Good afternoon. It's just gone 1:00 on Wednesday
the 1st of October 2025. Welcome to UK Column News.
I'm your host, Charles Mannett, and I'm joined by Livelink by
Vanessa Bailey, who's in Lebanon and Diane Rasmussen from the
North of England. Now in today's programme we will
be focusing on the fact that all paths appear to be leading to
war and that will be the theme with an in depth look at the
United States, Gaza, Iran, Israel and of course the United
Kingdom, as well as the destruction of our environment
in the name of preserving it. But we're going to start the
programme with Home Affairs in that the Labour Party conference
is winding up today in Liverpool and has been characterised by
tit for tat insults traded with reform now viewed as the looming
threat to the Starmer regime. Now the BBC of course have had a
field day with this and we'll just look through some of the
bylines. We won't dignify them
necessarily with any in depth comment.
But Starmer talking about how he might change international law
due to the pressure surrounding migration.
Of course, the great football of the moment.
David Lammy having backtrack on, backtracked on remarks about
Nigel Farage singing Hitler Youth songs, of course, which he
cannot possibly substantiate. And then we go on to Tony Blair.
We will be dealing with him later in the programme, at least
obliquely I'm afraid, but remarkably, as Patrick
articulated on Friday, set to serve on Trump's board of peace
for Gaza. And indeed the question is
asked, Trump trust Blair but others don't.
Could he govern Gaza? Quite remarkable question to be
asked by any stretch of the imagination.
Now the wheels have absolutely appeared to come off.
As Ben was articulating on Monday's programme, the Labour
Starmer regime appears to be heading for the ditch.
And as part of this we've reported on the idea, the
recently floated of a mandatory yet free digital identity card
and indeed the petition which went with it.
Now it's interesting to note the top live petitions which are out
there on the government website at the moment and what it is
exactly that they pertain to. We've got, in reverse order, a
petition about introducing offshore detention or mass
deportation for illegal migrants with nearly half a million
signatures, over half a million, which we've broadcast a lot
about before repealing the Online Safety Act again 544,000
there. We've had yet another petition
for a general election on nearly 1,000,000 signatures and of
course do not introduce digital identity cards at over 2 and a
half million signatures. Now, there are of course other
metrics by which we may gauge the success or otherwise of the
Labour Party. And one must be careful of
course, when examining statistics or indeed any kind of
analysis dealing with numbers and data.
But this is how more in common are predicting voting behaviour
of the public at were a general election to be cast now with
what they call MRP, which is multi level regression with post
stratification. Essentially a modelling process
using data from a voting intention poll to work out how
people will vote based on demographics, previous voting
behaviour and information about their constituency.
But the central issue simmering for years and brought to the
ball this summer is, of course, the immigration crisis crisis,
my design and in both senses so far, the way that it's
practically been put in front of the people and indeed the way
it's been reported now on that Diane attended an event in
Newcastle weekend pertaining to exactly this issue.
So we're just going to bring Diane into the programme now.
Diane, welcome. What exactly happened in
Newcastle at the weekend? Yes.
Thanks, Charles, and hello, everyone.
It's great to be here today. I just went to an event on
Saturday which I think was partially precipitated by the
fact that Ben Habib was in Newcastle on Saturday to launch
his new Advanced UK party, which was originally cancelled and
then rescheduled to somewhere else.
We don't really know where it was because it was not made
public and I was not intending to go to that particular event,
but I did want to see what was going on in the city around that
time. So there was a UKIP March that
started down at the Quayside for those of you who are familiar
with Newcastle. And then there were other groups
of, I guess we could say potential agitators from the
other side. We could say Tony, Tony Robinson
types of oppositions. So those of us who are maybe on
the sort of we was called leftist, I guess you could say
it's really hard to say because they had so many things going
on. But we could see a lot of action
from both sides. But the so-called leftist side,
for lack of a better term, was definitely the largest and the
angriest and the most active. And obviously one of their main
topics of, of issue was refugees.
So both parties eventually ended up down towards the hotel, which
is the migrant hotel, the Newbridge Hotel in Newcastle.
And we got between the police lines of the two groups.
But I've got some video here of the angrier side of the two.
If we could play that please. So what was really interesting
about that is as you saw, we were able to get between the
police lines as by saying that we were part of the media, but
the police were so relaxed about the whole thing.
I didn't see a single police staff that looked at all worried
about what was going on. It just seemed like another day
on the job, Charles. Absolutely, Don, good for you
getting out there, but also, you know, being able to see it first
hand how the issue is is literally one of division with
people segregated and separated both physically but also
psychologically as well. And that is exactly what seems
to be driven by reform presenting themselves as an
alternative. But as we see from Richard
Tice's Twitter profile, he's recently visited Israel.
And of course he falls in line with almost every other
politician of every colour and persuasion.
And in this instance, rather remarkably, he has gone all the
way to Israel to, in his words, apologise for the appalling
betrayal by Labour. He refers, of course, to the
recognition of the Palestinian state by the Labour Party.
Recently. He follows up his tweet by
thanking Gideon SAR for the meeting they had and of course
saying that Reform UK will be relied upon by Israel to stand
by or stand with Israel. He tweets about his visit to
Jerusalem and of course he lays wreath saying in memory to the
victims of the Holocaust on behalf of Reform UK.
Now not necessarily to have a go specifically at that might there
might be a whole range of reasons that he would seek to do
it. However, the optics of course
are such when one considers exactly the target of the
migration rhetoric from Reform, and of course with the Holocaust
Memorial Bill in play at the moment, it is worth noting that
this is the line from Reform. Now one should always follow the
money and in doing so that leads us to Christopher Harbourne
shown here by Donation Watch as the major donor to Reform, with
the absolutely outstripping any other donors by quite some
considerable margin. And he is the major shareholder
in Kinetic, the arms manufacturer shown by the
Campaign against Arms Trade, of course as a provider of weapons
to Israel's. Just finally and quickly we just
look at the policies from Reform.
