Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 26th of
November, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column NEWS.
I'm your host Mike Robinson. Joining me via live link are
Charles Mallett and Vanessa Bailey.
Later in the program, we're going to be covering the fact
that we're going to war unless it's stopped.
We'll have news from Syria and UAE, and we'll have the latest
on digital identity and also the Mhra's response to the recent
CDC announcement on vaccines. But we'll begin today with the
budget and the security lockdown apparently that's surrounding
that. Charles.
Yeah. Good afternoon, Mike.
Good afternoon, all. Yes, an evolving situation I
think would be the way to put it.
And there are obviously a lot of things that are going to fall
out of today's budget. A lot are already known.
But the issue that we're going to concentrate on is the
inheritance tax issue and farmers.
Now I'd like to point out that the BBC, who've been running
wall to wall coverage of this issue for some time today have
not mentioned farmers at all. No great surprise there, but it
does make it look like there is a political agenda at play in
more ways than one. I just to recap on the issue at
hand, in last year's budget it was announced that the
inheritance tax threshold would be amended in order that it
would capture in effect a vast number of land owners and
business owners who were previously unaffected and part
of the problem. This goes back to to the the
initial change in 1992. The part of the problem is the
lack of warning given and that this is due to kick in in April
2026, giving people very little time to plan around inheritance.
The issues pertaining to inheritance tax, if they are to
in some way avoid it now. Farmers have been in discussion
with the Metropolitan Police Service for a number of months
about planning protests to coincide with the budget day
today and yesterday evening on X, the Met Police put out a
tweet suggesting that the situation was beginning to
change. Now they've updated this
further, but they're saying that there are suggestions that
they've banned farmers protesting tomorrow and that
that's not correct. But they have nonetheless taken
it upon themselves to move the goal posts, and they've put up a
policing operation update or a statement in which they say that
conditions have been put in place to prevent protesters from
bringing vehicles, including tractors or other agricultural
vehicles, to the protest. Now there are several issues
that run alongside this, not least the fact that farmers did
congregate in Westminster a year ago without incident, or
certainly without any significant incident.
Just as an aside, it is interesting to note, of course,
that neither the congestion charge nor the Euler's scheme
are applicable to tractors or agricultural vehicles by being
specialist vehicles. But there has been this 11th
hour change and indeed there's no from police a Section 14.
It's Public Order Act 1986 being put into effect.
Now the police are saying that the decision was taking due to
the serious disruption they may cause to the local area,
including businesses, emergency services and Londoners going
about their day. Now that would appear to be at a
discrepancy or at odds with what has happened over the course of
the last year since Rachel Reeves made this announcement
last year. And obviously, as one can
imagine, there is a certain amount of social media traffic
coming out of the event now as to exactly what has been
happening, whether there are arrests being made, which does
seem to be the case. But earlier this morning, John
Lament, MP for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, was on the
ground and he put this short video on Twitter.
We have hundreds, if not thousands of farmers trying to
come to Westminster to protest against Labour's family farm tax
and shockingly, the police, the Metropolitan Police, have banned
these farmers from making their voices heard.
Whitehall is completely shut down.
All these tractors are piling up in and around Westminster.
These farmers want to have their voices heard.
They want to persuade the Labour government to think again now at
a time when there's all sorts of demonstrations taking place
across London each week. It is extraordinary the
Metropolitan Police and the government have made this
decision. They are shutting down the
voices of farmers and they need to be heard.
We could stand with our farmers and try and get this family farm
tax reversed. The point that Lamb brings out
there, really all that that needs to be explored is the fact
that this change was so last minute.
So farmers have been committed to this, as well as a number of
other supporters either with or without vehicles.
And the problem that the Metropolitan Police Service are
creating is, is one of its own making in that they are
suggesting that people can only gather on foot by Richmond
Terrace, just opposite Downing St.
And of course what they will actually do in effect is create
exactly the problem that they seek to put to one side by
preventing tractors, because of course tractors are coming into
London anyway. Where are they actually going to
go? All of this is pointing very
strongly towards the operational independence of police being
seriously challenged, and that pertains to the very heart of
protest itself. So by interesting coincidence,
just last month the House of Commons put out a briefing paper
on police powers, which we'll just bring up on screen now.
And in particular this deals with the legislation concerning
control of this sort of event, the Public Order Act 1986, the
Police Crime and Sentencing Courts Act 2022 and the Public
Order Act 2023. But it's today the, as I said
earlier, the the Public Order Act 1986, Section 14.
And in a in effect, it's as though a police officer has
taken the decision that there could be a risk of serious
public disorder, damage to property, serious disruption to
life. Oh, sorry to the life of the
community. Now this is where we look ahead
slightly to the Crime and Policing Bill, which of course
we've talked about some some time many times in recent
months. And in particular the offences
that are coming concerning protests.
When we consider that the the scope of digital identity is
broadening all the time. And indeed the use of facial
recognition, live facial recognition.
And of course this bill plans to bring in the offences of
concealing identity and the cumulative impact of disruption
very relevant to today. Because of course, if the issue
persists, so indeed might the protests.
But this could constitute A cumulative disruption because
it's being carried out on more than one occasion.
Now the farmer's position in effect is that if their demands
are not met today, then they can cause big problems for the
government by turning off the taps in effect with regard to
the food supply. And it does look very much like
the government has been planning around this eventuality.
