Good afternoon. It's Friday the 16th of January
2026, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News.
I'm your host, Mike Robinson. My hosting studio today is
Patrick Henickson. Welcome to the programme,
Patrick. Great to be with you, Mike.
And we'll be joined once again by Basil Valentine today.
Now, later in the programme, we're going to be covering the
what's described as the new technocratic Board of Peace for
Gaza, the use of the Insurrection Act in the United
States and of course, Greenland. But we're going to begin today,
Patrick, with the use of the various Palestine action related
court actions as a mechanism to attack everyone's right to a
jury trial here in the UK. Such an important precedent
we'll bring this graphic up on screen here under threat trial
by jury. And it's just my incredible to
me that this issue of Palestine Action is being used by the
state or it appears that way to basically undercut the the use
of juries in the UK. First with these speed trials to
do all these mass arrests with, without a jury, 20 minute
trials. And now we get to the actual
core, which is the independence of the jury.
And Mike, the also the issue of jury nullification is also an
important part of this. All of these things are hinging
on this issue with Palestine Action.
So Mike, if you think that this doesn't affect you because you
don't support or you don't sympathise or you have no
interest in this issue at all regarding the proscription of
Palestine Action and these story which we're about to cover,
you're probably making a big mistake if you're living in
Britain because it is fundamental what the decisions
being made and using these people in this organisation are
actually being used to undercut everyone, jury trials.
So it is important, you need, you do need to take an interest
in this issue. So, but just to bring us up to
date, how did this begin? It's important that we just give
you an important update here, very important update here.
The three Palestine Action protesters and their hunger
strikes. These are the three remaining
hunger strikers. They have now ceased their
hunger strike and we'll tell you why in a moment here.
So these are the three. Louis Charmelo, he is diabetic,
so he's alternating day's hunger strike.
But Hebba Moreasi and Cameron Ahmed, they also have withdrawn
their hunger strike. Now.
Now, Hebba, in the 773rd day, Mike, that's the exact amount of
time that Kieran O'doherty in 1991 reached the longest hunger
striker before, I believe. I'm not sure.
Did he pass away or not? I'm not sure, but nonetheless,
just just put this in perspective, Mike.
The the the earliest in terms of the hunger striking was 46 days
back in 81. Just this is an exceptional
event and I think people need to pay attention to that, but we'll
back up on screen here. So here, here's the the gist of
this, and this is the important part.
These three prisoners announced the end of their hunger strike
after the government, the UK government decided not to award
a £2 billion contract to the Israeli arms company subsidiary
Elbit Systems UK. So, so they're saying that the
US, the UK government cancelling that contract.
Seems to be. Grounds for them to end their
hunger. Strike.
Well, that was one of their key demands, wasn't it?
This is one of their key demands and also they're being treated
as terrorists even though Mike, when they were arrested in
August 2024, Palestine action was not proscribed at that time
by the UK government, yet they're being treated and
incarcerated like terrorists. So, but what's amazing, when we
go to the BBC, that was the Guardian there and you go, we'll
bring the BBC here. This is their article, Mike.
I searched and I searched. I went down.
I read this three times. No mention of Elbit Systems or
the government basically falling on their sword regarding this
and cancelling this $2 billion contract.
This is the home and legal correspondent Dominic Casgiani,
and he doesn't somehow mention the government $2 billion
contract, which is the reason they stopped the hunger strike
or Elbit. Systems.
So this is the BBC. What?
What exactly is going on here? Nothing.
The BBC has left out the most important part of the story and
why? Well here no mention of the BBC
and and Elbit systems the cancellation of this contract.
So we have to I put this through a new AI bot that we're working
on here, Mike, this is the Joseph Stalin or we're called
the Uncle Joe AI translator. And this is what Uncle Joe said.
Uncle Joe translation state propaganda, Oregon shielding
government apparatchiks not wanting to publicly.
Admit defeat. That's according to our new
chatbot. Thank you, Uncle Joe.
And this brings us to Craig Murray here now.
Craig Murray, Mike, they've delayed the judicial review on
on their proscription of Palestinian action.
Craig Murray's putting a challenge in the Scottish courts
directly and he's making incredible headway here.
And I do encourage people to go to Craig Murray's website, a
step towards sanity. And this is directly tied to the
main story here, which will bring on to the screen in just a
moment. And this is very well summarised
by Jonathan Cook. We'll get Basil Valentine's
commentary on this. So the, the barrister for the,
the the defendants here, he has basically, he's basically in the
crosshairs of the judge on this issue.
So he this is the dramatic point of the trial.
At one point the trial, the jury member sent a note to the judge,
Mr Justice Johnson, asking this very question.
If we decide that they, the defendants, genuinely believe
that they were performing life saving action and were morally
compelled to destroy these weapons, they believed they were
going to be used to kill civilians in what they believed
to be an illegal genocide, would that amount to a lawful excuse?
And here it was the response the judge who repeatedly stifled
efforts by the defence to air evidence of Elbit Systems
involvement and genocide, answered that the jury must not
take into account such lawful such a lawful excuse in the
judges words. There is no evidence in this
case of any that is capable in law of amounting to a lawful
excuse. So that is not something that
you need to consider. Now this is where things got
even more interesting and this is the KC Rajiv Menon and this
is where he entered the story. He made a rousing defence of the
rights of juries to reject judicial interference and of
their right to make up their own minds based on guilt and on
factors that might mitigate guilt.
And he does so at the very moment when Starmer and his
ministers are seeking to eradicate the principle of jury
trials. Everything hinges on this case.
I want to go to Basil Valentine in a moment, but Mike Starmer,
they really need convictions here to justify the prescription
of Palestine action. That's what Jonathan Cook says.
And I think, I think that's a fair assessment.
