Craig Murray's Blog, page 205

A Two-Edged Sword

There is a superficial attraction to resorting to assassination to prevent the development of a nuclear weapon. To take the heat of Israel/Iran out of the subject, it is tempting to think it would have been good if North Korea's nuclear programme had been disrupted by such means.

But once you abandon the framework of legality, you have no grounds to complain if your opponent reacts in the same manner. The notion of "good terrorism" and "bad terrorism" is foolish. It reminds me that the media are very anxious actively to spread the idea that bombs in Syria are false flag operations by President Assad, but were scoffing when my on the spot investigation of the actual evidence immediately on the scene revealed that the so called Islamic Jihad Union bombings in Uzbekistan were almost certainly a false flag operation of President Karimov – very probably with the connivance of the CIA.

To start a competition in assassinating scientists seems to me an extraordinarily foolish thing for Israel, with its large and widespread scientific community. There are reasons to worry about Iran's nuclear intentions, though nuclear armed and militarily aggressive Israel has no moral standing to be the country asking the questions. But street assassinations are not going to do anything but make the problems worse.

Of course, if war is the intention, these murders are entirely rational.

Scotland/England Maritime Boundaries

According to existing Westminster legislation, English waters stretch at their North Easterly point to 56 degrees 36 minutes north – that is over 100 miles North of the border at Berwick, and North of Dundee.

In 1999 Tony Blair, abetted by the Scottish traitor Donald Dewar, redrew the existing English/Scottish maritime boundary to annex 6,000 square miles of Scottish waters to England, including the Argyll field and six other major oilfields. The idea was specifically to disadvantage Scotland's case for independence.

The pre-1999 border was already very favourable to England. In 1994, while I was Head of the Maritime Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I had already queried whether it was too favourable to England. I little anticipated that five years later Blair would push it seventy miles North!!

I should explain that I was the Alternate Head of the UK Delegation to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and was number 2 on the UK team that negotiated the UK/Ireland, UK/Denmark (Shetland/Faeroes), UK/Belgium, and Channel Islands/France maritime boundaries, as well as a number of British Dependent Territories boundaries. There are very few people in the World – single figures – who have more experience of actual maritime boundary negotiation than me.

The UK's other maritime boundaries are based on what is known formally in international law as the modified equidistance principle. The England/Scotland border was of course imposed, not negotiated. It is my cold, professional opinion that this border lies outside the range of feasible solutions that could be obtained by genuine negotiation, arbitration or judgement.

It ignores a number of acknowledged precepts in boundary resolutions, most important of which is how to deal with an inverted right angle coastline, as the Scottish coastline is from Elgin to Berwick, with the angle point around Edinburgh. It also fails adequately to close the Forth and Tay estuaries with baselines – by stark contrast to the massive baselines the UK used across the Thames and Stour.

It is essential that Scotland is not conned into accepting the existing England Scotland maritime boundary as a precondition of any independence referendum. This boundary must be subject to negotiation between equal nations post independence, and in my opinion is most likely to end with referral to the International Court of Justice. I have no doubt the outcome would be a very great deal better for Scotland than the Blair-Dewar line, which would cost Scotland billions.

English Tory Interference

If it were true that Scottish voters need London's legal permission to vote on their own future, that would in itself be a strong argument for independence.

As it is, Cameron's despicable effort to try to use legal pretexts to interfere in the timing and question of Scotland's independence referendum, is almost certain to backfire. Cameron both with unionist lickspittle Marr yesterday and with Adam Boulton today, kept saying the government will "clarify the legal position" on a referendum.

Cameron's constitutional knowledge seems worryingly shakey. The government cannot clarify legal positions; that is the role of judges. The government can make legal claims, it can even publish its own legal advice (something it hates doing); but the law is decided by judges. English judges interfering in Scotland's referendum would of course be no more popular than English Tories.

We will see later today, but I cannot see any possible legal argument that Cameron can use to back his desire to bring the referendum forward to 2012 or 2013 instread of 2014. Why one date can be legally more justified than another is beyond me. Politically, the SNP campaigned very clearly on the basis of a referendum "in the second half" of this Scottish parliament. Salmond is trying to do what he said he would do when he won the election – a rare and praiseworthy thing for a politician.

I also cannot see the legal argument why there should not be a three choice question. Personally I would prefer a two choice question, and my two choices would be more devolution or independence, on the grounds electoral support for "status quo" parties was insignificant. Cameron of course wants two choices, status quo or independence. But plainly Cameron is acting purely politically, to try to boost the chances in both question and timing of status quo winning. Again his claims to be acting on "legal" grounds appear simple tripe.

Has he consulted Scotland's Lord Advocate? Is this like the infamous decision of Lord Goldsmith to change his mind and argue that the war in Iraq was legal? Goldsmith flew to Washington to consult George Bush's law officers, but did not ask the view of Scotland's law officers.

I strongly suspect Cameron's "legal" pretext is concocted by English lawyers – lineal descendants in office of those who tried Wallace for treason to a man who was never his King.