Fairly innocuous photograph of Nigel Farage, but it just seems
curious to look at the detail of him holding the very device
which of course enables digital ID in the 1st place.
So with that in mind, I would just conclude by saying it.
It's been interesting to note that he and Tice have visited
the Bank of England recently and met the Governor and are talking
about a cosy relationship with the Governor.
And indeed Farage, whilst saying that he's opposed to central
bank digital currency, acknowledging of course that the
suggestion that exists in the 1st place is to prevent fraud,
which of course he is not at all aiming to dismiss.
So there are a number of ways in which Reform are being presented
as an alternative to the Labour Party.
My contention, I think from the way in which UK column has
examined this over the past few years, is that this appears to
be nothing more than a false binary.
And the only difference really between a Reform government and
a Labour government would be the speed with which reform might
change anything. They could simply be operating
in a different gear. Now that takes us on to what's
been happening over on the other side of the Atlantic, and in
particular what Pete Hegseth has been doing.
We reported recently that he is now running what's called the
Department of War and he's been speaking to all ranks.
And he would certainly win an award for hyperbole.
He he spoke for 45 minutes. He quoted Donald Trump as saying
that the United States has the strongest, most powerful, most
lethal and most prepared military on the planet.
And he certainly started as he meant to carry on.
So what we'll do now is just go to a video of him at the during
the in the early stages of his speech.
And then I'm going to ask Vanessa for a bit of comment on
on what it is that he said. The Joint Chiefs, generals,
Admirals, commanders, officers, senior enlisted, NCO's enlisted
in every member of our American military.
Good morning, good morning, and welcome to the War Department
because the era of the Department of Defence is over.
You see, the motto of my first platoon was those who long for
peace must prepare for war. So this is about that he's, he's
very much trying to leverage his own experiences in the military,
imagining that he's he's one of them and that therefore they
should listen to him and, and trying to sort of get them on
side that way. He goes on to talk about a whole
load of other things, talking about more innovation, more AI,
more cyber effects. Interestingly, in contrast to
what's been going on in the United Kingdom, of course, he
talks about onshoring all of their critical components, which
of course is not the case in the United Kingdom with so many
things, particularly being manufactured by Israel.
But Vanessa, obviously you've been looking very much at what
what he said. I mean in in terms of his
approach to those that were present.
What are your thoughts on that? Well, I mean, the entire speech
for me was extremely sinister based on the context of looming
regional war here, both against Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and
so on. And, and the chatter here that
that war is imminent. But, but I find it extraordinary
this, this claim that the era of defence is over.
We're in the era of war. And that echoes, I can't
actually remember which of the many British leaders that said
exactly the same during, I think the Ukraine war.
So, you know, I mean, it's, it's to A, to a degree, American
spokespeople now and members of Trump's administration are very
brazen in outlying their agenda. Yes, absolutely.
And I think is it very interesting that one of the
points he was he was making, which seemed to contradict
itself, was he was talking about what needing military leaders
who are apolitical and, and acknowledging that there had
been a sort of, you know, state of political riding off the
rails of the armed forces and that they were going to correct
that, which of course would apparently be political.
So we'll just have a listen now to to what he went on to say
concerning that that sort of apparent discrepancy.
This administration has done a great deal from day one to
remove the social justice, politically correct and toxic
ideological garbage that had infected our department to RIP
out the politics. No more identity months, DEI
offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship.
No more division, distraction or gender delusions.
No more debris. As I've said before and will say
again, we are done with that shit.
I've made it my mission to uproot the obvious distractions
that made us less capable and less lethal.
That said, the War Department requires the next step.
Underneath the woke garbage is a deeper problem and a more
important problem that we are fixing and fixing fast.
Common sense is back at the White House, so making the
necessary changes is actually pretty straightforward.
President Trump expects it. And the litmus test for these
changes? It's pretty simple.
Would I want my eldest son, who is 15 years old, eventually
joining the types of formations that we are currently wielding?
If in any way the answer to that is no, or even yes?
But then we're doing something wrong.
Because my son is no more important than any other
American citizen who Dons the cloth of our nation.
He is no more important than your Son, all precious souls
made in the image and likeness of God.
There you go. I mean, he's doing grand job.
You know, for anyone who's receptive to to that sort of
thing, he really is pulling at all the sort of heartstrings
and, you know, invoking parenthood and all that kind of
thing. What struck me about that,
Vanessa, was that he talks about, you know, the armed
forces being exactly the right state in order that one's son
might consider joining. OK, fair enough.
Let's take that at face value. Of course, what that enables him
to completely gloss over is the sorts of things that the United
States military might actually be engaged in.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I again, I just find
this deeply sinister when one considers that effectively what
he's saying is you need to be prepared to go and fight for
Israel. This has nothing to do with
American patriotism. This literally is to do with
being allied to and loyal to Israel, Right?
And when with the ramping up of the war machine against West
Asia and against Iran, that's exactly what he's saying.
So what he's actually saying is that you all need to be behind
Israel. There can be no political or
religious deviation from this. And when he's talking about
Christianity, of course he's talking about Christian Zionism.
He's not talking about true Christianity.
Yeah, that's exactly it. And one wonders how many of the
audience, well, I mean, there's two things really.
You know, this presumed is being broadcast first of all, to his
immediate audience, obviously, and then across all the various
units who are supposed to sort of be receiving this directly
from the, you know, from the the war secretary.
But. But I, I think, you know, one of
the questions is why, Why are we saying it?
Why is it on? Why is it on YouTube?
Why is it on Twitter? I mean, this is sort of internal
and yet exactly like you're articulating, there's a message
there that he doesn't need to explicitly say.
But those who know. No.
Yeah. I mean, the hype, the hype has
been ongoing for more than a week.
