Connexion
It takes a lot to get tens of thousands of people to riot. For it to happen simultaneously across several countries points to a supranational underlying cause, as opposed to local grievance at an egregious state injustice. That the temporary collapse of authority and restraint will allow some opportunists to loot is an inevitable concomitant. That does not make theft the cause.
There is a reason that, in every western democracy during the last 20 years, neoliberal politicians have campaigned under the slogans “Hope”, “Change”, or their various synonyms and translations. It is because very highly paid PR consultants have told them that what the people lack, what the people need, what the people desperately crave, is hope and change. Riot and rebellion are acts of extremely high risk which are the resort of the otherwise hopeless.
When I was studying history, a core part of the curriculum was the cross-European revolutionary waves of 1830/1, 1847/8 and 1870/1, against which you can precisely pin dozens of cross-European events including the overthrow of Charles XII, the Hungarian Rebellion and the Paris Commune, and their pale reflections in the UK such as the Great Reform Act and Chartism.
We were, I think, told that these waves of rebellion coincided with poor harvests, which is true. It is only a decade or so ago I learnt that they also coincided precisely with the waves of cholera epidemic which swept across Europe into Central Asia. My point is merely to illustrate that it takes a great deal of pain and hopelessness to force people in the streets to attempt to defy their governments with physical force.
In his short but superb essay on the education protests that sparked rebellion in France, Thomas Piketty includes this devastating passage:
To justify the inadequacy of education funding, and in particular the decrease in spending per student, the government and its supporters argue that France cannot afford to invest more. They are making two reasoning errors. Public debt has indeed risen from 20% of GDP in 1970 to 120% today. But at the same time, private wealth has grown much more dramatically: It has gone from 300% to 600% of GDP, with extreme concentration among the wealthiest financial fortunes. In other words, France’s national wealth – the sum of private and public assets minus private and public debts – has never been so high, not only in absolute terms but also as a percentage of GDP (which itself has never been higher).
In other words, France has never been richer. The problem to solve is simply one of distribution.
Precisely the same is true in the UK. It has never been richer. The problem is of distribution. It is true across the Western world. The living standards and the prospects of betterment for ordinary people are in slow but apparently irreversible decline. This is indeed due to an epidemic sweeping the Western world. It is an epidemic of billionaires.
In the UK, just 50 families hoard more wealth than the poorest 50% of the population – over 36 million people. To pretend that this mindboggling inequality of wealth is beneficial, and in no way related to the prevalence of poverty, requires intellectual dishonesty of an extreme level. Yet it is the neoliberal orthodoxy of our times and subscribed to by all the major UK political parties.
As everybody knows, domestic fuel cost inflation in the UK has increased by 90% during the past four years. Inflation on food and rent has increased by over 25%. These inescapable necessities form a much higher proportion of the spending of the poor than they do of the wealthy, who benefit from lower costs of certain less necessary items that explain the official inflation measure being much lower than the lived experience of most people. This is an officially acknowledged, though little-published, reality.
The wars in Ukraine and Iran are directly responsible for much of the inflation. They are, however, a consequence of the concentration of wealth, not a separate factor. Billionaires make money from war. They make money from weapons and from lending to governments. They make money from military and security contracts. They make money from high hydrocarbon prices. They make money from asset value fluctuations between hot war and negotiation. Billionaires drive war.
The social democratic compact that underlay western democracy is fatally fractured. Public provision is despised, and eked out grudgingly where the politicians whom the billionaires control see it as absolutely unavoidable to keep the helots quiet.
Discontent is everywhere. It does not always show the same face, and some of those faces are ugly. But the current status quo cannot and will not stand, and there are faces and voices of courage and hope, many of which have been heard in Europe these last few days.
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“Forget justice, it’s much too expensive and time consuming. Plus if you take the government to court, you will have to spend your own money, and we are saving you from that”.
That is a fair summary of the judgement by Lords Pentland and Troy and Lady Wise in our appeal against the suspension of the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. Plus an underlying Unionist assumption that Scotland should abide by the decisions of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and the London Supreme Court adjudicating an English case in English law.
[30] We are not persuaded that this decision was “plainly wrong” or that it was one that no reasonable Lord Ordinary could have reached. The Lord Ordinary has clearly had regard to the relevant factors: the securing of the speediest final determination against a background of minimisation of expense and appropriate use of court resources. The decision of the Supreme Court, although not binding on the courts in Scotland, will be highly persuasive, concerning as it will the validity of an Order which applies equally to all UK jurisdictions.
There is a great irony here in that Scotland termed its own highest courts “The Supreme Courts” before the term was in use in English law, and these Scottish law lords were sitting in a building which has “The Supreme Courts” emblazoned across the front in bold gold letters. That same building was Scotland’s parliament in the days before Independence and houses the magnificent Parliament chamber with its extraordinary hammerbeam roof. It now has no function but to house portraits of fat self-satisfied justices, ranging from the Earl of Stair who planned the Massacre of Glencoe, to Lady Dorrian who imprisoned me for journalism and sought to limit trial by jury.
In their judgement Pentland et al acknowledge that the reason the Scottish judicial review has not happened was the delay caused by the UK government producing secret intelligence evidence, which we are not allowed to know, and for which special closed (a euphemism for secret) sessions had to be arranged:
28] It is regrettable that a year has passed since the petition was lodged, and some eight months since permission to proceed was granted, without a substantive hearing having taken place. There appear to have been two principal causes for the time taken (we find nothing to support the petitioner’s allegation that the UK Government has deliberately sought to obstruct an independent Scottish challenge). One of the causes was the procedure necessitated by the closed material application. The other was the interaction of the Scottish proceedings with decisions of the courts in Ammori. By the time the closed material procedure had run its course, the decision of the Court of Appeal was awaited. When the motion to sist with which this reclaiming motion is concerned was granted, the date of the expedited Supreme Court hearing was already known. All of these circumstances have had an effect on the timescale for determination of the petition.
The judgement therefore leaves the Scottish judicial review to continue after the Supreme Court judgement. It will look at the particularly Scottish arguments. There is a presumption in this judgement that it will not look at the freedom of speech and association arguments being considered by the Supreme Court in Ammori on the grounds that the Supreme Court decision will be “highly persuasive”.
But we are going to argue that there were matters not before the Supreme Court for consideration from the Ammori case. Principally there is our attack on the evidential basis for proscription, including so far only one out of 35 charges of violence against Palestine Action activists ending in conviction. That was not available information at the Ammori case as it had not yet happened, and subsequent appeals have only been on points of law. We have more unique material to add on the evidential grounds for proscription.
We will therefore be bringing a new basis to the weighting of the judgement of proportionality in considering the infringement of Article X and XI rights versus “national security”.
In addition we are going to be bringing the question of the duty to consult and lack of consultation with anybody at all in Scotland over a proscription which directly affects the Scottish government’s devolved powers over justice and policing.
The insistence of this Labour ‘Friends of Israel’ UK government on continuing with the proscription of Palestine Action – and the prosecution of almost 4,000 peaceful protestors as terrorists – gives the lie to the pretence of Burnham and Miliband to be different on Israel.
Miliband claimed it was not the intention to criminalise protestors. That is plainly a lie when that is the direct effect of the proscription they brought in, when they are proceeding with the prosecutions, and where they are proceeding with their defence of the proscription in the Supreme Court and Court of Session.
They also claimed they were going to bring in sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements, but they have done nothing. It is purely propaganda. They have allowed the Israeli government to effectively close the British Consulate General in Jerusalem and expel 14 UK diplomats and families, without any retaliatory action. They are joining in with the Saudi attack on Ansar Allah.
The grip of extreme Zionism on the political and media establishment remains so strong that, with their current attack on the English Greens, they are attempting to reimpose the requirement to accept the existence of an apartheid, genocidal entity as a necessary condition of societal respectability.
We may not have shifted the Establishment to do more than pretend to have changed nuance, but we have won the battle of public opinion. That is the value of these continued battles which expose the Establishment – be they judges, editors or politicians – for what they are.
We need help urgently as our legal bills currently exceed the amount of money raised. I have put in money myself but I am now wiped out. Our state opponents have had our crowdfunder closed down, which is disgusting in the middle of a legal case, but reflects the world in 2026.
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Tomorrow at 10am we get the judgement in our appeal against the suspension of the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. We cannot have won as the appeal – held by “urgent process” – was intended to allow a judicial review before the Supreme Court meets in the Ammori case on 4 November. That was possible if the court had decided immediately. The delay of over a fortnight already answers the question.
That is of a piece with the approach of the courts throughout, which has been to collude with the UK government in endless procedural delay to kick the Scottish judicial review into the long grass. It is now over a year since we petitioned for judicial review, and although permission was granted it has never been heard.
The civil liberties of Scots are being grossly oppressed in Scotland, as many have been arrested for holding placards or wearing T shirts. We are supposed to be entitled to remedy from our own Scottish courts.
Article XIX of the Act of Union states that
“That the Court of Session or College of Justice do after the union and notwithstanding thereof, remain in all time coming within Scotland, as it is now constituted by the laws of that Kingdom, and that all inferior courts within the said limits do remain subordinate, as they are now, to the supreme courts of justice within the same, in all time coming; and that no causes in Scotland be cognizable by the courts of chancery, queen’s bench, common pleas, or by any court in Westminster Hall; and that the said Courts or any other of the like nature after the Union shall have no power to cognosce, review or alter the acts or sentences of the judicatures within Scotland, or stop the execution of the same.”
When we were given permission for judicial review, Lord Young ruled:
“I am satisfied that it is appropriate to grant permission for this judicial review to proceed in Scotland notwithstanding the existence of English proceedings which are at a more advanced stage. As a matter of principle, a petitioner who has standing and whose petition sets out arguments of sufficient merit to satisfy s27B(2)(b) of the 1988 Act should not be refused permission because of the existence of parallel proceedings in another UK jurisdiction. The petitioner claims that his legal rights have been illegally circumscribed by the 2025 Order.
He is entitled to look to the courts of his place of residence for a determination of that complaint. The cases of Cherry v Advocate General 2020 SC 37 and R (Miller) v Prime Minister [2019] EWHC 2381 support the petitioner’s argument that there is nothing inherently objectionable with proceedings on the same issue progressing through different jurisdictions within the UK at the same time. There is no suggestion that these proceedings are being advanced for an improper or abusive purpose such as a campaign to swamp the respondent with a multitude of proceedings. The possibility that any substantive hearing in this petition will require the adoption of closed material procedure is not a factor of any weight to the issue of permission. The necessary arrangements will be put in place if the closed material procedure is required.”
This is absolutely correct and compatible with the Treaty of Union. What is totally incompatible with either this ruling or with the Treaty of Union is Lord Young’s later decisions repeatedly to suspend the Scottish judicial review until after the English courts decide the issue, and the Supreme Court decides the English case.
This is the point many do not understand:
A Supreme Court ruling on an English case like the Ammori judicial review does not determine the position in Scotland. The Supreme Court can only decide the position in English law because only English law is before it. This is not controversial or contested as a constitutional point. But de facto the Scottish courts have always been content simply to accept English rulings, because the rights of Scotland under the Treaty of Union have never been respected in practice, in almost every area.
The Cherry and Miller cases were a breakthrough because they established that parallel judicial reviews can take place in England and Scotland and have equal weight before the Supreme Court. In that case the Scottish Court of Session ruled that Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament to implement Brexit was illegal. The English High Court said the courts could not intervene.
The Supreme Court looked at both judgements and agreed with the Scottish court, in a ruling binding in both England and Scotland because it considered both English and Scots law.
That is what we were trying to replicate over the proscription of Palestine Action, but we have been thwarted by the most pernicious Lawfare by the UK government, pursuing delay after delay, abetted by the cowardly Lord Young who ran away from and reversed his initial permission in the face of government pressure. He granted suspension after suspension, retreating into a rationale that a Scottish judicial review would be expensive and a drain on judicial resources.
We obtained an appeal by “urgent process” against the suspension. That appeal by “urgent process” was heard on 25 September. The judges appeared unsympathetic to us in the extreme. At the conclusion Lord Pentland said the three judges would reconvene in half an hour to give their judgement.
From the demeanour of the judges throughout the hearing, our legal team was convinced the judgement would go completely against us, as was I. To our surprise when they came back after half an hour they said they need longer to think, and they would bring in their judgement in a few days, specifically noting the urgency of the case.
I like to think that they are finding it really difficult to draft something that explains why they are abandoning the Treaty of Union. The right of a Scot to have the case heard by a Scottish court when their liberty is infringed by the Executive is not something that can be simply tossed away, without careful special pleading. Equally they have to explain why they are abandoning Cherry/Miller.
The whole handling of this case, and the deference being shown to the decisions of English courts, is yet more evidence that this pretended Union is a farce. We are a colony. It is time to move urgently for Independence.
We need help urgently as our legal bills currently exceed the amount of money raised. I have put in money myself but I am now wiped out. Our state opponents have had our crowdfunder closed down, which is disgusting in the middle of a legal case, but reflects the world in 2026.
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Rather than abandoning the plainly nuts Fairford narrative, Burnham and his government are doubling down on the claim it is an Iranian terror plot.
It remains quite possible the men were indeed fuel thieves, simply stealing fuel from farms. They appear to have been equipped for fuel theft and all they were carrying was petrol. It is worth a footnote that there is a very real history of US military personnel, and indeed British personnel, selling military fuel from bases. Stolen red diesel meant for HMS Bulwark fuelled fairground rides throughout England, which I think is rather lovely. But if the Fairford Five were fuel thieves, farms are more probable as the target.
We should pause here to acknowledge that USAF Fairford is falsely designated RAF Fairford, itself a propaganda lie, just like “RAF Lakenheath” or “RAF Mildenhall”. The UK is full of US military bases, on which US law applies. (My birth certificate gives my father’s occupation as “Clerk USAF”. He was employed at Mildenhall at the time).
It is a classic example of state propaganda that the petrol discovered in the Fairford vans was described by counter terror police as a potential accelerant for a bomb.
Well yes, petrol is that. It has however, rather more obvious uses too. The same technique was used at the height of the War on Terror propaganda in the Great Easter Bomb Plot, that never was. Police rounded up and arrested many young Muslims across the Manchester region, which was front-page news. They were all later released without charge.
But at the time of arrest the police announced they had found a potential bomb-making ingredient in a kitchen.
Well, they had. It was a bag of sugar. Sugar is indeed a potential bomb-making ingredient. Yet most of us have a bag in the kitchen. At least it did not take the police ten days to find the bag of sugar in the kitchen, unlike when they searched Charlie Rowley’s flat for a vial of novichok, and it took them ten days to “find” a bottle of perfume sitting on the kitchen counter.
For Fairford, on balance I think a false flag gone wrong is a little more likely than just fuel thieves. We know the men had no bombs and no guns, which makes the terrorist narrative rather hard for the government to sustain. But if they were patsies set up in a false flag, there would be plenty of things already on the base that go bang which could have been used to create the “terrorist incident” around them.
Two key points make me think this was a false flag. Firstly the lady farmer who called 999 was adamant there were more men that the five arrested and bailed. The others would have been the spycops – agents provocateurs – who would have been quietly spirited away from the scene. That also fits with the released information that it was one of the men who phoned in a warning about the “attack”.
It looks to me like a false flag spectacular had been planned, with US involvement as claimed by Trump and possibly Israeli knowledge as claimed by Netanyahu. This operation by the security services was viewed as over the pay grade of local police (who might be inconveniently honest) who were not in the picture. It all went horribly wrong for the government when an alert local farmer called the local police, and when a participant also called it in. That could have been one of the recruited “terrorists” who got cold feet, or one of the agents panicked they had lost contact with their line of command.
The use of recruited patsies to carry out false flags is now better understood. I have been writing about it since before the Newburgh bomb plot which was a particularly egregious example. In the United States there has been more awareness of and reaction to agent provocateur incited plots than in the UK.
For anyone sceptical, here is a summary of Newburgh:
In May 2009 the FBI arrested four poor men from Newburgh, New York, and announced it had foiled a plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes at Stewart Air National Guard base. The plot, the targets, the inert bombs and the disabled Stinger missile were all supplied by the Bureau. The recruiter was Shahed Hussain, a Pakistani fraudster who had become an informant to avoid deportation after a driving-licence scam. Paid nearly $100,000, he spent more than a year fishing at a Newburgh mosque, posing as a wealthy Jaish-e-Mohammed agent, before latching onto James Cromitie, a Walmart stocker and petty drug dealer.
Hussain offered heavenly reward and as much as $250,000. Cromitie brought in three others: Onta Williams, David Williams and Laguerre Payen. Hussain drove them across a state line to inspect the fake weapons, which federalised the charges and carried a 25-year minimum. They were convicted in 2010.
The sentencing judge, Colleen McMahon, said she believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that there would have been no crime except that the government instigated it, planned it and brought it to fruition. In 2023 she ordered the release of three of them, calling it an FBI-orchestrated conspiracy and writing that the real lead conspirator was the United States. She freed Cromitie in 2024 on the same basis, describing him as a small-time grifter with no history of violence and Hussain as a villain who had lured him with promises of both heavenly and earthly rewards.
The Golders Green ambulances arson was a classic of this false flag genre. Four young Muslims were recruited, in this case online rather than in person, by someone they never saw who was almost certainly a Mossad agent. They were offered money to attack the ambulances, which they did. The attack is then blamed on Iran through a claim on a Telegram channel on behalf of an “Iranian organisation”, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, which is a Mossad fabrication.