No food. Food security in the United
Kingdom is probably around 50% at best in terms of
self-sufficiency. So it seems like no coincidence
that the UK and the EU have struck a deal recently, which
we'll just look at now. And that concerns effectively
sort of greasing the skids with regards to trade going back and
forth between the UK and the EU. And in effect, the same thing
has happened in the United States, they say for for the EU,
certainly. They say the aim of the
agreement is to reduce the burden of trading agricultural
products between the EU and the UK.
As far as the United States is concerned, it was called the
Economic Prosperity Deal signed back in June and that deals in
effect with many of the same issues now.
Again, I think one point to make on the politicisation of this
issue is that whilst it appears the operational independence of
police has been challenged, it's interesting to note contrast
between the outcry there was when Maccabee Tel Aviv fans were
prohibited from coming to an Aston Villa football match.
Absolute outcry across not just the mainstream media but also
government. Whereas now a legitimate section
of British society is having its ability to protest seriously
compromised. And yet not a single voice has
come from either the mainstream media or the government to date
to suggest that there's an issue here.
Now to find out more about the background to this and indeed
how the public can take direct action by dealing with farmers
in order to make those vital economic connections, I point
you towards the UK Column website, UK Farming fighting for
its Future. Of course there'll be links to
this in the show notes and indeed to go to the farming
section on the UK Column website where there is a host of
information about all the various issues that beset
farmers and indeed will Coleshill is on the ground and
we hope to be able to show a report from him during Extra.
Thank you, Charles. I think out of that the the the
bit that I find most hilarious is the Crime Policing Bill
creates this offence of concealing identity, bearing in
mind the requirement to do exactly that just a couple of
years ago. Well, absolutely.
And, and in fact, not just that, but it's already, it's a crime
anyway. The, the Crime and Disorder Act
1998 has exactly the same provision.
So it is, it's absolutely absurd in so many levels.
But I mean, of course, you're, you're completely right.
And we just wait for the next the next health scare before
that gets repealed or or sort of scaled back or changed in some
way. Yes, indeed.
OK, well look at the beginning of the program.
I suggested that we are going to war, and I'm going to explain
why I'm saying that now. So here we have the Royal United
Services Institute. They've just held their Long War
Conference 2025 yesterday. Now Rusi's Military Sciences
team is launching A flagship programme, Long War, they say,
exploring how the UK and its allies can sustain conflict
beyond the first battle. With the prospect of peer
conflict on the horizon, this initiative asks how forces could
be mobilized, reconstituted and sustained across a protracted
industrial scale war. So Charles, Vanessa, we'll get
comments from you. Charles, first of all, I mean,
we're now talking about a protracted industrial skill war.
This is language, you know, invoking the first and Second
World wars here. And and they are talking about
this as if it's an inevitability.
They are absolutely. And I think this has been the
way that the language has been shifting over well at least a
decade if not more. And with the as far as the the
British armed forces are concerned with the effectively
the, the drop off of the operational commitments,
particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been on
one side of it the sort of scratching about and wondering
what exactly the jobs will be in future.
But of course the other side of it is the the defence or the war
industry. And indeed, what's been written
into the Strategic Defence Review this year, predicated on
this idea that Russia presents, presents an existential threat
and therefore we need to mobilise, but via spending an
enormous amount of money on lethal equipment with which to
take on the mantle of this eternal war.
Well, we'll talk more about that in one second.
Vanessa, just before I move on, have you got any, any thoughts
on on that point? No, I just, I find the language
extremely disturbing and and sort of odd really, because
we've throttled back or in the UK on our military capability.
So how on earth do they believe that they're going to be able to
run an industrial scale war? Unless of course just popped in
my head. Unless, of course, that war is
not against other countries, but against its own population.
Well, let's see if we can answer one or two of these questions.
So if we just pop that back on screen again.
Keynote speakers included General Sir Richard Barons, who
was the commander of Joint Forces Command from April 2013
until his retirement in April 2016.
But he's much better known to UK column viewers and listeners as
best buddy of Chris Donnelly, former NATO advisor who set up
and ran the Integrity Initiative anti Russia propaganda machine
on behalf of the Foreign Office. And the other keynote speaker
was Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, Plymouth
MP Luke Pollard. So let's just have a look at
what Luke Pollard had to say here.
So here he is. He said thank you Rusi for
convening this very timely discussion about preparing to
fight a longer war. It goes right to the heart of
security challenges that we face.
And he went on to speak about needing to punch and needing to
be impatient and people to be driving new behaviours and new
ways of working into deliverance.
Maybe he just wants some banjo music or something, I don't
know. But anyway, he went on to say,
speaking about the development, sorry.
He went on to speak about the development of Britain's
military capability. He said it is a process that
gets gets us to a new destination.
Because if we want to deter Russian aggression, we have to
be ready to defeat it because ultimately that is the way to
create deterrence. This is the deterrence necessary
to deliver peace. So this is the peace through the
peace through strength mantra once again.
Now, you know, you might ask, well, how about talking to
people what happened to the Westphalian approach to
international relations? You know, the the idea that
acting for the benefit of the other might be the way to do
organized peace. But we've got to remember Tony
Blair dealt with that. So that doesn't apply anymore.
It's outdated, he went on to say.
If you think about even a year ago, there was no EUKEU defence
partnership, there was no UK leadership of the UK Defence
Contact Group, no historic transit house agreements with
Germany, no lighthouse projects that came to the trade that came
to that trading house agreement, no reboots of the Lancaster
House Treaty with France. And he said to get to war
fighting readiness, we need a whole of society approach.