So I mean, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not AKC, I'm not a judge, but it
seems to me that the comments by Rajiv Menon are absolutely
appropriate. This judge, if he is directing
the jury, he is not giving the jury the chance to make up their
own minds. And and of course you talked
about a normal by jury earlier on.
That is key here because of course the jury has the right to
decide whether under this set of circumstances this was not a
crime. And of he is, he is effectively
by by making that definitive statement and the way that he
has, he has removed the ability that the right of the jury to
annul bad legislation that that is, that is a step too far in my
opinion. But I'm I'm not legally
qualified. I've got to stress.
Well, I think Basil Valentine has some historical perspective
on this. Basil, we're going to bring you
on right now. Basil, your, your thoughts on,
on this. This is absolutely, I think a
pivotal moment perhaps in, in, in legal history in Britain.
Is that an understatement? Yeah, I mean, the right trial by
jury goes all the way back to 1670 and the key case where
jurors were imprisoned but nevertheless brought back
verdict, which was contrary to what the judge wished the, you
know, one of the key defendants. Mr Penn then went on to America
to found the great state of Pennsylvania so interesting that
you know 355 years of precedent is about to be overturned if
this government has its way now. There's been a lot of tension in
the case at Woolwich Crown Court, with the judge I'm
indebted to of all media organisations, The face the
1980s music and fashion magazine.
It has found away the best reportage on what's been
happening there this week and it is extraordinary.
Worth pointing out that corporate media seem to be
completely ignoring the fact that so much hinges on this
case, including the prescription of Palestine action as a
terrorist organisation. It would appear that the judges
on that panel are waiting for a verdict in these cases to see
whether or not they can use them to bolster a case for
prescribing. So it's a very, we get into very
detailed legal arguments. As you said, Patrick, the judge
ruled out a justification defence, basically that the jury
could find the defendants not guilty even though they'd
committed a crime. But the concept of jury equity
remains. Juries are entitled to find
defendants not guilty and the judge cannot direct the jury as
to their findings. This is the key point that the
defendants KC made. Judges are not allowed to tell a
jury what the verdict should be. Otherwise, what would be the
point of having the jury? We can see clearly here.
If there was no jury, it's highly likely that the judge
would find against the defendants, but they're entitled
to make up their own mind. So an awful lot of, you know, a
lot of hinges on this decision. The jury retired on Tuesday of
this week to consider their verdicts.
We may get them back piece meal one by one on individual counts
and individual cases, or they may come back and return
verdicts on all the charges against all six simultaneously.
We simply don't know. Those verdicts could come today.
They could come next week. All depends on how long the jury
feel they need to deliberate. What's interesting, I'll go to
you in a minute, Mike, but unlike your comment on this as
well, Mike, but to to Mike and Basil Samuel Cornor at this,
everything seems to hinge on this particular individual.
He's the one accused of violent sledgehammer attack that hit
either intentionally or inadvertently a law enforcement
officer on site. And this they would have to
prove that this was intentional and it wasn't just the result of
an ensuing brawl. And this is a defence that's
usually brought in for football hooligan fights and things like
that, if you look at past cases. So, but but by doing that, if
they can, if they, if they get a conviction based on some kind of
a premeditated aggravated burglary, violent disorder that
has intention attached to it, then that fits the proscription
of Palestine Action as a violent terrorist organisation as it.
Were so it is so much hinging on the technicalities of this case,
Mike? Yeah.
Well, I mean, what I would say about that, Patrick, is, you
know, this is if, if the case against that guy is proven, then
that would be the first, as far as I'm aware, the first
conviction for any kind of violent action.
But we're not talking about, we're not talking about guns and
bombs here. We're not even talking about
petrol bombs or you know, or so on, but the traditional
terrorist paraphernalia. We're talking about something
that was brought on site in order to do damage to the, to
the physical apparatus of Elbit Systems.
It was not intended to damage, at least it's not proven yet
that it was intended to do damage to any individual.
So, but nonetheless, that's one case does it is, is that what it
takes to become a terrorist organisation?
Not at 1 case, but but you know, Basil said there that it's
highly likely that the judge would find a guilty verdict.
I think the judge in what he said and the way that he
expressed what he said to the jury has has absolutely made his
position clear. He he considers that there is no
justification for the action that they took.
So I think it's more than just likely that he would if if there
if there was no jury in the in the case that he would find them
guilty. And the problem here is that
juries are inconvenient for the government these days, not that
they're trying to justify the restriction on the use of juries
because of the length of time that, you know, the backlog that
there is in the court system. But it's not just that the the
fact is that juries, you know, often find against you, find in
ways that that governments don't like.
And that, I think is the main driver for wanting to get rid of
them. Oh, this case is definitely an
example of that. The state would prefer with his
current politics, would prefer no jury or a non independent
jury, a jury that couldn't make a decision on its own, common
law volition as it were. That's really what's at stake.
I want to bring Basil on in a moment.
But before that, let's look at. This is the part part of the
speech here. This is again serialise that
Jonathan Cook's Substack. Everybody support Jonathan Cook,
one of the great independent journalists in the in in Britain
and in the world, quite frankly at this moment.
But here's the important part. And he's he's addressing members
of the jury. You can find Charlotte and her
Co defendants not guilty of criminal damage.
It is a perfectly fair and proper verdict for you to return
in this case. Please don't think for one
moment that you're somehow barred as a matter of law from
doing so. And it goes and Craig Murray
said this is one of the most important speeches that he's
ever seen in his life, moments in sort of legal history and
precedent here. And I and Jonathan Cook includes
this mic and this is a placard here.
And I'll read this if you can't read the Old English.
It says near this site. William Penn and William Mead
were tried in 1670 for preaching to an unlawful assembly in.
Grace Church St Talking about Quake, a Quaker meeting at the
time. This tablet commemorates the
courage and endurance of the jury.
Thomas Veer, Edward Bushel and ten others who refused to give a
verdict against them, although locked up without food for two
nights and were fined for their final verdict of not guilty.