HAYI first became known to the world through simultaneous press releases on 16 March by five Israeli government outlets in Israel, US and UK (including BICOM) and an article by the Israeli front “Foundation for Defending Democracy”. The FDD’s Nick Stewart travels with Kushner and Witkoff as part of the US negotiating team on the Middle East.
There are numerous reasons for doubting the real existence of HAYI. None of its material is in Farsi. All of its “attacks” have been minor arson attacks on pointless targets that hurt nobody. The grammar, calligraphy and imagery of its materials are all wrong.
The UK state itself has now debunked some of the Mossad HAYI narrative. On 29 April, when Essa Suleiman stabbed three men, the entire media blocked out the first Muslim victim and claimed an antisemitic terrorist attack on the two in Golders Green. The HAYI Mossad run “Iranian” Telegram channel immediately put out a statement claiming responsibility for the attack. But yesterday police and prosecution were forced to drop the claim it was a terrorist attack at all. The stabbing of the Muslim is charged as attempted murder, though still ignored by the media. So “HAYI” claimed responsibility for a non-existent terrorist incident.
A false flag can be, but is not necessarily, the state planting a bomb and then blaming someone else. It can be more complex – the state recruiting people to plant bombs. Those people may believe they are genuinely part of an ideological campaign, or may just be doing it for money.
The opaque Starmer rent-boy arson plot, in which Ukrainian male models burnt property associated with Keir Starmer, remains unclear, largely because any discussion of what lay behind the attacks was banned by the judge in the trial. But the media, with government encouragement, continually relays the story that the arsonists were recruited online by a man known as “El Money”. An interesting twist here is that the media constantly refer to him as Russian-speaking. But the evidence in court is that he spoke both Russian and Ukrainian.
Almost all adult Ukrainians can speak Russian. The number of Russians who speak Ukrainian is very small. Yet El Money is now routinely portrayed as Russian.
Which brings us to the whole question of Russian “hybrid attacks”, where we are asked to believe the narrative of the security services of states whose leaders are openly promoting war with Russia, about desultory and mysterious attacks. The rather sorry Leipzig drone is a good example. We have a more recent claim of Russian arson from Estonia, a state which has instituted massive discrimination against the 29% of its population who speak Russian.
Not only has Estonia closed Russian schools, libraries, theatres, churches, cinemas and university courses, it even refuses passports to people born and bred in Estonia, whose parents were born and bred in Estonia, if they cannot speak Estonian. That is totally contrary to numerous UN, Council of Europe and OSCE instruments on protection of minority linguistic rights.
It is one thing to insist on language qualification for citizenship for new immigrants. Many countries do. It is quite another thing to deny citizenship to a native linguistic minority. Estonia was part of Russia from 1721 to 1919 and of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1991. It has Russian speakers.
So I decline to believe the Estonian government on Russian “hybrid attacks”.
Which brings us to the amazing “FlyDubai” hijacking and the heroic plumber who knew how to rescue a plane from a death dive because he watched Air Crash Investigation.
There are real problems with this narrative. One is that the plane is said to have dived approximately 15,000 feet in about 30 seconds. This is said to be confirmed by independent flight trackers.
The force was so enormous that the rudder ripped off the plane.
Picture a dive of 500 feet – that is more than a 40 storey building – per second. Picture that. 500 feet in a second. Imagine yourself falling that fast. The forces would be enormous inside the cabin. Anybody not strapped in would be lifted right out of their seats and probably hit the ceiling. Many would be injured. Any unfastened object, including major ones like food trollies, would be hurled about with great force. Baggage lockers would come unlocked as the weight of the bags inside was hurled up. Remember this dive ripped the rudder off. It would be impossible for anyone not strapped into their chair to keep their footing or seat.
Chilling footage of the Flydubai FZ1073 commercial plane making a rapid descent during the on-board struggle between the hijacking pilot and co-pilot/passengers. pic.twitter.com/PsSSPwhThr
— Status-6 (@Archer83Able) September 30, 2026
We have a great many videos from on board the plane but nothing like this is shown. No video shows this kind of extreme situation, and the cabin at the end of the flight is remarkably undisturbed.
Before #FZ1073 changed its squawk to 7700, we observed extreme fluctuations in the transmitted altitude data, with calculated vertical speeds ranging from approximately -30,000 to +10,000 ft/min.
For context, vertical speeds during normal operations rarely exceed ±4,000 ft/min.… pic.twitter.com/Zgyn0iQ33a
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) September 30, 2026
There is also a problem with that flight-tracking data. As pointed out by this commercial pilot on CNN, a plan can’t easily slow down in mid-air. He is disbelieving of how quickly the flight trackers show the plane returning to normal speed. He is also deeply sceptical of the ability to control the plane after the rudder came off due to loss of hydraulic fluid, and of the chances of the airframe staying together. Now compare that to the lack of cabin tumult.
I have seen it argued that if you entered the dive very gently and carefully without sudden change of pitch, and exited it similarly smoothly, then you would avoid extreme G-forces and the cabin might be relatively undisturbed. Even if so, it is hard to imagine the kind of smooth transition into the dive in the circumstances we are told were occurring in the cockpit, with the co-pilot deliberately putting the plane in a death dive while fighting with the pilot.
The smooth transition out of the dive in the official story was achieved by a plumber who knew what to do from watching Air Crash Investigation. I don’t think I need to comment on that.
We will never find out the truth about FlyDubai. The plane diverted to Saudi Arabia. The copilot who is being painted as an Islamic extremist will be isolated there and tortured by the Saudis. Netanyahu has already said Israel will join the interrogation. Do not believe any confession or evidence from the co-pilot.
The plane was a Boeing, so the USA will join the initial investigation alongside UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel. A more potent coalition of Zionist evil does not exist. We will certainly have faked flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder evidence coming from that shower.
I do feel something has snapped in people’s willingness to believe official narratives. The Skripal narrative was even more crazy than any of these, but most people still trusted government. Thankfully that faith has been seriously shaken.
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The post Fatuous False Flags appeared first on Craig Murray.
I have lost faith both in Western social democracy, and in the institutions of international law. As both have been fundamental to the work of my life, this is rather a blow as I approach 70.
A number of deeply shocking things have happened this past three years, not as extraneous events, but as conscious acts of western governments acting in unison. The Genocide in Gaza has been the most obvious.
When social media started to show us relentless imagery of shredded children and human suffering beyond belief, it was astonishing to me that the governments of the western social democracies almost unanimously continued to support Israel. The UK is actively complicit in the Genocide, providing weaponry, aerial surveillance, intelligence cooperation and vital diplomatic and political support to Israel.
Somehow I thought this would all stop. Equilibrium would be restored, the innate decency of the British people would prevail, and the support for Israel would be reversed. Indeed, I reasoned, in the long term this could break the hold of the Zionist donor network on British politicians, so deep was the popular revulsion at the most public and vicious genocide imaginable.
None of this happened. Instead the more indefensible Israel’s actions have become, the more the UK’s political and media Establishment have rallied to Israel. In the UK as throughout the world, our rulers have responded to dissent over Israel with harsh repression of their own people. To see Burnham stand at the podium of the UN General Assembly in New York and declare the UK’s support for Israel, while the genocide continues and Israel is relentlessly destroying southern Lebanon and is occupying southern Syria, was instructive.
His tactical change of tone to notice Israeli crimes has no practical effect. The UK implements new sanctions on Russia within 48 hours of announcement, or even less. The “sanctions” on Israeli illegal settlements are going to take a year to design and implement, to make certain they don’t work.
When they proscribed as “terrorist” a civil disobedience group and police started arresting little old ladies as terrorists for protesting about it, I thought this too was a temporary madness which would pass. I witnessed outside the Royal Courts of Justice the police lifting up elderly people in wheelchairs to arrest them for holding a sign, and I thought ultimately the system will repudiate this madness.
It has not repudiated the madness. It turns out that policemen are happy to arrest octogenarian priests for expressing the wrong thoughts, and judges are prepared to impose vicious “terrorist connection” prison terms for property damage by persons seeking to hinder a genocide. The English Court of Appeal stated coldly:
The vast majority of those arrested had chosen to hold signs which read, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”. We attach little weight to this when it comes to assessing the extent of the interference with Convention rights in this case. All those holding such signs either did or ought to have realised that what they were doing was showing support for Palestine Action.
It is one thing for people voluntarily to hold a placard supporting Palestine Action which they know to be a proscribed organisation. That is a criminal act.
I have mentioned this to you before but I was very struck when I read Irmtrud Wojak’s life of Fritz Bauer by the continuity of individual judges and lawyers, who served on with equanimity under the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and West Germany without evidence of guilt and remorse. About 70% of West German judges had been Nazi judges administering “Nazi justice.”
Fritz Bauer, a radical German Jewish prosecutor, was continually blocked in his heroic efforts to bring some justice. The book held me so strongly because it is the granular narration of the banality of evil, in its tale after tale of Nazi criminals protected by compromised judges.
The realisation that the law is nothing to do with justice, and that courts are imposing the power of the state rather than seeking some higher ideal, came home to me on Friday as we sat through the expedited hearing of our appeal at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, where we are trying to make the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action actually happen.
This was our sixth or seventh time in court and we have spent about £250,000 trying to protect the liberties of people in Scotland from oppression. Very decent people are being branded as terrorists, with potentially life-changing consequences, for merely holding a placard or wearing a T shirt. I met one person in Glasgow whose home and vehicle insurance had increased by over £600 as a result of a terrorism charge for a T shirt. Others have been debanked. International travel is restricted. The jail sentences are still to come.
The Court of Appeal of England and Wales has ruled all this as proportionate in the interests of “National Security”, to protect the nation from those who would disrupt the Israeli weapons supply chain. Our effort to challenge it in Scotland has met with delay after delay, and a blistering exhibition of trench Lawfare by the UK government.
I don’t think the judges of the Inner House of the Court of Session who heard us on Friday could have been less engaged. Aidan O’Neill KC spoke for us for over an hour about the constitutional right of Scots to have their liberties protected by a Scottish court, about the lack of any provision in Court Rules for suspending – “sisting” – a judicial review as this one had been – about the perverse decision to grant the Review and then continually suspend it, causing us great expense.
What he did not talk about – because this was a purely procedural hearing – was the arrests and lives in turmoil in Scotland, still less the lives destroyed in Gaza.
The three judges sat making notes but did not engage with Aidan, asking almost no questions. This was entirely different when the UK Government lawyer spoke, Mark Lindsay KC, addressed the court very briefly. The judges engaged with him constantly, to reinforce his points or to suggest additional helpful points he might have missed.
Lord Pentland, the Lord President of the Court of Session (and former Tory parliamentary candidate) got most animated when discussing the secret closed court sessions where secret intelligence evidence is heard that we are never told about. Pentland seemed extremely pleased with the notion that these are difficult and time consuming and there could not be enough time for them before the UK Supreme Court hears the English appeal on 4 November.
Mark Lindsay added here the incredible point that the judgement in the judicial review must be cleared with the security services, which would take at least five days. He explained that one reason it takes so long is that it needs to be typed on special secure laptops.
So that is where we are in 2026. Courts hearing secret evidence from the security services that the petitioner in the case will never see, and the security services vetting the judgement of the court.
The other reasons Lindsay advanced for not having a judicial review were equally jaw dropping. It would cost money, and use judicial resources that might be better deployed on something else. It would simply be too expensive for Scotland. Best just follow whatever England said.
I have to say I left court deeply depressed. Judgement is reserved – itself significant when we were arguing for the judicial review to proceed urgently before the Supreme Court meets.
Currently the full video of the hearing is still available here.
If that was not miserable enough, we also had to endure the UN General Assembly being treated, not as a meeting point for nations to speak peace and reach agreement, but as a rostrum for crazed fascism.
We had Donald Trump threatening to annihilate Iran and destroy Iranian culture. We had ICC-wanted war criminal Netanyahu waving around pagers to glory in terrorism while taunting the world. Both spoke from a position of confidence in military power enabling them to defy and humiliate the world community. It may be hubris, but it is currently in the ascendant. China shows no interest in countering it and nobody else really can.
Neither China nor Russia were strong in condemnation of Israel over Gaza – they did not speak the language of war crimes at the General Assembly, let alone Genocide. Both made anodyne remarks about a two-state solution, and said that Israeli actions were endangering its viability. As it is blindingly obvious that a two-state solution is now impossible, this was pathetic. Remember – and this is key to understanding the world today – neither Russia nor China vetoed the UN Security Council resolution endorsing Trump’s Board of Peace and giving it a firm right in international law to control the destiny of Gaza.
The European powers used the UN podium to spout Russophobia and amplify the demand for war with Russia.
I despair for the United Nations. I despair for the International Criminal court, which seems fatally undermined. Its arrest warrant for Netanyahu is ignored by the Western powers. Three EU states allowed his plane to overfly their airspace en route to New York. Karim Khan was ousted as Chief Prosecutor for obtaining the warrant against Netanyahu, on flimsy sexual abuse allegations for which an inquiry by three judges found no firm evidence. The Western powers led a fierce campaign for his dismissal by the member states.
The judges themselves have been subject to US sanctions and debanking. I had always hoped – and believed – the ICC would develop beyond a role of punishing the West’s designated enemies and keeping Africa in line. I did not realise that as soon as the ICC did this, the Western powers would move to destroy the ICC.
The venerable International Court of Justice is also creaking. I had expected it would take three years or so for it to reach a decision in the South Africa vs Israel genocide case. That timetable now looks more like eight years.
In part it seems that South Africa may have blinked. It was South Africa which requested an extraordinary 18 months to reply to Israel’s response to their petition. The Court had already granted Israel two lengthy postponements of their reply. The Israelis will then get to reply again and a further 18 months. I suspect South Africa is going along with kicking the can down the road under US pressure, and the new timetable will take us beyond Trump.
It is however not a good look for the Court to take so long in deciding on a case over a Convention which is supposed to prevent Genocide, not to punish it. It is also notable that Israel has entirely ignored the interim orders the Court gave two years ago, and ignored the separate judgement on the status of the Occupied Territories.
The truth is the Court has no armies, and as the Western powers are actively abetting Israel in its actions the ICJ is, sadly, a dead letter.
The UK is now going to ignore the ICJ decision on the Chagos Islands. The court ruled that the UK must give them back to Mauritius. The US airbase on Diego Garcia is irrelevant to that ICJ decision. The UK has now decided to defy the ICJ because the US has declined to pay for the lease of the airbase from Mauritius. That in no way negates the duty to return the islands. But the UK media have reported Streeting’s decision to cancel the return of the islands with, so far as I have seen, no reference to the ICJ at all.
It is not just that the institutions of law, both domestically and internationally, in which I have lost belief. The social contract of Western nations, in which the government provides for the welfare of the population in return for their loyalty and taxes, appears to have broken down.
The trend towards greater wealth inequality in late-stage capitalism is incredibly, exponentially rapid. Living standards for ordinary people have been static for two decades and, whatever official statistics may say, to many if feels their standard of living has declined. Social mobility is gone. Graduates are stacking shelves and delivering pizzas. Heating and fuel costs are extraordinary. So is rent, and landlordism is rampant.
It is impossible to look at social media without hitting the stark reality that Islamophobia and racism are now deeply seated in a large proportion of the population. The propaganda model has been reinforced by the billionaire capture of all the major social media gatekeeper apps. Rather than being a possible solution to state and billionaire propaganda, social media has become a major part of the problem. It appears particularly effective in amplifying and spreading racism.
We are now faced with a Ministry of Truth in the UK to enforce state propaganda narratives – like the ridiculous Skripal story, the ambulances false flag or the Fairford farrago. The one thing we know for certain about “RAF” – truly USAF – Fairford is that hundreds of tonnes of high explosive have been dropped from Fairford on Iran. The notion of “defensive bombing” – parroted by the entire media – is an Orwellian symptom of what we have become.
There is no escaping the fact that large numbers of people are very susceptible to the propaganda. I know well-meaning left-wing people who believe that Iran machine gunned 50,000 dissidents and that nothing significant happened in Ukraine before 2022.
The focus of hate away from the billionaire class who are enslaving society, and towards immigrants, is most worrying of all. It of course feeds both domestic and foreign policy views – there are vast numbers of people delighted at the mass murder of Iranians, Palestinians, Lebanese or Yemenis because they are brown or Muslim. The same people think that immigrants in small boats are responsible for the decline in standard of living of working people in the UK.
Western social democracy is dying.
The democracy bit offers no meaningful choice at election in terms of wealth distribution or the structure of capitalist society. It offers no significant variation on the increasingly authoritarian nature of the state. It certainly offers no choice in foreign or defence policy. It really only offers a bit more or a bit less racism in immigration and welfare policies.
The social bit is decaying even faster. The very fabric of our cities is visibly crumbling. In the UK the health service is strained beyond utility in a great many cases. State pensions are miserly and insufficient. Many young people have no prospect but to pay rent to landlords for poor quality housing their whole life. Many graduates will never find meaningful or satisfactory employment. All of this is getting palpably worse year by year.
That’s me in the corner
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
I feel that the rather pleasant world I grew up in has been replaced by something much nastier and more raw. Literally dozens of my friends have been arrested these last three years, simply for what they say and think.
The problem with losing faith is how you replace it.