And so that's really what they're going for here.
But what you're saying on screen now is exactly what he's talking
about, this EUUK agreement, or at least the the basis of it,
which are the, the various deals between Britain, France,
Britain, Germany, France and Germany.
So anyway, as I say, he went on to say we need a whole of
society approach. We'll come on to this a little
bit in a second. But before we do that, just to
reinforce what Pollard was saying, here's a clip from the
First Sea Lord General Sir Gwen Jenkins, speaking a couple of
days ago at yet another war conference.
I genuinely believe war is a possibility.
I really hope it doesn't come. It would be horrendous for all
of us for a bunch of reasons. But our professional job is to
be ready. We owe it to our people to be
ready and we owe it to the nation to be ready.
And. Any excuse is not good enough.
For doing our best to make sure that we're ready.
Quite incredible language. And I speaking to Charles
earlier before the news program, I was wondering if they're
planning for, if they're, if they're planning for perpetual
war, what kind of war they're planning for.
And Pollard has made it clear they're talking about a
protracted industrial skill war. And as I say, that's World War
One or World War 2 sort of level stuff.
But the question is, are we really going to accept this
strategic direction? Because if we are, it's not just
Pollard and his colleagues who are clinically as insane,
perhaps I would, I would argue. But look, let's, let's look at
what we're dealing with here because a few days ago, NATO
held the concept development and Wargaming in NATO 2025
conference. They held it in Verona in Italy
and now the contraction of the name, by the way, is CD and WIN
2025. And they say that WIN has
previously provided an opportunity for NATO senior
leaders to gain hands on experience with wargaming
techniques and it's use in NATO. Previous WIN events, they said,
have successfully garnered support for the continued growth
and use of wargaming in NATO. This year, WIN is focused on
practitioners of war gaming so we can continue to grow, refine
and learn from one another, fostering improved war gaming in
NATO. So let's just have a look at
them playing with their toys from last year's conference.
This week the War Gaming Initiative for NATO, or Win 24
takes place here in Hamburg at Helmut Schmidt University.
Over 300 attendees across 26 partner and allied nations will
be immersing themselves in 21 against.
At the tactical. Strategic and political levels.
So this is Grand Ascent. It's a game that mimics how the
North Atlantic Council makes decisions.
If you play Ascent over time you will learn how to make consensus
more quickly and with greater quality.
This is a game that was created by Allied Command Transformation
to support the NET headquarters. stability across the world.
Now, I appreciate that people at home can't see Charles and
Vanessa wedding themselves as that was playing and you know,
this is the client show that we're looking at Charles.
But it's serious on one hand, because although they're having
fun playing Risk or something similar, they're they're also
wanting to steal billions of pounds and dollars and EUR of
taxpayers money to to fund the building of this military
industrial complex with a view to go into war with Russia and
China. I think there is a very serious
side to it. I'm not quite sure how that
naval chap kept a straight face while he was giving the
commentary there. But no, I think that the serious
point is that actually this, you know, war gaming, the idea of
war gaming of of asking the what if question is, is a very
important one. And absolutely it is done at all
stages of planning in a military context.
That that is not new. However, to in effect
infantilise it by playing actual board games, I think is a very
deliberate step to remove the in association with the lives that
will be lost as a result of these sorts of things.
In effect, it's down to the roll of a dice or something, you
know, completely banal. So I do think there is a that
there is absolutely a very serious sort of background to
the sweeping away of the consequences of doing this.
And, and that seems to shine through in that, as well as the
incorporation of civilians in order to make sure the message
transmits beyond, you know, the sort of the military
environment. Yes, indeed.
And then finally, for this section we go to France, where
Macron has announced their conscription programme,
otherwise known as National Service, in preparation for the
announcement. The French Army Chief of staff,
General Fabian Mandel said this on Tuesday.
We have the know how and we have the economic and demographic
strength to dissuade the regime in Moscow.
I try not to laugh because this is where it gets serious because
he went on to say what we're lacking and this is where you
and he was speaking to mayors in France.
This is where you have a role to play is the spirit.
The spirit which accepts that we will have to suffer if we're to
protect what we are. If our country waivers because
it's not ready to lose it's children or suffer economically
because the priority has to be military production, then we are
indeed at risk. You must speak of this in your
towns and villages. And Vanessa, I would say that
yes, people must speak about this in their towns and
villages. There must be a blanket refusal
to waste life on this insanity. And clearly there is a blanket
refusal because to, to a certain degree at least, because
Macron's announcement stated that the new framework was meant
to address what he called the desire for service amongst the
youth. But you know, the the longer we
go on, the more absolute insanity comes out of the mouths
of these people. Yeah, and absolutely.
And of course, when they say we must be prepared to lose,
they're not talking about themselves and their own
families. They're talking about the
conscripts and and the poor military that are going to be
poured out as cannon fodder as, of course they have been in
Ukraine. Ukraine has set the example for
this. Let's move on then to the
Ministry of Defence. And of course they've been
travelling right the way around the world over the last little
while and spending lots of money on that.
What have they been up to? Well, yeah, I mean, it's good
afternoon everyone. I mean, The thing is it's quite
extraordinary to watch them playing their games of
battleship and so on. And as Charles said it, it's
sort of distance and distances them just as we're seeing of
course, that war anyway is evolving into push button mass
murder rather than actual people on the ground that are going to
suffer the consequences. But this was basically an
article printed at Action Against Armed Violence.