The case of these jurymen was reviewed.
On a writ of habeas corpus, and the Chief Justice Vaughn
delivered the opinion of the Court, which established the
right of juries to give their verdict according to their
convictions. So important and again if.
You want to read? More about this case we direct
you here and I'm not plugging Jeff Bezos, but it is available
on Amazon. The trial of William Penn and
William Mead for causing a Talmud and the Old Bailey,
etcetera, 1670 And I want to go back to you, Basil, just
briefly. Basil, just briefly.
You know, people who don't identify with this issue because
they don't support the Palestinian cause but might
identify as, quote, patriots, they seem to be wildly
disinterested in this issue at all.
When in fact, you have a Pakistani or I don't know if
he's a Muslim. KC defending the fundamentals of
common law in England, again, is extraordinary.
But this cuts right through race and identity politics.
It gets right to the fundamentals of a free society.
Basil, go ahead. Yeah, absolutely.
You would think that all the Conservatives and
constitutionalists would be all over this case.
We don't have a written constitution in Britain.
It is defined very largely by precedent.
And the 1670 case is one of the most important precedents in the
whole of British law. And now, as I say, unwritten
constitution. This particular trial is taking
place with the jury and with the terrorism, the whole use of the
terrorist legislation hanging over the defendants for the
first time in six months time. A similar case could be bought
with no jury if David Lammy has his way, and with the defendants
predefined as terrorists. We're then in a very, very
different place. So it could be, of course we
hope not, that this is the last trial of its type where
defendants are not assumed to be terrorists and defined as such
in law, and where they have the right to a jury trial.
Both those things could disappear if the government have
their way. Very important.
So, so much changes on this and Basil, just on the back end of
this, we want to get your comment here.
Tribunal finds no basis for misconduct in General Medical
Council GMC case against Doctor Abu Sita.
Explain to us the significance of this finding this week.
Well, I mean, it's, you know, really extraordinary that Doctor
Abu Sita had to go through this process.
He described lawyers for UKLFIUK, lawyers for Israel as
trying to destroy his life. And it would appear that they
are, they're trying to paint him as inherently violent because he
is simply of Arabian extraction. But it's really just the tip of
the iceberg. I mean, I'm pleased to say in
this case, the tribunal found that there was nothing anti
Semitic about anything he'd said or written or done.
But of course, the process is the punishment.
And UK lawyers for Israel are well funded and, you know, keep
bringing these vexatious cases against not just him, but dozens
of others. We're Streeting posted online
about now the imposition of the IHRA definition on the health
service across the broad, primarily to silence doctors
from, you know, speaking their minds about the genocide and
particularly Britain's complicity in it.
So what Streeting is trying to do, what the government trying
to do, is stop people from simply stating the facts about
Israel's genocide and Britain's role in it.
If you work in the NHS, you're not allowed to do so.
You'll end up before one of these tribunals.
And so this, it's incredible, you have all of these NGOs, stop
hate, there's a whole bevvy of these.
And you know, I think it's lawyers for Israel, these
different organisations. It's starting to be recognised
by some of these judicial bodies or tribunal bodies as being
vexatious litigants, Basil. In other words, there's a
possibility that they might now be sort of blacklisted, if you
will, from bringing these spurious cases, vexatious cases.
Just briefly, final comment, Basil.
Yes, it's to be hoped so. The key thing is the judicial
review, the legal challenge to the imposition of the IHRA
definition on the NHS as being fundamentally anathema to the
right to freedom of speech. There's a crowd funder for that.
We sincerely hope it succeeds because at the moment there are
people in the GMC staff who are now being forced to use the IHRA
definition, which we haven't got time to go into detail here, but
basically means that any meaningful criticism of Israel
and its actions is deemed as beyond the pale and means that
you will be in the crosshairs of disciplinary action.
So that's got to be overturned. You know, where streeting is
very firmly the property of the Zionist lobby in the UK is not
acting on behalf of the British people.
He's acting on behalf of the foreign government.
Thank you, Basil Valentine, Mike.
Absolutely, thank you. Well, let's let's just have a
quick look at what's going on with Gaza at the moment, because
Donald Trump yesterday announced on true social, let's bring it
up on screen, that the Gaza Board of Peace has been formed.
It's my great honour, he said, to announce that the Board of
Peace has been formed. The members of the board will be
announced shortly, but I can say with certainty that it's the
greatest and most prestigious board ever assembled at any
time, any place. Thank you for your attention on
this matter. So that's what he wrote on Truth
Social Now on Wednesday. Steve Witkoff posted on X today
on behalf of President Trumper announcing the launch of phase
two of the President's 20 point plan to end the Gaza conflict,
moving from ceasefire to demilitarisation, technocratic
governments and reconstruct governance and reconstruction.
Phase two establish, as he says, a trans transitional
technocratic Palestinian administration in Gaza.
What does he mean by using that term?
Technocratic he means non democratic he means effectively
a colonial administration, administrative government.
So who's going to be the viceroy of of Gaza, Mike, There's a few
candidates vying for that. We.
Will come on to that in one second.
I'm just going to also mention this because on Wednesday as
well, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey released a joint statement also
using the term technocratic, announcing that Ali Shath, a
former Palestinian Authority official, had been selected to
lead the Palestinian Technocratic committee charged
with administrating the Gaza Strip.
So who else is involved? Well, Political tells us, citing
an unnamed source, that the board will consist of the heads
of state of around 9 countries. So that's the United States,
United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Qatar, Egypt, UAE and
Jordan. And while they say former
British Prime Minister Tony Blair was initially expected to
be included, he has since stepped down from the position.
However, it's not quite that simple.
Political claims that Blair will serve on an executive committee
attached to the Board of Peace, which will also include Steve
Witkoff and Jared Kushner amongst others.