Another problem is that the legal battle for Palestine Action still has to be paid for. Our CrowdJustice crowdfunder was closed down by the card processors as a result of pressure from the USA. I was informed by the legal team on Friday that legal fees due currently outstrip available funds. If you can help, please do. If you know somebody else better placed to help, please ask them.
These alternative donation methods are still working as of 29 September 12 noon. Any funds received will checked hourly and be paid immediately to the lawyers to avoid possible seizure.
Other donation methods are currently still available even though the CrowdJustice route has been closed.. Obviously we now need funds more than ever to carry on.
Alternatively by bank transfer:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
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The post Losing My Religion appeared first on Craig Murray.
On Friday we have our appeal against the suspension of the Palestine Action judicial review in Scotland. Our legal crowdfunder has been closed down by the card processors following Trump’s designation of Palestine Action as a global terrorist organisation.
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/scottish-challenge-to-proscription/dashboard/
If you can, please come to the Court of Session in Edinburgh for 10am. If you cannot come, you can watch the livestream here
For the first time I was not involved with the legal team in drafting the Note of Argument, because I was too sick in the three day window after the last hearing we had to prepare it.
It turns out that our lawyers are much more radical when freed from me exhorting them to be more radical!
NOTE OF ARGUMENT FOR THE RECLAIMER
PETITION
of
CRAIG MURRAY, residing at EH10
RECLAIMER
For judicial review of the Terrorism Act 2000
(Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 The reclaimer moves the Court to:
a. allow the reclaiming motion;
b. recall the interlocutor of the Lord Ordinary dated 25 August 2026;
c. remit the cause to the Lord Ordinary:
i. with a direction that he report the whole cause to the Inner House in terms of rule 34.1(1);
ii. failing which, with a direction for urgent disposal of the petition in the Outer House.
2. SUMMARY
2.1 For the reasons outlined in this Note, the reclaimer submits that:
a. The decision to sist the proceedings was incompetent, failing which, plainly wrong in all of the circumstances.
b. The decision not to report the whole cause to the Inner House, while also declining to dispose of the petition in the Outer House, was plainly wrong in all of the circumstances.
3. THE PETITION
3.1 The petition contends that the Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025 (“the Order”) is unlawful because
(i) it was passed in circumstances which are procedurally unfair, et separatim
(ii) it gives rise to a disproportionate interference with the reclaimer’s Convention Rights under Art.10 ECHR; et separatim
(iii) it gives rise to a disproportionate interference with the reclaimer’s Convention Rights under Art.11 ECHR. The petition as adjusted raises, among other matters, Scotland-specific issues around (lack of) prior consultation with relevant Scottish actors, and the relevance of events occurring in Scotland and founded upon by the Home Secretary in support of the Order. The petition seeks orders of declarator and reduction directed against the Order.
4. CHRONOLOGY/PROCEDURAL HISTORY
4.1 In order for the court properly to understand the grounds of appeal, it is necessary to contextualise them within the procedural history of this petition to date, which is as follows:
4 Jul 2025 The Home Secretary makes the Order which, effective from 5 July 2025,
lists and proscribes across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as “organisations concerned in terrorism”:
– “the organisation using the name Palestine Action that is based in the United Kingdom”
– Maniacs Murder Cult (MMC) (MKU) (MKY) and – Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) (RID), including Russian Imperial Legion (RIL).
3 Oct 2025 Within 3 months of its publication, the reclaimer lodges the petition in which he seeks to challenge the lawfulness of the Order.
6 Oct 2025 The Lord Ordinary, Lady Poole, grants first orders in the petition.
11 Dec 2025 The UK Government having lodged Answers and intimated that it opposed the grant of permission, the Lord Ordinary, Lord Young, advises that he wishes to be addressed by parties in relation to two issues raised in the Answers lodged by the respondent, namely: (i) whether the petitioner had a sufficient interest to give him standing to proceed with this petition, and(ii) whether it was appropriate or necessary for these proceedings to proceed given the existence of what the Lord Ordinary referred to as “identical proceedings in England” which had been brought by Huda Ammori.
12 Jan 2026 At an oral permission hearing, the Lord Ordinary, Lord Young, hears submissions from the UK Government (as respondent to the petition) to the effect that, given the existence of the English proceedings, the Lord Ordinary should suspend or stop the Scottish petition proceedings pending the determination of the English proceedings, whether by:
– refusing the petitioner permission to proceed; or alternatively;
– reserving the issue of permission and sisting the Scottish JR until a decision was available in the English proceedings; or
– granting permission but then immediately sisting the proceedings until the decision in the English proceedings was available and had been digested.
The Court, having heard submissions from counsel both for the petitioner and the respondent at the oral hearing, makes avizandum.
26 Jan 2026 The Lord Ordinary, Lord Young, grants permission for the petition noting that:
“As a matter of principle, a petitioner who has standing and whose petition sets out arguments of sufficient merit to satisfy section 27B(2)(b) of the Court of Session Act 1988 should not be refused permission because of the existence of parallel proceedings in another UK jurisdiction. The petitioner claims that his legal rights have been illegally circumscribed by the 2025 Order. He is entitled to look to the courts of his place of residence for a determination of that complaint. … There is no suggestion that these proceedings are being advanced for an improper or abusive purpose such as a campaign to swamp the respondent with a multitude of proceedings. The possibility that any substantive hearing in this petition will require the adoption of closed material procedure is not a factor of any weight to the issue of permission. The necessary arrangements will be put in place if the closed material procedure is required” [pleadings bundle p.36].
The Lord Ordinary accordingly fixes a substantive hearing for 17–18 March 2026 for the judicial review petition to be considered and determined.
11 Feb 2026 The Lord Ordinary, Lord Young, on the respondent’s motion discharges the timetable set out in the interlocutor dated 26 January 2026 and allocates 23 February 2026 to allow parties to address the court (anew) on the matter of timetabling.
26 Feb 2026 The Lord Ordinary, Lord Young, discharges the substantive hearing fixed for 17–18 March 2026. In lieu he thereof assigns a substantive hearing to take place before him on 24–25 June 2026. He orders the respondent to appoint a special advocate within 7 days of the petitioner intimating a suitable name to the Special Advocate Support Office (SASO). He orders the special advocate to intimate to the court by 20 March 2026 whether there is any opposition from him to an application for a declarator (under section 6 of the Justice and Security Act 2013) that a closed material application may be made to the court in these proceedings. He allocates an initial diet for his consideration of the section 6 application on 26 March 2026.
17 Mar 2026 The Lord Ordinary grants the UK Government’s motion
– made under reference to sections 8 and 11(4) of the Justice and Security Act 2013
– for the court’s permission for the UK Government to withhold sensitive material otherwise than to the Court and the Special Advocate, for the purpose of its section 6 application.
26 Mar 2026 The Lord Ordinary grants the UK Government its requested Section 6 declaration that the proceedings are proceedings in which a closed material application may be made to the court. He refuses (in hoc statu) a renewed motion from the UK Government for the proceedings to be sisted. He makes detailed procedural orders concerning the Closed Procedure in which the petitioner cannot participate in any way. In respect of open procedure, he assigns 10 June 2026 for a further continued procedural hearing. He allows parties to adjust their pleadings and to lodge final versions by 2 June 2026. He appoints notes of argument, statements of issues, productions and affidavits to be lodged no later than 9 June 2026. He appoints parties to lodge a list and duly marked-up bundle of authorities no later than 10 days prior to an OPEN substantive hearing fixed for 24-25 June 2026. A CLOSED substantive hearing is fixed for 26 June 2026.
27–28 May 2026 The Lord Ordinary, Lord Young, makes a number of orders including: refusing the petitioner’s motion “for suspension ad interim of the Order in so far as it extends to Scotland” and allowing the UK Government to withhold sensitive material otherwise than to the Court and the Special Advocate, for the purpose of its application under Section 8 of the 2013 Act. In the face of opposition from the petitioner, the Lord Ordinary grants the respondent’s motion to sist the cause for the earlier of 4 months, or “the Court of Appeal giving its judgment in Ammori v SSHD (Appeal No. CA-2026-000583) and the question of onward appeal to the UK Supreme Court being resolved”, noting:
“9. … Where the identical matter extending to Scotland has been argued and determined by a competent court in the UK, it is contrary to the principle of comity for this court to seek to relitigate that issue. …. ”
14. A sist of proceedings, whether on an agreed or opposed basis, is a regular feature of litigation. It is commonly applied where there is a test case which will determine common issues found in other cases. Those other cases will be sisted behind the test case. Sists may be imposed by the court against the wishes of one or both parties. Scottish cases are often sisted pending determination of parallel proceedings in England, and vice versa. Ultimately, the aim is to ensure that common issues are determined as expeditiously as possible, and with the avoidance of unnecessary legal costs. Such a course also minimises the risk of conflicting judicial decisions, so it enhances legal certainty. …
15. … We know that a decision of the Court of Appeal will have been issued prior to the substantive hearing [fixed for 24–25 June 2026]. While that judgment may, or may not, be the final word on this issue, the judgments handed down by the Court of Appeal will be highly significant. It is almost inevitable that the final decision on the legality of the 2025 Order will be made either by the English Court of Appeal, or by the Supreme Court on a further appeal in Ammori. The petitioner’s challenge to the 2025 Order in these proceedings is likely to be resolved, one way or the other, by the final decision in Ammori. …. The most expeditious route for the petitioner and the respondent, and the one which minimises costs for all parties including the public purse, is to sist the present proceedings” [pleadings bundle pp.50–52].
14 Jul 2026 The Lord Ordinary refuses a motion made by the reclaimer to recall the sist previously granted and, under and in terms of rule 34.1(1) of the Rules of the Court, to report the whole cause to the Inner House. The Lord Ordinary considers that the motion is premature, given the question of whether Ms Ammori is to seek – and, if so, obtain – from the UK Supreme Court its permission to appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal is yet to be resolved.
30 Jul 2026 The UK Supreme Court grants its permission for the claimant in the English proceedings to appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in her Judicial Review, Ammori v SSHD [2026] EWCA Civ 721. The UK Supreme Court fixes a two day diet (4 and 5 November 2026) for the hearing of this appeal.
20 Aug 2026 A By Order hearing is fixed by the Lord Ordinary to consider further procedure in the Scottish proceedings. Given that the conditions imposed in the sist pronounced on 28 May 2026 have been purified the petitioner moves the court to allow previously intimated adjustments to the petition and thereupon to report the whole cause to the Inner House; which failing for the court to fix an expedited timetable for a substantive hearing to be heard before the Lord Ordinary as soon as possible, so that the matter may then be taken to the Inner House within the month. The UK Government seek instead a further sist. The Lord Ordinary makes avizandum.
25 Aug 2026 The Lord Ordinary, Lord Young, refuse the petitioner’s motion to report the whole cause to the Inner House and instead grants the UK Government’s motion to sist the cause pending the outcome of the Supreme Court decision in Ammori v SSHD on the basis that “ultimately, this will secure the speediest final determination of the issues which the petitioner raises” [pleadings bundle p.59]. He makes no order in respect of the adjustments to the petition intimated by the petitioner.
5. THE PROCEEDINGS IN AMMORI
5.1 Ms Ammori is the claimant in an application for judicial review in England and Wales. She succeeded before a bench of three in the Divisional Court on the basis of a challenge to the Home Secretary’s application of her policy (which challenge does not feature in this petition), and on ECHR grounds: R (Ammori) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] EWHC 292 (Admin), [2026] HRLR 9.
5.2 The Home Secretary was successful on appeal before a bench of five in the Court of Appeal (Lady Carr CJ, Sir Geoffrey Vos MR, Edis LJ Vice President of the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal, Lewis LJ and Whipple LJ): Secretary of State for the Home Department v Ammori [2026] EWCA Civ 721.
5.3 The UKSC has granted Ms Ammori permission to appeal in relation to her case based in ECHR rights and fixed, on an expedited basis, a two-day hearing to determine her appeal on 4–5 November 2026.
6. GROUND OF APPEAL 1 – NOT COMPETENT TO SIST THESE JR PROCEEDINGS
6.1 The reclaimer’s first ground of appeal is that the Lord Ordinary erred in holding as a matter of law that it is competent to sist judicial review proceedings because:
(1) there is no Rule of Court applicable to judicial review procedure under reference to which a sist might properly be pronounced in the circumstances of this post-permission application for judicial review.
(2) given that the Rules of Court applicable to judicial review procedure make specific provisions as to when sist might be pronounced by the Lord Ordinary (none of which were applied in the circumstances in which the sists at issue were pronounced in these proceedings) the inherent power or procedural jurisdiction of the court could not competently be prayed in aid by the Lord Ordinary to supply a power which had been excluded by implication (on the basis of the brocard expressio unius est exclusio alterius) by the express terms of the Rules of Court.
(3) in any event pronouncing the sists as the Lord Ordinary did was wholly incompatible with the overall requirement for “speedy determination” which necessarily characterises and applied to procedural decisions in judicial review proceedings.
6.2 Despite having been fully addressed on these points by the petitioner at both the hearings on 14 July 2026 and on 20 August 2026, the Lord Ordinary does not directly address the issue of competency in the reasons provided alongside his interlocutor of 25 August 2026. He does not indicate which Rule of Court he founds upon in sisting the proceedings. But, since he did sist the proceedings in the face of submissions on competency, it can be taken that he considered a sist was a competent order available to him. This was an error of law.
6.3 The relevant Rules of Court applicable to judicial review proceedings are set out in Chapter 58. This Chapter contains the principles which the Lord Ordinary was obliged to apply within judicial review procedure, as a distinct form of recourse to the courts in public law matters. It forms a code governing the entirety of the procedure.
6.4 Chapter 58 makes it clear that the principle of “speedy determination” applies to the procedure to be adopted in judicial review petitions, both before (per RCS 58.4(4)) and after permission has been granted (RCS 58.11(2) and 58.12(2)). The aim of judicial review procedure is to “focus the issues so that the court can reach a decision upon them, in the interests of sound administration and in the public interest, as soon as possible”: Somerville v. Scottish Ministers [2007] UKHL 44, 2008 SC (HL) 45 per Lord Hope at para 65, approved and relied upon in Wightman v. Advocate General [2018] CSIH 18, 2018 SC 388 at para 10.
6.5 Chapter 58 is not created in ignorance of the possibility of a sist. A sist for legal aid is expressly provided for (RCS 58.4(5)(h); 58.4(7)) at the pre-permission stage. But even in that context, the Court is bound to have regard to the need for speedy determination and a default duration of two months is applicable.
6.6 In this respect, Chapter 58 – which forms a complete procedural code for judicial review proceedings characterised in particular by the principle of speedy determination – can be distinguished from other provisions of the Rules of Court (see, for example, RCS 22.3(6); RCS 25A.10; RCS 40.8; RCS 40.12; RCS 43.8; RCS 43.20; RCS 49.18A; RCS 49.69; RCS 49.79F; RCS 62.17; RCS 65.4; RCS 82.5).
6.7 Against the general principle of statutory construction that expressio unius est exclusio alterius, the correct legal conclusion given that the possibility of pronouncing a sist is not listed among the particular orders which may be pronounced by the court under Chapter 58, is that such an order is not competent.
6.8 Even if the effect of RCS 58 is not to provide a ‘closed list’ of the orders that may be made in a petition for judicial review, the (in)competency of a sist (other than for reason of legal aid) is put beyond peradventure by the mandatory provision of RCS 58.11(2), under which the Lord Ordinary must make orders which are appropriate for the “speedy determination of the petition”. An order to sist proceedings in which a petition would be determined is, plainly and necessarily, inconsistent with the speedy determination of the petition. A Lord Ordinary has no power to make an order which is inconsistent with his mandatory duty in terms of RCS 58.11(2).
6.9 The respondent claimed that, even in situation where no express provision for this was made in Chapter 58 of the Rules of Court, the Lord Ordinary had power under the court’s inherent jurisdiction to pronounce a sist. This submission led the Lord Ordinary into a further error of law. The Rules of Court are not “guidelines” to be applied or disapplied, under reference to the court’s inherent jurisdiction, as the Lord Ordinary may think expedient. They are rules of law in the form of Scottish Statutory Instrument which have been created by the court formally exercising by Act of Sederunt its own legislative powers – as confirmed by Section 103 of the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 – to regulate the procedure and practice to be followed in proceedings in the Court, and any matter incidental or ancillary to such proceedings.
6.10 In the absence of express legislative exclusion or limitation, the courts have an inherent power to do what is necessary to discharge the whole of their responsibilities (Hall vAssociated Newspapers Ltd 1979 JC 1 per Lord Justice General Emslie at 9; see also Erskine, Institute, I,ii,8 [authorities bundle p.39]). The Rules of Court are mainly concerned with prescribing what may, and in some cases what must, be done at various stages in different types of process, and when particular steps must be taken (Tonner v Reiach and Hall 2008 SC 1 at [94] per Lord Abernethy delivering the opinion of the court [authorities bundle p.49]). It has, however, been observed that the fact that a particular power is not mentioned in the Rules of Court does not necessarily mean that it cannot be used in appropriate circumstances (Tonner at [99] [authorities bundle p.49]).
6.11 That said, the Rules of Court assume a relevance to the court’s inherent power where they expressly or implicitly remove or restrict it, or fetter its exercise (McKie v MacRae 2006 SLT 43 (OH) at [49] per Lord Glennie [authorities bundle p.44]). The inherent power ought to be exercised sparingly, otherwise the Rules of Court risk being viewed as simply procedural guidelines (Hepburn v Royal Alexandra Hospital 2011 SC 20 at [54] per Lord Carloway (obiter) [authorities bundle p.79]). Existing rules should not be departed from without express permission (Hepburn at [58] per Lord Carloway (obiter) [authorities bundle pp.80-81]).
