Craig Murray's Blog, page 2

Palestine Action and the Claim of Right

In late November, a judge in the High Court of England and Wales will hear a judicial review into the legality of the proscription of Palestine Action.

That court has no jurisdiction in either Scotland or Northern Ireland and does not take into account the law of either place, which is different to English Law.

Yet the proscription of Palestine Action applies to the whole UK and the result of the English judicial review will apply to the whole UK – which is a direct violation of Scottish legal rights.

My attempts to raise this point in London have been met with a haughty colonial arrogance, which amounts to “so what?”

Two grounds have been granted for the judicial review in English and Welsh law. Firstly the judge will consider whether the effect of proscription is contrary to the rights of free assembly and free speech protected by the European Convention on Human Rights Articles 10 and 11.

The ECHR applies UK-wide and the arguments will be the same were the case heard in London, Edinburgh or Belfast. An English or a Scottish judge may come to a different conclusion, not only for reasons of individual judgment, but because of the way the basis of law is considered differently in the two jurisdictions.

But the English judge will also consider whether due process was followed in the proscription according to English and Welsh public law. The argument is whether or not Palestine Action ought to have been consulted, or others likely to be affected by the proscription ought to have been consulted – in a situation where the views of Israel and of weapons manufacturers were in fact consulted.

Now, that common law is entirely different in Scotland to England and Wales. In fact the Scottish legal system has a very different tradition to the English system, and the Scots system is not really based on common law, though precedent is cited.

While the English and Welsh legal system is grounded in common law, relying heavily on judicial precedent and case law, the Scottish legal system is rooted in Roman law principles, emphasizing codified statutes and a civilian tradition that distinguishes it from common-law jurisdictions.

I should pause to exonerate the Welsh. When the English conquered, raped and colonised Wales, they simply destroyed its existing administrative and legal systems and imposed their own. Therefore when I speak of “English and Welsh law” I am merely reflecting the current jurisdictional reach.

An important point has to be grasped, which requires a dropping of the colonial mindset.

It is perfectly possible that the banning of Palestine Action might be found lawful in English and even EU law, but is still unlawful in Scotland under Scots law.

I should emphasise that this argument applies not only to Palestine Action but to every English High Court judicial review of a Westminster government action.

You may be surprised to hear the point is probably non-controversial amongst lawyers.

Given five minutes to think about it, I am not sure any Scots lawyer would say it is untrue that UK-wide government action might be lawful in England but not in Scotland. But such is the Establishment cringe of pretty well the entire Scottish legal profession, I cannot think of an example of it ever being tested.

One fundamental difference between English and Scots law has a firm statutory basis – which is that between the English Bill of Rights and the Scottish Claim of Right.

Here the key distinction – and this is a hoary old truism – is between the English tradition of parliamentary sovereignty and the Scottish tradition of popular sovereignty. Scots law contains protections against oppressive executive acts, whether or not imposed by parliament, in a way which English law does not.

For those that may doubt that what I am saying is established law, here is an extract from an article by retired European Court of Justice judge Professor Sir David Edward in the Supreme Court Yearbook Volume 6, entitled “Scotland’s Magna Carta. The Claim of Right and the Common Law” (not available online):

It follows that that which is lawful cannot be arbitrary or irrational – a principle already present in the Wednesbury criteria and developed in more detail from EU administrative law (derived from German law) insisting on the objective justification and proportionality of executive action.10 For recent examples of how this idea is being given effect, see in particular the Judgments of the Supreme Court in R v Gul11 and Beghal v DPP12 which illustrate the evils of over-broad discretionary powers, as well as the importance of not relying on answers given under compulsion.

The reference in the Claim of Right to the Estates as `a full and free representative of the Nation’, whether or not it reflects the constitutional philosophy of George Buchanan, cannot surely be interpreted as a demand for `sovereign’ Parliamentary power, still less the power of the Parliamentary majority for the time being. It is, rather, an assertion that ultimate power rests with the `Nation’…

That the Westminster parliament cannot just impose on Scotland any law it wishes was spelt out explicitly by Lord Cooper in his 1953 judgment in MacCormick vs Lord Advocate:

The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctly English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law…

Now, I am fully aware that the bulk of the Claim of Right represents the establishment of anti-Catholicism in the state. But that does not obviate its useful provisions. Of which the most (but not only) relevant one is this:

That the causing pursue and forfeit persons upon stretches of old and obsolete laws, upon frivolous and weak pretences, upon lame and defective probation, as particularly the late Earl of Argyll, is contrary to law.

The Claim of Right is still the law of Scotland (and is not the law of England). It was not revoked by the “Union” of 1707 and indeed here it is on the UK government’s definitive website of currently active legislation.

Now, there could not be a starker example of “causing pursue and forfeit persons… upon frivolous and weak pretences” than claiming Palestine Action, a non-violent protest and civil-disobedience organisation, is a terrorist outfit.

Even more absurd is to claim that those decent people who have been pursued by the executive all over Scotland for opposing genocide, are supporters of terrorism.

There is the clearest case that the proscription of Palestine Action and subsequent repression are precisely the kind of executive persecution and injustice which are outlawed in Scotland by the Claim of Right – and are outlawed irrespective of parliamentary authority.

It is precisely an arbitrary and irrational executive act, which cannot be lawful in Scotland, whatever the views of the Westminster parliament. Nor can the Westminster parliament invoke the alien doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty in Scotland, to impose arbitrary and irrational executive action under the rubric of “reserved powers”.

Palestine Action may yet succeed in their judicial review in England. But a separate judicial review must be launched in Scotland that both challenges this extreme Zionist act in support of genocide – directly contrary to overwhelming public opinion in Scotland – and asserts the continued existence of Scotland’s popular and communitarian legal tradition.

 

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations3 Pounds : £3.00 GBP – monthly5 Pounds : £5.00 GBP – monthly10 Pounds : £10.00 GBP – monthly15 Pounds : £15.00 GBP – monthly20 Pounds : £20.00 GBP – monthly30 Pounds : £30.00 GBP – monthly50 Pounds : £50.00 GBP – monthly70 Pounds : £70.00 GBP – monthly100 Pounds : £100.00 GBP – monthly

PayPal address for one-off donations: craigmurray1710@btinternet.com

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

The post Palestine Action and the Claim of Right appeared first on Craig Murray.

Ukraine

This post initially included a corridor photo which was fake. My fault, but that made no difference at all to the argument.

It will definitely be good if the war in Ukraine draws to a close. Too many have died or been maimed, too many civilian assets have been destroyed. However the cynicism with which the conclusion of the war is being driven is quite extraordinary.

I am not sure there has been a sight in modern history equivalent to the way Europe’s “leaders” were pictured in the White House.

This is not an accident. There really is a craft to diplomacy; many countries in the world have foreign services consisting largely of people who have a degree in it. I have personally organised two state visits for the former Queen as well as head of government visits.

These things follow a careful choreography and an absolutely key part of that is to present a picture of equal status between state parties. Who will enter first, whether there will be a handshake, the precise spot where the handshake will happen, the setting of the table they meet around, flags of equal size, all that is plotted in great detail. It is fundamental to the job.

If I had put Robin Cook, for example, in a position where he was seated on a chair in front of an interlocutor enthroned behind a desk, I would have received a very fierce bollocking indeed. Yet here we have European Heads of State and EU leaders seated before a desk in the Oval Office.

This is just unthinkable to anybody familiar with the craft of diplomacy. I realise you don’t have to be a diplomat to feel there is something wrong in this picture: but you are probably not quite as stunned as I am.

The unequal interpersonal relationships are just the immediate physical manifestation of Trump’s instinctive ability to maximise the brutality of realpolitik. The deal which is being put together to end the war in Ukraine is a remarkable testimony to Trump’s ability to seize economic advantage for the USA, or at least for the class of people in the USA he cares about.

Trump’s Presidency is marked by an undisguised willingness to leverage the massive economic advantages which come from possessing the world’s reserve currency, which means you can just invent money to purchase any good you want from another country, the economy of which becomes addicted to this “cash” flow.

Trump’s trade war has displayed an ability to force other states to make enormous concessions, including reinvesting hundreds of billions of dollars back into US industry, rather than face tariffs which would make it harder to give up their goods as tribute to the USA in return for token dollars.

The reserve currency is essentially a confidence trick. It always works, if and only if the world believes in it. The world was starting to lose its faith in the power of the dollar, and Trump was smart enough to know that the way to maintain a confidence trick is to double down and be still more assertive.

Trump has undoubtedly prolonged, at least a little, American economic supremacy.

The Ukraine deal is a related trick. Part of the “guarantee” of Ukraine’s security is that the Europeans will purchase US $100 billion worth of weapons from US arms manufacturers in order to give said weapons to Ukraine.

It is not planned that any European weapons will be in the deal or that the USA will finance any weapons. A senior FCDO source tells me that Keir Starmer is saying the UK will put “well over” £10 billion into the pot to buy US weapons for Ukraine.

The hope on the European side is that they will be able to pay for this merchant-of-death bonanza with stolen Russian money – assets seized under sanctions. There are two obstacles to this. The first is the international courts, which are most unlikely to agree. The second is Vladimir Putin.

I have never bought in to the notion that Russia is militarily infallible and about to triumph quickly and simply. I have certainly never accepted the nonsensical propaganda that the initial disastrous Russian strike at Kiev was just a ruse or feint.

But Russia is indeed now winning and was always going ultimately to prevail on the battlefield. The delusional rhetoric of European leaders over the last few weeks, including from Keir Starmer, attempted to ignore this obvious reality.

Ukraine’s lines in Donetsk are now so untenable that Putin is able to attempt to insist on being given territory he has not conquered yet, because everybody knows that conquest is both unstoppable and imminent.

This is a realpolitik as hard as Trump’s.

The team Trump took to Alaska had substantially more officials connected with commercial policy than with military or foreign policy, and we should not underestimate the extent to which this attempt at agreement is cash driven.

Putin, who is winning the war, will insist on the lifting of economic sanctions and is simply not going to agree to US weapons being purchased for Ukraine by the Europeans with Russian money.

As support for the Ukrainian military is an essential part of the mooted “security guarantee” structure – as opposed to mutual defence commitment – funding will have to be found. This despite Rachel Reeves’s entire philosophy being to please the money markets by austerity.

My FCDO source tells me that plan B, for when the idea of paying with Russian money fails, is for the private financing of the UK’s purchase of US weapons for Ukraine. This has been an important point of preparation.

Just as with the aircraft flying out of Brize Norton, the idea is that a private equity consortium would finance the purchase of the weapons for Ukraine, with repayment by the UK over a twenty-year period.

This means that £10 billion of weaponry would eventually cost the UK about £38 billion. Yes, you read that right. Blackrock and Trump himself are among a variety of investors who would be brought in to the scheme as financiers.

There is of course no industry like the weapons industry for corruption: backhanders, directorships, service contracts to front companies, post-retirement jobs. Politicians love the defence industry.

That US $100 billion for weapons will provide lots of lovely pork for absolutely everybody in the picture. Look at the wealth of Tony Blair. Come back to me in ten years’ time and discuss what personal wealth was eventually amassed by each of the people in this photo.

Zelensky is probably the biggest profiteer of all (though he also has bosses to pay off).

I explain in specific detail in both my memoirs – Murder in Samarkand and The Catholic Orangemen of Togo – that international affairs is always driven not only by control of natural resources, but by the corrupt interest of politicians in the companies that acquire them.

That I found first-hand true for oil and gas in Uzbekistan and for rutile and diamonds in Sierra Leone.

With Trump, these background motivations step out of the shadows and into the spotlight. So here we have a war which appears, thank goodness, to be drawing to a close, but on the basis of overtly commercial deals.