And well, ever dripping with irony, the British regime in its
statement said the UK has been consistently clear that the
future of Gaza, the Gaza must be Palestinian LED, which is why
it's got to be Tony Blair, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
I mean, could they do better, Patrick?
Bring that picture of Blair back up on screen.
Just a moment, please. It's too bad Mike, there's not a
safe and effective job for TB in Gaza.
That's what we hope anyway. We hope for these things.
No, to be clear, Mike, the bring that off screen, not to
traumatise the audience any further.
But Mike, Phase 1 isn't finished.
Phase one is the ethnic cleansing, is the is the
genocide, the extermination of the Palestinian, the native
Palestinian population? And the ethnic cleansing of any
survivors? Big Make no mistake, Israel's
been very clear that that's their phase one.
And they're not finished with that yet, right?
So I think just put that into perspective so people read
through the propaganda. Baz, Olivier, any brief thoughts
on this? It just goes from bad to worse,
doesn't it? I mean, my understanding, let's
always recenter the suffering of the Palestinian people because
the conditions on the ground in Gaza are as bad as ever.
There's been no meaningful ceasefire.
It's merely the rate at which Palestinians are exterminated
has slowed down somewhat. But, you know, children have
been freezing to death. Nothing like the amount of aid
has come into the country. Dozens of people have been
killed by buildings collapsing, having previously been badly
damaged. And the yellow line keeps
advancing so that Palestinians are crammed into ever smaller
space and all that, completely ignored by the corporate media.
We only ever hear about Gaza in the corporate media when it's an
announcement like this about the imposition of government on the
beleaguered people by Western powers.
Thank you, Basil. Thank you for that.
OK, let's move on to the outbreak.
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OK, let's move on then to the question of insurrection
Patrick, because well, this went out on Truth Social on
yesterday. In fact, was it yesterday?
Yes, it was the if the corrupt politicians in Minnesota don't
obey the law and stop the professional agitators and
insurrectionists from attacking the patriots of ICE who are only
trying to do their job, I will institute the Insurrection Act,
which many presidents have done before me, and quickly put an
end to the travesty that has taken place in that once great
state. Is it true that many presidents
have brought in the Insurrection Act or called in the
Insurrection Act in the past? No, it's an extremely rare
occurrence, Mike. And it's been done in the past
for reasons very different, different than what we are
seeing here. And so that's one of the
problems with with this conversation as as you'll show
us and we have some video as well.
Yes, OK. Well, this was apparently
because a new wave of protests began in Minneapolis on the
evening of the 14th of January following another shooting by
federal agents involving in this this case of Venezuelan national
on the north side of the city. This was the response from the
Minnesota governor, Tim Waltz. I'm making a direct appeal to
the president. Let's turn the temperature down.
Stop this campaign of retribution.
This is not who we are. And an appeal to Minnesotans.
I know this is scary. We can.
We must speak out loudly, urgently and also peacefully.
We cannot find the flames of chaos.
That's what he wants. And he's referring to President
Trump. And it does.
I have to say, Patrick, it does, on the face of it, look like
that's what you know. There's definitely an attempt by
the federal government to fan the flames of this.
Yeah. The the language is increasingly
aggressive and, and heated and, and so this is bringing people
out on on the streets, but it's also making ICE agents behave
more and more oddly, it seems. Well, they're, they're giving a
a dog whistle from from the federal government.
They've been told they have immunity from prosecution so
they can commit any crimes. We've heard stories, Mike, with
their and we've seen as well in video, which will show you some
of them. They're ramming they're rear
ending cars because people won't get out of their cars.
They want to do random stop and searches to check people's
papers, see if they're U.S. citizens or not.
So they're ramming the back of people to get them to stop and
come out of the car and then they grab them.
So Donald Trump is sent 2000. He sent reinforcements as well.
So now 2500, roughly masked paramilitary agents who aren't
actual federal agents, but many of them have been hired through
recruitment agencies that deal with mercenaries and security
guards and things like that. And so these aren't real sort of
servants of the people, as it were.
They're basically hired guns, wearing masks and stopping
people at random, demanding to see their papers, demanding to
prove their ID. I I just see where this is
going. It's going to a very bad
destination. And then you didn't show the
other Trump tweet, which we could have shown what he's
saying. There's going to be retribution
to Minnesota for, you know, putting up resistance to what
looks like a federal invasion. And so funny, Mike, because of
the same people on the right that were defending the Bundy
family at Bundy Ranch for federal overreach.
And they went there and rallied to the support of the bunnies
because the federal government had no jurisdiction coming in
all guns blazing in that case. That was 10 years ago.
And now you see a total reversal, the right or cheering
on executive power. They're cheering on the federal
government even in the face of, you know, killing American
citizens, they're still cheering this on, which I find to be
extraordinary and just. Show you how dysfunctional US
politics is at the moment. Absolutely.
Well, on Tuesday, if we bring this on screen on Tuesday, 6
senior lawyers from the US Attorney's office in Minnesota
resigned along with four leaders of the Civil Rights division of
the Justice Department. The Minnesota, Minnesota
attorneys told the New York Times on screen at the moment
that they were outraged that instead of investigating the ICE
shooter in the recent killing, senior Justice Department
officials wanted to investigate the goods family.
And so they were also upset that the FBI was refusing to
cooperate with state level investigations.
And in the meantime, of course, Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Christy Norm is facing impeachment efforts as a result
of the ICE behaviour. The article, the impeachment
articles detail accusations against Norm, including
obstruction of Congress, violations of public trust and
self dealing. The allegations are that she
denied access to ICE facilities for Congress members, that she
misused funds for personal gain, and that she compromised public
safety and constitutional rights.