I mean, I mean, you know, everyone's been chattering
about, oh, God, this upcoming meeting with all the generals,
it's unprecedented and so on and so forth.
And it's deliberately there to to, let's say, swing popular
opinion behind what America is going to do next.
Yeah, that's exactly right. I've just got one more short
clip and then we can play the the rest in extra.
Let's just listen to how he how he sort of wrapped up.
These same reforms happened before World War 2 as well.
General George Marshall and Secretary of War Henry Stimson
did the same thing and we won a World War because of it.
As it happens, when he started the job, Chairman Kane gave me a
frame and a photo to hang in my office.
A matching frame and photo hangs in his.
It's a photo of Marshall and Stimson preparing for World War
2. Those two leaders famously kept
the door open between their offices for the entirety of the
war. They worked together, civilian
and uniform, every single day. Chairman Kane and I do the same.
There is no daylight between us. Our doors are always open.
Our job together is to ensure our military is led by the very
best, ready to answer the nation's call.
He's got some pretty grand ideas.
And I should also point out that in his in his speech, he also
said that he needs a force that is going to send people to
dangerous places to find those who would do our nation harm and
deliver justice on behalf of the American people in close and
brutal combat, if necessary. So this is just, you know, sort
of Expeditionary talk, trying to invoke kind of warrior spirit
and all the rest of it. And as you say, a lot of a lot
of judeo-christian rhetoric Now, Vanessa, that's sort of going to
lead us into the next part because of course he is.
He's apparently preparing for a war.
But I suspect he must know that if there is to be, you know,
specifically the war, I said earlier we're going to be
talking about the the Gaza plan. We've referred to Tony Blair.
So, so what's your analysis of the, you know, the so-called
Gaza peace plan? Well, I mean the Gaza peace plan
is really a reiteration of what we've seen many times since
October the 7th in various guises and forms.
And of course the Tony Blair Institute was exposed as having
played a part in some of the planning sessions previously.
The fact that Tony Blair is now front and centre should be no
surprise. He was the Middle East so-called
peace envoy previously. He's hated in the Middle East
for his infanticidal role in Iraq and and in the entire
region. So to put this into context, I'm
just going to basically show a couple of excerpts from
Netanyahu's speech at the UNGA. Glad to say that the majority of
nations walked out when he started speaking, except for, of
course, those that are fully aligned with Israel and the
genocide in Palestine. So as part of his speech, he
basically rejected the idea entirely of a Palestinian state.
He said giving the Palestinians a state one mile from Jerusalem
after October the 7th is like giving Al Qaeda a state one mile
from New York City after 911. This is Shia madness.
Israel will not allow you to shove a terrorist state down our
throats. Well, that is super interesting
for me because of course we'll come on to that at the.
Recent UNGA was attended by former members of al Qaeda, in
fact former founder members of al Qaeda.
But let's have a listen to another section of this speech
in which he points out that it is the majority view in Israel
that no state of Palestine will ever exist.
So let's just play this. We will not commit national
suicide because you don't have the guts to face down a hostile
media and anti-Semitic mobs demanding Israel's blood.
And I want you to grasp something else which is also
distorted in the media. I say this not only in my name
or the name of my government, but on behalf of all the people
of Israel. Last year there was a vote in
the Knesset, our parliament, whether or not to oppose the
imposition of a Palestinian state.
You want to guess what the results were?
Out of 120 members of our parliament, 99 voted against and
only 9 supported. That's over 90%.
Which of course is what we've been saying since October the
7th and even before then, that virtually the majority of the
population of Israel are in favour of the ethnic cleansing
project to rid what they consider the state of Israel
from any Palestinian presence. But as I mentioned, of course,
interesting that he mentions al Qaeda and New York when Al Qaeda
were given red carpet treatment in New York at the UNGA.
And this is Jelani meeting with Roland Ronald, sorry, Lauda, who
is head of the Jewish Congress and of course an Uber Zionist
and a great friend of Netanyahu. And they were discussing the
Syria Israel peace agreement and so on.
So, you know, it, it, it, it's is his entire speech is, is a
litany of hypocrisy. But I'm going to come on to the
actual peace plan, the points of which have been revealed in
multiple media outlets. This is in the Times of Israel,
the 21 points plan for ending the Gaza war and creating a
pathway to a Palestinian state, which of course it doesn't.
So I've basically summarised the points that were laid out in
this article and we'll run through them very quickly.
Of course, first of all, Gaza to be de radicalised and there to
be education or re education programs to change mindsets of
Palestinians. In other words, to force them to
abandon any idea of Palestinian statehood or even justice for
the 100 years plus of ethnic cleansing and genocide that has
been ongoing since 1917. It will be redeveloped for the
benefit of the people of Palestine.
Of course we know that's not true.
We've covered multiple times on UK column the potential for a
multinational free trade zone. Sorry, can I just go back to, to
that slide quickly the first one?
Yes, thank you. So then IOF will halt
operations, gradual withdrawal. So they're not committing to
withdrawing to full withdrawal immediately.
Within 48 hours after Israel publicly accepts the deal, all
hostages, living or dead Israeli hostages will be returned.
And after this, Israel will free several 100 security prisoners
and 1000 Gazans arrested during the war.
Now, of course, this doesn't take into account the 9010
thousand Palestinian prisoners that are still being held as
hostages effectively in Israel, Israeli jails, and who are being
effectively tortured, raped, abused on a daily if not hourly
basis. Then we get on to a few more
points from the peace plan. So allegedly Hamas members can
safely leave Gaza or accept amnesty to remain if of course,
they promise to disarm and give up all ideas of Palestinian
statehood. Hamas has actually come forward
requesting amendments and they've pointed out, well, does
that mean that we're not going to get assassinated in Qatar or
in the country that we decide to go to, as has been happening?