I expect those European leaders will cheer up. Cash can buy a lot of indignity.

As I have stated frequently, it was and is simply impossible for Ukraine to recover all of its territory of 1991, without a NATO-fuelled war being waged on a scale that would have been certain to escalate to nuclear conflagration.

There will now be border adjustments, be they de facto or also de jure, with the integration of some Russian speaking areas of Eastern Ukraine into Russia, including Crimea and at least the large majority of the Donbass.

It is simply a statement of fact that there had never existed a Ukrainian state prior to 1991, and that there had never been any state with anything like the borders of 1991 Ukraine. I don’t know why people find incontrovertible historical truth so offensive.

We are going to have a modestly smaller, Western-aligned Ukraine. That seems to me something those Ukrainians who want to be Western-aligned ought to be celebrating. The percentage of the land area of Ukraine likely to be retained by Russia – something under 20% – is a fair approximation to the percentage of the Ukrainian population who would prefer to actually be Russian.

If the putative peace deal can be delivered, it will undoubtedly be better than continuing war. It will be slightly less advantageous to Ukrainian nationalists than the deal that was available in Turkey over two years ago, but NATO vetoed.

Hopefully Ukrainians have noted that sacrificing an entire generation as cannon fodder for NATO is not a good policy.

European leaders are still attempting to strut their stuff by threatening Putin with further sanctions if a deal is not reached. This simply does not work; Moscow is fine. It in no way counters the military advantage now enjoyed by Putin.

I should like to believe that peace in Ukraine might lead to a reduction in Russophobic hysteria across Europe. But the truth is, that cold-war style scaremongering is really all these failing European leaders have with which to terrify and control their disgruntled and impoverished populace at present.

They will, however, be ever less convincing.

 

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations3 Pounds : £3.00 GBP – monthly5 Pounds : £5.00 GBP – monthly10 Pounds : £10.00 GBP – monthly15 Pounds : £15.00 GBP – monthly20 Pounds : £20.00 GBP – monthly30 Pounds : £30.00 GBP – monthly50 Pounds : £50.00 GBP – monthly70 Pounds : £70.00 GBP – monthly100 Pounds : £100.00 GBP – monthly

PayPal address for one-off donations: craigmurray1710@btinternet.com

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

The post Ukraine appeared first on Craig Murray.

Yvette Cooper is Lying

Yvette Cooper has continually lied about Palestine Action in a panicked attempt to defend the proscription of a direct action protest group which is opposing a Genocide in which Cooper’s government is deeply complicit.

Cooper and other government ministers have repeatedly claimed:

Palestine Action attacks people, not just weapons-making equipmentPalestine Action is funded by Iran or another hostile powerPalestine Action attacks Jewish-owned businesses based on racismPalestine Action has plans for future unspecified appalling terrorist acts

In fact none of this is backed up by the assessment of the government’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre which forms the basis of the proscription of Palestine Action.

The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) is not a committee which meets occasionally, but a permanently staffed organisation with premises inside MI5 HQ in Millbank. The JTAC consists of representatives of:

MI5 – the Security Service
MI6 – the Special Intelligence Service
GCHQ – electronic and communications surveillance
DIS – the Defence Intelligence Service
Customs & Excise Special Operations
The Border Force
Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism Command
The Home Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Ministry of Defence
The Department of Transport

Ten other ministries are included on an ad hoc basis.

All reports of the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre must be approved by consensus of all involved.

It is of course vitally important that all of these bodies are under ministerial control. The object of the exercise is to produce the result desired by ministers, i.e. proscription, justified only on available true facts and a legally tenable argument under the current legislation.

I attach the declassified version of the JTAC report, which has been “gisted” for use in court proceedings.

“Gisted” means it has gone through a process known as “sanitisation”. This means that all the key information has been retained, but in a form which protects the source.

Before I explain this to you I should explain that I once headed the FCO section of an extremely similar operation, not JTAC but ESC. The Embargo Surveillance Centre had very similar membership, was composed of almost exactly the same parties and was also primarily involved in assessing and producing reports and “action-on” from top secret intelligence.

I wrote daily gisted reports and cleared the “sanitisation” with the intelligence service representatives on a daily basis.

The purpose is to protect your source. You cannot give out information so specific that it can cause those under surveillance to say “Oh no my phone is tapped!” or worse “Wow the only person who knew that is Jimmy. He must have told them. Jimmy is an MI5 spy”.

So you have to reduce the level of information down to something that might have a more generic origin. Rather than saying “This group is planning to carry out an attack on Ladies’ Day at Ascot”, for example, you might say “This group is planning an attack in England”.

The object is to give the highest level of information the intelligence services are comfortable in giving.

That might end up being as vague as “This group plans attacks on civilians”. But that information would obviously be vital to the court and it would be given.

In fact there is nothing whatsoever in the JTAC assessment which backs up any of the claims being put out in a panic by government ministers.

The JTAC report makes absolutely clear that its assessment of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation is based only on the definition in the Terrorism Act, of a group that commits serious damage to property in order to influence government policy.

I pause here to note that the United Nations has intervened in the case to state that this does not meet international standards for defining terrorism. Damage to property should only be terrorism when the intent is to endanger life, such as damaging an air traffic control centre.

The JTAC report in fact notes that Palestine Action stresses its philosophy of non-violent action against people. Much is however made of one single attack (out of 385) where substantial violence against persons is alleged (though hotly denied).

But even here the JTAC report notes that the sledgehammer and axe were intended for use against machinery, an obvious fact.

I have blanked out a very small amount of the JTAC report which explicitly relates to this action in Bristol, because it is the subject of an upcoming trial and publication would be in contempt of court. The blanked-out sections take police allegations entirely as fact, even though they are hotly denied and subject to trial.

I have done this despite the fact that both government ministers and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police have repeatedly made assertions about these events which are absolutely prejudicial to a fair trial, and were undeniably in contempt of court.

Equality before the law has disappeared in the UK.

So here is the official, otherwise unvarnished JTAC report on Palestine Action. It makes plain that government ministers are simply lying about their information. I publish it as a journalist who has been given this document and sees an overwhelming public interest in the truth being known about a matter which has caused the arrest of some thousand people in recent weeks.

If Palestine Action deliberately attacked peopleIf Palestine Action had foreign fundingIf Palestine Action attacked random Jewish businessesIf Palestine Action planned a big terrorist act

the JTAC report would say so. It says nothing of the sort.

Palestine Action is what it says it is: a non-violent direct action group which targets the Israeli weapons industry and its support and supply line.

It states that its actions are not terrorism but direct action to prevent Genocide – and when given the chance, juries have usually sided with Palestine Action against the government.

The reason Yvette Cooper has proscribed Palestine Action is that she is a member of Labour Friends of Israel and has received £215,000 from the Zionist lobby – which is £215,000 more than Palestine Action ever received on behalf of a foreign power.

Ministers are lying to you. I have provided a little antiseptic daylight.

 

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations3 Pounds : £3.00 GBP – monthly5 Pounds : £5.00 GBP – monthly10 Pounds : £10.00 GBP – monthly15 Pounds : £15.00 GBP – monthly20 Pounds : £20.00 GBP – monthly30 Pounds : £30.00 GBP – monthly50 Pounds : £50.00 GBP – monthly70 Pounds : £70.00 GBP – monthly100 Pounds : £100.00 GBP – monthly

PayPal address for one-off donations: craigmurray1710@btinternet.com

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

The post Yvette Cooper is Lying appeared first on Craig Murray.

The Music of My Life

The first record I ever bought, age 11, was Artur Rubinstein playing Chopin Polonaises 1 to 7. For a year I saved up the pocket money my grandfather gave me to get it. I played it on our record player, which was like a sideboard with built in speakers.

I had watched, on our little black and white TV, a biopic of Chopin called “A Song to Remember”. In retrospect, it was almost certainly both cheesy and historically dubious. I have never seen it since, but 56 years later I still remember two scenes.

The first is when Liszt, playing in a palace to an aristocratic audience, puts out all the candles, saying they should listen to his new piece in the dark. When the lights come up again, the audience gasps to find they have in fact been listening to young Chopin, to whom Liszt has just given his first big break.

The second is when Chopin, playing a concert, coughs blood onto the keys, before going on to die of tuberculosis in a suitably decorous manner.

I don’t recall if and how the film treated his romantic relationship with George Sand, whom nowadays we would call non-binary.

I loved the music, and Chopin has stayed with me ever since. So has that first record.

When I went to Dundee University in 1977, every possession I owned in the world fitted into one BOAC flight bag and a small cardboard box.

In that cardboard box were some books and a tiny cassette player with sixteen cassettes in a little case, one of which was Rubinstein playing Chopin, which I had copied from vinyl onto cassette using our neighbour’s stereo system.

I find that many people assume me to have come from a wealthy or upper class background. That is not true at all.

My father was one of thirteen children born in Edinburgh to an Italian mother and a Scottish alcoholic hotel porter who had survived the trenches of the First World War. They lived in deep poverty, first in the Old Town and then slum-cleared to West Pilton.

At 13, my father left school and went to work picking out reusable hemp with a spike from tarred and encrusted old ships’ ropes, at British Rope in Leith Docks. He was so tiny the workers sometimes used to hide him inside a coil of rope to let him get a break.

At 18, National Service in the RAF took him down to Norfolk. He was one of the few for whom conscription was a distinct improvement in living conditions and diet. He met my mother in Norfolk, and stayed.

He was an extremely talented man. He worked his way up to be in charge of all catering and entertainments on the then massive United States Air Force bases in Lakenheath and Mildenhall. He then left and put these skills to work in the private sector.

Between my being born in a grotty council house and my reaching the age of 6, my father had a meteoric rise to wealth and owned a Rolls Royce, two Mercedes and a yacht in the South of France. I never saw the latter but I remember the cars. We lived in Peterlee, County Durham. He also had an apartment immediately behind Selfridges.

Then it all came crashing down. The constabulary did not approve of the way my father had made his money. He had moved into the gambling industry and some of his methods were unorthodox. His business partner, Frank Hoy, was jailed for seven years.

My father was not jailed as he fled the country. I did not see him again for a decade.

We moved back to Norfolk and I grew up in real poverty. Rural poverty is often overlooked.

When I say poverty, I mean I was genuinely malnourished with permanent physical effects. All – and I mean every single item – of my clothing for a decade came from jumble sales, principally what was known as the “Church thrift”.

We were four siblings, aged from 9 to 1 when Dad left. We had a wonderful loving mother but she was somewhat fey, and her grip on reality was never terribly strong. She could not cope. My sister was the eldest and looked after us. In retrospect, we were feral.

It was however an extremely happy childhood. We roamed the cliffs, beaches, woods and fields. Nobody ever asked where we were or what we were doing. I was related, through my mother, to half the small town. I had grandparents nearby and a great extended family.

School was the only traumatic bit. I hated it. I passed my 11 plus and went to an extremely selective grammar school, 15 miles away, by bus every day. It had been a private school and still retained much of that ethos. They quite literally hit you about the head with the wooden-backed blackboard rubber until you spoke and behaved as English gentlemen.

My grandfather was deeply musical – he conducted the local brass band, and could transcribe by ear and arrange for brass band any music he heard. His collection of records was an important retreat for me, as were his books – he was a socialist.

My musical collection and my musical tastes expanded as I got older. Success at university and in the Diplomatic Service meant I could buy music I wanted, on vinyl, cassette or eventually CDs. I served in Nigeria and in Poland – great for Chopin.

Thirty years after I bought Rubinstein playing Chopin, home computers had reached a stage where you could transfer music from cassette to CD, cleaning it of hiss in the process.