And this comes on top of the controversy over the podium that
she was standing behind earlier this week carrying the phrase
one of ours, all of yours. And that for the four came about
because of allegations that this was a Nazi linked slogan, or
perhaps linked the slogan was linked to the Civil War, the
Spanish Civil War. Sorry, the fact checkers were
out and forced to deny this. And I, I would ask why they
would begin to do that. But before we we before we ask
that question, let's just have a look at that, that video clip
that you were talking about, Patrick, because that's that's
we'll have a look at it and talk about it in a second.
Yeah, this is one of the most tame.
So Patrick, obviously the allegation over that podium sign
was that this was somehow linked to Nazi behaviour during the
Second World War in in fact, you know, as I said, the fact
checkers have been out if we bring the Fact Check article on
screen again just for a second, they've been out to to make it
clear this is not a phrase from Nazi Germany, but.
What does it mean then? Well, we'll come on to that.
My question is why are the fact checkers so keen to do this?
Because they all hit Trump, don't they?
At least they've taken a very anti Trump position previously.
But so why are the Russian to his defence now?
What could it be? That it's not for his benefit
that they've been quick to act? Could it be that this slogan
represents the policy of Israel, which has been imported into the
United States and they're now openly, you know, bragging about
it, Effectively, the policy of collective punishment, which is
which Israel is, has pursued for decades?
Because all the criticism of that comment was all about Nazi
Germany and Spanish Civil War. I didn't see anybody drawing
parallels with what Israel has been doing.
No. Well, it's it's common that
Israel would normally say 1 Israeli dies, we're going to
kill 1000 Palestinians or something to that effect.
It's a fascist, very authoritarian phrase.
One of ours, all of yours. There's no business being on a
government podium, let's be clear.
Not unless the government that you're looking at is
representing an ideology that is different to the one you think
it's representing. And we're starting to see more
and more that that is the case here, Mike, that this isn't, you
know, showing up and making a scene like that grab, having
people off the streets, you know, ramming cars, pulling
people out of cars and etcetera, demanding Americans show their
papers to prove that they're a citizen in a public space.
I mean, this is never, we've never seen this before in, in
the US. Maybe there was maybe 150 years
ago or something. But modern, modern times, no.
So it is highly disturbing and it speaks to, I think a federal
government, a Trump administration that believes
it's above the law, that believes that.
And he has mocked the Constitution in the past.
So he, you know, there's people are rightly saying he doesn't
have any respect for the Constitution or international
law, which he said this week that he doesn't need to.
Abide by international law and normally you see countries that
don't recognise international law tend to also not recognise
domestic law either historically, and I think the US
is now facing that problem. Basil, any thoughts?
Well, it speaks to the extreme polarisation in American
Society. Well, the sort of, you know, the
battle lines are really drawn between increasingly
authoritarian and violent oligarchy, of which Trump is the
current figurehead and a particularly erratic one, and
then the sort of the great mass of ordinary American people.
Theoretically, Trump got a mandate for all this from the
MAGA crowd, but MAGA has since fractured and cratered, and his
support is absolutely in the toilet.
But it just shows that, you know, the sort of civil society
that America was built on over the last 200 years is starting
to disintegrate. And yes, we do have to point out
that these ICE agents are trained in Israel, trained to
use deadly force, trained to regard protesters and what we
call civilians as the enemy. And that is a sea change in
societal behaviour. Thank you Basil for that.
OK, Patrick, let's move on then to Iran.
So a little, well, let's give you a very, very quick synopsis
of where we're at with this story.
We'll bring this up on screen. So destabilising Iran this is.
Exactly what the plan was and where we're at right now is that
there seems to be a low. We're we're told, Mike, that the
Trump administration has backed off strikes against Iran.
There were pre planned strikes against Iran.
We now know that these are been planned for weeks so and they
even the plan predated predated these so called protests or
demonstrations in which be really riots.
That's some crystal ball he's got right there.
In Tehran, and it is pretty clear what happened here, Trump
telegraphed the plan. I think this was one of his
undoings. He said that if the regime, if
the mullahs shoot any protesters, we're going to come
in and intervene. So he said that early on.
And what? And then we find out Mike
Pompeo, former CIA director, admits that Mossad is on the
ground around stirring up the protests and the Israeli press,
the Jerusalem Post also acknowledged this, as have other
Israel. 14 have acknowledged this.
They're both. They're boasting about the fact
that they were ginning up the violent riots that included
arson, burning of mosques, the murder of civilians and the
killing of 100 Iranian police. Now I don't know about you Mike,
but if there were, if there were foreign backed mobs in Britain
that killed 100 police officers, do you think that the state
would just be hands off and let the Democrats democracy mobs
flourish or would they just come down with the most incredible
heavy hand? Yes they would.
And in America too, but yet the American and the British
governments are saying and political leaders are saying,
oh, they, they, they're being hard handed, heavy handed with
these democracy protesters. So I think the game has been
given up here on this. So Trump claims, he's now
claiming credit for stopping the massacre that didn't happen.
Now, there's a lot of reports and we'll go through the
disinformation side with this, which to me is incredible.
But the let's just say Lindsey Graham, if you want an
indication that the attacks are definitely off.
I have never seen it so deflated Lindsey Graham as in this clip,
which to me is a pretty strong indication that there's going
there's not going to be a strike for now, for now.
But here's here is the the South Carolina Peach, Lindsey Graham.
There are a lot of headlines out there that are, in my view, not
accurate. President Trump's resolve is not
the question. Question is, and when we do an
operation like this, should it be bigger or smaller?
I'm in the camp a bigger time will tell.
I'm hopeful and optimistic that the regime days are numbered.
I've never seen him that. I mean, he's been totally high
on the the Venezuela OP right? Overthrowing the.
Overthrowing all these governments and then the to bomb
Iran. I mean, Lindsay's had such a
whirlwind of excitement over the last couple of weeks.
But as well as that, he's been anticipating dealing with Iran
for how long? Decades.
Maybe he wasn't. Part of his life's work.