Most shameful of all is the position of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, and their continued slide into unreconstructed unionism. I have explained before how the Liberal party's very political identity was forged in opposition to unionism, how Gladstone fought a massive battle for Irish Home Rule, how Rosebery helped invent modern Scottish nationalism and Lloyd George fought huge battles for at least partial Irish freedom. Being the antithesis of the "Conservative and Unionist Party" is a vital part of the raison d'etre of liberalism as an independent political force in this country, and why for years organised liberalism survived largely in the Celtic fringes.

The political institutions descended from the old Liberal Party have now been taken over by political careerists with no ideological connection to, or interest in, the beliefs of their predecessors. Their only interest is personal power and income.

When I announced I was leaving the Lib Dems for the SNP, a very senior Lib Dem and friend of long standing tried to persuade me otherwise. I explained the party's enthusiastic unionism as something completely antithetical to its traditions, something which this individual did indeed understand. He said the party remained strongly federalist. I asked whether that meant it would campaign stongly for the "Devolution max" option in a referendum. He replied that certainly, it would.

Yet we now see the Lib Dems are party to a coalition attempt to use legal pretexts to keep the devolution max option off the ballot paper, let alone campaign for it. The Lib Dems have become, as a party, lying, deceitful, untrustworthy bastards completely alienated from their ideological heritage. The good people remaining captive within the institution should leave now.

IoS on Werritty's Case

Kudos to the Independent on Sunday, which yet again is the only mainstream media outlet with the nerve to continue to report the real information on Werritty, Gould and Israel.

The rest of the media are content to leave the public with the impression that the Secretary of State for Defence was obliged to resign merely over soliciting lobbyist funding for a too close male friend. It is not the fact of the cover-up which is so shocking; it is its near-total success.

High Speed Rail

There is no scenery so beautiful is is not enhanced by a train running through it. If the Victorians had equivalents of the silly people from the Chilterns Society, we would never have the amazing beauty of the Settle to Carlisle railway.

The biggest problem about the government's plans for high speed rail are that they are far too limited. Rail is by far the most resource efficient way of moving large quantities of people, and above all freight, around the country, and is much less disturbing to the environment than the equivalent motorway capacity. An updated and expanded rail network is an absolute necessity for the UK.

Unfortunately not only are the government's high speed plans very limited, they doubtless will involve a model whereby the taxpayer pays for the construction, the fares are sky high, the taxpayer pays an operating subsidy and yet there is "profit" for a "private" operator and its financiers, who purchase our politicians.

Courtney Walsh for President

If the Jamaicans are kicking out the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Battenburgs, who better for President than the great Courtney Walsh, a true gentleman?

US Defence Review

Seldom has so much PR hype been given to anything as meaningless as Obama's US Defence Review. There will be no drop in US military spending, just a smaller increase than previously proposed. The move to less grunts and more zapping from drones and eventually satellites has been underway for years and is simple continuation of technological development. The doctrine of a "right" to intervene anywhere in the World has not changed. The rhetoric is stepped up on a new – and totally pointless – Cold War with China that will keep the military-industrial complex in its dominant position to exploit US society for the next half century. In short, nothing has changed.

Diane Abbott

Diane Abbott follows Paul Flynn in apologising for telling an obvious truth. It shows New Labour has not changed under Ed – the ability to spout anything other than neo-con slogans is to be stamped out.

I spent several days with Diane Abbott and a small party of other MPs travelling in a bus around Ghana and got to know her fairly well. She is most certainly not in the least racist.

Royal Sandringham Mystery

The Sandringham estate is a large expanse of countryside and easy to enter. The dumping of a body there in no sense entails any connection to the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Battenberg household. But I am baffled by the police claims that, despite repeated attempts, they cannot extract DNA from a body they say is only between one and four months old, not even from the teeth. That seems very strange. I hope news management is not at work in this delay in identification.

Werritty/Miliband: They Were All In It

David Miliband and William Hague are implicated in three entirely new Adam Werritty/Matthew Gould meetings admitted by the FCO in response to one of my FOI requests. Gould's meetings with Werritty, in his capacity as Principal Private Secretary to first Miliband and then Hague, were entirely left out of Gus O'Donnell's "investigation" into Werritty's activities.

I have now received the following FCO response to my Freedom of Information request on Gould/Werritty:

Thank you for your email of 24 November 2011 asking for "all communications in either direction ever made between Matthew Gould and Adam Werritty, specifically including communications made outside government systems". I am writing to confirm that we have now completed the search for the information which you requested.

I can confirm that the FCO does hold some information relevant to your request.

There are entries in diaries indicating that there were two meetings at which Mathew Gould and Mr Werritty were both present while he was serving as Principal Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary on 8 September 2009 and 16 June 2010.

Since Mr Gould was appointed as HM Ambassador to Israel on 11 September 2010 there were three further instances on 1 and 27 September 2010 in London and a dinner on 6 February 2011 in Tel Aviv. The meeting on 1 September and the dinner on 6 September are already matters of public record as they are included in the report by the Cabinet Secretary "Allegations against Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP" published on 18 October 2011. Mr Gould attended the Herzliya Conference in his official capacity. Mr Werritty was also a participant. This is already a matter of public record.