I sat in the tiny spare room of my home in Gravesend many evenings transferring vinyl and cassette to CDs. I printed out disc-shaped labels of album art to attach to the CDs. Sometimes you could find that art online. Otherwise I would scan the cassette or LP artwork.

So by 1998 Artur Rubinstein had moved from vinyl to cassette to CD. I had over a hundred of these homemade CDs, soon greatly outnumbered by music CDs bought as I went on to serve in Ghana and then Uzbekistan.

All of my music always went with me.

I have fought against bipolar my entire adult life. It has at times been crippling or dangerous. As you will have gathered by now, I have a deep emotional response to music. I was probably aged about 25 when I realised that this could exacerbate my bipolar. I tended to listen to music which reinforced the mood swing.

Put simply, if I were depressed you might find me in a darkened room listening to Tchaikovsky’s Symphonie Pathétique. If I were manic, you might find me bouncing to Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now.

So I started to use the music the opposite way, to try to moderate mood swings. This had limited success. But then I perceived that the kind of music I was listening to could prefigure a manic or depressive episode, when I was apparently still “normal”.

I devised a system where I would only play my music entirely at random, with a closed eyed selection. This seemed actually to work for me as a prophylactic against bipolar.

So I bought an amazing Sony 400-CD rotary jukebox style player, with an external amp and speakers. This enabled me to random shuffle my music automatically, and play not just albums but individual tracks randomly shuffled.

I found this really did work against bipolar. The effect seemed significant. Of course this is self-referential but it did correlate with a significant reduction in attacks. I understand my music therapy may have just been a prop to reinforce control of my own mind, but it worked, so who cares?

By 2001 I had three of these Sony 400-CD players, which you could link in series, and in a slot in one of them sat Artur Rubinstein playing Chopin.

Then it was the turn of CDs to be redundant. In another decade or so, random track selection could be done from a phone, without a metre-high stack of heavy Sony units. Rubinstein moved to a shelf.

Until now. Life goes in circles, and being again rather straitened, I had to save up to buy a Brennan ripper, but now I have it. Artur Rubinstein playing Chopin is now safely digitally encoded inside it, and I am working on all my other CDs.

I presume these units appeal only to nostalgic boomers like me, who want to converse in the musical idiolect of our collection curated over a lifetime, rather than get lost in the universal availability of streaming.

It is a sobering thought that, if I listen to my music, at random, for an average of one hour a day, I am unlikely to live long enough to get through every track.

I have eighty very narrow shelves of CDs, integrated into my bookshelves. I just pulled out a handful from one shelf, appropriately at random, to tell you what is on it, without much detail.

Boccherini – Guitar Quintets 4, 7 and 9
Beethoven – Complete String Quartets (4 Discs)
Tchaikovsky and Arensky – Piano Trios
Fred Astaire – Let’s Face the Music
Rick Wakeman – Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Saint-Saëns – Cello Concerto No 2
R.E.M. – Reveal
The Animals – Greatest Hits
Glenn Miller – Jazz and Blues
Chopin – Mazurkas
Battlefield Band – Threads

I do have recent music, just not in that particular batch. Of course, playing random tracks loses the pleasure of hearing an entire symphony or album straight through, but I occasionally still do that.

It is going to take a long while to load everything on this Brennan. When I finish, before I go into my randomised permanent therapy, I shall listen to Artur Rubinstein play Chopin Polonaises.

You never know which will be the last time.

 

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations3 Pounds : £3.00 GBP – monthly5 Pounds : £5.00 GBP – monthly10 Pounds : £10.00 GBP – monthly15 Pounds : £15.00 GBP – monthly20 Pounds : £20.00 GBP – monthly30 Pounds : £30.00 GBP – monthly50 Pounds : £50.00 GBP – monthly70 Pounds : £70.00 GBP – monthly100 Pounds : £100.00 GBP – monthly

PayPal address for one-off donations: craigmurray1710@btinternet.com

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

The post The Music of My Life appeared first on Craig Murray.

Your Party (Working Title)

If I were living in England, I would join Corbyn’s new party, and I urge people in England to do so. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland there are other factors, which I shall come on to.

I also say this with great respect for my friend George Galloway, whose Workers Party kindly hosted my candidacy for Blackburn in the General Election. I think Jeremy has been wrong in pointedly excluding George from the consultation meetings on setting up the new party.

But the truth is this. At nearly 700,000 signups, “Your Party” has already three times as many putative members as the Workers Party got voters at the General Election. Jeremy has the ability to create a juggernaut which the media and Establishment simply cannot ignore the way they shun George.

My advice to Workers Party members is to join Jeremy’s new party. There are many smaller left-wing parties which appear to be signing up en masse to the new venture – like the CPGB and the SWP – while having no intention of dissolving their own membership and structures.

It is very possible that the rules of Your Party will permit such dual membership.

I am thrilled by the potentially transformative effect of the public actually getting to hear left-wing arguments. This is how Corbyn, even handicapped by the conservative baggage of the Labour Party establishment, managed to get a far higher vote in two general elections than Keir Starmer achieved in his.

The Scottish Independence referendum showed the same effect. Despite massive media bias, the public did actually still get a chance to hear the arguments for Independence that had been kept from them. The result was a step change in support for Independence of 15% or more, which has never been lost since.

Your Party could shift the Overton window, permanently. For the first time in 40 years the public might get some exposure to the arguments of the Left.

We know that renationalisation of utilities, better public services and taxation of the wealthy are popular. When Corbyn led Labour, there was a brief opportunity to vote for those policies with a realistic chance of success, and millions of people took it.

Your Party will not be saddled with the need to compromise with the Blairites, and thus will be able to develop policy platforms of much greater internal coherence.

I think it is safe to assume it will be anti-NATO and favour a pacific foreign policy based on respect for international law. I think it is safe to assume that its policies will not only favour redistribution of wealth, but will challenge fundamental capitalist tenets of the ownership of the means of production.

I have no doubt it will be firmly anti-Genocide and will back BDS measures against Israel including arms sales.

I very much hope it will support a single state of Palestine. It is plain there is no viable two state solution. Palestine has been dismembered, chopped up, separated. The idea that a viable, non-contiguous state can be assembled from the ruins of Gaza, with the West Bank (or parts of it) and East Jerusalem is plainly nonsensical.

It is a Bantustan solution designed to provide cheap labour to service Israel daily. The fact that all the Western government proponents of a two state solution speak of a demilitarised Palestinian state, permanently at the mercy of the genocidal Israeli state, shows how dishonest the plan is.

It has been suggested to me that Your Party will adopt the policy that the Palestinians should decide. I agree with that, but with one caveat. That cannot mean the hated Mahmoud Abbas should decide, and the Palestinians cannot decide with a literal gun to their head.

Let Palestine be free from the river to the sea. Then let the Palestinians decide whether they want to agree to the creation of a separate Jewish state.

The membership must decide the policy. I am reasonably confident of the result.

What cannot happen is an abuse of the central mechanisms of the party to demonise and/or expel people for false anti-semitism accusations, as the Labour Party did under Jeremy’s leadership.

It goes without saying that the ludicrous IHRA definition – equating anti-semitism with criticism of a state that is committing Genocide – must be rejected.

If it is really to be a different, bottom-up type of party, then the party leader ought not to have that type of power. The key salaried positions should also be subject to election rather than just appointed at discretion. Decentralisation must be very real and effective every day.

Which leads me to the nations of the UK.

The Left in Scotland is overwhelmingly pro-Independence. Unionism is very heavily a right-wing thing. There is a rump of left-wing thinkers who oppose Scottish Independence on internationalist grounds with a vision of working class solidarity. But that is a dwindling and far from vigorous strain of thought.

Neither Jeremy Corbyn nor Zarah Sultana has, so far as I can see, said a word about Scotland in talking about the new party. Their vision appears very Anglocentric. I hope that this silence is an acknowledgement that the position of the party in Scotland is, as English people, not their concern.

The existence of the SNP and of Plaid Cymru means that Your Party is entering a significantly more crowded market in Scotland and Wales, where not only is nationalism an extra factor, but the nationalist parties already sit well to the left of Keir Starmer (admittedly not a difficult ask).

In Scotland, I think mistakenly, there seems a widespread presumption that the Corbyn project will fall flat. But disillusionment with Labour in Scotland is enormous, both nationally and locally. As is disillusionment with the SNP.

Those connected to the Corbyn project in Scotland at the moment appear largely to come from the Old Labour establishment, many of whom have been vehemently anti-Independence.

But I doubt the party will reflect that.

Young people in Scotland are overwhelmingly pro-Independence. Another factor which receives insufficient attention is that opinion polls regularly show between 30 and 40% of Labour voters in Scotland are pro-Independence. Those are important recruiting demographics for Your Party.

I have not seen any figures for signups in Scotland. Pro rata with the UK there would be 70,000, which would make Your Party immediately the biggest party in Scotland. I think it is fair to assume there are at least 30,000. Nobody can know where they stand on Independence.

If Your Party is to be a genuinely decentralised organisation, then its Scottish and Welsh parties should be separate legal entities. They alone should decide their policy on Independence.

I suspect that a fudge will be attempted, whereby Your Party supports “the right of the Scottish people to decide”. That is frankly no use to anyone, and proceeds from an assumption that permission has to be granted.

The right of the Scottish nation to self-determination is established in international law. It is not a policy just to state it.

The support for Genocide in Palestine is not a bug, it is a feature of the rogue British state. That imperialist entity needs to be broken up.

So, where do I stand personally on the new Corbyn party?

I have signed up for information. I will make honest and well-motivated efforts to shape it and influence its members, and I encourage other people to join at this stage. I shall work for it to be decentralised in its structures, anti-Zionist and anti-NATO in its views, and for Scottish and Welsh Independence.

Depending on results, I shall decide whether to stick with it. I do hope it will be a broad church and that people will not split over small matters; but on large matters I cannot myself be part of a Zionist or Unionist party.

 

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations3 Pounds : £3.00 GBP – monthly5 Pounds : £5.00 GBP – monthly10 Pounds : £10.00 GBP – monthly15 Pounds : £15.00 GBP – monthly20 Pounds : £20.00 GBP – monthly30 Pounds : £30.00 GBP – monthly50 Pounds : £50.00 GBP – monthly70 Pounds : £70.00 GBP – monthly100 Pounds : £100.00 GBP – monthly

PayPal address for one-off donations: craigmurray1710@btinternet.com

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

The post Your Party (Working Title) appeared first on Craig Murray.

Huda Ammori Wins a Judicial Review of Palestine Action Proscription

On Wednesday we were crammed into the unsalubrious court 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice to hear the judgment from Judge Chamberlain on whether Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action would be granted a judicial review of the proscription of the organisation.

Judge Chamberlain breezed in and went immediately into a summary of his judgment, beginning with an account of the process so far. This was covered in my last report; the only new information was that the Special Advocate who had been present during the closed session was Tim Buley KC.

In this extraordinary abuse of process, the security services are allowed to bring alleged “intelligence” material into proceedings, which Huda Ammori and Palestine Action are not permitted to see. Nor are their lawyers allowed to have any idea what allegations have been made.

Instead a court-appointed “Special Advocate” is supposed to represent their interests, without being allowed to tell them what the accusations are. Nor can they tell the special advocate what points to make, as in “we absolutely have no foreign funding and have never had any contact with any foreign intelligence agencies”.

Nobody is ever allowed to know what a “Special Advocate” actually does or says in the closed session, nor what the government lawyers or those giving evidence on behalf of the security services do or say.

If I were a Special Advocate, I would do nothing except hand the judge a copy of the Dossier on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, and say: “This shows the quality of security service intelligence. Now go and wipe your arse with it.”