Absolutely. And and he thought we were
finally going to get that. It's the legacy of John McCain,
his former close associate here. So, but where, where are all
these claims coming from about these massacres of Iranians?
And the number just keeps growing here.
But I point people to this article here.
We'll bring this up on screen. This is a great report by the
grey Zone. Western media whitewashes deadly
riots in Iran relying on U.S. government funded regime change
NGOs. Now this is incredible.
National Endowment for Democracy.
Which is really ACIA front. It's it's regarded as ACIA front
by many people. Let's just look drill down a
little closer into this situation here.
So you've seen the claims 2000 have been massacred by the
regime and then a few hours later it was 5000 and then later
that day it was 10,000. Then it next day it blew up to
20,000. I think it's probably at 50,
maybe 100,000 seems to be going up by like 20,000 every few
hours by the regime. And at every turn, you find 2
actors, the US, U.S. government and Israel, for example,
unconfirmed casualty numbers coming from Western, quote,
human rights activists organisations.
Here's one here, the Abdul Rahman Borroman Centre for Human
Rights in Iran. Well, it's not in Iran, Mike, is
it? It's, it's in the United States.
And here's another one. This is another one that's also
mentioned a lot. It was the centre for human
Rights in Iran. That's not actually in Iran,
that's actually New York City. And this is also an Ed cut out
organisation, Iran International News.
This has been admitted by former Israeli intelligence officers as
a clearing house for disinformation and Israeli
propaganda on Iran. And the the latter will show
there's other organisations here called the Human Rights Activist
News Agency. They were, they were doing anti
China, anti China campaigning, calling the Beijing Winter
Olympics, the genocide Olympics. That same organisation, they
were repurposed to work on Iran in the last couple of weeks
here, the Centre for Human Rights in Iran, we mentioned
that as well. So incredible here.
But here's this organ. You probably see a lot of this
Google is giving this priority on searches.
And again, this is admitted by Israeli intelligence officials
as being a disinformation hub for their propaganda, anti
propaganda activities as well. Just do a search here.
Iran human rights activist network or Iran human rights.
These are all Western based NGOs.
They're not in Iran and the same exact, like the same exact
formula was used for Syria. We had the Syrian Observatory
for Human rights. They use the same formula for
Venezuela. These are US based or or British
based or EU based human rights or.
Remind me who was behind the Syrian Observatory Human rights?
He was operating out of his bedroom.
Rami Abdul Rahman, above, a chip shop in Coventry.
Yes so but EU funded. That's not his real name, that
was his pseudo name. So.
Again, so, so all of the all of the Western influencers, Western
politicians are drawing off this propaganda and then repeating it
and they're all putting these videos up online.
But Nigel Farage was out on the street.
Now, Nigel doesn't like to opine on foreign policy issues unless
they except for boats coming over the Channel.
That's the extent of his foreign policy portfolio in terms of
commentary. But he's really engaged in this
regime change story on Iran. Here is Nigel Farage just the
other day. I believe, if I'm not mistaken,
it's in front of the Iranian embassy.
We'll roll this beautiful virgin, people.
You wonderful people, you freedom fighters, this time are
we going to win? We're going to win a terrible
price, a terrible price being paid.
I find many innocent people in every Iranian city right now.
But you've got to believe that this is the moment we.
Really appreciate you. May God bless you may.
God bless Of you So this is new that Nigel Farage seems to be
taking a position on international affairs.
Well, he's taking a position, all right, Mike.
He took a position in front of the Iran royalty flag.
So he is effectively advocating for the return of a monarchy,
even if he didn't explicitly say it.
Those are all pro monarchists there in front of a monarchy
flag. And the monarch himself, the son
of the Shaw Reza Pahlavi junior, as it were.
He's on record as saying he doesn't know anybody in Iran
because he's lived his whole life in the suburbs of
Washington, DC and Los Angeles for the last 50 years.
So he himself is not popular. He doesn't actually have a
support base. So they're not going to take
power. It's just not going to happen.
And again, we're we're challenging all of these these
claims about these massacres by the quote regime, when in fact
we have more evidence, documented evidence that
Iranians, Iranian law enforcement and people trying to
basically stop arson and violence on the streets were
killed on mass. So again, the, the, the claims
of thousands of protesters slaughtered or executed or hung,
it just hasn't materialised. But the propaganda keeps
flowing. Here's a good example of it.
Another one from the West, probably from the United States,
probably involved in these organisations somehow.
And it's just, there's hundreds if not thousands of these
videos, many of them have been paid for which we'll show you.
These people are being paid activists, many of these.
But what here's Here's a typical one right here.
The equivalent of 49 elevens have happened in Iran in just
the last four days for contacts. The death toll of the last three
years of the Russia Ukraine war stands at 14,500.
The number of protesters killed by the Islamic Republic stands
at 12,000 in just the last four days.
These numbers are being confirmed by rights groups,
doctors working in Tehran's hospitals, and people who
recently left Iran. This number focuses only on
Tehran, the country's capital, not a sum of all of Iran's 31
provinces. Iran is going into day seven of
a total Internet blackout will only receive updated numbers
once the country is reconnected to the outside world.
The estimated number of those killed is said to be in the 10s
of thousands. This is a mass casualty event
that has been overwhelming Iran's hospitals.
Witnesses report regime forces shooting to kill using military
grade weapons and automatic machine guns typically reserved
for the IRGC. Witnesses also confirm that the
regime is shooting at anyone on the streets, whether you're a
protester or not. This means they're not
targeting, they're just shooting at random.
Doctors report receiving victims who have been shot in the face
and who have been shot at close range, including including the
elderly and teenagers. One witness sent a voice note
saying that when people go to retrieve bodies of their loved
ones from the morgue, they've been asked to pay an exorbitant
fee. This is another cruelty the
regime imposes on family members of protesters.