The UK MOD spent 110 million on travel in 170 countries in just
one year, including to states beset by coups and repressive
regimes. Of course we won't talk about
who those repressive regimes are and, and in relation to who and
also who's behind the various coups.
But I, I was fascinated to see the countries that have actually
been visited, bearing in mind we're supposedly heading for
this industrial scale war. And yet the MOD seems to have
forgotten that we're no longer an empire.
They're visiting the vestiges of the empire and as I said,
spending taxpayers money to do so.
So let's have a look at the 15 destinations.
They do include the US, Australia, Kenya and Germany,
but also Oman, Canada, Cyprus, Brunei, Nepal, Bahrain, Japan,
Gibraltar, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Poland and Singapore.
And you can freeze frame and look at the actual cost of those
visits. But then what is interesting of
course, guess what also happened is the MOD officials.
Something like 12 trips were made during the intensified
genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. 299,000 lbs.
Sorry, it's a little bit difficult to read now.
It's gone small. We spent basically in travelling
to Israel, working on intelligence and defence
corporation since the beginning of the Gaza genocide.
The cost of these journeys was not among the highest, but their
timing is striking of course, because they were ongoing during
a genocide against the Palestinian people.
That, of course, is still running even now despite the
Trump peace scam that included 623 surveillance flights, which
I'll talk about a little bit later in this section, providing
intelligence to Israel that is believed to have enabled the
targeting of Palestinians inside Gaza.
And as I mentioned, 12 trips were carried out by MOD
officials during the actual ongoing genocide.
Other countries visited. And I'd like to get Charles's
and and Mike's comments at the end of this section if we have
time. So including China, Iran and
Russia are up there. So I, I couldn't actually find
details on the Russia and the Iran troops, but China I did
manage to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iraq, Libya, Mali,
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Democratic Republic of
Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan.
Of course, that is undergoing also a genocide with British
weapons by the Rapid Support Forces against civilians in
Darfur, Sri Lanka, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, Russian speaking
areas of course. And then this is from the
Spectator in April 2025. This year, why did the British
defence chief visit China? An interesting question.
So Admiral Tony Radican, who went to Beijing, he gave a
speech to students of the People's Liberation Army at the
National Defence University in Beijing.
And as the Spectator says, take a moment to think about that.
He also met with General Liu Jian Li, Chief of Staff of the
Joint Staff of the Central Military Commission, the
operational headquarters of the PLA.
The Ministry of National Defence reported that the two sides
conducted in depth exchanges on China, UK relations and military
into military relations, international and regional
situations and issues of common concern and had communications
on strengthening exchanges and and cooperation between the two
militaries. Which is again quite interesting
bearing in mind that we're supposed to be fearing Chinese
surveillance and electric vehicles as Charles reported
last week. And then to finish off here,
part of the the in relation to the MOD heading to Israel on 12
trips during the genocide. The Foreign Office also flouted
its own rules designed to stop MOD spy plane intelligence
actually harming Palestinian civilians.
And Ian Overton at Action Against Armed Violence points
out that there have been no HR, human rights assessments,
ministerial approvals or internal guidance regarding the
intelligence sharing with Israel.
And basically when there is a sharing of intelligence between
the UK and another country, it should trigger the Overseas
Security and Justice Assistance Framework, which has not
apparently been triggered according to FOIS that AOA VA
have put into the government. Mike, you'll be glad to know
that they have received no response until very recently
when they were told that that information is not available.
So of course the government has no accountability, The Ministry
of Defence has 0 accountability for actually participating in
the genocide in Gaza. But I, I, I would love your
comments on the fact that we appear to be visiting the
countries that we're claiming are about to murder people in
the streets of our cities, which are Iran, Russia and China.
Yeah. Well, before I comment on it,
I'd like to hear Charles thoughts on this.
Because you know what? What acts are the normal
activities Ministry of Defence are pursuing in these types of
trips? It's a very good question.
I mean, the, the sort of broader topic of defence engagement is,
is kind of ongoing. And also don't don't forget that
the one Ave. at least that would account for this to a certain
extent, is the fact that every British High Commission or
indeed British Embassy would have a defence section in it.
And therefore that section would be liaising with the host nation
armed forces. And that they, they would
therefore be acting as a, as a conduit of personnel to go to
and fro. That doesn't explain the
inconsistencies with regard to specifically Russia, China,
Iran, and also Israel. And, and in fact, as a, it's not
exactly an aside, but I think directly relevant.
I happen to know, because I spoke to the person in question,
that astonishingly, even this summer a defence attache was
appointed to Tel Aviv, a British defence attache.
That appointment was not actually, in the end, taken up,
but it is. It is quite staggering to think
that even in the summer of 2025, exactly to Vanessa's point about
what had happened, that appointment was still made.
I mean, how much of this type of travel is, is there to try to
identify, particularly in countries that that Britain
would like to see regime change would be there to identify, as
we've talked about with BBC media action in Syria, for
example, identify people that are opposing forces and, and,
and help develop relations with those people?
Yes, I'm not sure specifically that that kind of issue would be
dealt would be entrusted with to to military personnel.
But of course that in in so far as obscuring the truth goes,
let's say you know, travel that's made by members of the
intelligence services, which would be in fact shadowed by
military personnel who would no doubt be accompanying then that
would that that I think would explain some of the
destinations. I mean, otherwise there are, you
know, very many engagements with a, you know, we've talked about
already the, the apparent idea of the defence dividend.