Having told us there had been a closed evidence process, Judge Chamberlain then gave us what he said would be a brief summary of his judgment. The link is to the full judgment.

Chamberlain said that the claimant (Huda Ammori) had introduced evidence of police action against people expressing in various ways support for the Palestinian cause. There was also evidence of people deliberately breaking the law on support for proscribed organisations.

The Home Secretary had submitted that the correct route for an appeal against proscription was to POAC (the Proscribed Organisations Appeals Commission). The Claimant had responded that this would take too long, until June 2026 at the earliest.

There were five reasons that POAC might not be a viable alternative remedy to a judicial review:

1) Timing – the POAC process could not conclude before mid-2026.
2) The impact on freedom of expression and assembly while the proscription remained in force.
3) There would be numerous criminal proceedings over support for Palestine Action in magistrates’ courts and crown courts up and down the country, in each of which it might be argued that the proscription was itself unlawful. There was a danger of conflicting judgments in different localities.
4) The legislation did not specify that an appeal against proscription could only be through POAC.
5) A judicial review did not close off an eventual process through POAC.

In assessing that a judicial review was a permissible route, he had declined to follow the judgment over the Kurdish Workers’ Party, because new court procedures (the Special Advocate nonsense) now permitted the courts to handle intelligence material, which they did not at the time of that case. Plus, that judgment was plainly wrong.

This was stated with such offhand disdain as to be striking. Of course judges can differ, but the bland contempt of the phrasing and delivery were unusual: “plainly wrong” to a judge of equal standing.

Which brings me to the unavoidable question of Chamberlain’s demeanour.

Sometimes my powers as a writer are not equal to the occasion. I have never seen anybody quite as self-satisfied as Chamberlain; he radiates assurance. He is the walking antithesis of impostor syndrome. It is worse than smug: there is a palpable gloat about him.

Judges in the Royal Courts are seated on an imposing tiered dais, many feet above the courtroom. Some judges attempt to diminish the distance; this can come over in different ways, from condescension to chumminess to intellectual equality.

Chamberlain does not bother. He is quite happy that our only view of him is up his nostrils.

He rattled through the grounds of appeal which the claimant had put forward.

Ground 1: Chamberlain was satisfied that Yvette Cooper had not acted for an improper political purpose but in the interests of national security.

Ground 2: That the proscription was a disproportionate limitation on freedom of expression was reasonably arguable.

Ground 3: It was not arguable that Palestine Action did not commit acts intended to influence the government, or that those who did were insufficiently connected to the organisation.

Ground 4: It was not arguable that Cooper had failed to consider significant information about Palestine Action or its classes of supporters.

Ground 5: Cooper did not err in giving weight to the views of Israel, to questions of financial loss and to other stated factors in concluding terrorism.

Ground 6: That Cooper failed to give weight to the need to oppose Genocide – this could be wrapped up in the balance question of disproportionate action under Ground 2.

Ground 7: The fact that only 3 of 387 actions were deemed by JTAC (the government’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre) to be terrorist – this could also be wrapped up in the proportionality exercise under Ground 2.

Ground 8: That Cooper had failed to consult those affected by the proscription under her common law duty; including not consulting with Palestine Action nor with any pro-Palestinian group or individual, when she did consult with the Israeli Embassy, weapons manufacturers and others. This was a reasonably arguable point of law.

Ground 9: That Cooper had ignored her obligations to prevent discrimination under the Equalities Act by targeting a pro-Palestinian protest movement – this was not arguable.

So Chamberlain concluded that a judicial appeal was granted under Grounds 2 and 8 but dismissed on all other grounds. However, as you will have gathered, he had in effect accepted that Grounds 6 and 7 were also arguable points, but they could be taken as part of Ground 2.

Chamberlain then suggested to Raza Husain, lead KC for Huda Ammori, that he suspected he would wish to seek interim relief and expedition of the case. Raza Husain stood and said the claimant wished to request interim relief, which would suspend the proscription pending the judicial review.

Chamberlain did not answer, but he paused the court while printed copies of his judgment were handed round to the media.

Raza Husain then tried again, but Chamberlain first turned to discussion about when the judicial appeal might be heard. Ben Watson, KC for the Home Secretary, wanted a longer period for disclosure and was adamant that the process could not start until some security services related event on 12 September, which could not be discussed in open court.

This key event and date were referred to frequently in hushed tones. Hackers and foreign spy agencies please take note: 12 September. Raza Husain pressed for the hearing to be as soon as possible. Chamberlain pointed out that the dangers of haste “cut both ways” – full disclosure was also in the interests of the client.

This was pretty ironic, as the key “intelligence” on which the case turns is never disclosed at all.

Ben Watson KC then said the Secretary of State wished to appeal the decision to grant judicial review. Chamberlain replied that could wait, as he did not wish to go into closed court at the moment.

Raza Husain then stood and said again that the claimant wished to renew the application for interim relief – with great patience and as though he had not said it four times already.

Chamberlain said he had expected this, as though it were the most tiresome thing in the world.

He then ignored Raza and said that he had decided to grant permission to intervene in the case to Professor Ben Saul, the UN Special Rapporteur “on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism”.

Raza Husain noted this and then said the claimant wished to apply for interim relief.

Chamberlain was somewhere else. He said that Professor Saul’s expertise would obviously be welcome, but the permission to intervene did not mean he could guarantee any particular time slot or consideration, which would be up to the court hearing the judicial review “which may or may not be me”.

My handwritten notes have a marginal entry that this was the 6th time Chamberlain had interrupted the application for interim relief. Finally Raza Husain got to embark on it.

Since the first request for interim relief a fortnight ago, over 1,000 more Palestinians had been killed in Gaza. 80 children had been starved to death. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, had made a detailed statement criticising the proscription of Palestine Action and specifically asking for it to be revoked.

Chamberlain asked what precisely he was seeking in law. Raza Husain replied it was a stay of Article 2 of the Order, the proscription of Palestine Action.

Chamberlain said that his previous judgment against an interim stay had already accepted there was a serious issue to be heard, on the effect upon freedom of speech. But that was insufficient reason for a stay.

Raza Husain said that Ground 8, which was now accepted, was extremely important. It was a very strong argument, so strongly based as to justify the suspension of a proscription not done by due process.

Chamberlain replied that he had already noted there may be an arguable case on grounds 4 to 8, in his judgment against an interim stay. The Court of Appeal had agreed with him against the interim stay.

Raza Husain then handed over to Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC who said people were being deprived of freedom of expression protections under Article X of the European Convention on Human Rights. The chilling effect was on thousands of people.

Chamberlain said that may be true, but there could be irreparable harm on both sides. He had to consider the harm that might be done to national security by the suspension of the proscription order for several months.

Blinne responded that it was ridiculous, on grounds of alleged national security, to arrest elderly people for holding a placard, keeping them incommunicado as terrorists and going through their property with swabs.

Chamberlain replied that the argument is that such action is necessary to suppress the organisation as a whole.

Blinne asked whether proscription is actually necessary to protect the national interest, as opposed to the large number of other legal remedies available to the Secretary of State?

There were three kinds of freedom of speech affected. These were… Chamberlain then cut her off, saying he had identified these as speech which was legal in support of Palestine, speech which was deliberately defying the law, and speech which fell in a grey area of interpretation.

This was one of many interruptions by Chamberlain who made very plain that he was not interested in hearing this argument again. Blinne appeared to be continually apologising for her own existence: “I don’t want to push this too far”, “I will only lightly touch upon it”, “I won’t take up much time”.

What she was really saying was: “I can see you are not in the slightest bit interested in listening to me”. And she was right.

But she gamely ploughed on. Blinne said that people making perfectly legal expressions of support for Palestine were being harassed by police owing to the proscription, and the grey area appeared to include people who were opposing the proscription of Palestine Action.

There was also a fourth category: the press. There was much evidence of a chilling effect of the proscription on what journalists felt able to write about Palestine, as shown in evidence submitted by John McEvoy and others.

Furthermore the situation was made worse by section 12.1.a of the Terrorism Act which specifically removed the need for intent in criminalised speech. Accidentally saying something taken to be supportive of Palestine Action could be an offence.

Chamberlain said that was for the police and the courts to deal with.

Blinne said it should not fall on the police and courts to make such judgments and it should not fall on ordinary members of the public to try and predict an invisible line they should not cross following the first ever proscription of a non-violent protest group.

People had been arrested for holding signs saying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” That is not speech that threatens the security of the UK nor the safety of the public.

Raza Husain now took over again. He noted that the disclosure documents from the Home Office specifically stated that national security was not the “driving factor” for the proscription. They also specifically stated there was no damage to national infrastructure, nor any impact on national defence. The “attack” on Brize Norton was an act of vandalism which the Home Office documents disclosed would not affect the operation of aircraft painted.

This was fascinating. Plainly the Home Office internal documents show that what Yvette Cooper has been saying to Parliament and putting into the media is a lie.

Husain went on that the disclosure documents indicated that the timing of the proscription depended on factors including the local elections, a criminal trial, Israeli breaches of a ceasefire agreement, and a religious holiday.

That the proscription remaining in force is critical to national security is plainly therefore a nonsense, said Husain. At this point, Chamberlain interrupted him again.

My handwritten note only says “Chamberlain supercilious”. It had been obvious that Chamberlain had no interest in the arguments for interim relief. He had ruled on that two weeks ago, and as he is infallible, this was all a waste of time.

He did not actually say “talk to the hand” but his body language could not be more obvious. Occasionally he would relieve the ennui by interrupting Raza or Blinne mid-sentence.

Judge Chamberlain has never heard a sentence spoken that could not be improved by an interjection from Judge Chamberlain. Being a generous man, he declines ever to deprive the world of his great wisdom or make people suffer by listening to the uninterrupted thoughts of mere lawyers.

The effect of this is that we frequently can only surmise what the argument was going to be before it was intercepted and corrected. Chamberlain’s ability to predict what somebody was going to say and replace it with something more clever instead is uncanny – at least in his own estimation.

I do recall what Chamberlain said that caused me to write “Chamberlain supercilious”. He said that he supposed that Mr Husain would tell him that an interim stay was necessary and that Mr Watson would argue that it was dangerous.

Raza Husain was plainly annoyed. It is not just that I will say there should be a stay and Mr Watson will say the opposite, he said. It is the reasons which are important. He then continued to try to make progress, and was plainly angered by another interjection by Chamberlain.

“That’s not what I said”, Husain stated, plainly furious at being misrepresented. “That’s not what I said”, he repeated. Shortly after, he drew to a close.

Ben Watson KC for the Home Secretary had nothing to say in public that would defend the need for the proscription to continue in force. His argument both against the interim stay, and for the right to appeal against the granting of judicial review, was entirely based on secret intelligence. We therefore had to clear the court.

I don’t know what Chamberlain heard in private from the intelligence services. I should be very surprised if it was not about invented support for Palestine Action from Iran or fabricated plans to attack the Israeli Embassy, because that is precisely the kind of mendacity that Ken McCallum, Director General of MI5, considers it his patriotic duty to churn out on a daily basis.

As I waited in the corridor for court to resume, there was a rather touching moment. A Muslim patriarch with a most impressive white beard came out from the adjacent courtroom at the conclusion of another, unrelated case. He was followed by his large family.

He recognised me, shook my hand and stated “We are 100% with you, all of us. Let me know if there is anything we can do.” Turning round and gesturing to his family, he asked “Would you like us to stay here and support you now?”

I thanked him genuinely but declined, as there was absolutely no space in the courtroom. But I record it because little moments like that can keep us going in these difficult times. I was genuinely touched.

After 45 minutes of secret spook-fest inside the courtroom, honest people were allowed back in. Chamberlain then produced his decisions.