Of course, aid and rehabilitation will take place,
distribution of the aid by UN agencies, although they've
banned UNRWA and Red Crescent and the very high chance that
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will be allowed back in, who of
course of themselves been committing crimes against
Palestinians, trying to to reach aid centres, A transitional
governance by Palestinian technocrats under the
supervision of the US, Arab and EU partners.
So in other words, total sort of disenfranchisement of
Palestinians effectively in Gaza.
Then it goes on. There will be a free trade zone
in Gaza, which is exactly what we've been talking about.
This creation of a free trade zone under the control of the US
and the Zionist bloc. Opportunities for Gazans if they
decide to remain, which I presume will mean to act as
slave labour for the free trade zone and industry that will be
under the control of the Zionist total demilitarization.
Regional partners of Israel will provide security guarantees.
US and Arab security will effectively occupy Gaza after PA
reform because of course, the Palestinian Authority, Netanyahu
also attacks them in his UNGA speech.
So after they've been reformed and all the former measures have
been taken, then there will be discussion of Palestinian
statehood. So, so this is not offering
anything. This is effectively saying you
will all come into line. You will do everything that
Israel requires of you. And what's going to happen, it
will push Hamas into a corner. They've already come forward
with a request for amendments and a request for further time
to consider the peace plan and to come back with their answer.
But of course, what Israel is doing is pushing Hamas in a
corner where they'll be deemed the belligerent because they
don't agree with all the conditions that effectively
completely disenfranchise Palestinians.
In Gaza, President Donald Trump is declaring it a historic day
for peace. Hala Jaba, a Lebanese
journalist, has a different concept of that.
She says behind the fanfare of one of the greatest days in
civilization lies humiliation, exile and a trusteeship that
Palestinians have never asked for and in fact, they've fought
against. And finally, if we look at this
is a recent tripartite trilateral phone call with
Donald Trump in Netanyahu, where in fact they've also said to
Qatar who was recently bombed by Israel, we promise not to bomb
you again. And so Qatar as effectively as
David Meno said, come into line with the so-called peace plan.
You can read his his disgust at that, of course.
And he mentions again that Tony Blair is heavily involved.
And finally, if we do, we have a last video.
Sorry, I'm getting. We don't, but no.
OK, that's fine. That's it.
Sorry. OK, now thanks very much.
And of course, the other thing to point out, which you
mentioned before we started recording, oh sorry, started the
program was that, you know, in a way it's an indication of the
sort of incredibly short nature of the new cycle that this in
effect is being sold as something that's completely
novel and hasn't happened before.
But of course, extremely 1 sided and exactly just a rehash of of
what's gone past so many times. So we'll, we'll absolutely be
talking about that more in extra.
Now that moves on to talk about what the UK column does.
And if you are not yet a member, then please do consider joining.
We have a wealth of resources on the website itself in terms of
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on screen. As the evenings draw in a bit
and it cools down you might consider something from the UK
column shop. And yesterday Sandy Adams's
interview with Locke in Texas about communitarianism, little
little known but something that really should be well
understood, has gone very well. So please do look at the website
to catch up with that. And going out tomorrow is the
next instalment of Military Matters, Brian Garish and I
dealing with matters of conscription and recruitment and
indeed particularly pertinent given the subject matter of
today's news programme that goes out at Thursday, sorry, 1:00
tomorrow, Thursday. And then a reminder of our event
in York, which of course is sold out as far as in person tickets,
but there are still tickets available for the live stream.
So please do consider joining us.
And I should remind you that if you do buy a ticket for the live
stream, you do not have to sit down and watch it at the time it
will be available to you thereafter.
That will also apply to people who are coming in person and you
will have access to and Andy Wakefield's amazing film,
Protocol 7. Andy Wakefield will be there
speaking about the way in which his career was derailed by his
challenging of the Pharmaceutical industry,
particularly on the issue of vaccines, and how he's gone on
to make a successful career as a film producer.
And of course, we'll be talking about the making of Protocol 7.
Liz Evans will be talking about medical ethics, in which she has
a considerable wealth of knowledge.
Ben Rubin, We'll be talking about the impact that the
National Health Service has made since its establishment and
indeed the questioning, the very process by which it was set up.
Tess Laurie, of course, talking about her, what drove her to set
up and run the World Council for Health.
And Julian Rose will be speaking about the inextricable link
between human health and soil health and how important life on
the land really is in pertaining to are very existent.
So please do if you can join us for that live stream, go to the
UK column website and get your ticket.
Now I said that the theme running throughout today's
programme was going to be war and on the propaganda side of
it, which might be a little bit harsh in the mind of the editor
of Soldier magazine. I'm going to have a look at the
publication that serves the British Army soldier the
September issue entitled leading by example on the front page.
Interesting to note, First off on the inside cover is an advert
from Help for Heroes talking about readying people for Sibley
St. just to show how mission creep works.
Because, of course, Help for Heroes were set up to deal with
people who were returning from Afghanistan in particular with
injuries and wounds. And of course, this is very
relevant to what we're talking about because in a sense, Pete
Hegseth was referring to the sort of skill fate of a
generation who've not been involved in kinetic action and
wanting to be able to maintain contact, as it were, with the
enemy. Also advertising in the magazine
are arms manufacturers and the defence trade fair, DSE, Sorry
DSEI, which happened in London, the Defence and Security
Equipment International and we'll come back to that a little
bit later. Also Viking, again advertising
their weapon systems, but notably Elbit.
Of course, we've talked about Elbit a lot on the news, the
Israeli weapons manufacturer who have a plant near Bristol which
has been the subject of a lot of activity with the now prescribed
group Palestine Action. But what I want to draw your
attention to is their mortar, 120 millimetre mortar system
called Sling, which they're saying delivers enhanced
lethality, deployability and survivability for light forces.