Of course, part of the big sales pushes for European nations and
indeed the British start spending more and more and more
on defence. But actually a huge part of it
is what we can flog to other countries, which is why this
idea of defence engagement is so important, is what are we going
to be able to sell, albeit as you say, predicated on the
threat of such and such a thing happening.
Yes, indeed. Well anyway, let's let's come to
you then and continue this theme.
And I think we're going to begin with defence intelligence, if
that's not an oxymoron. Well, it can be sometimes, and I
think this is a very interesting case of sort of pot and cattle.
This was put out by the Ministry of Defence yesterday and begins
with the usual refrain of referring to Russia's illegal
full scale invasion of Ukraine. But the eye-catching bit was at
the bottom of the update, which says since launching the illegal
full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian state has
increasingly sought to control, censor and constrict its
domestic information environment.
And that struck me as being outstandingly hypocritical.
The most obvious point of reference I would think is to
look at Ofcom from 2022 and the action that they took against
the Russia Today Network. And the way they put it was that
RT is no longer broadcasting in the UK.
On the 18th of March 2022, Ofcom revoked RTS broadcast license on
the basis that we did not consider RTS license fit and
proper to hold it. Sorry, licensee ANOTV Novosti
fit and proper to hold it it. Now the critical part in a way,
as we've just been alluding to, to any war and indeed the build
up to it is the information that passes to and fro.
And just to go further on this, there's a press release put out
by the Ministry of Defence just today, I think it was saying
that the UK has smashed a Russian cybercrime network
responsible for attacks on UK businesses, effectively boasting
about imposing sanctions on criminals.
And if the Russian state architecture doesn't care about
sanctions, I'm not sure I can really see that that Russian
cyber criminals will pay much heed to it.
But nonetheless, the, the, the MOD persists in saying that the
Foreign Secretary has announced a crackdown on on illicit cyber
activity globally as cyber attacks cost the UK economy 14.7
billion. Well, we'll return to that I
think later in the programme. The Ministry of Defence carry
on. And again on this point of
information and indeed this threat and, and the the idea of
there being a, a long war, of course posting.
I know Mike has spoken about this in the past, but this, you
know, the sort of Russian threat in the North Atlantic.
Now, the reason I'm referring to all of this is because it does
fit in with what Soldier Magazine has been writing about
this month, and that is a piece entitled Taking Aim at Unknown
Drones. Now there's been some background
to this, but effectively the article is suggesting that
through a new armed forces bill, military personnel are going to
be given powers to relate to the threat of drone strikes within
the UK. They say the intrude the
intruders can only be shot down in so-called extreme
circumstances such as where there is an obvious threat to
life and in some other defined situations under current law.
So it's all rather vague. It's been taken up by Unmanned
Airspace Trade publication which says that John Healy's announced
the new counter drone legislation and support for
allies. But the point of this is that
the legislation that's being proposed in the as yet unseen
Armed Forces Bill only relates to the apparent threat to the
military and not to civilians. So whilst we're on the one hand
supposed to engender a whole of society approach to war, not
apparently if there's a civilian threat or at least a threat to
civilians from drones seems to be extremely inconsistent.
And of course the other point which I have made several times
before is to refer to the this idea of how on earth is 1
supposed to know what is a threat and what is not.
We look at Darlington in the north of England, which has been
selected by Amazon as the location for their drone fleet
for Prime Air drone delivery. And of course, the Civil
Aviation Authority being completely inconsistent there on
what may or may not be done with regard to drones, depending on
whether you're an individual or a gigantic corporation.
And let's just go back to Soldier Magazine to point out
that notwithstanding all the activity surrounding Palestine
action at the moment and what's going through the courts, Elbit
Systems is still advertising in Soldier Magazine.
And of course, you can see unmanned aerial vehicles on the
bottom right if you are watching the screen.
And I just wind up by referring back to what Mike was speaking
about last week, which was the seminar held by the IDF, which
there was confusion as to whether British personnel had
attended or not. Now I've been in touch with the
IDF press office to try and ascertain whether or not they
think that there were any Brits there.
And they sent me through a packet of photographs which of
course I've scanned. I haven't seen any British
looking combats. But if we just put that image
back on screen now what you will see, and indeed, it's it's very
public, but just I think worth noting that the Americans were
represented in numbers at this seminar specifically based on
what they're describing as lessons from the war.
And so just with that in mind, I'll just finish with a quote
that I was sent from the commander ground forces, Major
General Nadav Lotan, who says I was moved to see all of you come
to learn from the IDF. This seminar allowed us not only
to present what we have learned, but also to learn from you.
Now, the reason I to say that is not just to consider that in its
own right and the attendance of the Americans and many other
nations who the United Kingdom is supposedly allied with, but
also to ask the question, where does that leave the UK?
If, in effect, they didn't acknowledge the invitation, they
didn't attend, but they are of course still aligned with all of
the other nations that did go, but apparently not actually part
of the process itself. Yes, thank you, Charles.
Thank you for that. OK, let's move on.
If you like what the UK column does, we do need your ongoing
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what you can do to help that. But very much, very appreciated.
Now just to let you know that although the weekly banter went
out yesterday and that's not on the UK column website, if the in
fact we can't bring a germ warfare tonight because of
technical issues, germs having problems in South Africa.
So there'll be no germ tonight. But do if you haven't seen the
weekly banter from last night, please do have a look at that.