6.12 The present proceedings concern a petition for judicial review which is governed by chapter 58 of the Rules of Court. Owing to the need for “speedy determination” of the petition, the court’s inherent power to grant a sist of process has, accordingly, been implicitly removed or at least restricted (i.e. to a sist for legal aid at the pre-permission stage: RCS 58.4(5)(h); 58.4(7)). Whilst the court may grant relief for failure to comply with the Rules of Court (RCS 2.1), such dispensing power is irrelevant to the present issue which does not concern the failure of a party to comply with the Rules. Therefore, a sist of process (other than as mentioned in relation to an application for legal aid) is incompetent.
6.13 For all these reasons, the Lord Ordinary erred in law by sisting the proceedings, because it was not competent for him to do so. His interlocutor to that effect should be recalled.
7. GROUND 2: ESTO IT WAS COMPETENT TO SIST THESE JUDICIAL REVIEW PROCEEDINGS
(WHICH IS DENIED) THE LORD ORDINARY WAS PLAINLY WRONG TO SIST.
7.1 Putting aside questions of competency, whether it is appropriate to sist proceedings is a discretionary decision upon which the Inner House will only interfere if it can be shown the Lord Ordinary was plainly wrong: Depuy International Ltd v Gilchrist [2023 CSIH 47], 2024 SC 229, para. 37. Esto it was competent for the Lord Ordinary to sist the proceedings, to do so in all of the circumstances of the present petition was plainly wrong.
7.2 Judicial Review is a procedure designed to provide a speedy and effective remedy to challenge the decisions of public bodies. In such cases there is a public interest in challenges being made promptly and resolved quickly: Scottish Civil Courts Review, Chapter 12.38; affirmed in O’Neill and Lauchlan v The Scottish Ministers [2021] CSIH 66, 2022 SC 125, para. 18. That is reflected in the relevant Rules of Court, outlined above.
7.3 There are only two reports of sists granted in judicial reviews proceedings, both of which were by agreement of the parties: Craig v Parole Board [2013] CSOH 110, 2013 SLT 953 (in light of a formal undertaking by the respondent and agreement of both sides) and Greenpeace Ltd v Advocate General for Scotland [2025] CSOH 10, 2025 SLT 303 (sist pronounced prior to any permission determination, by agreement). These differ very materially from the circumstances before the Lord Ordinary on 20 August 2026: postpermission judicial review proceedings, previously assigned to a substantive hearing, in which a sist had previously been obtained and was sought to be renewed, all in the face of the strong opposition of the reclaimer, whom the Court had determined had standing and permission to proceed.
7.4 The Court has been seised of this petition for nigh on 11 months without any substantive consideration of its merit. The UK government has been largely successful to date in a litigation strategy which appears to be one of seeking to delay, or stop, any independent consideration of this challenge by the court in Scotland. These delays and procedural manoeuvres on the part of the UK Government also have substantially increased the financial costs to the petitioner of this on-going court challenge, and that too may not be unintentional.
7.5 The Lord Ordinary correctly acknowledged in granting permission on 26 January 2026 that:
“as a matter of principle, a petitioner who has standing and whose petition sets out arguments of sufficient merit to satisfy s27B(2)(b) of the 1988 Act should not be refused permission because of the existence of parallel proceedings in another UK jurisdiction” [pleadings bundle p.36].
7.6 That being the case, it was irrational for the Lord Ordinary to (later) conclude, as a result of the same parallel proceedings, that, at the point at which he was bound by the “speedy determination” obligation, it was appropriate to sist the proceedings. That, in and of itself, is sufficient to conclude that the Lord Ordinary was plainly wrong in granting the sist, and to recall the interlocutor to that effect.
7.7 There are other considerations too which, taken together, demonstrate that the decision to sist was plainly wrong.
7.8 For example, earlier in these proceedings the Lord Ordinary asserted that “where the identical matter extending to Scotland has been argued and determined by a competent court in the UK, it is contrary to the principle of comity for this court to seek to re-litigate that issue” [pleadings bundle p.50]. It is not clear – because no adequate reasons were given in justification for this renewed sist pronounced on 25 August 2026 – whether or not the Lord Ordinary was mistakenly applying this principle to the circumstances of the present case. But courts of one jurisdiction within the United Kingdom are not under any obligation to follow decisions of courts of another jurisdiction within the United Kingdom.
If courts in Scotland conclude differently from courts in England and Wales, “they should explain clearly why they consider the decision to be incorrect, give what they consider to be the correct decision, and grant leave to appeal to this court so that the difference of views can be resolved without undue delay”: R (Jwanczuk) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2025] UKSC 42, [2026] AC 699, para. 101 [authorities bundle p.226]. But that constructive and constitutionally appropriate approach is entirely frustrated if the courts of one jurisdiction sit on the sidelines, assume the courts of the other jurisdiction will get it right, and deprive the UKSC of the opportunity to be fully informed of the reasoned analysis of each jurisdiction, and the opportunity to authoritatively determine matters while sitting as a competent court of both jurisdictions.
7.9 Secondly, the Home Secretary, and later, the Court of Appeal in Ammori founded heavily on events, and court proceedings, in Scotland, which matters are focussed in averments contained in the petition [paragraph 8, pleadings bundle p.7–8]. The Court of Session is in a far better position to understand and situate the relevant actors and proceedings than any other court. The UKSC would be well-served by having the Court of Session’s analysis of those matters. It will not do so if they are left over to be determined by the Lord Ordinary
until after the UKSC has disposed of Ammori.
7.10 Thirdly, in Ammori, the UKSC will sit as a court of England and Wales, with no decision binding on the Inner House: Constitutional Reform Act 2005, section 41 [authorities bundle p.3]; Willers v Joyce and another (No 2) [2016] UKSC 44, [2018] AC 842, para 22. And while the proceedings in Ammori contain some overlap with the petition in relation to ECHR issues, the reclaimer founds upon additional considerations in relation to the proportionality assessment for ECHR purposes, which are not relied upon by Ms Ammori. The proceedings in Ammori do not encompass the issue of failure to consult with relevant Scottish state actors. If the petition proceedings are not reawakened until after the UKSC disposes of Ammori, those issues will fall to be determined alone in Scotland, with vanishingly little prospect of the reclaimer later securing the authoritative determination of the UKSC, on a UK-wide basis, on those matters. That gives rise to a risk of legal uncertainty on a matter which is plainly of general public importance.
7.11 What hearing appeals from Scotland and from England together means is that the UKSC gets the benefit of the views of experienced appellate judges from both sides of the border: see for example: R (Cart) v. Upper Tribunal [2011] UKSC 28/Eba v. Advocate General for Scotland [2011] UKSC 29; and Cherry v. Advocate General for Scotland/Miller v. Prime Minister [2019] UKSC 41. Indeed, standing that a powerfully constituted bench of three in the Divisional Court (including the President of the King’s Bench Division) reached one conclusion on the lawfulness of proscription; and a (very unusual) bench of five in the Court of Appeal reached a different conclusion, the UKSC would perhaps be assisted to an even greater extent than normal by also having the reasoned determination from Scotland available to it, even putting aside Scottish specific aspects and specialities.
7.12 The express purpose of the Lord Ordinary’s decision to sist the proceedings was to ensure that the petition was not determined until after the UKSC has disposed of Ammori. Such an approach is entirely inconsistent with the proper role of a court exercising its public law supervisory jurisdiction. It is contrary to the principle of legal certainty. It deprives the UKSC of any possibility of considering the reasoned and, in material respects, uniquely specialist, view of the Inner House. It was incumbent on the Lord Ordinary to discharge his function of speedy determination in a way which facilitated the possibility of the petition being disposed of with sufficient expedition as to allow, if this Court, or the UKSC so permitted, the UKSC to consider this petition. No reasonable Lord Ordinary, having regard to the above matters, could have reached the conclusion that it was appropriate to sist the petition in the circumstances. The Lord Ordinary’s decision to do so was plainly wrong. His interlocutor to that effect should be recalled.
8. GROUND 3 – IMPROPER EXERCISE OF DISCRETION IN REFUSING, IN ALL THE
CIRCUMSTANCES, TO REPORT THIS MATTER TO THE INNER HOUSE
8.1 The reclaimer accepts that, if he does not succeed on ground 1 or 2, he cannot succeed on ground 3 alone.
8.2 But as set out above, it was incumbent on the Lord Ordinary to discharge his function of speedy determination in a way which facilitated the possibility of the petition being disposed of with sufficient expedition as to allow, if this Court, or the UKSC so permitted, the UKSC to consider this petition. Reporting the whole cause was one route to preserving that possibility.
8.3 The Lord Ordinary appears to have had no principled or practical difficulty with a report (para. 8, 25 August Reasons) [pleadings bundle p.58–59]. He does not appear to have considered the unique characteristics of the present petition, including that many of the relevant issues have already been ventilated and decided upon by a bench of three, and subsequently a bench of five (albeit reaching different conclusions), in Ammori, a factor capable of mitigating any disadvantage the Inner House would be placed in by determining the petition without a reasoned Opinion on the merits of the petition from the Outer House.
8.4 The UK Government originally argued before the Lord Ordinary at the 14 July 2026 hearing that the provision of the Rules of Court 34.1 allowing for the Lord Ordinary, prior to any determination of matters in the Outer House, to report the whole cause to the Inner House had fallen into desuetude and was consequently no longer valid law. When asked by the Lord Ordinary at the hearing on 20 August whether that position was being maintained, counsel for the respondent demurred and said that was no longer the UK Government position. Accordingly, no party argued that a report of whole cause was incompetent. Notwithstanding all of this, the Lord Ordinary considered that he ought not, in effect, to assume a ‘gatekeeping’ role in respect of the Inner House
8.5 This was a misunderstanding by the Lord Ordinary of his own function. RCS 34.1 affords the function of deciding whether or not to report to “the Lord Ordinary”. Exercising a discretion to report the whole cause would have been the discharge of the Lord Ordinary’s function as entrusted to him by Act of Sederunt, rather than any usurpation of the Inner House’s function.
8.6 Separately, at para. 8 of the 25 August Reasons, the Lord Ordinary correctly records that it was not the “primary position of either party that the present proceedings should proceed at this stage to a substantive hearing before me” [pleadings bundle p.58].
8.7 However, the Lord Ordinary does not go onto address (at all) the reclaimer’s alternative position before him which was that, if he was not prepared to report the whole cause to the Inner House, he should, instead, proceed to fix an urgent timetable for disposal in the Outer House, which would preserve the possibility of a reclaiming motion being dealt with, and an application for permission to appeal to the UKSC, in light of the dates fixed in Ammori. In this regard, Senior Counsel for the reclaimer referred to the timetable in Cherry, in which Lord Doherty disposed of a petition for judicial review on 4 September 2019 ([2019] CSOH 70, 2020 SC 13), the Inner House disposed of a reclaiming motion on 11 September 2019 ([2019] CSIH 49, 2020 SC 37), and the UKSC disposed of an appeal (alongside a judicial review brought in England and Wales in which the Divisional Court had reached a contrary view to that of the Inner House) on 24 September 2019 ([2019] UKSC 41, 2020 SC (UKSC) 1, [2020] AC 373).
8.8 The sole factors weighing against that course appear to be those of legal expense and court resources (para. 9 of 25 August Reasons) [pleadings bundle p.59]. To the extent the Lord Ordinary concluded that not taking that course would be speedier (as might be taken from para. 9), that is an untenable conclusion. Put simply: if the UKSC itself might be capable of resolving all of the issues arising in the petition, that is plainly more expeditious than having a substantive hearing of the petition after the UKSC’s decision in Ammori is handed down. Indeed, the Lord Ordinary himself recognised that the UKSC process would only allow “several of the critical issues” to be resolved [pleadings bundle p.59]. That was necessarily a recognition that outstanding matters would need to be determined in the petition process thereafter.
8.9 In any event, and even putting these logical errors aside, for the reasons set out above, the Lord Ordinary was not entitled to decline to report to the Inner House, while also declining to dispose of the petition himself. He was plainly wrong to do so. His interlocutor to that effect should be recalled.
9. DISPOSAL
9.1 For all these reasons, the reclaimer submits that the Lord Ordinary erred in law in sisting the proceedings, because to do so was incompetent.
9.2 Esto a sist was competent, the Lord Ordinary was, in any event, plainly wrong to grant a sist in the circumstances.
9.3 He was also plainly wrong to decline to report the whole cause to the Inner House, while also declining to urgently dispose of the petition himself. The reclaimer accordingly moves the Inner House to recall the interlocutor of the Lord Ordinary dated 25 August 2026.
9.4 That would leave the matter at large before the Inner House. Having regard to:
(i) the duty of speedy determination,
(ii) the context of the very proximate listing of Ammori before the UKSC, and
(iii) the necessity, in all of the circumstances, to preserve the possibility of the petition being disposed of with sufficient expedition as to allow, if this Court, or the UKSC so permitted, the UKSC to consider this petition, the reclaimer’s principal motion is to invite the Court to recall the interlocutor of the Lord Ordinary dated 25 August 2026 and remit the cause to the Lord Ordinary with a direction that he report the whole cause to the Inner House in terms of rule 34.1(1).
9.5 If the Inner House is not minded to make a formal “direction” to that effect, it is nonetheless invited to express its expectation that such a report would be the appropriate procedure (for an equivalent example of the Inner House expressing a view on what should be the appropriate procedural step pursuant to a decision of the Inner House in a reclaiming motion, see Deputy International Ltd v Gilchrist [2023 CSIH 47], 2024 SC 229, para. 47).
9.6 Alternatively, if the Court considers the petition must be determined first by the Lord Ordinary, the reclaimer moves the Court to remit the cause to the Lord Ordinary with appropriate case management directions for urgent disposal in the Outer House.
In 9 days’ time it will be a year since I submitted the application for judicial review. It is already 9 months since permission for the judicial review was granted. Since then we have been subject to the most pernicious denial of justice by lawfare – continued and pernicious procedural delay by the UK government, abetted by the court, to prevent the case being heard and deliberately to exhaust our funds and resources, while the government can spend unlimited money on it.
Now they have had our remaining legal funds seized.
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I was surprised a few weeks ago to get an invitation from Yana Lantratova, Russian Federal Commissioner for Human Rights, to deliver a speech on human rights to the International Youth Festival in Ekaterinburg. It is approaching 20 years since I was last in Russia, and I tend to avoid invitations from governments. But on reflection, I decided that the current official Russophobia of the West and the constant state of propaganda for war with Russia to which we are subjected make an overwhelming reason to go and take a look at the state of the country.
For the record, my travel and accommodation were paid for by the Russian state. I am long enough in the tooth that I do not think that in any way influenced what I said while I was there, nor what I write about it now. It undoubtedly influenced what I did while I was there because the Russian state organised my programme, though taking into account my requests. That is all information that you might wish to hold in your mind as you read this.
It would not be quite accurate to say that I went straight from a hospital bed to the aircraft, though there were only hours in between, my having been struck down with a particularly unpleasant bronchitis and a number of complications. I just had time to shower, pack, and hunt down the proliferation of electrodes and gauze and strip dressings in the shower, before leaving Edinburgh on the 22.00 Saturday night flight for Dubai, still coughing rather spectacularly.
I had been asked whether I wanted a hotel room in Dubai airport for a ten-hour stopover, before the flight to Ekaterinburg, and I had declined, not wanting to cause extra expense. This turned out to be a mistake. I had arrived on Emirates, but it turned out the next leg was a codeshare with FlyDubai, a kind of UAE version of Ryanair. I was therefore not allowed to hang around the materialist wonders of Dubai Airport, but consigned to Terminal 2.
This involved walking a considerable distance to find one particular lift, which I then took down three floors. Wandering around some kind of gloomy basement area devoid of signage, I then had to find my way around several corners to another lift, which I had to take up again one floor, arriving in one of those tarmac-adjacent steel and glass corridors equipped with hard steel benches, of the kind familiar to budget airline travellers around the world.
There I had to wait for 25 minutes for a bus, which took me and a few dozen other strap-hanging passengers to Terminal 2. The journey was of several miles and took a full half hour, on a vehicle which I am pretty sure had less suspension than the baggage carts which kept passing us. We passed through the entrails of the airport, its engineering, baggage, fuel, chartering, civil aviation administration and other areas, frequently stopping and lurching off again. I should not have been surprised if we had driven through the kitchens.
Eventually we were dumped out at the long, low bleak hall that is Terminal 2. Dubai as a whole is the most soulless place on earth, a thoughtless piling up of all the material things beloved of the most empty-headed worshipper of wealth. It runs on the tears of a vast exploited underclass. There is nowhere on Earth better at ruthlessly putting the socially inferior in their place. Having transited between terminals in scores of airports all round the globe, I have never encountered anything like Dubai in its complete refusal to pretend to make the experience pleasant or customer friendly. You know you are in the cheap seats.
It was at 2am the next morning that a pretty dazed Craig finally arrived in Ekaterinburg. What struck me most about the flight was realising just how far East we were as we transited the Aral Sea, about 90 minutes from landing.