To overturn his judgment of 4 July not to grant interim relief from proscription, there would have to be a material change of circumstances in the interim. Three grounds had been advanced:

1) That he had granted permission on ground 8, which the claimant stated was especially strong. But this was not a material change as he had stated before that grounds 4 to 8 might be arguable.

2) The extent of interference with freedom of speech. But this was not a material change as he had noted the interference with freedom of speech at para 100 of his original judgment. All that had happened was that possibilities he had foreseen had turned into concrete fact.

3) That the Secretary of State had given no evidence of threat to the public. But this was not a change since 4 July.

So, said Chamberlain, there was no material change of circumstance and the request for interim relief was denied.

The Secretary of State’s application for Permission to Appeal was also dismissed. Watson would have to apply direct to the Court of Appeal.

Finally, the judicial review could not be further expedited and would have to be held in a convenient week after 10 November.

With that, the hearing concluded.

My immediate feeling was outrage at the chutzpah of Chamberlain in claiming that he had predicted the effects of the proscription on freedom of speech, when the exact opposite is true – he pooh-poohed them. He did indeed state at para 100 of his 4 July judgment:

The evidence I have seen established that the broad criminal prohibitions imposed by the 2000 Act, and the very long sentences potentially available for breach of them, can cast a long shadow over freedom of speech. This, however, is the inherent consequence of a regime which aims to disrupt and disable organisations which meet the threshold for proscription.

But that paragraph only refers specifically to people protesting

under the banner of PA

Chamberlain in fact entirely rubbished the notion that people protesting more generally on Palestine would be affected. He stated explicitly in para 96 that:

In my judgment some of the consequences feared by the claimant and others who have given evidence are overstated.

And in para 97 Chamberlain got wrong everything that was going to happen next. He states that it will remain lawful:

… to continue to express their opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza and elsewhere, including by drawing attention to what they regard as Israel’s genocide… They will remain free to do so in private conversations, in print, on social media and at protests.

Yet Chamberlain had now been given evidence that the police were in fact, since the proscription, persecuting people for precisely the activities he had said would still be allowed.

What is more, in the 19 July hearing for a judicial appeal, Chamberlain had actually accepted that he got this wrong in his 4 July decision on interim relief. Here are extracts from the report of that hearing by Mohammed Elmaazi for this blog:

“I think what you’re doing is, you’re saying, you predicted this,” Mr Justice Chamberlain told Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC – representing Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori the morning of 21 July at the High Court of Justice – “and what you’re doing now is sharing evidence that they have happened.”

The judge’s remarks were in response to Ghrálaigh describing example after disturbing example of pro-Palestine and anti-genocide protesters being threatened with arrest — or actually arrested – across the country, ever since Palestine Action was banned as a terrorist organisation.

…Two weeks later, Chamberlain’s tone was somewhat modified. He appeared to accept that he may have been wrong. In fact, he actually reminded the parties of what he wrote by reading out part of his decision refusing permission.

Ghrálaigh told the court that the situation is “even worse” than even they had predicted.

So how did Chamberlain go from openly accepting that on 4 July he got this wrong, to claiming that there had been no material change as he foresaw everything correctly on 4 July?

The answer of course lies in those secret sessions with the security services.

To connect all this back into what is really happening on the streets, the police this evening detained hundreds of people in London, as they aggressively broke up a pro-Palestinian demonstration.

In case anyone is wondering what London’s Met Police are up to, this evening they arrested multiple people on Oxford Street simply for protesting against the ongoing slaughter and starvation campaigns in Gaza.

Met Police are accomplices to the genocide. pic.twitter.com/22uXbPEk5v

— Naila (@BrownNaila) August 1, 2025

So while the granting of a judicial review represents some kind of victory, it is meaningless for now, as both the proscription and the repression continue – as does the Genocide.

I do not have any hope for success from the judicial review – all this is part of the smoke and mirrors of process and legality behind which the British Establishment seek to mask their complicity in the crimes of Zionism.

 

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations3 Pounds : £3.00 GBP – monthly5 Pounds : £5.00 GBP – monthly10 Pounds : £10.00 GBP – monthly15 Pounds : £15.00 GBP – monthly20 Pounds : £20.00 GBP – monthly30 Pounds : £30.00 GBP – monthly50 Pounds : £50.00 GBP – monthly70 Pounds : £70.00 GBP – monthly100 Pounds : £100.00 GBP – monthly

PayPal address for one-off donations: craigmurray1710@btinternet.com

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

The post Huda Ammori Wins a Judicial Review of Palestine Action Proscription appeared first on Craig Murray.

Malicious Mischief

The Starmer regime’s attitude to the law, both domestic and international, has been diseased by the doctrine of unquestioning support of Israel.

This morning the Handala became the second vessel flying the Red Ensign to be illegally seized by Israel, without a single word from the UK, which has a duty to protect its vessel in international waters. Indeed British law applies upon the vessel and the Metropolitan Police should be investigating domestic law kidnap of the passengers.

That is in addition to the international crime of seizing the vessel.

Uniquely the UK has declared itself unable to judge whether war crimes have been committed by Israel, absent a decision by an international court. That position has never been taken before, is notably not taken over Ukraine, and is at odds with Starmer’s self-declared ability to judge that there is no Genocide in Gaza.

It also ignores the fact that the International Criminal Court cannot judge, while Netanyahu ignores their arrest warrants. The International Court of Justice case on Genocide is in very slow process, but Starmer has no difficulty in pre-empting the court by denying Genocide.

Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, has very roundly condemned the UK’s proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, and called on the UK government to lift the proscription.

He also has called the UK to amend its Terrorism laws to bring its over-broad definition of terrorism in line with international law standards. Turk stated:

I urge the UK Government to rescind its decision to proscribe Palestine Action and to halt investigations and further proceedings against protesters who have been arrested on the basis of this proscription. I also call on the UK Government to review and revise its counter-terrorism legislation, including its definition of terrorist acts, to bring it fully in line with international human rights norms and standards

This is a remarkable development because nobody could ever accuse Volker Turk of being anti-Western. In fact his passivity, as freedoms are extinguished across the western world in order to stifle protest against the Genocide, has been a source of frustration to the human rights community.

It is a sign of just how absurd is the proscription of Palestine Action, that even Volker Turk has now decisively spoken out against it.

Let me give you a plain example of just how absurd the law now is.

The three young women from the Shut Down Leonardo group, who drove a van into the security fence of the Edinburgh weapons factory which makes parts for the Israeli military machine, were brought to court on Monday.

They were charged with Malicious Mischief – a Scottish common law offence of serious vandalism – aggravated by terrorism.

This reduces terrorism from the gravest of crimes, to merely an aggravating factor. The driver of the van has even been charged with dangerous driving aggravated by terrorism, which when you think about it is a hilarious concept.

To further underline that nobody really believes this is terrorism, all three have been released on bail. Can you imagine accused who had carried out a genuine terrorist attack being released on bail?

I don’t want to downplay too far the dangers. Malicious mischief is a dangerous charge – being common law, there is no limit to the possible jail sentence it might carry, and furthermore lengthy jail sentences for it can be imposed by a judge without a jury.

I am unsure that this offence should meet the bar of malicious mischief anyway. The Crown Office charging guidelines state that damage must be in the thousands of pounds and damage must affect others. They read:

Malicious Mischief should only be recorded where widespread damage is caused, where the value of the damage is considerable, or where there is disruption of power supply, flooding or similar. There is no specific monetary amount where Vandalism stops and Malicious Mischief takes over but any value of damage would require to be significant (several £000s) before a crime of Malicious Mischief is recorded.

The example given is deliberately damaging power lines and cutting the power to people’s homes. I am not sure a slight dent in a fence meets the bar.

But I also want to look at the women’s treatment as an example of the pernicious treatment of protestors since the proscription of Palestine Action.

The three are not accused of membership or support of Palestine Action. Yet they were arrested under the Terrorism Act and treated as terrorists. They were taken to the specialist terrorist detention and immigration centre in Govan and held there without charge for six days.

Today, @CraigMurrayOrg informed a protest outside Govan police station that three women had been assured this morning that they would be charged only with non-terrorism offences. Yet, by 3pm, terrorism charges had been made. What, he asks, is going on?https://t.co/ClyoJdtUE9 pic.twitter.com/1DpGtCdskH

— GGEC (@ggectee) July 20, 2025

That means that some authoritarian judge must have twice secretly signed off on the continuation of their detention. Why?

They were held strictly incommunicado. I helped organise the best legal support for them, and for six days their parents, supporters and I tried to get a message to them to ask for this legal team, but we were not permitted to reach them.

The women’s parents phoned and asked the police to pass on to them a message about the lawyers organised for them. The police refused. The brother of one of the women went to Govan police station, and was also refused permission.

The lawyers we had organised phoned the police, and said they had been instructed by the families, but again the police refused to pass on any message.

The women had to make do with the bog-standard duty solicitor service. Now the police do not normally have the power to hold people without charge for six days and to keep people completely incommunicado during that time.

The Terrorism Act gives the police those powers. But it does not mean they are obliged to use them. It is extraordinary that they refused all requests to tell the women about legal support, and was plainly gratuitous victimisation, designed to prevent the women from mounting the best possible legal defence.

Yet it appears that – from a conversation with one of them – within detention the women were kindly treated, and they had the impression the police also did not think they should be there. Questioning was neither harsh nor particularly probing, and apparently by identifiable Scottish police officers.

That is consistent with the decision to grant bail – they are caught up in a system of terrorist legislation, but none of those operating the system really believes in the narrative.

On 19 July I was present at St Giles Cathedral as eleven people from Defend Our Juries held placards identical to those which have led to mass arrests across the UK, stating “I Oppose Genocide – I Support Palestine Action.” They were there for half an hour in plain view of police, but nobody was arrested.

After the demonstration, a group of demonstrators in front of the Scottish First Minister’s office held various signs and wore various T shirts identical to those which have caused arrest elsewhere, but again nobody was arrested.

In the week since, three people have been arrested and charged with terrorism offences, in relation to the above. One, Mick Napier (in the centre with the microphone in the second photo) was arrested as he left the protest on Monday 21 July outside Edinburgh Sheriff Court, for the bail hearing of the Leonardo 3.

Mick actually came up to me and said he thought he was about to be lifted, as policemen were following him around. Five minutes later he was. Since then, plain clothes policemen have been to his home three times in a campaign of intimidation.

While the Leonardo 3 are out on bail, they too are suffering from various methods of state intimidation, including the freezing of bank accounts and loss of access to money.

One distinct possibility is that the state is suspending the full implementation of legal action over the proscription, until the hearing for a judicial review of proscription is concluded, as the key argument in the judicial review is the disproportionate consequences for free speech of the ban.

Judge Chamberlain had said in his refusal to stay the proscription that the fears for suppression of free speech were being exaggerated.

I reported on these attempts to suspend the proscription of Palestine Action pending the application for a judicial review. I could now not be simultaneously at the Edinburgh Sheriff court for the Leonardo 3 case and at the High Court in London for the proscription case, but fortunately Mohamed Elmaazi was on hand to cover the High Court.

Here is Mohamed’s report, slightly modified for context:

“I think what you’re doing is, you’re saying, you predicted this,” Mr Justice Chamberlain told Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC – representing Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori the morning of 21 July at the High Court of Justice – “and what you’re doing now is sharing evidence that they have happened.”

The judge’s remarks were in response to Ghrálaigh describing example after disturbing example of pro-Palestine and anti-genocide protesters being threatened with arrest — or actually arrested – across the country, ever since Palestine Action was banned as a terrorist organisation.

Ammori’s lawyers, Raza Husain KC and Ghrálaigh, made the oral arguments advancing the Claimant’s request to appeal the ban.