This person also said that they were asked Shidinishku, which
means where are the sweets, Where are the pastries and our
culture? When something good happens,
like you get a new job, you have a baby, you buy a house, people
ask you, oh, where are the pastries, shidinishku.
It's a celebratory thing. This is the evil with which the
regime treats Iranian people. They're asked it of people who
are coming to pick up the dead bodies of their loved ones.
Friend of my friend sent a message and said that her cousin
was shot in the face and is now dead.
We're reaching the point where every Iranian you know know
someone who has been killed or is friends with someone who
knows someone who has been killed.
Many of us are still unable to reach our loved ones.
The Islamic Republic is massacring civilians in real
time. They're shooting them in the
eyes with birdshot. They're shooting them in the
head at close range and leaving a trail of bodies and blood in
the streets. Please do not stay silent.
Please share what this regime is doing and please stand with the
people of Iran. So just just to be clear, Mike,
some of these are scripted because we have found videos
from different people reading the exact same talking points,
the exact same script. And what happened was, and it's
admitted the Israelis admit that they had agents on the ground,
probably the CIA, probably British intelligence were
involved as well. That's not being naive.
And then the Chinese helped to basically jam Starlink.
Musk sent thousands of Starlink terminals into Iran and the
Chinese jammed it and that's when the riots started to fizzle
out because they weren't able to coordinate and do all the things
they over the Internet. So that's incredible, so.
Well, just before you move on, I just want to make the point that
that the there's this story about an exorbitant fee being
charged for the recovery of bodies that was on the BBC News
front page today. So they're taking some of these
narratives themselves and promoting them.
And and exactly and notice what she said.
Like a friend of a friend called me and told me dot, dot, dot,
this is just like 40 beheaded babies.
So, and this is the same type of thing.
Oh, I know somebody who knew somebody's mass rape after
October 7th, etcetera. These, this is the propaganda
that's used to basically they want to pressure Trump to bomb
Iran. This is clear in all of the
messaging. So they think they could get out
of soft touch with Donald Trump on this issue.
So let's look at the funding briefly here.
Just quickly and many of you are already aware of this, Who are
the influencers? Israel is paying $7000.
Per post on X, so there's huge. Huge budgets, millions have been
allocated to the Ester project among many, as well as social
media influencer agencies that are basically paying young
influencers in the West to put out these videos that we need to
save the people of Iran. Trump, please bomb, please
intervene. We need to get rid of the
regime. 20,000 have been massacred.
There's mass rape. I even heard mass rape going on
in Iran. So it's the same type of
propaganda that we saw from the Israeli side before.
It's being repurposed, a massive operation.
They're spending 10s of millions, maybe hundreds of
1,000,000 on the total information warfare side of
this. And they've been, many of these
people are making, getting paid a lot of money to do this.
So please people, be be aware that everything you're seeing on
social media, a lot of it is completely engineered and it's
very expensive, expensive propaganda.
Okay, and well, I'll just very briefly mentioned that the
Plymouth Herald today has story saying that there's a major
protest planned for Plymouth as death toll rises.
So even in local media we're getting the same propaganda as
they're talking about thousands of people dying, Major.
Protest. Major protest planned.
I think that's probably going to be about it tomorrow.
But anyway, my point is this is being brought down absolutely to
the local level as as they try to push this now this it.
Looks like the royal flag as well.
Yes. So these are royalists?
Yes, Absolutely. Yes.
So how's the monarchy Democratic?
Well, that's another question. That's another question.
OK, let's let's move on to Greenland then.
And well, here is a tweet and we're going to say that this is
according to Danish media, the this is showing the meeting
between Danish foreign minister and Donald Trump.
So that was a couple of days ago.
And this was on the request of Danish and Greenlandic governors
government, sorry, because they've had their first meeting
with Trump, but actually mainly with Janie Vance and also Marco
Rubio about this demand for Trump to take over Greenland.
And so they were represented by Lars Rasmussen, who's the Danish
foreign minister, and the Greenland foreign minister,
Vivian Modsfeld. And so the main message that
they were trying to get across after the meeting was the
meeting was held in a respective tone, that they and the United
States representatives agreed to disagree and to continue
discussions. And that a high level working
group was going to be set up to see if there was any way to
achieve some kind of agreement with respect to the security
concerns of the United States. While they say not crossing the
Kingdom of Denmark's red lines about maintaining the
sovereignty of its land. So I wonder, is the Kingdom of
Greenland in a position to have red lines?
Now it's reported that Rasmussen stressed that it was that sorry,
stressed that he and Motzalt were able to oppose the
narratives that Chinese and Russians pose.
And then imminent threat to Greenland.
But that's quite strange because that's not the message he was
expressing during his comment to the press following the meeting.
Let's just have a brief listen to this.
But I must say that of course we share to some extent his
concerns. There's definitely a new
security situation in the Arctic, in the high N All of us
transatlantic took the peace dividend years ago and we have
the vision of keeping Arctic as a low tension region.
So that doesn't seem to quite add up with with that.
But anyway, the President Trump's press secretary, Karen
Levitt, said on yesterday that the two sides agreed to
establish a working group, which you just mentioned he'll
continue to have technical, not that one, William, sorry, have
technical talks on the acquisition of Greenland?
The president has made his priority quite clear.
The US wants to acquire Greenland.
He thinks it's in our best interests for national security.
Since that, since the meeting, the headlines, of course, have
been full of this BBC article here of troop deployments to
Greenland. So we've got the BBC here.
We've also got CNBC here, Natal nations deployed to Greenland
after tense White House talks. Now, this is, you know, they're
using terms like deploy. They're hinting at something
serious. The situation is not quite as
the headlines would want us to believe.
What has actually happened is that small numbers of personnel
have gone to Greenland to take part in Operation Arctic
Endurance, which is a Danish LED NATO military exercise.