Carlsad tonight is going to be talking to Arnold Bertrand about
Europe's strategic failures. And tomorrow at 1:00 PM, Sandy
Adams is speaking about escaping the matrix and I guess not
supporting the British government in its war plans at
the moment. So join us at 1:00 PM for that.
Quick reminder that on Saturday this week at Beeches Green in
Stroud, Ben Rubin and Sandy Adams will be speaking alongside
Doctor Mike Eden. Details on screen also in the
show notes. So do get along to that if you
possibly can. It's cash on the door only,
however, So, so please, please do go if you if you're in the
area. Now let's move on because the
BBC and others are reporting the existence of an internal
government briefing produced by the Ministry of Justice.
So here's the article here. Justice Secretary wants jury
trials scrapped except in most serious cases.
So this briefing note has apparently gone to all other
Whitehall departments. And the BBC reports that it
confirms plans to create a new tier of jury less courts in
England and Wales. And they say that the document
proposes only guaranteeing juries for defendants facing
rape, murder, manslaughter or other cases passing a public
interest test. Now the BBC says that David
Lammy wants to ask Parliament to end jury trials for defendants
who would be jailed for up to five years and that these
proposals are an attempt to end unprecedented delays and
backlogs in the courts and do not apply to Northern Ireland or
Scotland. Well, that's because Northern
Ireland already has no jury trials because of historic
issues with the so-called Troubles.
So, but nonetheless, here what we're saying is problem,
reaction, solution, because this problem was created by
successive governments and the idea of removing juries has been
one that's been proposed by successive governments.
So if you want shorter waiting lists for trials and perhaps
reduce the number of the people in the country or build
infrastructure necessary to support the increased
population. But this is not about the
inefficiencies, the alleged inefficiencies in the process or
with juries. Juries have been a target
because of their power to overturn bad law.
And we're seeing so much bad law being created by the British
regime. I suspect that they see juries
as a major threat. But in the longer term, another
potential reason is that in the not too distant future we'll see
an increase in the use of AI in the so-called justice system.
We need to make room for that. And to be clear, this is purely
academic at the moment. There's a clear drive to use AI
for scheduling and a host of admin tasks like document
processing. But the idea of AI making
judicial decisions is being discussed.
But as usual. I suspect we're at the top of a
slippery slope. Charles, what are your thoughts
on this? Well, I think it would be an
absolute disaster in every respect, but the problem is that
everybody seems very willing to go for it, albeit a totally
untried, untested mechanism. It's already being used by the
police, it's already being used by the prison service, the
probation service and the government been writing about
using it in In Justice. And indeed, one has heard
reports from judges themselves saying that they've already used
AI in in helping them with their summing up.
So the, you know, it is a huge danger, not just because it
pushes us away from journalist trials, which is of course
terrifically significant, but also because there seems to be a
complete misunderstanding or or at least a total lack of
information or knowledge about the the biases that are inherent
within AI. So I mean, it's a huge number of
problems associated with going down this this route, but this
is exactly what is being pushed by Leveson with his, you know,
review of earlier in the year and all the rest of it.
But like everything else that's explained very well, you know,
we're just short of time. It's the most convenient thing
to do. And, you know, we should not
understate the importance of juries and jury nullification
and the idea that a jury can overturn bad law.
This is this is something that juries are almost never told
about, but it is a key role. It is, it's absolutely a key
role. I mean, you know, with that we
have to be mindful of the fact that it absolutely works both
ways in, in effect, in that sometimes we will look at the
way in which a jury has taken that action and think that that
is a, a sort of a right and proper outcome.
And sometimes possibly not. And there have been a very a
number of high profile incidents relating to sort of climate and
slavery associated issues where the jury did exactly exercise
that power. And of course there was outcry
afterwards because it was, you know, deemed by many people that
that was that was the wrong outcome.
But nonetheless, giving the jury the chance to deliberate it
should should be absolutely sacrosanct.
Yes, OK. Thank you for that.
Let's move to the Middle East again then.
And Vanessa, Syria and protests beginning on the streets.
Are we starting to see 2011 again?
No, I think we're starting to see a push back against the
atrocities committed by the West collective W imposed Takfiri
regime. And I just wanted to remind
everyone because we've basically been predicting these protests
for some time in the articles that are being published at
Syria Centric, which is the section not only on Syria, but
regional analysis going as far as the Sudan with a recent
article by Marwa Osman. And we are basically trying to
bring on board authors from the region.
And I did just want to point out because someone mentioned I
think on the YouTube channel that all the articles appear to
be written by me. They are written by me, but in
collaboration with Syria and still inside Syria, whose names
obviously can't be revealed for security reasons.
So this is a just a very, just a few seconds of a video of the
protests in the coastal region in Syria yesterday.
So if we just play that. And then on social media, a
number of very well known Syrian or Syrian sympathetic accounts
went on record basically saying that what is unfolding in Syria
is a reaction against what has been going on since December
last year. It's almost a year since the
fall of Damascus on December the 8th, 2024.
Five people were killed Once the General Security as it's called,
the militia that are working with the Jolani regime waded in
and basically started injuring and using live ammunition,
ammunition against the protesters.
SO5 dead and a number of injuries, but the protests have
continued. 42 protests across basically the coastal area in
central Syria. They haven't arrived at Damascus
yet, but this is another account that I would recommend everyone
follow. Syria Justice Archive that
basically runs an archive of all of the atrocities being
committed by Jolani's forces. And again they talk about the
protests among the Alawite Christians and Ishmaelis.