Before one can appeal a governmental decision – such as the Home Secretary’s order banning Palestine Action – they require permission to appeal.

Only two and a half weeks prior, on 4 July, Ammori’s lawyers unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the same judge to temporarily delay the ban from coming into effect until they had a chance to fully make their appeal – should he grant them one.

They argued that, given the both predictable and boundless implications for freedom of speech and association, the court should stay the Home Secretary’s ban to avoid irreparable harm from occurring.

They warned of dire consequences; not only for Palestine Action and its members but wider members of the public as well.

Husain and Ghrálaigh had explained at the 4 July hearing that labelling Palestine Action a terrorist organisation would result in a “grossly disproportionate interference with the rights to freedom of expression and assembly” not only of its members but also for potentially hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people across the UK.

But Chamberlain largely dismissed the more serious of the concerns as “hyperbole”.

“In my judgment, some of the consequences feared by the claimant and others who have given evidence are overstated,” Justice Chamberlain wrote in his 4 July judgment rejecting Ammori’s request to temporarily prevent the ban from taking effect.

“It will remain lawful for the claimant and other persons who were members of [Palestine Action] prior to proscription to continue to express their opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza and elsewhere, including by drawing attention to what they regard as Israel’s genocide and other serious violations of international law,” the High Court judge wrote.

“They will remain legally entitled to do so in private conversations, in print, on social media and at protests” he insisted before adding that therefore it “follows that it is hyperbole to talk of the claimant or others being “gagged” in this respect (as the claimant has alleged). They could not incur criminal liability based on their past association with a group which was not proscribed at the time.”

Two weeks later, Chamberlain’s tone was somewhat modified. He appeared to accept that he may have been wrong. In fact, he actually reminded the parties of what he wrote by reading out part of his decision refusing permission.

Ghrálaigh told the court that the situation is “even worse” than even they had predicted.

One of the key arguments made by the Claimant is that it could not have been Parliament’s intention to grant the Home Secretary the power to ban a direct action protest network such as Palestine Action. This is partially why they emphasised, as strongly as they did, the actions of the police across the country since the ban took effect.

Members of the public “with flags, badges, t-shirts, and posters that support Palestine, oppose genocide and/or satirise the Government’s position on the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza” have been subjected to “heavy” policing and “other enforcement”, the Irish-born barrister explained.

“None of those had any relationship with Palestine Action” she emphasised. The examples Ghrálaigh outlined included:

1. Police stopping and asking protesters outside BAE systems factory to remove shirts reading “Free Palestine” because they may “breach the proscription order,” on 5 July.

2. An individual stopped whilst travelling through Dover by counter-terrorism police at the border for wearing a hat with “Palestine Solidarity badges” to ensure that they “weren’t a part of Palestine Action,” on 7 July.

3. A 55-year-old man arrested in Glasgow for wearing a t-shirt with the words “Genocide in Palestine, Time to Take Action” printed on it, on 12 July.

4. A 68-year-old man, also arrested in Glasgow, for holding a sign with the same text, reportedly charged and bailed under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000, on 18 July.

One of the examples that Ghrálaigh spent some time on was the case of Laura Murton – engaged in a solo protest on 14 July in Canterbury – who was stopped and threatened with arrest by two armed police. Murton was holding a Palestinian flag and had cardboard signs that said “Free Gaza” and “Israel is committing genocide”.

The incident was recorded and a transcript was provided to the court. But Ghrálaigh thought it worthwhile to read out part of the exchange.

Officer: “What’s your intention here today?”
Murton: “My intention is to wave this flag and keep Palestine in the public consciousness right now.”
Officer: “So, do you support any prescribed group?”
Murton: “I do not I do not support any prescribed group. I support a free Palestine and the end of genocide.”
Officer: “Can I get your details?”
Murton: “Am I required to give them to you?”
Officer: “Well, you may be committing offence at the moment. So, I just need to make sure that you’re legit.”
Murton: “What offence?”
Officer: “Well, as you’re aware, it’s now become an offence to obviously support a proscribed group like Palestine Action”
Murton: “Yeah, but I don’t I am not I don’t have anything on which says that.”
Officer 2: “I appreciate that. But the way you behaving at the moment would lead me to believe that you maybe. Giving me suspicion or grounds to believe you could be.
Murton: “What suspicion? That I’ve got a sign that says free Gaza. Holding a Palestinian flag and I have a sign that says Israel is committing genocide?”

“She has never been part of Palestine Action,” Ghrálaigh told the court.

Chamberlain noted that the police were overstepping because they simply don’t understand the law.

“My Lord may say that the officer doesn’t understand the law” Ghrálaigh said. “Canterbury Constabulary has not issued an apology. The Secretary of State [for the Home Department] hasn’t said that this is a misapplication of the law.”

Chamberlain responded saying that “there will be cases where the police get things wrong”.

“There is no indication that they are getting this wrong because no one has said they are getting this wrong,” Ghrálaigh insisted, noting that the armed officers later told Murton “we could have jumped out, erased you, dragged you off in a van”.

The ban creates a “Conundrum of doubt” as to application of terrorism laws.

“I think what you say is that if you proscribe a group like this, then it creates a sort of conundrum of doubt, and that affects all law enforcement agencies who themselves have got to take decisions, some of which may be right some of which may be wrong, but it casts a shadow over a number of things which may be…fall under the scope of the offence?” Chamberlain asked Husain. “You would say that that effect is one of the things that would need to be taken into account when deciding whether the proscription is proportionate?” he added.

“Indeed” Husain responded.

Although the Claimant’s grounds of appeal are too extensive to outline in a single article, it is worth briefly visiting some of them. This is especially the case as they help explain the relevance of how anti-genocide protesters are being targeted and arrested since the ban came into effect.

The Claimant’s request for judicial review of the Home Secretary’s decision to ban Palestine Action was based on eight grounds.

They include that:

1) The decision was made for an “improper purpose, insofar as she exercised the discretion conferred by Parliament for the purpose of banning a civil society dissent group”.

2) Banning Palestine Action represents “an unlawful interference” with the Article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion), 10 (freedom of expression), 11 (freedom of assembly and association) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination) rights in the European Convention of Human Rights “of the Claimant, of Supporters of Palestine Action, and of members of the general public who advocate for Palestinian rights”.

3) The Home Secretary “erred in law in concluding that: (i) Palestine Action committed acts designed to influence the UK Government; and further or alternatively (ii) Palestine Action was concerned in terrorism, in circumstances where those acts that may (quod non) satisfy the section 1(1) TA 2000 definition are isolated and peripheral to the organisation’s methods and aims”.

4) The Home Secretary acted “irrationally in taking into account considerations irrelevant to the decision before her (whether to proscribe Palestine Action); and in failing to take into account matters that were plainly relevant to that decision”.
Irrelevant considerations include her assessment as to whether Palestine Action’s protest is “legitimate” in her subjective view and whether their protests “caused loss of revenue”. “Lost revenue is irrelevant” to assessing whether a group should be banned, they argue.
Relevant considerations the Home Secretary failed to take into account include the fact that Palestine Action “seeks to prevent conduct which it and large sections of the public reasonably consider to be genocide and breaches of international law”.
The Home Secretary also failed to consider the impact the ban would have on free speech “in favour of direct action against arms companies supplying Israel” and on “low-level direct action and civil disobedience against arms companies by persons not associated with (or no longer associated with) Palestine Action.”.
She also failed to consider the availability of other civil and criminal options apart from a banning order.

5) The Home Secretary breached her own policy “which requires that a decision to proscribe be ‘proportionate’”. No adequate proportionality assessment was undertaken.

6) The Home Secretary “violated the principle of natural justice by failing to give Palestine Action the opportunity to respond to adverse findings prior to her making the decision” to ban them.

One key document government document referred to repeatedly by the Claimant is the “open” version of the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) assessment. The JTAC document, which was obtained by the authors of this article, was repeatedly referenced by Ammori’s lawyers.

Ghrálaigh noted that the JTAC assessment, as part of its determination that Palestine Action has been involved in terrorism, focused on the August 6 2024 action targeting a key drone and surveillance facility for Israel’s largest weapons firm Elbit Systems, in Filton, Bristol.

The JTAC assessment notes that none of the activists, known as the Filton 18, have been charged with terrorism offences for the August action. Yet, in a truly Orwellian development, the Crown Prosecution Services have concluded that they should nonetheless be “considered by the court as having a terrorist connection.”

JTAC then considers that Palestine Action have “promoted terrorism” simply for “sharing footage” of the Elbit action in Filton, an action for which nobody has been charged with terrorism.

“JTAC has asserted that that was a terrorist incident and therefore that supporting it has become terroristic, it’s entirely circular,” Ghrálaigh exclaimed, in a clearly exasperated voice.

“They’re just looking at the statutory definition which includes ‘serious damage to property’” Chamberlain responded.

“Indeed” Ghrálaigh noted before raising an equally disturbing point.

Underneath the subhead “promotion of the 6 August attack” JTAC refers to Amnesty International and UN reports “about the Flinton 18 and their treatment and JTAC referring to references of those statements of concern, by Palestine Action, as evidence of them fitting the definition of terrorism”.

“We’re completely through the looking glass if sharing statements from Amnesty International and the United Nations can be construed as promoting terrorism” Ghrálaigh exclaimed.

“Well once again, JTAC is just looking at the statutory definition [of terrorism]” Chamberlain insisted.

“Well, my lord, the statutory definition cannot include sharing expressions of concern from Amnesty International and the United Nations… That cannot be any basis for determining whether an individual or organisation is concerned with terrorism!”

Significantly, even the JTAC assessment repeatedly states that Palestine Action “primarily uses direct action tactics, the majority of which would not constitute an act of terrorism” as defined under the Terrorism Act.

The JTAC document notes that it is “not the original document” but rather a “gisted version of the original” with “sensitive material removed or gisted”.

Blinne stated that any JTAC finding that Palestine Action has committed or promoted terrorism is not a legal finding and cannot supersede any decision by any jury or judge.

There are clearly many issues with how the authors of the JTAC report describe the overall context of Palestine Action’s behaviour, including by placing “Israeli genocide” in scare quotes.

The idea of criminalising an entire network as terrorist because, allegedly, at most three or four out of literally hundreds of actions could arguably be defined as terrorism – against property – is manifestly disproportionate, unjust and unlawful, the lawyers argued.

By JTAC’s own case, Ghrálaigh noted, there have been at most “four incidents out of 500” which even arguably satisfy some prohibited act under the UK Terrorism Act.

Even Chamberlain noted at one point that the JTAC “go out of their way to say” Palestine Action did not publicise or glorify violence against a person, in the one occasion in which it allegedly occurred.

A big part of the government’s argument against the High Court granting Ammori permission to appeal on Monday was that the courts were not the correct venue for the ban to be legally challenged. This is known as the “alternative remedy” argument.

The Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC) is made up of a senior judge and two other people, including potentially someone from the security services.

“Judicial review is a remedy of last resort and permission will generally not be granted where a claimant has an adequate alternative remedy,” the Home Secretary’s legal submissions state. “In the present case, there plainly is an adequate alternative remedy available to the Claimant. Parliament has created a bespoke process, which includes a right of appeal to a specialist tribunal.”

The Home Secretary’s legal team argued that Ammori’s “attempt to challenge the proscription of Palestine Action by way of judicial review at this stage subverts this process.”

Sir James Eadie KC, lead counsel for the Home Secretary, argued that the correct procedure would be for Ammori or anyone else to go to POAC.

The problem is, unlike a judicial review which can be expedited, POAC could take months or even years to come to a decision. Unlike the High Court, POAC cannot “stay” the banning order and thereby prevent further harm from occurring.