The FCO holds no information relating to written communication (either electronic or mail) between Matthew Gould and Adam Werritty at any point.

So Gould attended one meeting with Werritty as David Miliband's Principal Private Secretary, and one as William Hague's Principal Private Secretary. Private Secretaries in the civil service do not hold meetings on their own account. It would be very peculiar indeed for a Private Secretary to meet an outside lobbyist on his own, or to formally meet on business anyone outside the civil service without his minister's permission. Even then, I cannot stress too much how rare this would be; the FCO has batteries of civil servants covering all subjects and geographical areas; private secretaries do not normally meet outsiders except when accompanying their minister.

What was Miliband's business with Werritty? Does it relate to the later meeting between Werritty, Gould, Fox and Mossad at the Tel Aviv meeting? Does David Miliband's involvement with Werritty explain the ludicrous charges of anti-semitism levelled at Paul Flynn from within his own party when he tried to dig deeper into what Gould and Werritty were up to?

Those who can count will realise that the FCO letter refers to two instances where Gould met Werritty before he became Ambassador to Israel, and three after being appointed Ambassador, but actually lists four not three – 1 and 27 September 2010 and 6 February 2011, plus the Herzilya Conference from 4-6 February 2011 (this is not the same event as the Tel Aviv dinner as it took place in a quite different town).

Either the meeting on 1 September or 27 September is a new admission. The O'Donnell report refers to only one September meeting, the infamous "briefing meeting" for Gould in the MOD between Gould, Fox and Werritty. Just before Christmas, Caroline Lucas obtained a parliamentary answer that stated there was no MOD official present at that meeting and no record was taken. The FCO letter above is the first admission of a second September meeting.

The FCO list omits the "social occasion" in summer 2010 to which Fox invited both Gould and Werritty, despite the fact that this had already been revealed in a parliamentary answer to Jeremy Corbyn. Presumably it is omitted from this Freedom of Information request because there is no written record of it within the Foreign Office. That might also explain the extraordinary omission of the "We Believe in Israel" conference in London which Fox, Gould and Werritty all attended shortly after the Herzilya Conference in Israel. In this context, am I the only one to find the formula: "The FCO holds no information relating to written communication (either electronic or mail) between Matthew Gould and Adam Werritty at any point" somewhat unconvincing. Have they even asked Gould about communications outside the FCO system?

We now have these Gould/Werritty meetings:

1) 8 September 2009 as Miliband's Principal Private Secretary (omitted from O'Donnell report)

2) 16 June 2010 as Hague's Principal Private Secretary (omitted from O'Donnell report)

3) A "social occasion" in summer 2010 with Gould, Fox and Werritty (omitted from above and omitted from O'Donnell report)

4) 1 September 2010 in London (only one September meeting in O'Donnell report)

5) 27 September 2010 in London (only one September meeting in O'Donnell report)

6) 4-6 February 2011 Herzilya Conference Israel (omitted from O'Donnell report)

7) 6 February 2011 Tel Aviv dinner with Mossad and Israeli military

8 15 May 2011 "We believe in Israel" conference London (omitted from above and omitted from O'Donnell report)

Only two of these eight were recorded by Gus O'Donnell in his pathetic "investigation" into the Fox Werritty affair.

It is simply impossible that Matthew Gould, a senior British diplomat, attended all of these meetings and events, yet no formal minute or note of any of them exists. Yet that is what the FCO appears to be claiming. In particular the meetings as Principal Private Secretary on 8 September 2009 and 16 June 2010 simply must have been minuted. The FCO admit they hold diary entries detailing participation, but so far have not responded to my request to release them.

I have no doubt that the near total blackout on serious media investigation into what Werritty was really up to, relates directly to the fact that he was meeting with Gould as Private Secretary to both Miliband and Hague, in this sense. There is a silent cross-party agreement among the political establishment to ally the UK strongly with the interests of Israel (and thus against the interests of the Palestinians). Werritty's activities were therefore countenanced by both New Labour and Conservative leaderships, and the nebulous "Establishment", including the mainstream media, have closed ranks around this.

My sources within the civil service remain adamant that the purpose of all this activity was diplomatic preparation for an attack on Iran. When those sources first contacted me, and told me to look at Gould Werritty, I genuinely had no idea that Gould and Werritty had any connection. Getting the information has been extremely difficult, but I have proven that the Gould/Werritty connection was indeed far more extensive than the Establishment were prepared to admit, and directly implicated Miliband and Hague with Werritty. It was deliberately underplayed by Gus O'Donnell's report, in a blatant act of political lying by the then Cabinet Secretary.

I still do not have positive evidence that the purpose of this activity is an attack on Iran, but I trust my source and his or her tip-off that the place to dig was the Gould-Werritty relationship has proven to be entirely accurate. It ties in with information I have received from another source, this time a senior journalist whom again I trust, that Werritty met with Robert Gates on two occasions. I would be grateful if any of my US-based readers could try to track that down using FOI.