But the key bit here is that they're saying it's
operationally proven. Now how are they qualifying
that? Well, we go to Jane's defence,
who ran an article on this back in January of this year, talking
about upgrades and developments, this particular item of
equipment and saying I quote Jane's learnt that the Iron
Sting munition is undergoing development in response to
feedback from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
So there we have it. Jane's is confirming that
Soldier Magazine, not exactly an internal publication but
certainly one that does get put out to serving army in
particular is advertising the very weapons systems which are
being proven in Gaza. And the suggestion there
obviously is that the British Army should be preparing to
purchase such equipment and indeed to get people trained up
on that because they know it works in Gaza.
So that is quite a thought in considering exactly where it is
that that soldier has has gone in terms of advertising.
Now, the other thing I wanted to bring out in terms of propaganda
was there's a there's a whole piece on sort of young people
and university students joining the university officer training
corps. This again comes out in the
interview tomorrow that Brian and I sorry, the the discussion
that Brian and I had military matters, but but what it bears
relation to is the pledge to recruit more and more people
into the armed forces without having to use conscriptions.
So they say. And I've got on screen now the
conscription and national Service document from the 28th
of March this year. And just to enlarge the picture
on screen, it's no coincidence that the front rank shown there
are women. And of course there is a push to
make 30% of the armed forces women where the current
percentage currently is at 12% with no real idea of how they
will actually do that. Now the other thing I wanted to
to bring in, which was mentioned by Ben on Monday, was Estonia.
Now he was talking particularly in regard to their digital
transformation. And I think it mustn't be
forgotten that alongside this, they have been absolutely
instrumental in the NATO plans and indeed sort of European
defence plans in order to provide what they're describing
as being an opposition to Russia and the United Kingdom armed
forces been involved very much with Estonia and Estonians.
So it's interesting to note that at the same event, the DSEI,
they unveiled a 10 billion defence spending plan.
And of course, they echo Pete Hegseth's words on Twitter
talking about standing for peace through strength.
However, they do actually trace this a little bit further back
than Hegseth because their National Defence Development
Plan, which runs up until 2031, goes back to 2021.
And they talk about the human resources side of it, which of
course they by which they mean that they need to conscript
people for their armed forces and they're planning on an
uplift of that. I mean, OK, the point very well
made by Ben is that Estonia obviously is a very small and
not very populous country. But nonetheless, this is the
direction of travel. And I think with that in mind,
with what Hegseth has said about about sort of being absolutely
prepared for war and all this strength through peace, we're
now going to go back to Vanessa. Because of course, as discussed
many times in UK column, Iran is so often the focus of all of
this sort of rhetoric. And quite probably more than
that, Vanessa. Yeah, absolutely.
So we're just going to have a very quick look at what
particularly Israeli media has been saying.
This is in Israel high on Israel and Iran on a collision course.
This is all in the last few days.
Israel and Iran on a collision course for another war.
And then Jerusalem Post has put out a very detailed article also
saying we may need to act again. A senior IOF official warns of a
renewed Iranian threat, and in within that article they
actually mention a statement recently made by a former IRGC
commander, Mohsen Rezaei, who warned that Iran would enter a
war with the United States if Israel carried out another
attack against it and said Tehran would not accept
negotiations with Western countries.
That would give Israel time to prepare or to strengthen its
position. He struck A darker tone in his
remarks, saying that if the war lasts 2 months today, there
would be nothing left of Israel. The Israelis want to try their
military luck against Iran again.
If this happens, we will use all our forces.
We will change our red lines and things will happen that are not
right for me to say now. So Iran is very clearly
responding to what is happening. And of course, part of what is
happening is again, just as they're doing with Hezbollah in
Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine and the Iraqi resistance non state
actors trying also to disarm them.
They're using the snapback mechanism that has been imposed
now or reinstated by the United Nations at the behest of the UK,
Germany and France. If we can just move the slide on
again within. No, sorry, back to the Wynette
one. Well, thank you.
So Wynette reported that Israel remained on heightened alert
after the UN reinstated sanctions.
And so clearly the sanctions which restore an arms embargo,
restriction on uranium enrichment and ballistic missile
activity, asset freezes and travel bans.
This again is, is totally unjustified.
And yet what it's doing, of course, in in public perception,
those that are not well informed on what has actually been going
on with the nuclear negotiations for some time, of course Trump
pulled out of them in 2018. It, it, it portrays Iran as the
belligerent, as I said, in preparation for an escalation
and aggression against them. And if we look at again, back to
Hagseth, who did an interview again in the Jerusalem first
post, we're fighting the same War on Terror.
This is a conversation with Pete Hagseth.
And within that interview he basically reiterates that he
sees A1 state solution, which of course will be the one state of
Israel, not of Palestine. He even rejects the two state
solution, which of course we know is is not viable anyway.
And he talks about war with Iran and and he brings in the
biblical context for war with Iran.
As I said, Christian Zionism on full display.
And then this is a very good account on Telegram that I
recommend everybody following Enemy Watch who does an
excellent job of of keeping up with events in West Asia.
In particular, they've been putting out information about
planned attacks on Iran, Iraq and Yemen.
Aerial refuelling tankers are on route to the Middle East.
An estimated 12 US Air Force KC135 Strata tankers transferred
from US to EU bases and then also also the RA FRC135 W sorry
joint electronic intelligence aircraft that are flying to the
Qatari air base. From within Britain and there
are multiple reports really of other movements of particularly
aircraft to the Middle East area.
Iran itself also has been running tests on missiles.
Drones have been spotted over the western border of Iran
patrolling and surveilling. And they've also put out another
statement which said that they're not going to any longer
stick to the restrictions on their missile range.
In other words, this is a direct threat to the European Union
that they will no longer only consider Israel as their target.
And then finally, the US has been supplying further for
further third air defence systems to reinforce the six
existing systems in Israel. Of course, one of the problems
in the last Iran, Israel war was that Israel was effectively
starting to run out of interceptor munitions.