Now it's interesting that the Ishmaelis, another minority sect
in Syria, have joined the protest because until now they
have been relatively left alone by Jolani.
They were among the 1st 2:00 surrender as the Takfiri forces
were advancing towards Damascus. The fact that they're now
joining the protests is for me a sign that there is a general
unrest that is now bubbling to the surface, or rather boiling
to the surface. Now of course the threat will be
federalism and whether Western nations that were involved in
the regime change war, not necessarily.
Western Israel, Turkey, Russia will exploit the protests to
basically take control and partition Syria into sectarian
statelets, which of course was the project of Israel with the
Clean Break Doctrine published in 1996.
But just a quick look at the map to see where the protests are
actually taking place. So people can sort of geolocate
it a little bit. So Latakia, Tortus, Hama, Homs,
which is in in central Syria, you can see they're close to the
border with Idlib and and Hama. So serious protests going on and
something, as I said, that we've been predicting for some time in
the articles that have been published up at UK columns.
So not a huge surprise, but we have to wait and see where they
go now. Will Damascus join in the
protest? Personally, I think there's a
very strong possibility because there has been an ethnic
cleansing campaign being run by the tech fury forces.
If we can just have a look at the post on acts by Syria
Justice Archive showing that the takfiris are now building a
sectarian apartheid style wall in one of the areas in Damascus.
In Al Samaria area, which has been under attack in the last
few weeks with families being persecuted and basically pushed
out of their homes and takfiri elements being resettled into
those homes. But now effectively what they
appear to be doing is to be building a wall around the area
to be able to fully besiege the Alawite communities within that
area. So I think pretty soon we are
going to see unification of those protests.
But I also wanted to draw people's attention to a 2012
e-mail among the Hillary Clinton emails released by WikiLeaks,
which actually stated so. This was 2012.
At the same time, the fall of the House of Assad could well
ignite A sectarian war between the Shiites and the majority of
the Sunnis of the region, drawing in Iran, which, in the
view of the Israeli commanders, would not be a bad thing for
Israel and its Western allies. In the opinion of this
individual, such a scenario would distract and might
obstruct Iran from its nuclear activities for a good deal of
time. In addition, certain senior
Israeli diligence analysts believe that this turn of events
may even prove to be a factor in the eventual fall of the current
government of Iran. So, as I said, while these
protests seem to be organic, at the moment, one doesn't know how
they might be infiltrated and exploited in favour, of course,
of the Zionist block in the region.
OK. Thank you, Vanessa.
Charles, let's come back to you then.
And well as company directors, many people have had to register
their identification with Companies House recently.
What's the latest on this? Well, the latest really is the
pushing of a false narrative, I would say by Companies House,
which of course goes back to the Economic Crime and Corporate
Transparency Act 2023. The effectively the suggestion
that Companies House is being used as a front for what they're
calling bogus directors. So they're saying that the these
changes in order that they avoid these sort of bogus
circumstances. And again, this is something
that's been pushed very much on social media over the last
couple of years with much reporting on how Companies House
is kind of complicit in an awful lot of fraud and other crime.
But but they have put out a mechanism by which one is
supposed to confirm or verify one's identity, if indeed you
are a company director or a person with significant control
of an organization. Now a lot of this has been
confusingly reported, let's say or, or, or wilfully misreported.
There's been a lot of information out there about the
requirement for biometrics and all that kind of thing.
Now that's not necessarily the case.
Whilst there is, it is possible to go that particular route and
on screen now is a video that's been put out by Companies House
as to how you might verify your identity and of course the
security and convenience of doing so.
It's it is really about pushing people towards a centralized
government run digital identity. And when I say government run,
they might control it in so far as the purchasing and design
organization goes. But of course, this is all held
by third parties now. I've been in touch with the
company's house press office to get an update on exactly what
has been going on and to to ask questions about their sort of
reporting on the way they see it.
Now, they say that they're phasing in the identity
verification over 12 months from the 18th of November to make
things easier for existing directors.
Now anybody who has acted as a company director will have to
scratch their heads now and think of all those difficulties
that have been put before them because Companies House
apparently didn't know who they were.
Anyway, they went on to say they've designed our identity
identity verification processes to be simple, secure and robust.
Well, we'll come back to that in a minute.
They say that more than 1.7 million individuals have
successfully verified their identity.
This is going back to the deadline or what they were very
much suggesting was a deadline of the 18th of November and that
there are still 6 or 7 million people who are still required to
do so. They then said, and I would like
Mike's comment on this, that the verification and filing services
were unaffected by the Cloudflare issues as reported on
the 18th of November. Mike, what's your take on that?
I would be highly skeptical of that.
We can talk much more about this, this an extra, but I have
absolute reason to believe that the company's house was affected
by the Cloudflare outage. And well, we, as I say, we'll
talk about that an extra. Yeah, it is.
It's absolutely an interesting talking point nonetheless.
They went on and have been moving the goal posts on their
website about verifying your identity.
The first thing they said was just the day before what they'd
absolutely suggested was a deadline.
They put out an update saying this date is not a deadline, but
it marks the start of a 12 month transition period.
In effect giving themselves wiggle room for the number of
people that do not appear to have actually complied and
signed up. And then somewhat ironically,
they then have a fraud warning saying do not let others use
your identity. And to my point about the
government not actually controlling this, of course,
this is all entirely contingent upon the management of your data
by Experian who again, further irony have on their website a
data breach resolution service. Now if you're wondering why
that's ironic, we'll go back to 2015 and look at the Twin Gate
report. Massive UK data breach that
Experian were responsible for or indeed suffered largely due to
sorry, involving mobile telephone operators.