Furthermore, judicial review could potentially impact hundreds if not thousands of current and future cases by providing legal certainty as to what the law is, Ammori’s lawyers noted.

POAC on the other hand can’t make a determination about any of the arrests occurring now and in fact it can only make a decision as to whether Palestine Action should be deproscribed.

Chamberlain challenged Sir James to explain what would happen to all the different people currently being arrested if the High Court refused to hear an appeal and make a determination as to whether the banning order reflected a disproportionate interference with fundamental human rights of the public.

Many defendants could be brought before Magistrates’ Courts, possibly to face a jury in a Crown Court.
“What about them? What if one of those people want to say ‘well, the proscription is disproportionate?’” Chamberlain asked Sir James “Either they can or they can’t.”

“The problem is that either of those answers is a problem for you. If they can take the point we are saying that POAC isn’t exclusive. If they can’t you then have an even bigger problem… because the proportionality of the proscription never gets considered by any [authority]”

POAC should be the exclusive place to challenge the banning order, Sir James insisted, even if that meant in the meantime people were unjustly arrested, charged or convicted.

“Whatever deleterious consequences flow from that flow because that’s the judgement of Parliament that they flow that way” James argued.

Chamberlain asked “If I am thinking in terms of discretion, surely it would be much better for the proportionality of the order to be considered in judicial review proceedings rather than for them to be considered in a Magistrates’ Court?” the judge asked.

“The difficulty with my Lords’ inclination” St James responded “is that it risks unravelling the statutory regime. If you put in a human rights challenge everything that we’re discussing flows, which is intensely problematic because it would tend to undermine the statutory regime.”

Ghrálaigh had began her oral submissions in the morning leaving the court with no doubt as to what was actually at stake.

“Israel has killed at least 28 children. A classroom of children killed every day for 653 days [since 7 October 2023]. Israel has done this while damaging or destroying every single hospital in Gaza. Israel is starving the population of Gaza…. People are literally, medically, wasting away. They are starving to death.”

“1,000 people have been killed, including by bombs, while attempting to access humanitarian food” she said. There is near consensus in the human rights field “that Israel is now committing genocide as well as other war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

“Israel is doing all of that with arms that are being provided” including parts for the F35 fighter jet “ by arms firms in Britain”.

“Direct action protest is not unlawful. It is certainly not terrorist. This proscription renders it so” Ghrálaigh asserted towards the end of the hearing, “even when it does not amount to criminal damage.”

Monday’s hearing lasted from 10:30am to around 17:00.

From around 15:30 to 16:30 the hearing became “closed” so that “closed” (i.e. secret) evidence and arguments could be presented by the state.

Ammori would not have been permitted to hear the closed arguments.

A special advocate was present on her behalf – not part of her regular legal team – and would have to do their best to challenge the closed arguments without consulting the applicant on whose behalf they are allegedly acting.

Members of the general public, including the press, had to leave the court and returned at 16:30 for the judge’s decision.

Chamberlain stated that, because of the complexity of the case and the fact that he heard “closed” evidence and arguments, Chamberlain’s decision as to whether he will grant permission for Ammori to appeal the ban will be made on Monday.

However, it must first be reviewed by the security services to ensure that he doesn’t improperly reference closed arguments.

The next hearing is scheduled for midday, Wednesday, 30 July. That is when we will discover whether Mr Justice Chamberlain will allow the appeal to be heard or not.

Plainly this is yet a further example of how far into fascism the UK has gone. Chamberlain reviewed “intelligence material” for an hour provided by the security services, which almost with 100% certainty will include material provided by Mossad. This very likely will be fabricated and claim links between Palestine Action and Iran.

Huda Ammori, the Palestine Action co-founder who is seeking the legal review, will never be allowed to know the contents of this “intelligence” in order to challenge it.

Furthermore on Monday and Tuesday the security services will get to vet and amend Chamberlain’s judgment.

In the meantime, persecution is at a lower level until after Chamberlain’s ruling, but there continue to be outrageous acts by the police. I leave you with this one as an example of Starmer’s Zionist Britain: a wheelchair-bound man is lifted away by six policemen for wearing a T-shirt supportive of Palestine Action.

6 cops arrest & drag wheelchaired disabled man for Palestine Action t-shirt

Real felons roam free? pic.twitter.com/vzeaWCaIob

— Middle East Today (@shekelazzam) July 27, 2025

I am now heading down to London for Chamberlain’s ruling.

 

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations3 Pounds : £3.00 GBP – monthly5 Pounds : £5.00 GBP – monthly10 Pounds : £10.00 GBP – monthly15 Pounds : £15.00 GBP – monthly20 Pounds : £20.00 GBP – monthly30 Pounds : £30.00 GBP – monthly50 Pounds : £50.00 GBP – monthly70 Pounds : £70.00 GBP – monthly100 Pounds : £100.00 GBP – monthly

PayPal address for one-off donations: craigmurray1710@btinternet.com

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

The post Malicious Mischief appeared first on Craig Murray.

The Nestlé Cadbury Fallacy and Shut Down Leonardo

Nestlé and Cadbury are not the same organisation. They both have exactly the same purpose and extremely similar methods of achieving that purpose. Their chocolate products, retail technique, marketing, manufacturing process and ingredients are in essence the same kind of thing.

Not the same organisation

Police Scotland and the famously corrupt Crown Office (the Scottish prosecution service) are treating the Leonardo 3 as terrorists, on the grounds Shut Down Leonardo must be Palestine Action because it has similar aims and methods. That is the Nestlé/Cadbury fallacy.

[Note for pedants. I am using familiar competing brands with different ownership. The ultimate ownership of Cadbury is irrelevant here.]

The young women are being treated appallingly. They are held in the terrorism interrogation centre at Govan police station. The police have repeatedly refused the request by their families to pass on to them the name of the solicitors briefed to represent them, and have also knocked back that solicitor.

It appears that at least one of the women has had access to the local duty solicitor. That is a lottery but this particular solicitor does appear to be well motivated and doing their best.

All this for three young women who have never harmed anybody nor expressed any intention to hurt anybody, who slightly damaged a fence and sat atop a minibus. That anybody involved – judge, prosecutor, policeman, MI5 officer – goes along with the fascist absurdity of calling this “terrorism” is truly shameful.

That the crushing powers of the Terrorism Act and full panoply of state repression are being visited on innocent, unarmed, young, female protestors is a historic shame on Scotland.

The Lord Advocate sits in the Scottish Cabinet. The SNP should step in and stop this now.

I once again refer you to the decision in the London High Court of 4 July in refusing to delay the proscription of Palestine Action. This explicitly stated that direct action is not aggravated to terrorism.

Underpinning Chamberlain’s judgment of course is the repudiation of the Nestlé/Cadbury fallacy. Not all direct action for Palestine is by Palestine Action, just as not all chocolate is Nestlé.

It is the organisation, not the activity, which is proscribed.

To be terrorism, the Crown Office would have to show it is the same organisation as the former Palestine Action. As Chamberlain states, even involving former members of Palestine Action would not show that. It would need to show it is actually the same organisation active since the proscription of Palestine Action on 5 July.

By choosing to hold the women without charge under the Terrorism Act, reporting restrictions are not in place. I can therefore tell you there are no such links. Shut Down Leonardo is a distinct, and Scottish, organisation.

The Scottish Government has to wake up and shut down fascism in Police Scotland and the Crown Office. Otherwise the whole fabric of our society is changing and fundamental freedoms are being lost.

 

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations3 Pounds : £3.00 GBP – monthly5 Pounds : £5.00 GBP – monthly10 Pounds : £10.00 GBP – monthly15 Pounds : £15.00 GBP – monthly20 Pounds : £20.00 GBP – monthly30 Pounds : £30.00 GBP – monthly50 Pounds : £50.00 GBP – monthly70 Pounds : £70.00 GBP – monthly100 Pounds : £100.00 GBP – monthly

PayPal address for one-off donations: craigmurray1710@btinternet.com

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

The post The Nestlé Cadbury Fallacy and Shut Down Leonardo appeared first on Craig Murray.

The Big Chill

The three female activists arrested on Tuesday for the direct action against the Leonardo weapons factory in Edinburgh are being treated as terrorists. They have been held now for 40 hours, without either being charged or being brought before a judge, under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act.

They are from the organisation Shut Down Leonardo, which targets the firm which makes parts for the F-35 jets that massacre children in Gaza.

I spent all yesterday trying to organise their legal defence. By 8am I had found the right solicitor and briefed them on the case, including the crucial judgment by Judge Chamberlain in London’s High Court on 4 July.

Chamberlain’s judgment stated explicitly that future direct action protest, even where allegedly criminal, would not be aggravated to terrorism. It was Palestine Action, not the act of protest, which was proscribed.

But the three women are being held incommunicado in Govan police station, and there is simply no way to get information to them to ask for the solicitor I had briefed. The solicitors themselves went to the police station in Edinburgh and were blanked.

The solicitors were told they would be informed once the police knew what was happening. The police never got back to them, and did not even tell them the women had been moved from Edinburgh to Glasgow.

What has almost certainly happened is that the women have been allocated the duty solicitor. This solicitor will not know of Lord Chamberlain’s judgment of 4 July nor any of the background.

Equally crucially, it is extremely improbable that the duty solicitor would sit alongside the women during 48 long hours of interrogation. Frequently those arrested never see the duty solicitor at all, and just get a brief telephone consultation.

Once the duty solicitor has been assigned, another solicitor cannot get access, except at the direct request of those arrested. Who are held incommunicado.

This is crucial, because today they have to be brought before a judge – which will almost certainly be in Court 3 in Edinburgh Sheriff Court in Chambers St. They will very likely be charged with terrorism. That means they will almost certainly not get bail, and could disappear into prison on remand for well over a year.

AMENDMENT – I have since been advised by lawyers that the detention has to be extended today by judicial warrant, but under the Terrorism Act this can be done by a judge in secret without the girls being brought to court. They can still be kept in the cells in Govan.

But terrorism is an incompetent charge, following Chamberlain’s High Court ruling. That was under a fortnight ago and this is the first case. It is very probable that the judge, solicitor and procurator do not know that aspect of the ruling, and there is at the moment no means to put it before the court.

This should be treated as a case of criminal damage – from which many activists have been acquitted by juries – as stopping genocide is seen as ethically more important than very minor damage to a fence.

This photo of the “terrorism” in question makes abundantly plain that Starmer and Cooper are acting as fascists. Nobody could argue in good faith that these women are committing “terrorism”.

It properly charged, there is no sensible reason why the women should not be granted bail.

Everything Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh and Raza Husain stated would happen following the proscription of Palestine Action – for which they were pooh-poohed by Judge Chamberlain – is happening. As given above, Chamberlain stated that:

some of the consequences feared by the claimant and others who have given evidence are overstated.

But he specifically then states that direct action will not be aggravated to terrorism; yet here we have those engaged in the very first direct action after his proscription, being treated as terrorists.

Furthermore the proscription of Palestine Action is indeed causing the police to treat simple criticism of Israel as illegal, again directly contrary to Chamberlain’s judgment.

This video shows Kent police threatening to arrest a protester under the Terrorism Act – leaving them facing up to 14 years in jail – simply for waving a Palestinian flag and calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide.

The direction of travel under Starmer is now clear. pic.twitter.com/qKz23CCtPq

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) July 16, 2025

Now, it does not matter whether the police follow through with these threats against free speech. The very fact they are making such threats – and are widely disseminated on social media making such threats – will have a severe chilling effect on many people’s right of free expression.

There is also a great deal of “concern trolling” in progress from fake left outfits like Novara Media, telling people to suppress protest in case they are prosecuted.

Today I am going to resume my efforts to get the Leonardo Three a proper defence.