Things looked up as I was met at the airport door and taken down to an official car on the tarmac. This whisked me to the VIP lounge, a separate building on the airport complex. Entering there, I had the first encounter of a kind that had been worrying me about the trip, as I explained in bad Russian that I have a pacemaker and could not go through the metal detector. In fact, this was greeted with immediate understanding and ropes were moved without fuss, so I could walk round the machine. This was to be my constant experience.
My programme stated that my arrival was organised by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Economic Relations of Sverdlovsk Region, Mr Ilya Skidin. I did not expect that to mean that he would be there shaking my hand at 2am, but there he was, and we sat down in capacious soft leather armchairs while waiting for my luggage to be retrieved. Ilya spoke excellent English and was wryly welcoming. He introduced me to Margarita and Irina, who were to be respectively my interpreter and my fixer, throughout the visit.
Margarita spoke English with no hint of any accent, and proved to have the best command of nuance and timbre of any interpreter I have ever known. She is freelance and had been hired by the Human Rights Commission for the occasion: most of her work is for private sector firms and for international institutions, particularly the IMF. Irina understood English pretty well but was reticent to speak it – rather my position with Russian. Once the baggage had been acquired, I met with the final member of what was to be our team, Ulugbek, a cheerful driver from Kyrgyzstan.
In my room at the Congress Hotel was waiting for me something I had requested in advance – a laptop and a phone. I have already had the experience of being detained at a UK airport under Section 7 of the Terrorism Act. This allows the police to confiscate your electronics without a warrant – which has happened precisely to me – and gives them powers to demand all PINs and passwords. You also have no right to remain silent when questioned. These powers have been used against so many people I know – George Galloway, Richard Medhurst, John Laughland, Kit Klarenberg, Johanna Ross to name but a few – that I had little doubt my electronics would be confiscated again on return to the UK. So I decided to travel without any.
I assumed, whether rightly or wrongly, that the Russian state would be monitoring every action on the laptop or phone. But as the British state at home, and indeed multiple Western states, have had surveillance on me for years, this was hardly a new feeling or problem. I was in any event too tired to use either that morning, and my alarm seemed to wake me for breakfast seconds after I set it and closed my eyes.
We now headed to the Governor’s Office for my first meeting, with the leadership of the law faculties of the Boris Yeltsin Urals Federal University, the Yakovlev Urals State University of Law and the Alekseev private law research centre. This was chaired by the Deputy Governor of Sverdlovsk, Vasily Kozlov, who spoke good English and was very affable.
I gave a very brief discursion on the current crisis in international law: the inability of the international community to restrain the Genocide in Gaza, the blockades of Venezuela and Cuba, the attack on Iran and US insouciance on the closure of Hormuz, the denial of the Dover Strait to Russian shipping. I also spoke of increasing authoritarianism in Western countries, particularly the reduction of protections for freedom of speech. I also raised the question of access to justice for poor people in terms of legal aid, for both criminal and administrative cases.
This was a rather scattergun approach, but on this first morning I wasn’t quite sure what to say to this particular gathering that would attract their interest. But in fact I received some clear and stimulating replies. One professor said he did not accept that international law was in crisis, and that people had been writing of the crisis in international law for at least seven centuries. The institutions and legal instruments were sound and temporary noise need not be over-analysed.
Representatives of all these institutions said that they had previously had good working ties with European and British universities and institutions, but that these had been cut by the European side. There were also now almost no European students. This led to a female professor at one of the universities setting out very plainly that the curriculum had consequently changed. They used to teach international and comparative law very much based on the Western liberal tradition of jurisprudence.
This had now changed and they looked more in comparative law at other, more successful models of the relationship between the state and individual, such as the Chinese model. This represented a different way of thinking at the most fundamental level, and posited an entirely different balance between the interests of the individual and those of the collective.
This was quietly and dispassionately spoken, but here on day one you could not have had a more eloquent and relevant example of how Western hostility, sanctions and withdrawal was turning Russia away from Europe and into the very thing the West claimed to fear.
I was to give a lecture later in the programme to their assembled international law students, and everyone seemed genuinely enthused about that, including me. We finished with a group photo. The lady in the centre next to me is Tatyana Merzlyakova, the Sverdlovsk regional commissioner for human rights, of whom much more later, and next to her the Deputy Governor.
After the meeting we walked through a large web of corridors until we emerged in part of the building which is the Governor’s official residence, in the beautiful Sevastyanov Palace. We passed through a splendid ballroom with gilded columns and balconies and spectacular crystal chandeliers, before arriving in an elegant circular dining room which I suspect was within the rotunda in this stock photo.
Deputy Governor Kozlov was a genial host, and much of the time was spent discussing the rather spectacular repast of multiple local dishes – just the starters they gave me would feed me for a week. The meal was served without alcohol, which is a very definite change in Russian official culture over the last 20 years. I learnt that Sverdlovsk Region has a slightly smaller population than Scotland, but distributed over three times the area. It is extremely rich in minerals, timber, water and other environmental resources and a major agricultural producer.
Ekaterinburg was founded by Peter the Great specifically as a steel production centre in an effort to rival the industrial power of Sweden. More recently the bulk of Russian military production was famously relocated there during WW2, beyond the reach of German invasion, and it remains an important centre of the defence industry. Ekaterinburg marks what was the traditional border between European Russia and Asian Russia – somewhat confusingly as it lies 2,000 miles East of the Bosphorus. Ekaterinburg is just on the Asian side of the Urals watershed, and the waters of its river, the Iset, joining up with other great rivers, eventually flow into the Arctic.
Modern geology regards the division as irrelevant as there are no separate plates, and regards the whole as Eurasia.
The previous day the First Ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had held a summit to determine the right of their peoples to self-determination, and this had been featured with striking prominence in Russian media. The main Channel 1 television news had it as a lead story with a detailed explanatory piece of several minutes, and this appeared equally true across all channels.
The news also covered a meeting between Foreign Minister Lavrov and the Ambassadors of several states. In this meeting Lavrov told the Ambassadors that Russia viewed the question of the Independence of Scotland in the light of the UN Charter principle of self-determination. It is very significant both that Lavrov chose to raise this with the Ambassadors, and that Russia’s main media then highlighted it as a major point of the meeting.
Kozlov asked me about Scottish Independence and I told him that, while I could not give a precise date or method, I had no doubt it was inevitably coming. I quoted the consistent majority support for Independence in the polls and the complete dominance of pro-Independence sentiment among younger people. I also said that the United Kingdom had always been an imperialist construct and was still at the centre of much neo-imperialist mischief in the world today. But as the British Empire had crumbled away, so eventually would the metropolitan. Scotland, Wales and Ireland were the first colonies and would recover their freedom.
Deputy Governor Kozlov assured me of his longstanding personal support for Scottish Independence and said that it was a cause well understood by the Russian people.
Tatyana Merzlyakova, the Sverdlovsk state commissioner for human rights, had been with us throughout these meetings and appeared to be deferred to by all. Kozlov assured me that the organs of government in the region all listened to her very carefully and almost always took her advice, as he did himself. I was to see much more of Tatyana over the next few days.
After lunch we drove to the Museum of Civil and Military Equipment. This housed a remarkable collection of vehicles, in particular some massive mining dump trucks which are the largest in the world, and one of which held the world record for transporting 560 tonnes of material in one lift. Moving indoors there was a really remarkable collection of automobiles from all round the world, from the earliest days of the internal combustion engine right up to modern times.
I skipped the collection of armoured vehicles and howitzers and (with some regret) steam locomotives, and breezed past the extraordinary assemblage of military aircraft in the yard. The museum director was so kind and enthusiastic I felt compelled to show rather more interest than I felt. We spent a long time looking at the Buran, the old Russian version of the space shuttle, and I recalled that the West had for many years been highly dependent on Russia’s International Space Station and launch vehicles for space exploration, a cooperation the West was not looking to reciprocate now it was again taking the technological lead.
I saw only a tiny percentage of this remarkable collection, which extraordinarily has been built up by a local private metals and mining conglomerate. The motivation for taking me there seemed to be a genuine keenness to give me experiences I might enjoy and to show off Ekaterinburg. We then swept off to the next destination, about 20 minutes’ drive through woods.
When the Romanov Royal Family were murdered in Ekaterinburg, the Bolshevik perpetrators had removed the bodies to a local mine. There they had been butchered, covered in sulphuric acid, burnt and thrown down a mineshaft (though some of the remains were taken on to a further site for disposal). That shaft in Ganina Yama was our next destination, and a monastery of seven churches was built on the surrounding site in 2016.
The Royal Family has been canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church and are viewed as saints. It was somewhat difficult to pin down as the reason for their canonisation was the pain and suffering of their martyrdom, and the precise distinction between saint and martyr is perhaps not exactly the same in Orthodox tradition as it is in Western Catholic tradition. But they are effectively saints. There is a tradition in Russian Orthodoxy of canonising national leaders – I was rather surprised to find that the distinctly earthbound warrior Alexander Nevsky, for example, is also a saint.
Tatyana accompanied me and it was plain that the religion and the slain Royals meant a great deal to her, as they appeared to do to most of those visiting. It was a very solemn place. I therefore listened with respect to our earnest young guide, and it did not require fakery to feel affected at the site where the children were dismembered. Only in the car after we left did I venture that perhaps it is much easier to feel warmth towards a Royal Family once they are gone. In the UK we do not have that luxury.
We next drove back to central Ekaterinburg to a restaurant for dinner which very much specialised in local food, and the table groaned with multiple examples of pickles and raw, lightly smoked or frozen fish of many varieties. Eating frozen flakes of raw fish is very much a Urals thing. I was very pleased we were joined again by Deputy Minister Ilya Skidin, genuinely because he is very good company and also because it gave me somebody I could drink vodka with, without which I find this particular kind of Russian diet somewhat difficult to tackle. Margarita and Irina had been with me the whole day. Tatyana was still going strong and we were swapping stories of human rights cases, and Ilya and I put the world economy to rights.
So ended a very pleasant first day in the hands of the Sverdlovsk Governorate.
I have not mentioned that the weather had been cool and wet throughout day one and my cough was not improving. I rather struggled out of bed the next morning, managed to get locked out of my room following breakfast and reported to Irina and Margarita fifteen minutes late. We now drove on some forty kilometres to the International Youth Gathering.
This took place in an enormous exhibition centre outside Ekaterinburg. There were reportedly 10,000 participants from 190 countries, and there were some national delegations milling around in flags and costumes, although the majority of the young people I spoke to were already resident in Russia, mostly as students. The exhibition was “international” in the sense of its congregation, not of the exhibits – while I probably eventually saw only about half the stalls, all I saw were Russian and designed to showcase Russia to the World.
My programme had me touring the exhibition from 10:30 to 12:00, and I genuinely enjoyed this. I spent most of this time in the technology section, where there were both exhibits and genuine experts willing to discuss matters such as nuclear fusion and plasma drives (though I left a ten-minute chat about the latter painfully aware I had not understood a word of it). I had a more useful chat on the difficulties of transporting and storing the hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles.
As in Venezuela, I was struck at a number of stalls by the way that Western sanctions had caused an explosion of technological development in payment systems, though I found everybody appeared blithely unaware of the civil liberties issues around fully digital and identity-linked currencies. I was however able to get a very useful explanation of the current state of BRICS international clearing operations.
A large rather scared-looking rabbit attracted my attention, and he turned out to be central to an exhibition on tissue regeneration. The technology has been developed by Rosatom to generate organs from tissue, is dependent in some way on DNA imprinting, and is said to be fundamentally different from stem cell technology. The rabbit was apparently the chief living recipient, was much older than you would expect him to be, and had homegrown replacement parts. He was a very famous rabbit and President Putin had met him twice.
The young lady explaining all this to me said that the technology might currently enable humans to live until 122 years old. I asked her why on earth anybody would want humans to live to 122 years old? Was the planet not fully burdened with humans already? There would be a massive explosion in numbers. Where would you put them all?
She looked rather nonplussed by this, as though nobody had put this to her before (which hardly seems likely). She replied that she herself would love to live to know her great-grandchildren. I suggested she might feel differently when she reaches my age. She presented me with a pair of replacement rats’ veins she had grown personally from the cells of a living rat. I reflected that I had not anticipated that my life would ever include being given rats’ veins by a beautiful young lady, and decided to move on.
At noon I was taken back to the entrance to meet with Yana Lantratova, the Federal Commissioner for Human Rights. The programme had us meeting together for half an hour, then visiting the stand of the Russian Federal Commission for Human Rights where the process for individuals to launch a case or an appeal would be shown.
Yana arrived, a very glamorous young woman in a designer outfit that bore its large label on the outside. She appeared warm and friendly as she shook my hand with an open smile, then disappeared into a huddle with a cloud of advisers. After I hung around a few minutes, Irina and Margarita explained to me that Yana had not previously known she was to give a talk alongside me, she had only expected to be introducing me, therefore she needed to prepare. I was to go to the speakers’ lounge and wait.
So we wandered up to the speakers’ lounge, where I sat for an hour or so drinking tea and doing nothing in particular, which suits my talents. Then suddenly I was hustled very quickly down to the exhibition hall, where I was wanted to hear Yana give a tour of an exhibition on Ukrainian atrocities against civilians in the Donbass.
Her tour was well underway when I arrived, and much of it was harrowing. She spoke of attacks on citizens of Donbass from 2014 onwards, and of a Ukrainian attack on an educational institute in Starobilsk in May 2026 in which 25 teenagers had been killed in multiple waves of drone strikes. She also spoke of glorification of Nazism in official commemorations and literature in the Ukraine, and had exhibits to illustrate all of these points.
I know the points she was making to be true, and while it is one side of a story, it is the side which is never heard in Western media, while the reverse story is relentlessly pushed. But I found myself personally in a strange position. I had been rushed in and physically pushed through the press of cameramen to be with her in shot as she spoke at the exhibits she had reached when I had arrived, but she did not acknowledge me in any way and when she moved on to the next exhibition I was faced with the prospect of physically jostling to remain in the limelight, which I declined. I watched the rest of the tour of exhibits with the small crowd of public following.
After this tour, we proceeded to the lecture theatre where we were to speak, in a discussion hosted by Evgeny Popov, a Russian federal MP. The talk was billed as a “discussion” between Yana and me on the subject of “The current state of human rights in the world”. I had been told we would open with 20 minutes each, and then take questions and respond to each other. I never write a prepared speech. I had however been given by the organisers a list of proposed speaking points – which related entirely to the Ukraine.
I did not object to any of them as they all appeared to be gleaned from my writings, but they seemed rather over-detailed for a general talk on human rights in the world. I sat down and, as is my usual technique, mapped out a few guiding words to carry me through a 20-minute talk.
These are the notes I wrote:
HAGUE GENOCIDE
LOST CONTROL NARRATIVE
REPRESSION THROUGHOUT WESTERN WORLD
TERRORISM CHARGES
MACKLEMORE
NON-FUNCTIONING OF WESTERN DEMOCRACY
UKRAINE
BANNING OF PARTIES – CHURCH – CULTURE
BALTIC STATES
MOLDOVA
DRUMS
CUI BONO
Drums being a reference to the Western beat for war with Russia, and cui bono of course who benefits from the warmongering?
Yana had still not said a word to me since the brief introduction, and something felt off even as we entered into the hall. The format was very much a modern Davos-style arrangement, with white leather chairs on a dais for the speakers, and simultaneous interpretation. Yana was introduced and rather overran her 20 minutes. She spoke exclusively of Ukraine, of the origins of the conflict, of the repression of the rights of Russians in the cultural, political, religious, educational and economic fields, of the attacks on the Donbass, of the genuflection to Ukrainian Nazism and of the extraordinary warmongering of the European Union and its politicians.
She spoke elegantly and well and said almost nothing with which I had any disagreement.
I then spoke and started by saying I had been considering what a young international audience could possibly find interesting in hearing an old man from Edinburgh address them. I then recounted my being in the Hague for the opening days of the South Africa vs Israel genocide case, gave some of the key facts, and moved on to my experiences of being in Southern Lebanon, and having been present when a twelve-year-old child was shot (but thankfully not killed) at Kfar Kila on the front line.
I spoke of how the access to true information by young people on Gaza from their mobile phones had broken the hold of state propaganda and placed populations at odds with a Zionist billionaire-controlled political class that they could not influence. The Western political elites had therefore responded with a wave of repressive legislation and arrests that had given the lie to the myth of Western democracies. I spoke of the 3,500 arrests of peaceful people in the UK under terrorism legislation for support of Palestine Action.
As I spoke, I was aware of Popov, the chairman, becoming visibly agitated. He was shifting uncomfortably on his seat and several times held up his microphone as if he wished to interrupt. I was determined not to allow him to, and was careful not to pause between thoughts and sentences. I referred to Western lies about Ukraine and Western claims of Russian genocide in Ukraine which are plainly untrue.
I said that in the fog of war it was difficult to get a true picture of casualty figures in Ukraine, but total deaths on all sides were around 400,000. Deaths of children on all sides were around 800 children. These precise figures might be disputed by either side but were certainly not out by orders of magnitude.
Any child’s death was terrible and there may well be individual instances of war crimes, but about 0.2 per cent of the dead as children was not abnormal in war.
Compare this to Gaza, where approximately 36% of the dead are children. This too could be disputed in precise numbers – and many bodies still lie unrecovered – but was not order of magnitude wrong.