And so therefore the US is clearly trying to reinforce
their ability to intercept missiles coming in from Iran.
In my opinion, speaking to particularly Iranians who are
currently here in Lebanon that I've had the opportunity to to
speak to, they're effectively saying that Iran in the last war
didn't even use its most advanced missiles.
And therefore, in their opinion, the third interceptors are not
really going to be still capable of intercepting the more
advanced missiles from Iran. But you know, the chatter here
in Lebanon, the chatter in Syria is that the region is about to
go boom, as someone said to me this morning from inside Syria.
And, and certainly that's where we seem to be heading.
And we can't also forget when we talk about the biblical context,
the the Christian Zionist end time ideology, which of course
requires effectively apocalyptic war in order to bring about the
second coming of Christ. Now, many of us may consider
that to be an extreme narrative, but nevertheless, that is how
these people think. It's how Pete Hagseth thinks.
Many articles have been written about his Christian Zionist
extremism, so we should expect the worst to be honest.
Indeed, Vanessa, thank you very much.
And and just on that to to consider what Hexis said, where
the UK appears to be now and you know the comment about the
region going boom. Do you think there will be or
there is intent for in the first instance, the Americans and the
British to get involved in in an on the ground context?
No, I don't think so. Israel potentially will get
involved on the ground in Lebanon, not in Yemen or Iran at
the moment. They'll probably try to trigger
internal reactions within Iran against the government and in
Syria. They'll weaponize the Takfiri
elements against Iraq and Lebanon potentially.
OK, OK, Vanessa, thank you very much indeed.
And we'll don't just return to that in extra.
Now working on the premise that there's no such thing as
coincidence, we'll review the communications from the embassy,
British Embassy in Mogadishu who've recently put out a
statement saying that the United Kingdom is contributing over £30
million to support Somalia's security transition.
Now, of course, this is not a a new thing.
The United Kingdom, in all sorts of guises, has been very much
involved with affairs Somali. But it is interesting to note,
as reported by TRT Africa, that Somalia is just about to begin
drilling for its own oil in the coming months.
We see the Somali president just coming up off ship, presumably
investigating where this offshore is.
It's reckoned to be an enormous resource.
And the point to note on this is how it pertains to Turkey,
because the interested party, the company that's going to be
doing the drilling, is Turkish. And there's an article here that
I've got a note for, sorry, a link to in the show notes on the
Geopolitics Unplugged Substack talking about how Turkey has
turned Russian sanctions to its advantage largely due to its
strategic geostrategic position in relation to its geography.
But of course, what mustn't be forgotten in all of this is the
United Kingdom's murky dealings with regard to particular
Somaliland and the recognition of sovereignty by Ethiopia,
which granted access to the port of Berbra by the Berbra
corridor. Now, this might sound completely
unrelated to anything that you're necessarily concerned
with, but in actual fact, the Port of Berbra is run by the UAE
company DP World, which of course was partly funded by the
British taxpayer through British International Investment.
And we see here that they are of course involved in London.
This was reported on by Ben Rubin a number of weeks ago.
The Thames Freeport of course, described as being something
that might seem like it's being run by government, but actually
it's not. It's owned by DP World out of
UAE and and indeed it's something that we will keep a
very close eye on. But this this would appear to
relate directly back to the UK stirring up tensions in Somalia
in order to ensure that its grip control and indeed the outcomes
in the Horn of Africa are to its advantage.
So again, we'll keep our eyes on that and how it pertains to
things that happened back in this country with the example of
the the terms Freeport. Now that takes us back to
Vanessa, who has an update on what TikTok have been up to.
Yeah, well, actually it's it's a lot to do with the Israeli
dominance of the media and information sphere.
So this was a meeting that Netanyahu had in while he was in
New York with pro Israeli influencers.
So let's just have a listen to what he said.
Christian influencers, OK, you said you talked about the walk
right? And he said, I call it the walk
right. That's a brilliant the walk
right? Because these people, you know,
they're not any different from the walk left.
I mean, they're, they're insane, they're noisy, but they're
actually meeting on some of the things.
And what we have to do is we have to secure that part of our
the base of our support in the United States that is being
challenged systematically. A lot of this is done with
money, money of NGOs, vast money of governments faster.
OK, we have to fight back. How do we fight back our
influencers? I think you should also talk to
them if you have a chance to that, that community, they're
very important. And secondly, we're going to
have to use the tools of battle. You know, the the weapons change
over time. You can't fight today with the
swords. That doesn't work very well.
So quite extraordinary here and and then in the last 48 hours,
articles have been all over the media talking about Israel is
paying these influences 7000 per post, $7000 per post.
Just let that sink in. Netanyahu referred this week to
a community pushing out preferred messaging in the US
media and boy, are they making a princely sum.
So let's look at a little more little more detail on on this
whole complex. Bridge Partners, a firm working
for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, sent a series
of invoices for its influencer campaign to have U.S.
Media Group in Germany, an international Media Group
working for Israel. The invoices detailed a sum of
900,000 starting in June and slated to end in November for a
cohort of 14 to 18 influencers to create content.
So They are Told, goes on to break down the costs and to work
out that each content creator is receiving 7000 per post.
Then if we look in towards the end of September, there was an
article in Politico talking about a democratic mega firm.
SKDK drops Israel as its client. Now bear in mind, that's
democratic. That's that's the Democrat
aligned organization. So it's it's bipartisan, this
support of Israel. Again, I want to make this very
clear, because people tend to become very partisan over these
issues and it's bipartisan, the support of Israel.
So again, in Politico, they basically say SKDK has worked
for several pro Israel efforts over the years, but this was the
first time it represented the Israeli government itself.