On 21 July, Judge Chamberlain hears the case for a judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. We will then learn, given the now-unequivocal evidence of the chilling effect on free speech, whether his denial that the proscription would chill free speech and protest, was due to a Panglossian view of our police and prosecutors, or a malevolent and disingenuous device to enforce the proscription.

UPDATE 2 It appears they currently have no legal representation and the police refuse to inform the women of the lawyers arranged for them. This is an outrage. The parents of one have also been told they have now been taken from Govan police station, but will not say to where.

 

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations3 Pounds : £3.00 GBP – monthly5 Pounds : £5.00 GBP – monthly10 Pounds : £10.00 GBP – monthly15 Pounds : £15.00 GBP – monthly20 Pounds : £20.00 GBP – monthly30 Pounds : £30.00 GBP – monthly50 Pounds : £50.00 GBP – monthly70 Pounds : £70.00 GBP – monthly100 Pounds : £100.00 GBP – monthly

PayPal address for one-off donations: craigmurray1710@btinternet.com

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

 

The post The Big Chill appeared first on Craig Murray.

Lucy Connolly Should Be Released

The political Right throughout the Western world is baying to lock up all opponents of genocide. The very notion of free speech is under fundamental attack. We need to take a long hard look at the question of imprisoning people for saying things.

Lucy Connolly, a 41-year-old mother of a 12-year-old, was imprisoned for 31 months on 17 October 2024 under the Public Order Act 1986 for publishing material intended or likely to cause racial hatred. There is no doubt that she did this. In an immediate reaction to the stabbing to death of three young girls in Southport, she published a tweet calling for the burning down of hotels housing asylum seekers, specifically with the inhabitants still inside. This is a textbook example of hate speech directed at a vulnerable group.

Connolly’s remarks were part of an emotionally charged social media storm in the immediate aftermath of the murders, which included false allegations about the killer’s status and religion. There is no doubt that Connolly crossed a line of incitement to violence. She is an avowed racist – she has a history of racist tweets – but I do not think she should be in jail.

PRISON DOES NO GOOD

My first argument is that prison does no good whatsoever, and it will likely reinforce Connolly’s racism.

When imprisoned for four months for publication myself, I learnt that our overcrowded prisons are chock full of the left-behind members of the working class – 80% of them addicts by official reckoning, and still higher in my experience – born into poverty and addiction, and ill educated.

Many were there for domestic violence yet they were now locked into a community which supported and reinforced their violence. I personally witnessed inmates recounting their crimes against women to other prisoners, who sympathised and told them the world was crazy when you could be locked up for keeping women in their place or punishing them for infidelity. The general consensus was that women needed to be kept down more so they would not go to the authorities.

We punish people by locking them into the one community which is guaranteed to support and encourage their wrongdoing: then we are alarmed at re-offending rates. Over 50% of prisoners who serve sentences of less than three years, are caught re-offending within six months. I have no doubt that Lucy Connolly has found the company of those who are fuelling her racism and hate. What good is this doing to anybody?

Our system of criminal justice, with massively overcrowded jails and the highest proportion of our population in prison in all of Europe, is a Victorian abomination, a senseless retributive regime. Anything that you have ever heard about education or rehabilitation in jails is a lie. In practice no such functioning schemes exist.

The authorities are concentrated entirely on ever-greater movement and living-condition restrictions for prisoners, to keep a lid on the overcrowding powder keg and try to staunch the flow of drugs into jails. To give one example, books were forbidden to criminal prisoners in my jail lest their pages be soaked in drugs.

Prisons are themselves a form of institutionalised violence. The beds made from solid iron sheet and two-inch-thick non-resistant foam mattresses are a deliberate corporal punishment – I am left with permanent back pain.

This is an inappropriate, worthless and brutal regime. In Lucy Connolly’s case, I make no apologies for saying that when you separate a mother from her child, you are also punishing the child, and imposing an anguish upon the woman which men can only partially comprehend.

Imprisonment should be a last resort to protect society from those who otherwise pose a definite risk of physical violence to others.

A rational society would find far more useful means to punish Lucy Connolly.

Community service would let her still be with her child and provide an element of restorative justice. She should also be made to spend a substantive amount of working time – as in several months – in the company of immigrants and learning about their lives, perhaps in some of the Mosques that play a large part in our communities. She should meet asylum seekers and hear their stories.

Education and restoration should be central to any form of justice. The irony is, of course, that Lucy Connolly’s supporters are, by and large, the last people who would support such reform in general. That should not deter us.

THE LIMITS OF FREE SPEECH – IMMEDIATE HARM

The classic position in western jurisprudence is that free speech should be limited where it is liable to cause immediate harm, which cannot be countered in reasoned debate by other arguments because there is no time. That is the basis of the famous judgment by Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1919 that

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic

Here it is not stating a falsehood which is the problem. It is doing so (assuming knowingly) in circumstances which may cause immediate physical harm through the effects of panicking a crowd. This judgment established the “clear and present danger” test.

Which is the same principle as set out by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty:

No one pretends that actions should be as free as opinions. On the contrary, even opinions lose their immunity, when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard.

Here it is plain that immediacy and context are important. Saying something in one circumstance may be acceptable but the same words may not be acceptable in another circumstance. It separates debate from direct incitement to violence.

This nuance is completely lost, for example, in the UK’s Terrorism Act. The proscription which is in train will make it illegal to argue, even in calm debate, that Palestine Action is engaged in legitimate protest and ought not be banned. Just expressing that opinion, even in an academic setting, might get you imprisoned. Mill would be appalled.

Superficially, Mill’s example may seem to indicate that Lucy Connolly is indeed highly culpable. She was urging people to set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers, and right-wing rioters did in fact attempt to do just that. But it is not quite that simple. Lucy Connolly tweeted on the day of the murders. No mobs had yet gathered and the attacks on hotels were still several days away.

Hindsight is wonderful. It is not plain that there was a “clear and present danger” that this would come to pass, at the time she wrote – and she deleted her tweet after a few hours. She actually put out tweets against the violence once it started some days later.

Furthermore, to compare Mill’s 19th-century circumstance with a 21st-century social media post requires care. Mill was imagining someone in the position of a leader – able to access the platform as an orator to the mob, or alternatively to get an article or letter published in a newspaper. In the melee of social media, Lucy Connolly is perhaps more akin to a member of Mill’s mob than the person urging it on to action.
Connolly probably did not envision at the time of her tweet that mobs actually attacking hotels was likely to arise some days later. She deleted her tweet after three and a half hours, once she calmed down, and did not repeat it when actual mobs existed. Once they did, she put out other tweets including “I know people are angry, but violence is not the answer” and “Protest yes, violence no”. She also apologised for having spread disinformation.

Connolly’s initial tweet was an incitement to violence, and goes beyond contribution to public debate on the role of immigration in events like the Stockport media. It is culpable and I think on balance does rightly fall foul of the law on those grounds. But I think it is rather marginal on the clear and present danger test. The evidence is non-existent that any member of the mobs who went out a few days later were in fact critically motivated by Connolly’s tweet. This lack of clear causality should be given more weight (which is not a necessary step in the legislation).

My conclusion: the conviction is correct as it was incitement to violence, but the sentence is disproportionate to the seriousness of the offence.

Let us then compare this to the statements by the group Bob Vylan at Glastonbury, which are under investigation by the Police and which the entire British Establishment has rushed to condemn.

This is entirely clear: “Death, death to the IDF” chanted to a live crowd at Glastonbury clearly does not pose an imminent threat. There is no clear and present danger. Nobody in the Glastonbury audience was in a position immediately to attack the IDF, and I can see no serious argument that anybody in the TV or online audience would immediately attack the IDF, who was no already in a position and of a mind to do so.

The argument that attacking the IDF is a legitimate aim I cover below.

There is simply no case to prosecute the members of Bob Vylan on the basis of imminent threat or “clear and present danger” from their speech.

HATE SPEECH

The classic liberal defence of all speech which does not pose imminent danger has been replaced in much of the Western world in recent years by a tendency to ban “hate speech”, generally defined as speech expressing hate towards a protected group defined by gender, race, sexuality or other qualifications.

That intellectual shift against free speech has been broadly driven by the “Left”, particularly by anti-racist and feminist groups. However the incorporation of this principle into the Public Order Act of 1986 was enacted by the Thatcher government. Thatcher had a thorough understanding of the dynamics of hard political power.

I am generally not in favour of the banning of “hate speech”. I agree with Mill that the answer to an incorrect opinion is to engage with it and refute it, not to ban it. Banning it is often counter-productive as it both glamourises the opinion and prevents its proper deconstruction.

This is where I shall part ways with much of the Left, which will believe that Lucy Connolly should be locked up for hate speech. But here we encounter the problem of who defines what is hate speech?

The Right is screaming that “Death to the IDF” is hate speech that indicates a generalised hatred of Jews. There are several answers to that, including that the IDF is a military force committing Genocide and is by no means supported by all Jews.

But in a real sense, once you have got into the argument of why Lucy Connolly’s hate speech is wrong and Bob Vylan’s speech – characterised by the political Establishment as hate speech – is right, you have already lost. You are making distinctions of geopolitical analysis. Essentially you are arguing as to whether the political value judgments of the left or the right are correct.

With the state as, literally, the judge, that argument will only be resolved one way in the real world.

It was in fact the push from the left for hate speech laws which destroyed the western consensus in favour of freedom of speech which does not initiate immediate physical harm. Which was extremely stupid of the left, because it should be blindingly obvious that once you hand the state the power to imprison for speech, it is the left who will be the primary target.

Most foreseeable of all was the use by the Zionist lobby of its power in the state to seize upon the criminalisation of “hate speech” to conflate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism and attack pro-Palestinian sentiment. The Left made this rod for their own back when they led the charge against freedom of speech
In my view, political opinions, even ones I find hateful like racialist attacks on asylum seekers, ought not be criminalised but ought to be tackled in Mill’s field of debate. An opinion with which we disagree should be countered by argument and refutation, not by banning its expression.

At present, the toxic mix of culture war and criminalisation of speech is giving far too much power to a state which I in no way trust.

PRACTICAL EFFECTS

We are currently facing a unified neoliberal political Establishment which is introducing more and more restrictions on protest and speech and which delights in locking up its opponents.

This same Establishment has used, throughout the world, the tools of state control of economies to massively increase the wealth gap between the billionaires who are actually in control, and the 99.5% of society who are reduced to helots.

As a result of the social tensions thus unleashed, there has been a fracturing of support for the traditional political parties, which have all been captured by this neoliberal agenda. However the Establishment has managed to defend itself by the use of media and social media to channel popular discontent at popular poverty and loss of status into hatred for immigrants. Scapegoating has been simple but deadly effective.

The factors of social alienation which drive support for right-wing movements like Reform are the same factors which, more properly understood, motivate the Left to campaign for greater social equality. Excessively punitive actions against the misled foot soldiers of the right simply feed in to the right-wing narrative of dispossession and unfair treatment.

In short, the imprisonment of Lucy Connolly has been the best recruiting tool that alt-right leaders like Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson have been given.

We should not fall into this trap.

 

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations3 Pounds : £3.00 GBP – monthly5 Pounds : £5.00 GBP – monthly10 Pounds : £10.00 GBP – monthly15 Pounds : £15.00 GBP – monthly20 Pounds : £20.00 GBP – monthly30 Pounds : £30.00 GBP – monthly50 Pounds : £50.00 GBP – monthly70 Pounds : £70.00 GBP – monthly100 Pounds : £100.00 GBP – monthly

PayPal address for one-off donations: craigmurray1710@btinternet.com

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

The post Lucy Connolly Should Be Released appeared first on Craig Murray.