The gap between 0.2% and 36% cannot be closed by any amount of marginal adjustment of the figures, whether from Ukraine of Gaza. Nobody could seriously dispute the fundamental difference. That massive killing of children is the difference between a war and a genocide.
Popov looked extremely anxious as I said this, presumably because this is not the Russian line on casualty figures, but he did not interrupt me until a few moments later when I said no nation has a perfect human rights record, including Russia, and the need for Yana Lantratova’s office as Commissioner for Human Rights was evidence of that. At this stage Popov outright interrupted and said that Russia strove for perfection in human rights, but we were out of time.
I had been given a substantial list of questions to be asked after the talk, which were evidently now not going to happen. But Popov said there was just time for one quick question, and the choice is very instructive. He asked for my opinion on Scottish Independence.
I said that as a Scot, I naturally wanted the freedom of my native land, and that the UK was the centre of much Western Imperialism and a main source of NATO warmongering. This drew the first heartfelt applause of the day from the audience. We then left the stage and Popov and Lantratova went off, again not saying a word to me.
I recovered the phone I had left with Irina, and she said it had been buzzing non-stop. There was a long stream of messages that had arrived as I was speaking. Do not mention Palestine! Lay off Palestine! Stop speaking about Palestine! Ukraine! If you need another example use Western Sahara! Talk about Ukraine!
Obviously my talk had caused some panic. It is worth noting that nobody had said to me not to mention Palestine before I stood up (or I would have refused the invitation).
I did not feel good about causing problems for the hosts who had been so very kind to me. I was left with the local team, who stoutly said that I had done nothing wrong, and Tatyana said she had told “them” that I had every right to say whatever I want.
I cannot pretend I know the reason for the extreme sensitivity on Palestine, but it is worth noting that in two days in the exhibition halls I did not see, among hundreds of socially aware international youth delegates, a single keffiyeh, which is improbable in any youth gathering in 2026.
We went on to give an interview to a local youth radio station, which went extremely well. They were very well informed on my history and views, had no worries about discussing Palestine or anything else, and it was a refreshing and enjoyable relief of the tension.
We then went on to the Russian History museum, where I toured an exhibition of the birth of the Russian nation in the fusion of Viking and Slavic cultures in Novgorod and Staraya Ladoga from the time of Rurik. The exhibition absolutely fascinated me, consisting of finds from recent very extensive archaeological digs. There is something deeply fascinating in the physical confirmation through finds of written chronicles and oral traditions, and some of the exhibits were extremely well preserved. The professor who escorted me was deeply knowledgeable and I think surprised I was so genuinely interested.
The Minister of Education of Sverdlovsk Region had joined us for this occasion, and the museum tour was to be followed by an event in the same venue, which had been advertised as a meeting with civil society, but heavily tilted towards veterans, families and refugees from the Ukraine war and their representatives. Yana Lantratova and I were both slated to address them and, as this was specifically a Ukraine-related event, it has always been my intention to discuss only Ukraine on this occasion.
Yana gave a very similar talk to the one I had heard twice before that day, with added references to the heroism of those defending Russia. I spoke of the war not having started in 2022, but the conflict dating back to 2014 and beyond. I spoke about the use of Ukraine by NATO to bleed Russia and facilitate its Western expansion, while Ukrainians died to no good purpose. I spoke of the madness of risking nuclear war over the precise boundaries of a state that had never had a historical existence until 35 years ago. I added that by the same token it should not be for Russia to insist on precise boundaries of the Donbass as a precondition of peace.
Peace itself was what the World now desperately needed. It was deeply painful to me to see Russia’s place at the heart of European culture denigrated and denied. It was painful that I came from a country which was pouring money and missiles into Ukraine with the express intention of facilitating attacks on civilian targets deep inside Russia. I spoke again of the devastating effect of authoritarianism and militarism on Western societies. I spoke of the farce of pretending this was a war for democracy when Ukraine had abolished all opposition political parties and groups.
I explained that I had needed to travel without electronics due to my fear of arrest at the airport on return, and outlined the National Security (State Threats) Act 2026 under which I could be jailed for up to twelve years for publishing any information given me by a Russian government source, even if – and perhaps especially if – it were true. Information itself is specifically defined as a “material benefit” in terms of the Act.
There was an interesting discussion afterwards which included several civil society groups praising the work of the Commission for Human Rights, and particularly Tatyana, in projects such as obtaining better access for the disabled to rural healthcare facilities, and providing various aids to the blind. Several veterans thanked me very much for coming, and being prepared to face the Russian people and talk so candidly.
One lady who spoke was from Central Asia and wearing traditional dress, including a hijab. She represented an NGO which works for the rights of national minorities in Sverdlovsk Region. She said they worked for many years with the assistance of British NGOs, but that all help, cooperation and even contact had now been withdrawn, which she very much regretted and which hampered their work on education, health and migrant workers. She asked why this should be. I replied it was obviously extremely disappointing. It was in part a measure of Russophobia in the UK, and of fear of official sanction. It also perhaps reflected the fact that a great deal of the NGO sector in the UK is misnamed and in fact heavily reliant on government finance.
After this meeting concluded, Yana Lantratova presented me with a number of gifts, which she did with grace and humour; a painting, a scarf and some vodka.
She was then hustled out again. My programme said I would be having dinner with her, but after arriving at the restaurant we were told that she would not be joining us. The dinner consisted of Tatyana, Ilya, Irina, Margarita and me and a couple of others from Tatyana’s office, notably Evgeny Batukhin, who had very much become a member of the core team. The dinner was in a delightful restaurant featuring Caucasus dishes, and we had a jolly evening. The topic of what had gone wrong was not taboo, and the general consensus was that Yana was surrounded by a team inclined to panic and be over-protective towards her.
The next morning I woke feeling rather less ill, and looking forward to the day. It started with a visit to the Regional Human Rights Commission offices of Tatyana and her team.
To be honest, I started from a deep scepticism about the genuine independence and commitment to human rights of the Federal or Regional commission. My scepticism was informed by experience of the parallel institution in Uzbekistan, where it was simply window dressing for a deeply authoritarian system. A morning with Tatyana and her team persuaded me I was wrong to be sceptical of them.
If I can give you a single proof of this, it is that one of Tatyana’s team is a highly impressive international human rights lawyer who had four times been to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of clients claiming abuse by the Russian state, and had four times won. Russia’s suspension from the Council of Europe had closed that particular avenue for now, but here she was, still employed in human rights work by the Russian state. That is not the kind of thing you are told in the West about how the Russian state truly functions.
We discussed the kind of classic human rights cases we might consider typical. Tatyana’s team had intervened in the cases of many who had been accused of “publishing false information” over the war in Ukraine. She said that they had been able to convince the courts, even the military courts, that such offences were best dealt with by admonishment and a small fine rather than imprisonment.
But their work went far wider. They dealt, for example, with housing problems – decent housing was viewed as a human right. I met the highly experienced and qualified staff who were working on this – many were lawyers, and almost everyone had a doctorate. They also got involved, for example, over pay and conditions of private sector workers, when employers failed to meet their obligations. The whole gamut of rights for the disabled came under their office. So could cases of environmental protection.
I saw the complaints and requests from citizens piled high on desks; I saw citizen walk-ins being interviewed. I heard accounts of successes, where Tatyana had prevented the privatisation of an emerald mine against which miners were striking, and intervened to stop gold mining contaminating a pristine water source. Evgeny explained to me that Russian government is not a monolith; they have powerful allies but also those who were not appreciative. The total Sverdlovsk team was about 30 professionals, plus a cloud of volunteer NGOs.
I had been expected, but nobody had limited what I could ask, and I was allowed to pull case files at random and ask about them. I left genuinely very, very impressed.
The next event was to be my talk to international law students, which I now noticed was to be another joint event with Yana. Irina told me that this had now moved and would not be at the Urals Federal University as previously planned, but at the new university campus at the Expo Centre where the International Youth gathering was happening. So we headed off there yet again.
On arrival, I bumped into Yana briefly and said hello, but she was once again swept away. I was led into a classroom-style waiting area, and sat there with Margarita and Irina wondering what was happening, as the advertised time for the talk came and went. After some time twiddling my thumbs, I was led into another room, where Yana and Tatyana sat, surrounded by Yana’s staff from Moscow. They looked startled to see me come in, and I felt I was interrupting something. I was motioned to sit in a chair behind Yana and looking at her back. This seemed daft so I stood up and moved the chair round to the front of her – which to be fair, one of her staff helped me to do.
We finally got to have the conversation I felt, rightly or wrongly, that I had been deliberately kept from having with her. I expressed my gratitude at the invitation, delight at how well I had been treated, and admiration for what I had seen of the work of Tatyana’s office.
Yana replied that everybody had been talking about how moving my speech was at the evening meeting on Ukraine the day before. Had I noticed that professional cameramen had actually stepped out from behind their cameras to listen to me? She had not seen that before. I said I was glad if the heartfelt nature of my sentiments had come over. We discussed a little bit what could be done to get others in the West to at least listen to the Russian narrative. She had found Western media entirely hostile. I suggested that mainstream media was currently a lost cause, and much more could be done on social media.
I suggested that presentation should not start from claims of perfection; it was powerful to admit things that had gone wrong. Yana said she always tried to reference mistakes she had herself made. I told a couple of self-deprecating anecdotes about my own cock-ups. I felt that I had finally begun to form a human connection with the person who had issued the invitation to me.
Yana then explained that the coming meeting with students was scheduled for one hour. She would talk for half an hour, then would introduce me. I could speak as long as I liked and leave the remaining part of my half hour for questions. We then went into a classroom which had about 50 chairs, of which about half were full. The audience did not seem very engaged and people wandered both out and in during the event. Yana gave essentially the same PowerPoint presentation I had already seen three times now. At the end of it she introduced me fulsomely, then she and Tatyana stood up and left the room together, much to my surprise.
I was left on my own facing about twenty people who were fairly plainly in the international youth delegate category, and not the international law students I had been expecting to address. I had mentally prepared specifically on international law points, and decided to go through with these. I will not bother you with them except to say that I spoke of the meaningless propaganda designation of “shadow fleet” to justify piracy of Russian tankers. I gave in detail the example of the vessel Smyrtos seized by the British Navy off the Isle of Wight, after its Cameroonian flag registration had been withdrawn while the vessel was at sea, following British and French pressure on the Cameroonian government.
There were no questions from the audience, but afterwards one Russian student came up to me and asked how a person could verify truth from untruth in these difficult times. I stated it was very hard, but my advice was to be sceptical of official narratives. He then made it plain he did not accept what Yana had said about neo-Nazi influence in Ukraine. I told him that my take was that everything that Yana said was true, but of course it was not the whole truth on the subject. Research and an open mind are key.
We then wandered back into the youth festival again. I looked through the literature stall, and placed my left arm in a machine that was said to estimate your medical age. Mine came out somewhat improbably as 48, rather to the consternation of the young lady administering the test. It is good to know that while I am pretty knackered, my left arm still has many years ahead of it.
The next item on the agenda was to be in the audience for a talk Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was to give at the Festival, in the same venue that I had mentioned Palestine. The programme also stated that I would be seated in the audience with Yana Lantratova but, true to form, the enigmatic Yana had returned to Moscow. There was rather an anxious press of people hoping to get in. I met there three of the law academics I had met on the first day. They had just come from the university where they had waited much of the morning with hundreds of international law students who had been awaiting my lecture. They had not been told it was called off until well after its supposed time.
I apologised deeply and said I had no idea at all what had happened. I had been told the venue was switched. This was quite truthful. I do not know if the lecture was effectively cancelled because of me, or just as an administrative convenience for Yana’s programme. I felt very bad to have let the university down.
So I found myself sat in the front of the second row with the indefatigable Tatyana. I was immediately behind the equally formidable Maria Zakharova, foreign ministry spokesperson, and more to the point behind her still more formidable bank of hair.
Lavrov spoke for over an hour, and with the fluency one expects of him, on the arrival of a multipolar world. The Global South and East, he said, were no longer content to be extras in somebody else’s system; new centres of gravity in Eurasia, Africa and Latin America were insisting on their own interests and their own resources. The West treated this as an assault on a birthright rather than as history moving. Sanctions, pressure and the stirring of conflicts were the methods of a dominance that could feel itself slipping.
The UN Charter, applied in full and as a whole rather than picked over for convenient articles, already contained the only workable law of a world of equals: sovereign equality, non-interference, the settlement of disputes without the minority claiming the right to dictate. Reality, he suggested, was forcing even those who had never much believed in that equality back towards the Charter, because the alternative was a permanent emergency in which rules were what the powerful said they were.
Lavrov then answered questions for over a further hour. Unfortunately those asking the questions were the participants in an international seminar for young diplomats that, for some reason, was also taking place in Ekaterinburg. The questions were therefore achingly dull, from young careerists representing the interests of their countries. The tedium was broken occasionally by Lavrov losing patience, but there were a couple of points of real interest to me.
The first was that Lavrov went out of his way to mention Scottish Independence. He mentioned again, as he had to the Ambassadors two days earlier, that the Russian attitude to Scottish Independence was governed by the principle of self-determination as specified in the UN Charter, and that Russia rejected the hypocrisy of Western powers which asserted the principle of self-determination over Kosovo, but advanced the principle of territorial integrity against it when it came to Crimea.
Lavrov went straight on from this point to say that Russia thought UN structures were correct and in general opposed substantive UN reform, but the position of the P5 on the Security Council was interesting. The UK was obviously not the great Imperial power it had been in 1946, and Africa and Latin America were badly under-represented. He mused on this specifically in the context of his immediately preceding remarks on Scottish Independence.
As I have spent the last two years briefing Russia’s most senior diplomats on the question of Scottish Independence and specifically its opening up the question of the UK security council seat, I was obviously thrilled to hear Lavrov voluntarily go there.
Lavrov also spoke of Western illegal interception of Russian oil, and of the legally empty use of the term “shadow fleet”. He narrated the story of the oil tanker seized after its Cameroonian registration was revoked under the pressure of Western powers, while the vessel was at sea. Margarita afterwards noted that Lavrov had spoken in the identical language to me just before on this incident. I said that we were both quoting my blog post. I had not merely published the story, it was I who had researched it and discovered what had happened in Cameroon regarding UK and French aid threats. Lavrov did not namecheck me, but he did separately namecheck John Mearsheimer, a sign that alternative media does count in Russia.
Yet again Yana and her team were hosting me for dinner, with Ilya having finally given up and Evgeny taking over the vodka toasting role. There was no reticence in talking about the misfortune of the cancelled university lecture and what had caused it; though nobody seemed to know much more than I did. Ulugbek drove me back for a relatively early night, while Irina and Margarita went off to buy another suitcase to pack the great volume of gifts I had been accumulating.
When Margarita and Irina arrived the next morning, we noted that the real work of the visit had been done. There were no more meetings or speeches planned. Our first stop was at the Urals Museum of Fine Arts – where yet again Tatyana was waiting for us.
The museum highlighted its collection of fine cast ironware, and particularly a tented pavilion which had won prizes at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. I was given a tour of this by the curator who explained every item in detail. We then looked at a number of other cast iron items, all finished in a charcoal-based black paint.
The sculpture and the casting really were remarkable, and I could fully appreciate the difficulty of achieving such extremely fine detail in cast iron – and was prepared to accept that this was a world best by the local foundries at the end of the 19th century. But what I could not understand was, why? The materials for making bronze were readily available, so why this determination to do something intricate and delicate with extremely difficult cast iron?
We proceeded to look at other items of which the curator was deeply proud, in stonemasonry and local gemcraft. It was indeed impressive and enjoyable. 
We next moved on to the Church on the Blood, the cathedral built on the site of the murder of the Romanovs, after the Ipatiev mansion in the basement of which the murders had taken place was demolished in the 1970s.
The church was much prettier, and less heavy, inside than I expected, with a really pleasant colour palette throughout in light blues and yellows. The lower floor included some wonderful iconography and the actual site of the basement where they were shot, painted and illuminated in a lurid red. You could not enter this area but viewed it from a scarlet platform above. A priest intoned prayers for the dead, in which visiting women joined with wailed responses of Alleluia.
We then proceeded to the museum in the nearby Archbishop’s residence, where there were a number of interesting exhibits and photos, including an alleged telegram from Zinoviev in St Petersburg to Lenin in Moscow, which appeared shorter and more explicit than the famous Zinoviev telegram of 16 July 1918. Other items – family ration books, embroidery by the girls, a birthday card from the Tsarevich to his father – are affecting but less historically interesting.
I was left again pondering where all this Tsarism stands within Russian nationalism. The cult of the Royal Family is of course particularly centred on Ekaterinburg. Russia is not a secular society – in opinion polls around 80% of Russians describe themselves as religious, the large majority of them Orthodox but including a large Muslim minority. Religiosity is not declining, and the position of the Orthodox within Russian nationalism appears to have government support, including a strong emphasis on conservative family values. At a time when the nation is embroiled in a war and facing threats of much wider attack, that narrative is important.
I think we can say that official history designates the Bolsheviks as bad guys. When I last visited Russia I found the human rights community concerned at a possible rehabilitation of Stalin. That does not seem to have happened in any wide sense, though the achievements of the Second World War are still more central to the national narrative.
I had made one final request before departure, and that was to visit a supermarket. I wanted a normal supermarket for everyday Russians, and found one from a national chain that sits somewhere about the Morrisons market position. The car park was full, but not of new or high-end cars. I had deliberately avoided an elite supermarket.