It collaborated with Havas, a European advertising and PR
firm, on behalf of Lapan, the Israeli government advertising
agency, with the ultimate client being the Israeli Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. Now another article appeared at
the same time in an in an independent media outlet called
rather interesting, the Sludge. And they talk about SDK
Knickerbocker. That was its former name.
I did check that. That's that's not parody, it's
now just simply called SKDKA. Top Democrat Party aligned
public relations firm had agreed to run a bot paste programme to
amplify pro Israel narratives on Instagram, Tiktok, LinkedIn,
YouTube and other platforms, according to a filing under the
Foreign Agents Registration Act submitted on August the 29th.
The contract, which was signed on April the 28th 2025,
describes a strategy to flood the zone with contact promoting
the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs pro Israel messages
using automated tools to increase the reach and
visibility of specific pro. So this is an entire industrial
complex working to whitewash the genocide in Palestine and to
push forward pro Israeli narratives across all social
media platforms. And then if we also look, they
go on to say that who else receives these messages?
So the contract for SDSKDK was worth 600,000 and it's coaching
Israeli civil society spokespeople for on camera
appearances, testing the effectiveness of social media
influences and arranging tailored outreach to journalists
at outlets including BBCCNN, Fox, Associated Press to secure
favourable coverage. Exactly.
Of course what we saw in Syria with the media complex that was
created to provide witnesses and testimonials to the likes of the
BBC and CNN to run anti government narratives inside
Syria. Now this com, this following
article came from back in March and this is where it gets
interesting. So Facebook paid a GOP firm to
malign Tiktok. So why has Israel been able to
take over Tiktok? Because of course, Tiktok has
been much maligned generally as being a Chinese influencer,
which in my opinion has effectively enabled Israel to
step into the bridge and take control of TikTok itself.
And then, but this is also interesting.
So according to Sludge, according to the filing, SK D's
work for Israel, overseen by its parent company Stagwell Global,
is being done as a subcontractor for the French public relations
firm Havas. Stagwell, founded by long time
Likud Ali Mach pen, also has a Republican Party aligned
affiliate called Targeted Victory that is working as a
subcontractor for Havas on Pro Israel communications.
And it's targeted Victory that was basically demonizing TikTok
on behalf of Israel to enable the buy out of TikTok.
So as I said this, this is a bipartisan Republican, Democrat
policy to support Israel and enable Israel to infiltrate all
social media platforms, particularly, of course, in the
US. But I would guess there's also
similar operations ongoing in the UK.
And if we move on to something else that Netanyahu makes very
clear in his conversation with his pet influencers, he's not
only going to buy out TikTok, he's also targeting X and Elon
Musk. So let's just play this.
Most important purchase that is going on right now is class
TikTok, TikTok number one, number one, and I hope it goes
through because it's it can be consequential.
And the other one, what's the other one that's most important?
X? Thanks.
We should be extremely concerned about this because Israel is
effectively taking over every single social media platform and
will eventually also be taking over all the platforms that are
used to to give a voice to independent media.
Yeah, very good point, well made, Vanessa.
And of course, again, the vast majority of the public who do
have access to this information and it gets pushed out have
absolutely no idea how it's coming to them or why.
So a real danger, which again, I hope we'll have time to talk
about in extra. Now, I'm pleased to say that
we're going to bring Diane back into the program because she has
got an update on some of the very high quality written
material that's gone out on the UK column website recently.
Diane. Yes, thanks Charles.
I, I just wanted to give today an update on some of the written
content that we've been publishing the last couple of
months here at UK column. As the commissioning editor for
written content, I want to point out especially to viewers that
these articles are very in depth, very well researched
pieces of journalism. And we don't have time to go
into the depth that we on the news that we do in these
articles. And so we spend a great deal of
time working with authors and I'm working on editing and, and
presenting detailed information to people as much as possible.
So if you feel like you're not getting enough depth from our
new segments, which are still quite deep, please check out
some of these reading articles. And I'm just going to highlight
a few things that have been going out the past few months.
The first one that I want to show here is from Mark Anderson,
who's one of our presenters on Friday.
This came out a little over a month ago, but I think it's
important to look at again, the UN at 80 and other key topics
highlighted at Tulsa's Red Pill Expo.
So this is something that happens in the States and he
covers this every year. So going back to look at the
history of the UN and, and, and how this has sort of impacted us
over time was of course of extreme importance to all of us.
The next thing that I want to highlight here is another one of
our frequent authors, Hugh McCarthy, who is a retired head
teacher in Northern Ireland. He's doing a multiple part
series on the effects of the COVID lockdowns on children and
Part 1 has been published. Lest lest we forget they knew
they did it anyway and there will be more to come from Hugh
as we go forward. The next part is a two-part
series from Professor David Miller, who also is a frequent
author for you could call him. This is a very interesting and
and rather alarming couple of articles.
This first one is called How the British intelligence network of
astroturf Muslim civil society groups is kept Secret and
Deniable. And this is again part of the
two-part series which basically looks at in both parts how the
government has been the business of developing as he calls it, a
vast network of deniable front groups in the Muslim community,
including leaked documents that have been linked to MIT press.
And they show exactly how the network was set up and the
agreements between British intelligence agencies and the
basically the relationships between these organizations and
what the government has been doing behind the scenes using
these propaganda techniques. And Part 2 of that was just
published a few days ago. And we also have a multiple part
series from Professor Gloria Moss.
Part 1 on post Truth was published a few weeks ago.
Actually, this was earlier in the summer on ubiquity of post
truth and how this has infiltrated society in general.
And this is part of a three-part series.
So again, going into that that theme again of the the very deep
journalism reporting that our authors do.
Part 2 was just published a few days ago about post Truth in
education. And we will have Part 3 of Post
Truth from from Professor Moss coming out shortly.
Another one that I want to highlight here is from Professor
David Miller and a new author to UK column Jill Thompson, who was
with N position called Scottish Sport Palestine.