And now I'm not going to deny that Arctic Endurance has
clearly been quickly organised because it doesn't appear on the
NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe exercise page,
which we can see here. It's it's not on that list.
The first event is Arctic Dolphin, which take place in
February. Now back in September, we
mentioned this article in the BBC suggesting that the
competition for control of the Arctic is getting risky.
And at the same time, Patrick and I had attended a screening
of a propaganda document documentary called Arming the
Arctic. And so, you know, while the
rhetoric continues about Russian and Chinese ships encircling
Greenland, that rhetoric's clearly pretty unhinged.
Nonetheless, Western nations clearly unhappy with the fact of
Russia and China are way ahead in developing the Arctic Silk
Road with the first container ship bringing goods from China
to Felix still last September. But my question is this, Patrick
could just be very interested in your thoughts on that, on this.
Is Trump's rhetoric about green Greenland really about Russia
and China? Or is this eye really on the
51st 1st state Canada? Because we bring the map on
screen here. Of course, what we see is that
if he does get his mitts on Greenland, Canada is effectively
encircled, isn't it? And with all the additional
rhetoric about Mexico, Colombia and Cuba, Cuba, it actually
looks like he wants the whole of North and South America.
Yes, well, at least the whole of North America, save Mexico for
now, Mike. But Canada is a British
Commonwealth state, isn't it? Officially.
But are we going to go to war
with the United States? Well, it's like we got the
Europe and Britain have dealing with Putin on the other side,
threatening to invade, digest, invade Europe, then they've got
now Trump on the other side. So it's like a pincer movement
with the US and Russia coming in.
And I mean, it's just so ridiculous.
Totally the whole thing. But but what?
What's the? Real motivation.
Is it about China and Russia occupying Greenland?
Of course not. Don't be silly.
Does Russia need any additional land?
I kind of don't think so. But anyway, this is what it has
to do with. Let's not kid ourselves here.
Donald Trump is biessing. Sorry to be explicit, he's BS
ING the public on this. How a billionaire with interest
in Greenland encourage Donald Trump to acquire the territory.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is Ronald Lauder, a friend of
Trump. Of course, Trump has many
billionaire friends, doesn't he? One day during the first term,
Donald Trump summoned a top aide to discuss a new idea.
Trump called me down to the Oval Office, says John Bolton, who is
his national security advisor. He just said the prominent
businessman had just suggested the US by Greenland.
That was in Donald Trump's first term and understand the
significance of this year. Like many of those around the
President, Ronald Lauders policy suggests appear to intersect
with his business interests. So the policy intersects with
the business. And as Trump has ratcheted up
his threats to seize Greenland, Lauder has acquired commercial
holdings there. Surprise, surprise.
Lauder is also part of the consortium whose desire to
access Ukrainian minerals appears to have spurred Trump to
demand a share of the war torn country's resources.
Here, ladies and gentlemen, do we any further questions on the
motivation behind these policies?
Remember when Trump said we're going to get the raw earths?
It's rare earths, but Trump said raw earth, raw earths.
And what happened with the raw earths?
Nothing's been signed, hasn't been done, but it's still
there's plans to try to leverage those away from Ukraine.
And he's doing it here in Greenland.
So all you people that are, you know, pro Zelinsky waving
Ukrainian flag like there's some valiant cause for democracy.
This is nothing more than a resource grab.
Can you work this out yet? I hope so.
And by the way, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, they've also got
interests in Greenland and the rare earths in Greenland, as
well as putting data centres up there and creating an AI hub in
Greenland. This is all real.
So it has nothing to do with Russia and China.
But then again, we're talking about Donald Trump here, so we
have to try to tease out his logic, Mike, don't we?
We do. No, I'm going to say Patrick,
I'm no fan of Jon Stewart at all because particularly during the
COVID years, he was appalling along with Stephen Colbert and
others. But.
He's found his footing again. I suggest he has because because
I can't really disagree with anything he says in this clip.
So let's just end the programme with Jon Stewart here.
I don't understand why do we have to take over Greenland?
If we don't do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland.
And we're not going to have Russia or China as a neighbour.
We're already Russia's already our name.
This is where Greenland is Russia's closer.
Unless in your mind you think Alaska lives in a box next to
Hawaii. No, no, again, again, again.
We, we don't want Russia or China to take over Greenland.
Oh, you know what we could do to deter it?
Not through arrogance or conquest, but what if we formed
like kind of an alliance with Denmark and Greenland?
We could include all the North Atlantic nations.
What, what would we call this? Like, like almost like a North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation that we, I don't know what we
could. I guess we'll never know.
But again, since we all now dance to the tune of Juan Piper,
what possible justifications could you have for just taking
someone else's land? And please, if you would irony
proof your answer. I'm a fan of Denmark, but you
know, the fact that they had a boat land there 500 years ago
doesn't mean that they own the land.
Can someone pass him a note? How do you think we got our
land? So I'm afraid it's hard to
disagree with that of. Course, I mean just a couple
miles down the road there is the Plymouth, the Mayflower steps.
That's where it all happened. Yeah, Fain, they landed a boat
in Massachusetts 400 plus years ago.
So anyway, Trump's not. Big on history, so let's not
let's not get. Too hard on them.
Yeah, too well, you know, on the details.
Well, it's just history. OK, well, look, we we got to
finish there because we're out of time.
We'll be back in a few minutes for some UK column news.
Extra Basil will be joining us for some more discussion on what
we've been talking about today. If you're UK column member, join
us for that. Stay on the live stream.
If you're not a member, maybe you would like to join us and
then you can take part in that discussion as well.
Thank you to Basil and Patrick and everybody that's been
watching. Don't forget Jerem and Carl
tonight and also Jake Fern on Sunday night at 7:00.
But have a great weekend and we will see you on Monday at 1:00
PM. As usual, thanks for joining us.
Bye bye.