Then another in South Africa in 2020, affecting 24 million
people in South Africa. And more recently, the Dutch DPA
have fined Experience, sorry, Experience, Experian 2.7 million
for breaches of GDPR. So I think it would be something
of a stretch to suggest that that data is in safe hands.
And if you're not a company director or you have nothing to
do with Companies House, then may I suggest that this is the
thin end of the wedge. And if at first they came for
the company directors, they will absolutely eventually come to
you. Of course, the way to subvert,
thwart and bogged down this system is via Freedom of
Information requests and in particular subject access
requests in order to find out the information that they do
have on you in order to be able to get that information removed.
I would just finish off by encouraging you to go to the UK
column website and type in a search for digital identity.
It's a little bit small on screen, but there's there is
absolute trove of information about this, about where it's
going, where it's come from and how it will affect you.
And just to add to this, I just want to put a smile on
everyone's face because here is Richard Dearlove, who is
extremely concerned all of a sudden that when you aggregate
data into one massive base, a database, it means, of course it
may. It immediately becomes a target
for the country's enemies. You therefore must be sure that
the Citadel is impregnable. He's talking about the Citadel
that is the the massive database.
Well, it's interesting that he focuses on the country's enemies
and when in fact, most of these data breaches are related to
criminals, criminal gangs. But anyway, we'll talk about
more about that and extra as well.
But Vanessa, let's come back to you and back to the Middle East
again. And what are the UAE and Israel
up to? Yeah, and also quite amusing
that of course most of the data is being stored on Israeli cloud
systems. But anyway, minor detail.
So, yeah, I mean, basically we have a situation, of course, in
Gaza, unsurprisingly, even with the UN Security Council Trump
resolution, of course, it's basically frozen with Israel
still occupying 58% of Gaza territory and still bombing and
starving and basically ethnically cleansing the
Palestinians that remain in in a much reduced territorial area of
Gaza. At the same time, we've talked
about this often that where are we heading towards?
And and as you always say, Mike, follow the direction of travel.
Don't look at the distractions on the way.
And this is very much what the UAE has been quietly up to.
Why the genocide has been ongoing in Gaza.
UAE and Israel quietly advanced this so-called peace railway
amid the Gaza genocide. Now what is this?
Of course the UAE. This is a tweet, or rather a
post. I still can't call them posts.
Back in 2024 when the UAE and Saudi Arabia were effectively
providing a land bridge to allow the supply to basic supplies to
break the Yemeni Red Sea blockade, of course, to try and
bring an end to the genocide in Gaza.
And how does this tie in with the long term plans and campaign
by Israel and of course by Trump and the UK?
The entire alliance, including Tony Blair?
Of course, if we have a look at this, it's the India Middle
East, European Economic Corridor, the blessings and
curse map that Netanyahu showed at the UNGA.
And you can see quite clearly they're going from India through
the UAE, Saudi Arabia, using Palestinian territory,
Palestinian gas of course, to create the free trade zone in
Gaza, linking into Greece, bypassing Cyprus there.
But of course Israel is stealth occupying Cyprus with the help
of the Greek Cypriot government. So basically what we're looking
at and what we have to keep an eye on is this end term plan by
the collective worst, the GCC, the Gulf state countries that of
course are captured by the Zionist bloc, Tony Blair and
Jared Kushner and so on. And and see everything that is
occurring in the region as being very much part of this.
Thank you, Vanessa. Thank you.
We're going to end today with a little bit of vaccine news.
So six days ago, the Centre for Disease Control in the United
States published this page on the website.
And the first key point states that that the claim vaccines do
not cause autism is not an evidence based claim because
studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines
cause autism. And they go on to say that
HSSHHS has launched A comprehensive assessment of the
causes of autism, including investigations on plausible
biologic mechanisms and potential causal risks.
And they said that the web page should be updated with gold
standard science results from the HHS comprehensive assessment
from the causes of autism as required by the Data Quality
Act. Well, that posting has garnered
quite a response from the MHRA here in the UK.
They're clearly very upset about it.
Here's Doctor Alison Cave, the MHRA safety officer.
She says multiple large, well conducted studies involving
millions of children worldwide have consistently demonstrated
that there's no evidence that vaccines cause autism in
children. She went on to say vaccination
remains one of the most effective and safest ways there
you have it to protect against serious and potentially life
threatening diseases supported by decades of scientific
evidence in the UK and internationally.
But don't worry because patient safety is her top priority.
The MHRA encourages anyone to report suspected side effects to
them via the MHRA yellow card scheme.
Charles how well did that work during the COVID ocracy?
I can't really imagine it going any worse frankly.
And I mean, even now, I think five years on, the number of
people that actually are aware that there was a yellow card
scheme, I think is still absolutely minuscule.
Yes, but clearly they're very upset with what Robert Kennedy's
doing and well, we'll keep everybody posted on how that
develops, but we've got to leave it there for today.
So I'm going to say thank you very much, Charles and Vanessa
for joining me. Thank you all for watching.
If you're a UK column member, please do stick around on the
live stream and we'll be back for some UK column news extra in
a few minutes. Otherwise, don't forget Carl
tonight and interview tomorrow. Sandy's interview tomorrow at
1:00. We'll be back on Friday at 1:00
PM as usual for another news programme.
See you then. Bye bye.