This is a two-part series of Part 1 was published just
recently, this week actually, and it's called the day that
Celtic Football club played to raise money for land theft in
Palestine. And so there are some some very
undeniable links here between Celtic and, and, and kind of
what's going on with all of the things around Zionism and song
that we have been discussing throughout the news and continue
to cover on UK column. And this is very well timed for
some things that are about to come out shortly.
So we will be continuing to visit this and Part 2 will be
released in due course when it is appropriate.
But I also want to highlight a couple of different series of of
of things that we have been covering over time at UK column.
And these have sort of smaller sites within our websites.
You can look at all of the coverage that we have on these
topics in certain places. The first one that I want to
mention is for not the residential school, which
happens to be something that I've been working on as well as
Brian Garrish and others for almost a number of years now
actually. So this is all within a sort of
the mini site on the website and this is a particular interest
currently because there is a child going on right now in the
High Court in Glasgow. The 77 year old Patricia
Robertson is currently facing a total of 25 charges of abuse
which is said to have occurred at Fernethi Residential School
in Angus between 1967 and 1983. Keeping in mind of course that
Fernethi Residential School was open between 1960 and 1991.
And these allegations are part of a series of testimonies that
are going on right now, as I said in the High Court in
Glasgow. And this includes all, all types
of violence that we can possibly imagine, unfortunately to these
these women who were little girls at the time.
And we will continue to have ongoing coverage, deep coverage
of this case and the petition around their their fight for
justice and all of the things that the Finetti ladies have
been facing for, for many years. And finally, I'd like to end
with us the highlight of a series page that we have now
called Serious Centric Regional Analysis.
And I'm happy to say that actually today's the first day
I've ever been on the news with Vanessa Beeley.
And a lot of this has to do of course with her reporting in
Syria. So Vanessa, I don't know if you
wanted to say anything about these really amazing and in
depth articles that you and your colleagues have been working on.
No, I just think if people do want, as you said, a far more
contextual in depth analysis of what is happening not only in
Syria but in the region and all the complexities explained, then
please do go to Syria centric because we'll be trying to bring
out something on a weekly basis there.
Super Vanessa, thank you and indeed Diane, thank you very
much. It is a really good point to
make that whilst we do go into as much depth as we can in the
news programme, we are of course limited on time and therefore
the website is the place to go for a really detailed look at
many of the big issues out there.
Now just to round up the programme, I'm just going to
take us back to a theme that Sandy Adams was developing on
Monday, which is the sort of constant assault that farmers
and land owners are under. And the most least most recent
ash comes from Natural England who have just put out their
Nature returns summary report. And in essence they're talking
about tackling the twin challenges of climate change and
biodiversity loss. But of course what they fail to
mention is that much of the so-called biodiversity loss is
because of the very farming practices that the government
has sponsored via subsidy. A lot of the answer has been put
forward in a report by somebody called Dan Corry in April 2025,
which is essentially A regulatory reform paper and it
was described as being an independent report.
And I think this is the point I want to make.
He has just been appointed as a non executive board member at
Defra and there is really nothing independent about him at
all. Between the years of 2007 and
2010, he was the he was the head of economic policy at #10
Downing St. and therefore is not an outsider even remotely.
The other point to make is that he is also the chief economist
at the Future Governance Forum, and that is a think tank that
was set up in 2023 with the very idea of completely overturning
the system. So it's not at all coincident
that his regulatory reform would have net zero.
Of course, at its core, and by omission, it's very important to
point out that there are absolutely no references to
farming being part of the way to regenerate landscape and indeed
improve the environment. With the situation.
Soil gets improved, human health gets improved, and indeed it
makes goodness good business sense for all.
But I'm happy to say that I attended an event in Edinburgh
on and Diane was there also. If you don't believe me, there's
a picture on screen that more or less proves it.
But I'm just going to ask Diane now to just give a couple of
remarks about the success of that event and how it flies in
the face of what we're told by by Natural England.
Yeah, thanks, Charles. It was really a.
Great event, very well. Attended, very good comments,
really good vibe. I felt like a very good energy
there and it was called the Food and Health Festival we've been
mentioning on the news for the past few weeks.
And thank you to all of the UK column members who came out to
see Charles and I away up in Edinburgh, up in the north.
It was really, really useful to hear from some of the local
farmers and natural health practitioners and other types of
vendors to hear them say, you know, what they are doing
actually truly protecting the land.
Some in some cases working off grid, as I know you do, Charles,
really supporting the, the true nature of what we should be
doing when we're talking about actually supporting the
environment, providing good food and and supporting the health of
the people of this country, which sometimes it seems like
the government is not necessarily on side with us on
that, on that issue. But it was really good to hear
from all of them. I and your your talk,
particularly Charles, was, I thought very interesting because
it did help people position the individual things that these
farmers are doing that they were telling us about all day in
their talks. And then for you to be able to
put that in that larger context as well as someone who does it
as a smallholder, Charles, I thought was really particularly
useful. Lovely.
Thank you very much, Diane. Yeah, it was a very positive day
and I. Think the main thing to come.
Out of it is that what was being discussed was not conceptual.
This was for these were voices of experience, people who are
actually doing something and can demonstrate by scientific rigour
that they are improving the quality of soil, the quality of
their livestock and all the rest of it.
So it's very positive and I hope would serve as an inspiration to
you to get involved in, you know, taking control of your, of
your own food supply. And I'm sorry we've run a little
bit over, but that does bring us to the end of the programme.
So Vanessa and Diane, thank you very much indeed for joining me.
Please remember my words about joining us for the live stream
in York and indeed all the benefits that are associated
with that. Go to the shop on the website to
look at further details. And indeed, Please remember the
discussion that I'll be having with Brian Gerrish at 1:00
tomorrow afternoon on the subject of conscription and
recruitment into the armed forces.
And that's it from us today, but please join us again at 1:00 on
Friday. Goodbye.