I found it extremely well stocked, with everything that you would find in your local supermarket. Fruit and veg were priced lower than in the UK, and there was no shortage of imported exotic fruits. In dairy, there was a very good selection of locally produced fresh goods, again cheaper than the UK. Foreign brands like President and Parmalat were readily available, and seemed to me very slightly more expensive than in the UK.
There was no sign of any absences through sanctions – Lipton’s tea and soft drinks, Coca-Cola from Abu Dhabi or much cheaper Dobry Cola produced by the local ex-Coca-Cola bottler. Sanitary products and OTC medicine appeared perfectly normal. Wines were very similar to what you would find in your local supermarket, both in range and price. There were several blended and malt whiskies, a bit cheaper than in the UK. Beer ranged from 50 pence for 330 ml of a local brew, to £1.80 for a Grolsch.
The most startling exception was the meat counter, where again everything was available and very much cheaper than in the UK, perhaps half the price. In short, the majority of staples – milk, oil, cheese, meat, vegetables, local fruit – were substantially cheaper than in the UK, while other products were on balance a little cheaper.
It is also worth noting that eating out was far cheaper than in the UK. For the standard of restaurant we had been frequenting, prices were about half. It was also notable that we were, every single time, immediately offered Grey Goose vodka and French wine in restaurants. You had to positively request Russian.
It is often worth noting at this point that I witnessed absolutely no queues for fuel at garages. The streets were very clean. Housing and public buildings looked in excellent condition, with no signs of dilapidation, including in large public housing blocks. I saw no homeless person or beggar and encountered in four days of going all round the city and outside it, not one single bump or pothole. As a public good, the city appeared in far better condition than those of the UK.
We went on to an interview with a local television station, which was very enjoyable and overran from 15 to 40 minutes. We then had our final lunch together as a team, for which Tatyana rejoined us – she had been away most of the morning preparing election observation duties. I then returned to the hotel and changed into my kilt and full Highland rig. The final item on our agenda was a ballet Gala at the Opera House and performance of Le Corsaire.
Here I am arriving with Tatyana and Evgeny. I am sorry for the absence of Irina from all these photos – it was her taking them! 
This was a world premiere of a new adaptation. I am afraid to say I did not find it terribly successful. It combined a radical new treatment, with a new score, elements of modern dance, container ships, supercars, people trafficking and very dodgy racial stereotyping of Arabs, with long segments of the original ballet with original costumes, music and choreography. The effect was dissonant and largely nonsensical. The second half was very largely from the original. The professional standards in all disciplines were high, though the prima ballerina in particular appeared more at home in the modern segments.
It was the season opening gala and therefore brought out the local elite in full fig, both the Bohemian artist set and the wealthy oligarch set, the latter with a stunning display of trophy wives and girlfriends and great glitter of jewellery. I did not feel in the least out of place in my kilt, and posed with a great many people for selfies in the reception. Byron of course was a Scot, so there is that excuse.
The kilt being a great icebreaker I had any number of enjoyable conversations. One that particularly stuck with me was with a clinical psychologist whose main practice is administering polygraph tests. She said that couples frequently come to her for joint testing over infidelity or marital dispute and she always tries to persuade them not to do it. It almost never helps and never ends well, if not over the suspected event then over something else. I am obliged to say I did not meet anybody who was more impressed by the ballet than I was; Russians tend to be refreshingly candid.
But here is a thought. Here with my nationality obvious from my attire, and throughout my visit when I had met scores of people in everyday situations, I received no hostility from anybody. On the contrary I received constant kindness, hospitality and consideration. This from a population which is acutely aware that it is under missile attack with missiles supplied from the UK, and where the Western powers, including the UK, are openly and regularly threatening war.
Yet in this circumstance I did not only encounter zero personal reserve or hostility, I did not hear a single threatening or aggressive posture. Officially, Lavrov spoke of a multipolar world, support for the United Nations, the rule of international law and the rejection of violence. Nobody at any stage, including injured veterans from the Ukraine War, spoke of a desire for war or made any threat against the West. The war in Ukraine itself was not glorified but viewed as an extremely unfortunate necessity which everybody wanted to end as soon as possible.
I returned to the hotel after the ballet and packed, before they drove me to the airport. Irina and Margarita stayed with me right until I boarded the plane approaching 3am. We drank malt whisky and camomile tea which Tatyana had called to order for me before the journey. I left with real regret at parting from newly made friends, and a feeling of astonishment at the drive to paint these people as enemies, barbarians and people we must kill.
I have given an honest account of what I saw and what I did. Yes, I was on an official programme, but I encountered scores of people, many of whom were not following an official narrative. I acknowledge that I did not have a chance to look at issues like conscription, or the ability of opposition political parties to contest the elections.
But then you do not need me to do that. The BBC, the Guardian, Reuters, CNN are all present and travel and report across Russia, and regularly bring you the propaganda picture. You can read it any time. But consider this. Russia Today and Sputnik Radio were closed down in the UK, totally. There are no Russian journalists free to operate in the UK unless they write the British government line, while British journalists, including the totally hostile, still operate in Russia. I could read the super-Russophobic Guardian in Russia anytime, with no VPN. Those facts in themselves are sufficient to destroy the simplistic narrative of “free West vs authoritarian Russia”, and should at least make you realise that there is more to see and hear than the Western narrative.
As Western elites struggle to hold the consent of their populations during a period of declining standards of living for ordinary people and a massively expanding wealth gap to the billionaire class, they need an enemy to focus hatred and resentment away from themselves. They use immigrants at home and Russians abroad. I just spent a few days with those Russians, and could not have met more warm, human, decent and well-motivated people. I met with kindness and consideration even when I didn’t fit entirely into their agenda. I encountered no xenophobia, no hate and no extremism, and absolutely no desire for war.
Russian people are like us. They want peace, happiness and a decent society for their children to grow up in. They have the same problems as the rest of us in facing up to the excesses of late stage capitalism. They too like us struggle against the authoritarian instincts of a political elite.
Russians are not our enemy. Do not let people try to convince you that they are.
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UPDATE We got an expedited date to “reclaim” (appeal) against the suspension of the case, on 25 September. We shall also be reclaiming against the decision not to send the case straight to the Inner House.
All parties seemed to agree there may just be time, if our appeal is successful, to finish the Scottish judicial review before the Supreme Court meets on 4 November to hear the English case.
While the UK government did not oppose the timetable for the appeal, they will be opposing the appeal itself. One argument they used again is that the closed (secret) process for “intelligence” evidence may need too much time for the hearing to go ahead.
In the course of this argument the UK government’s lawyers revealed that there is a five-day process after the Court of Session reaches its verdict, for the security services to vet the judgement before it is published. All the lawyers just took this as completely normal.
It is not normal. In a case about human rights and excessive power of the state, the security services get to vet what the judges can say? It is astonishing. What kind of society have we become?
Today was a win in that we have the quick appeal and still the possibility of a judicial review. Another way of looking at it is that it is yet more Lawfare and leads to yet another expensive hearing, still without having the actual review. But we will fight hard now because this is the crunch and I will very much be looking for people to come and support at court on the 25th.
UPDATE ENDS
I have never been so coldly angry as I am at Lord Young’s further suspension of the Scottish judicial review of Palestine Action, now until after the Supreme Court decision in the English case.
The grounds given – the public cost of the judicial review and the management of judicial resources – are ludicrous. The costs in Scotland alone of police time in arresting and charging hundreds of people as terrorists for supporting Palestine Action, the costs of the courts that will try them all, and the potential public cost of keeping scores of people in jail as terrorists, will run into many millions. This massively outweighs the costs of a three-day judicial review to decide the legality of all this.
Lord Young granted the judicial review on the explicit grounds that residents of Scotland whose human rights were being infringed in Scotland were entitled to seek a remedy from a Scottish court in Scotland’s separate jurisdiction. He ruled this was irrespective of the existence of proceedings down in London, in another jurisdiction. These were already well underway. Lord Young ruled this…
I am satisfied that it is appropriate to grant permission for this judicial review to proceed in Scotland notwithstanding the existence of English proceedings which are at a more advanced stage. As a matter of principle, a petitioner who has standing and whose petition sets out arguments of sufficient merit to satisfy s27B(2)(b) of the 1988 Act should not be refused permission because of the existence of parallel proceedings in another UK jurisdiction. The petitioner claims that his legal rights have been illegally circumscribed by the 2025 Order. He is entitled to look to the courts of his place of residence for a determination of that complaint…
Any decision in England could not found a plea of res judicata in Scotland. A Scottish court would not be required by precedent to follow any decision of the High Court in England. There had been a number of recent examples of important constitutional challenges proceeding in parallel in Scotland and England.
Since the granted permission for the judicial review in January, I have been five times in court trying to make the review actually happen. It has been postponed again and again in a deliberate delaying tactic. It has been postponed so that secret “intelligence” evidence might be heard in secret court sessions that I am permitted no information from. It has been postponed by a series of suspensions granted to the UK government by Lord Young pending developments in England.
Our petition for the judicial review was submitted last October. The review was granted in January. Dates were set for March. Since then it has been simply delayed and delayed and delayed.
At one stage the review was postponed by Lord Young for three weeks so that the Advocate General could appear in person to argue for a suspension – after he had initially refused two motions for suspension. The Advocate General made no new arguments, cited no new precedents, but in a sickening deference to executive authority Lord Young granted the suspension. In which Hell we have been stuck ever since.
We have spent over £200,000, raised from over 2,000 individuals, on multiple court appearances to try to get things moving. That is even without counting two costs awards looming over our heads from procedural motions to get things moving, which Lord Young ruled against and in the UK Government’s favour.
This is not just Lawfare by the government – an effort at constant delay, delay, delay and a deliberate tipping of the review into a procedural morass where no progress is ever made. It is Lawfare in which the judiciary is complicit with the executive. If Lord Young had no intention of allowing a Scottish judicial review before the English case is decided by the Supreme Court, he ought never to have granted permission in the first place. Instead they have exhausted our resources, financial, intellectual and emotional, by enmiring us in a process it is now clear there was never any intention of bringing to a conclusion.
Everybody already knew the English proceedings were at the Court of Appeal and going, either way, to end up at the Supreme Court, at the time Lord Young granted permission to proceed in January. Had he stated then that he was granting permission to proceed, but only after the Supreme Court had decided the English case, we might have given up and not spent £200,000 and nine months of my life. It has been a form of judicial entrapment in which Lord Young has been, at the kindest possible reading, extremely accommodating to the UK government and utterly indifferent to the ordinary Scots seeking to challenge them.
Tomorrow we appear before the Inner House of the Court of Session to discuss – only – whether an appeal against Lord Young’s suspension of the review can be heard on an urgent basis, or whether the appeal will take place in normal time – which would probably mean after the Supreme Court hearing anyway.
Here is Lord Young’s latest decision in full:
COS-P1017-25 Pet: Craig Murray for Judicial Review
Halliday Campbell WS Office of the Advocate General
25 August 2026 Lord Young
The Lord Ordinary, having resumed consideration of the opposed motion of the petitioner to recall the sist granted on 28 May 2026 and to invite the Lord Ordinary to report the whole cause to the Inner House; refuses same for the reasons set out in the note appended hereto; thereafter, sists the cause pending the outcome of the Supreme Court decision in Ammori v SSHD; and grants leave to reclaim the interlocutor of 25 August 2026.
Andrew Young
Note
The special advocates subsequently informed the court that they did not wish to make any submissions on further procedure.
The petitioner’s request to have the whole cause reported to the Inner House was recognised by senior counsel to be innovative. I accept that the lack of a precedent should not exclude the benefits of such an approach being evaluated. Judicial review proceedings which do not generally involve significant disputed factual matters could, in theory, be more amenable to a leap-frog approach than other types of proceedings. However, the unique nature of this motion does cause me to hesitate. Unless and until there is guidance from the Inner House as to the situations in which the Inner House would be willing to hear causes in the absence of a decision of the Outer House, it is difficult for a Lord Ordinary to assume the role of gate-keeper for the Inner House. As the respondent pointed out, there are many practical issues which the Inner House are best placed to consider. I have decided that the appropriate course is to refuse the petitioner’s motion to report under rule 34.1 but to grant leave to reclaim so that the matter can be placed before the Inner House for its re-consideration, if the petitioner so wishes.
Ultimately, this will secure the speediest final determination of the issues which the petitioner raises.
Andrew Young
25 August 2026
So Lord Young’s plan is that the Supreme Court should consider the judgements of English courts only, and then decide for the whole United Kingdom, leaving any Scotland only issues to be considered by a subsequent Scottish judicial review.
His idea that a Scottish judicial review held after the Supreme Court judgement will be “speedier” than a review held before the Supreme Court judgement is an interesting defiance of the normal concept of time.
He has given up on his earlier justification of “comity” with the English courts now that he can claim he is acknowledging the superiority of the Supreme Court – but with no Scottish input. His argument boils down to this and this only. It will be cheaper not to have a Scottish judicial review. He has no other point.
In which case, why grant one in the first place?
The £200,000 we have spent on this case has been entirely eaten up by Lord Young and the UK government on procedural rubbish. The court has so far heard nothing of the Genocide in Gaza or of the arrest of respectable pensioners in Scotland just for opposing that Genocide.
The court appears determined to keep it that way. They are simply avoiding a confrontation with the British state. A Scottish court is not going to find the ban legal and proportionate. That woud set up a political and constitutional conflict which the Scottish judiciary do not want. So they find ways to avoid the question.
The Scottish government is also deliberately avoiding conflict with the UK over Palestine Action. The decision to charge the alleged Palestine Action activists as having a “terrorism connection” in spray painting Trump’s golf course in Scotland is sickening. The conflation of some spray paint with terrorism is simply ludicrous. The British state has distorted the word “terrorism” beyond all rational meaning.
But it has to be noted that this is not a UK government decision. It is a Scottish decision by the prosecution – the Crown Office, which is under the Lord Advocate. The Lord Advocate is not only appointed by the Scottish Government, he is a minister in John Swinney’s SNP cabinet. They have decided to press the terrorist connection.
It should be remembered that the SNP did not vote against the proscription of Palestine Action in parliament. They have not used their control of Police Scotland to instruct the police to deprioritise arresting old ladies for holding placards, when there is no shortage of more obvious crimes in Scotland, like burglaries which go uninvestigated.
One key point in our case is that the UK government consulted nobody – not one person – in Scotland before the proscription of Palestine Action. They did not consult the Scottish Government, Police Scotland or the Scottish Counter Terrorism Strategy Board (Contest). They consulted the Israeli Embassy, weapons manufacturers, Jewish groups and even a Lebanese Christian group – but no Palestinians. And not Scotland.
The papers in our judicial review have all been copied as it goes along to the Lord Advocate’s office, at his request. The Scottish government could have intervened to support us. The Scottish government is not arguing that it should have been consulted over the proscription, as it has responsibility for police, courts, prisons, and human rights in Scotland. It is not arguing that Scotland is a separate legal jurisdiction and there is a right to a separate Scottish judicial review.
It was open to the Scottish government to intervene to argue those things. They have declined to do so. It is plain to me Swinney supports the proscription of Palestine Action and has no interest in the independence of the Scottish legal system..
It was recently revealed that the Scottish Government has continued through Scottish Enterprise to funnel funds to the Israeli weapons industry in Scotland. We know that in past ministerial positions Swinney gave government money to Israeli settler company Eden Springs to compensate them for boycott losses, and ordered the removal of teaching materials on Palestine from Scottish schools. That is without mentioning the continued cover-up of the content of Angus Robertson’s Scottish government talks with the Israeli Deputy Ambassador.
Like all those trying to take any action against the Genocide in Palestine, I have run up against the all-encompassing resistance of an amorphous but suffocating Establishment. I had naively hoped to demonstrate that the corrupt nexus is less complete in Scotland. I have instead proven the opposite.
The institutions of western democracy are revealed as a sham. Justice is a lie. A court which will not defend the citizen against an authoritarian state, but defines its role as merely the will of that state, is not an instrument of justice. It is a mere instrument of state power.
I am not putting out a call for people to come to court tomorrow Tuesday, because it is only looking at the timetable and may only last five minutes, and we have no firm start time. However I shall be there from around noon and am not discouraging company if anyone wants to join me.
The fight goes on because the alternative is surrender to rampant authoritarianism. I shall let you know how we get on in court this time. I am not going to request more donations to the legal fund until this procedural hurdle is cleared.
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Europe urgently needs to re-establish access to Russian oil and gas. Gas prices are high – as all UK energy consumers know – and German gas storage is at a record low for September. Gulf production is degraded, supplies are cut off and its long-term strategic stability undermined.
German manufacturing already suffered a 9.5% production loss from 2022 to 2026 following the Russian gas shutdown, with the loss in energy-intensive manufacturing (inc petrochemicals, chemicals, metals, glass/ceramics/stone, paper, mineral oil etc.) at 15.2%.
Western Europe can regain access to Russian hydrocarbons either by accepting a negotiated peace in Ukraine, or by attempting regime change in Russia. The political class in Europe have evidently decided to go all out for regime change.
It would of course be much easier, and much safer, to settle the Ukrainian conflict. We can identify the following reasons the European political “elite” is not taking that path:
Note that none of these motives has anything to do with the welfare of their people, and still less “democracy.” I find it very hard to think of any occasion when a drive towards war had such little foundation.
