smaller defence budget than the weaponry that we can't even
get near. And so, you know, do do these
people really expect Russia to sit back and wait for the 20
years that it's going to take to get for the for the West to get
up to a level where they could actually seriously prosecute a
war against them? Or are they just going to ignore
us? Or what are they going to do?
Well, if it takes 20 years, Mike, then that's just about
right. Because every 100 years, Europe
decides they're going to try to invade Russia and it gets the
same result every time they run back with their tail between
their legs. So let's set our watches for
2040 and let's do, let's do Operation Barbarossa again and
Napoleon trying to take Moscow. That went well, didn't it?
So I mean, this is just like ridiculous.
What is the problem with Europe? What what is this obsession with
having to go to war with Russia constantly?
Why didn't they just rollback NATO?
And so this is just unbelievable.
NATO's a joke, OK? This is all about
interoperability. We know there it doesn't work.
And how many tanks does NATO produce collectively in a year
in Europe, the European side 100?
What is Europe we. Don't have the productive
capability. What does Russia produce in
terms of tanks in a year? About 15 hundred 1500 a year.
The whole of Europe can't even do a tenth of the Russian
production. Are you guys kidding?
Seriously. Despite sanctions.
Seriously. Just remind ourselves of that.
Like what world are you living in?
But your stocks are doing good, your portfolios are doing good,
index funds, you're making money.
You'll be able to buy the 3rd or 4th house and maybe buy the
yacht. So everybody's happy, right?
Because that's what it's all about.
Absolutely. Mark, let's come back to you
now. Was it last week?
I think you were talking about Chatham House and the sudden
interest in Korea in the Korean Peninsula?
The event has since taken place. What happened?
While I was able to cover it July 2nd virtually and it was
called How should Britain build influence and impact on the
Korean Peninsula? It included Colin Crooks,
interesting, unfortunate surname, UK ambassador to South
Korea, Edward Howell, Korean Foundation fellow, Karen Maddox,
head of Northeast Asia Department, Foreign,
Commonwealth and Development Office, moderated by Simon Smith
of the British Korean Society. And I took some original photos
with screenshots here. There's Colin Crooks to the
left, Karen Maddox in the middle and Edward Howell to the right.
I didn't happen to include Simon in that, but there is some B
roll here that we can show if you'd like.
And I can just give it a very brief outline for the time we
have left. Colin Crooks talked about a
bilateral free trade agreement with South Korea and said that
that's in the works. And he said that Russia has
positioned itself as an enemy of South Korea.
Allegedly, South Korea to the Far East side of Russia is
geographically close, he mentioned to Russia.
And he said South Korea has a good leader in place and has
constitutional clarity now, even though it's previous president
declared martial law fairly recently in 2024, although that
president was reportedly impeached.
So they believe South Korea is now stable and constitutionally
sound so it can enter into the free trade agreement with the UK
and so on. Another important point is that
South Korea is sort of part of a apparent UK military and
diplomatic tilt, you might say, or outreach.
They're basically going to make South Korea sort of an adjunct
or add on to what they're calling the arsenal of democracy
for Europe. And so in a strange way, it kind
of fits into the report I just made about re arming and
militarizing the economy of Europe there.
There is that connection there. There's some other things, Colin
said, the ambassador to the South Korea of the UK.
Korean language is the fastest growing for study in the UK.
He called that a soft power connection and said 5000 youth
go both directions from UK to South Korea and vice versa in
terms of cultural relations and British universities and schools
are actively recruiting South Korean students.
Karen Maddox mentioned a lot of things.
One of the highlights of Karen Maddox comments was that she
doesn't believe North Korea is in with both feet in the axis
with Iran, Russia and China. She believes it's more of a
transactional opportunistic thing and that North Korea is
part of that axis only for its own benefit and it again, it's
not in with both feet. That was Karen Maddox opinion on
that. A number of other things could
be said. It was something of a dry
discussion. But All in all, they are saying
that tensions are down in the Demilitarized Zone between North
and South Korea. However, Karen Maddox said that
the channels of de escalation have declined as has the number
of embassies. So they're trying to re
establish the UK embassy in Pyongyang.
But meanwhile, North Korea does have an embassy in Ealing, a
adjunct or suburb of London. And the HMS Prince of Wales, a
naval ship of the UK, is supposed to visit Korea sometime
this summer. So that's some of the
highlights, guys. But they're trying to bring
Korea in as sort of a distant adjunct of free trade and some
of the military activities and related matters.
I'm sure that they'll be more on this as time goes by and we can
refer back to this Chatham House meeting from July 2nd.
So that should suffice for now guys.
Thank you, Mark. Looks like a barrel, laughs
there at the at the Royal Institute there.
Global Britain's back, Mike. Global Britain's back standing
the empire. I will.
Be shocked if the HMS Prince wills makes it to Korea, but
we'll see. We'll.
See how they have to go through warm water to get there.
So it might be some engine. Some engine trouble perhaps?
Yes. Well, look, we've we've got to
leave it there for today. I'm going to say thank you very
much to Mark and Patrick and a special thanks to Wilsey from
Resistance GB and we'll let everybody know what happens at
that High Court hearing if we hear before the the end of
extra. If you're not AUK column member,
please consider joining because you can join us in a few minutes
for extra on this live stream. Otherwise, have a great weekend
and we'll see you at 1:00 PM as usual on Monday.
See you then. Bye bye.