Consider this. The United Kingdom, like many Western countries, is openly supplying the Ukraine with long-range missiles, manufacturing plans for long-range missiles, and personnel to service them, in the full knowledge that Ukraine is using those missiles in an attempt to devastate civilian infrastructure deep within Russia, killing many Russian civilians in the process.
Yet we are repeatedly told by both politicians and the media that Russia is the threat to the UK, when very plainly it is the opposite which is the truth. Until this year, Russia had in three hundred years of history never had any plans to invade or occupy the UK – while the UK invaded Russia in 1854 and 1917. I presume the Russians are currently working on defensive plans against the UK, given the disgraceful warmongering of our government.
The notion that the boundaries of a Ukrainian state, which had never existed in history until 1991, are so sacrosanct they cannot be adjusted to avoid World War III, is mad. They were only ever internal Soviet boundaries. Ukrainian is a new nationality, but the Ukrainians are entitled to a state if they wish one. What they are not entitled to do is insist on the old Soviet boundary, when they have:
The notion that nuclear war should be fought over who is Mayor of Lugansk has so little public support that Russophobia is being assiduously stoked by Western governments and the EU itself. The latest episode is the extraordinarily thin gruel of the “Leipzig airport attack” story. Yesterday we had the most incredible release of coordinated statements by Western European leaders all telling us that the evidence is plain of a “hybrid attack” by Russia.
Every single one of them uses the same expression 'hybrid attack'.
Why? pic.twitter.com/pHJE2gJ2iZ
— John Laughland (@john_laughland) September 2, 2026
All accompanied by no evidence whatsoever.
The German state of course has history with this sort of false flag. On the night of 31 August/1 September 1939 it staged false flag attacks by Polish forces on the German border post at Gliwice (Gleiwitz), and a couple of other locations. Murdered corpses of political prisoners were dressed in Polish uniforms and spread around. A radio broadcast was transmitted in Polish. This “attack” was the justification for the German invasion of Poland the next day.
Now the “Russian attack” on Leipzig Halle airport was on 4 August, and yet the carefully coordinated attribution to Russia, with identical statements from all western European powers, was not launched until 1 September. I have seen it suggested that this was deliberately on the anniversary of Gliwice. That seems to me unlikely, and yet not to have at least avoided the date of perhaps the most famous false flag in history – by the same state – is very curious, when the date was so obviously voluntary for an attack that occurred four weeks before.
If you reject the warmongers’ logic for a moment, the actual scandal is that there were Ukrainian aircraft in Leipzig stacked with German weapons to kill Russians, not that an amateur toy drone allegedly tried to stop them.
To be told that this is a Russian attack by precisely the same set of goons who lied to us that it was Russia that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline, is testing not just the gullibility of the public, but its patience.
In the UK the purveyors of Russophobia – including government ministers – fall back repeatedly on the farcical “Russian novichok on Salisbury” story to explain why we should prepare for war with Russia.
Nobody has ever even pretended to answer the dissection of the official line I published in my article Pure – Ten Points I Just Don’t Believe. I am now able to add a further point I was not aware of at the time, thanks to Tim Norman and his coverage of the Sturgess Inquiry. The use of a judicial inquiry to determine official cause of death, rather than a coroner’s court which exists for that specific purpose, is almost always a sign of a government cover-up – see also the Hutton Inquiry and the murder of David Kelly.
But one thing the inquiry did receive was the toxicology report on Dawn Sturgess from the NHS central toxicology lab in Birmingham. This is what it found in Dawn Sturgess’ blood.
It is worth noting that fentanyl was also found, but this was removed from this list presented to the inquiry as she had been given fentanyl in hospital. That does not, of course, mean there was, or was not, already fentanyl in her bloodstream. But what you do have for sure is cocaine, plus a synthetic opioid given by the NHS to heroin addicts, plus gin and tonic, plus two different antidepressants, plus sleeping tablets.
What you don’t have is novichok. The idea that the NHS central toxicology lab cannot detect organophosphate poisoning, or was not testing for it in the blood of someone in Salisbury when the entire media was already screaming novichok, is arrant nonsense.
Only the Ministry of Defence laboratory at Porton Down claimed to find novichok – and controlled the samples which the OPCW (an equally corrupt institution) got.
Dawn Sturgess was a frail, known long-term drug addict. The combination in her bloodstream could kill anybody – of course depending on the quantities. The astonishing thing is that the pathologist at the inquiry stated he had been given no quantities or concentrations for these substances. He was therefore in no position to say they did not kill her.
This is incredible. There is no such thing as a toxicology report which does not quantify concentrations. Otherwise the information is clinically meaningless. I have spoken with three doctors, two nurses and a senior NHS administrator. All say it is impossible the toxicology report came without quantification. I assume the pathologist was not lying; so they must have been deliberately deleted. Only government can do that, and the obvious motive is to cover up the actual cause of death.
Let us face it: from that list of substances in her blood the actual cause of death is extremely obvious.
The great structural weakness of the inquiry was that nobody had the job of scepticism about the official story. The only non-governmental representative was Michael Mansfield, who represented Dawn Sturgess’ family, and his brief was to argue that Dawn Sturgess was not a drug addict. That – I am sorry to say, completely untrue – version of events fitted the story which both the government and Sturgess’s family wished to be put forward.
I am genuinely upset to have to relate unpleasant things about a dead woman who was a victim of circumstance in her life, in order to tell the truth, but you don’t get cocaine and buprenorphine in your blood by accident. We therefore had the farce of the police apologising at the inquiry for having called Dawn Sturgess a drug addict.
So we have alleged novichok in Salisbury which killed nobody, and an explosive drone, or possibly two, in Leipzig which did not explode. To counter this massive threat, we need to push an entire continent to nuclear war. As a first step, we need to cut health and social spending to give trillions more to arms manufacturers, and prepare our children for conscription, to die on the battlefield.
Forgive me if I am not convinced.
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Dr David Halpin, a redoubtable campaigner over the murder of Dr David Kelly, and a friend of this blog for over twenty years, has died. He will be missed.
His sister Mary was for many years an invaluable commenter here and occasional researcher for me. Unfortunately about ten years ago I banned her for comments which I considered anti-semitic. Three months ago David told me he was visiting her in a care home. I asked him to tell her on my behalf that she had been right, and I had been wrong.
Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse my work, including in translation.
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We still don’t have a decision on whether the Scottish judicial review of Palestine Action can proceed. Lord Young is thinking about it. Last Thursday’s hearing went about as well as it could go. The UK government produced no written argument and barely seemed to be trying. They moved in court for the Scottish judicial review to be suspended until after the decision of the Supreme Court in the English case. They said it was on the same grounds as they won the suspension before: the use of judicial resources and that a Scottish judicial review would be too expensive.
I have to say this made me furious. It is not too expensive to deploy the police to arrest and charge hundreds of people, to drag them all before the courts for hundreds of hearings, and potentially to keep thousands of these “terrorists” in jail in the UK. Unlimited resources are available for all of that. But a three-day court hearing in Edinburgh, to determine whether any of that is legal, would be too expensive.
The UK government also argued there is not enough time, the Court of Session is too busy, and there are not enough clerks with the necessary security clearance to service closed sessions to hear secret evidence from the security service.
A number of the objections the UK government had put forward at the last hearing were not advanced again. They dropped res judicata – the claim that the English decision is binding on Scotland. They dropped the claim that the court was not competent to refer the case to the Inner House of the Court of Session for speedy decision. They also did not object that our amendments to the petition amounted to substantive change that would need new permission to proceed.
In short, the UK’s government’s objections were so half-hearted and flimsy we were rather bemused by it. I am afraid that my own interpretation is that they are so confident that the judge is fixed that they don’t need to try.
The problem is that the government had no convincing arguments the last two times they won and maintained a “sist” or suspension. There was no argument in court about the fact that that suspension had now ended – the UK government was asking for a new one. I still have not the slightest inkling what was the rationale behind that suspension, which was terminated by the Supreme Court deciding to hear the Ammori appeal, but equally would have been terminated by the Supreme Court deciding not to hear the Ammori appeal.
Having been refused twice before, the sist had been granted when the Advocate General, a UK government minister, turned up in person to argue for it. The arguments had not changed, it was simply deference to the UK government by Lord Young. It appears they are confident that will still hold.
In England we have multiple court decisions over Palestine activism and for the most part they give enormous concern about the willingness of judges to bow to extreme executive authoritarianism. The most egregious example may be Judge Sarah Plaschkes and her egregious attempts to have Tony Greenstein jailed over alleged support for Hamas – which carries up to 14 years imprisonment.
Tony Greenstein’s acquittal is a wonderful victory, echoing that of Natalie Strecker in Jersey in establishing that support for the Palestinian legal right of armed resistance to occupation cannot be equated to support for Hamas, Hezbollah or any other proscribed organisation. That Tony’s acquittal was unanimous is very important.
It is also notable that the acquittal occurred in affluent Kingston – and juries are local – not in an area where you might expect we would get natural sympathy from UK minority communities.
Tony himself wrote on his blog:
Judge Sarah Plaschkes Spewed Bile & Venom as Her Determination to Have Me Convicted was Thwarted
Numerous other observers were shocked during the trial by her continued efforts to hamper the defence. All context was forbidden, both in terms of Tony’s large body of writings and in terms of any discussion of the Genocide in Gaza or the history of Israel/Palestine, or what really happened on October 7. Even Greenstein’s police interviews were redacted so that the jury could only see those parts of the transcripts which the prosecution wished them to see – which when you think about it is deeply shocking. Plaschkes demanded to see questions for cross-examining the police in advance.
As is common now, the judge explicitly barred the jury from being told that they have an absolute right to acquit according to their conscience, and being aware of the potential sentencing consequences.
As is becoming common, Greenstein dismissed his lawyer temporarily and did his own closing speech, so he could say things in opposition to the judge’s rulings, including outlining what the jury had not been allowed to see, which his lawyer could not do without risking professional disbarment.
Plaschkes could not control her hate and fury at the end, once the jury returned with their verdict. She described Greenstein’s closing speech as “the ramblings of an old man”. His speech was cogent and evidently compelling, and Tony Greenstein is a substantially greater intellectual than the Zionist functionary Plaschkes.
Plaschkes stated that she had considered finding Greenstein in contempt of court and encouraged the prosecutor to report him for contempt of court. The prosecuting barrister, embarrassed by Plaschkes’s open venom, refused to do so.
What is plain is that juries are the only area of hope in the “justice” system. There was a very significant development in the second Filton case, where eight people were tried as alleged “organisers” of the attack on the Israeli mass-murder factory. In the first Filton case, MI6 client judge Johnson had given extremely harsh sentences through his post-verdict avocation of a “terrorist connection”.
This is an extraordinary new legal strategy by which the sentencing for ordinary criminal charges may be radically increased if the judge, and the judge alone, decides there is a terrorist link post verdict. The jury has no say on whether there is a terrorist connection or not, and the judges hide from the jury the possibility of this happening at all.
But the public are not stupid and do not live under a rock. The jury sent a note in the second Filton case to the judge Patrick Field asking him whether there would be sentencing under “terrorist connection”. Field replied to the jury that this was “not your concern”.
We do not know what drives individual juries, but it is very probable that the jury’s refusal to convict seven of the accused of anything, and bringing in just one single count of criminal damage, was influenced by knowledge of the lengthy and disproportionate prison sentences the judge could impose under terrorism connection.
This is just one particular example of juries being repelled by the draconian persecution of activists by the state, in order to maintain complicity in a Genocide. The refusal of juries to convict is the only real defence the people have left at the moment. It is notable that the charges levied against placard holders supporting Palestine Action have been restricted to those carrying a jail sentence of up to six months – and therefore not allowing a jury trial.
Here is something astonishing which Judge Field did allow. The first case charged six people who entered the factory at Filton with violent disorder. None was convicted. The second case charged eight people who were not present at all with violent disorder, as a matter of “joint enterprise”. But how could they have participated as “joint enterprise” in something another jury had already decided did not happen? What “joint enterprise”?
I can give you one solitary example of a decent judge. In Preston, Judge Robert Altham said he would not be adding a “terrorist connection” to charges of criminal damage of paint sprayed and windows broken on a Barclays Bank, who provide Elbit with financial services. He ruled that the extent of damage was not sufficient. That is however the limit of the good news I can bring you from Preston as seven people were arrested outside the Court and charged with supporting Palestine Action. 
Do read Tony Greenstein’s blog about the extraordinary series of judicial rulings before he got to the courtroom and in front of a jury. It is an incredible tale of judicial and ministerial bias and corruption that deserves a book in itself. The dice are hugely loaded against us, but the fight continues.
I am afraid we do desperately need more funds to get through this. All the delay and procedural trickery set out above is designed to bleed us dry and, to be honest, it is working.
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After eight months of obstructionism from the Labour Friends of Israel government of the UK, tomorrow is the day on which the Scottish Court of Session will finally decide whether to go ahead with the judicial review it granted in January, or kowtow to Downing St.
I publish below two of the three main papers we have submitted for the hearing. The UK government has submitted nothing in advance, obviously confident it has it stitched up. The third main paper, the amended petition, I don’t have in clean form at the moment but will upload later.
It is unlikely anyone reading this in the next 11 hours of night time in Scotland will be able to get to Court Number 1 of the Court of Session in Parliament Square by 8.30am tomorrow, but if you can I should be most grateful for the moral support.
I am stating in my affidavit baldly a direct challenge to the government’s honesty. Whether this is a sensible legal strategy I do not know, but it has the virtue of being the truth.
The “paper apart” giving the argument for this hearing from the legal team makes the point very clearly that in acceding to the UK government’s continued sidelining the Scottish case the court is behaving in an unprecedented way and breaking its own rules. I have removed at least as much footnote from the Paper Apart as text remains, for the sake of readability. If anyone wants a full copy let me know.
Wish me luck. I am sleepy.
IN THE COURT OF SESSION
SUPPLEMENTARY AFFIDAVIT OF CRAIG MURRAY
IN THE
PETITION
of
CRAIG MURRAY, residing at Edinburgh, EHl0
PETITIONER
For judicial review of the Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order
2025
At EDINBURGH on the NINETEENTH day of AUGUST 2026, in the presence of DAVID
JAMES FINLAY HALLIDAY, solicitor and notary public, Halliday Campbell WS,
solicitors,
COMPEARED CRAIG MURRAY,
residing at Edinburgh, EHl0 who being solemnly sworn hereby
DEPONES as follows:-
1. I was a member of the Diplomatic service from 1984 to 2005 including six years as a
member of the Senior Civil Service.
2. One of the positions I held in my career was Head of the FCO section of the Embargo
Surveillance Centre, a cross Whitehall and armed forces body, whose objective was the
enforcement of sanctions on Iraqi weapons procurement.
3. To the best of my knowledge and belief, as a result of my work on Iraq, I held the highest
possible levels of security clearance within the UK government system, including some
which entailed a specific visit to Washington to obtain.
4. Although at the time of the publication of the government dossier on Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction I no longer held this position, then being ambassador designate to
Uzbekistan, I knew a great deal of background and many of the individuals concerned
with Iraqi weapons monitoring across Whitehall.
5. When the government dossier on Iraqi WMD was published, to my certain knowledge at
the time much of it was factually incorrect. I was on training within the FCO at the time
and spoke with several officials including some who had been directly involved in
production of the dossier.
6. I therefore know for certain that many of the individuals involved were well aware that
the dossier, which they were involved in producing or agreeing, was factually wrong. One
senior official directly concerned with the production cheerfully and cynically
acknowledged to me that it was “bollocks”. A member of FCO Research and Analysis
Department, a year after the publication, told me that people in that department had
been in tears at the pressure put on them to agree the dossier.
7. The hard truth is that officials will produce the narrative which ministers want, in order
to justify the policy which ministers wish to implement. Many civil servants take the view
that the ministers are elected democratically and make the policy, and it is the civil
servants’ job to fix the facts around the policy.
8. The policy that ministers wish to follow is gleaned by civil servants from official minutes,
from ministerial pronouncements in public or in parliament, from conversations with the
Minister’s private secretary, from the Permanent under Secretary, from remarks made by
the minister in public or private meetings with others, and a variety of different routes.
9. The Chilcott report stated that:
The judgements about Iraq’s capabilities in that statement, and in the dossier published the
same day, were presented with a certainty that was not justified
and
It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and
assessments. They were not challenged, and they should have been.
10. I can testify that challenging the government’s desired version of the truth on that
occasion was extremely difficult and civil servants felt intimidated from doing so. The
pressures were sharply illustrated by the death of Dr David Kelly, whom I knew slightly.
11. We know from Iraq that the UK government sometimes promotes a narrative which is
factually false in order to justify its policy.
12. That is the case in the prescription of Palestine Action, with a narrative of an escalating
pattern of violence, much relied upon by the Home Secretary. It was also relied upon by
the English Court of Appeal as a predictor of Palestine action’s future behaviour. Yet it is
an entirely false narrative.
13. In matters of intelligence and national security the government can in particular not be
relied upon to produce an honest narrative of the facts, and the civil service cannot be
relied upon to act with integrity in the service of government.
14. I have given, from personal knowledge, the example of Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction. Let me also give the example of torture and extraordinary rendition, also
from personal knowledge.
15. I gave evidence on complicity in torture and extraordinary rendition, appearing in person
for questioning before the Joint Human Rights Committee of the UK Parliament, the
Intelligence and Security Committee, and committees of the European Parliament and
the Council of Europe.
16. I am a whistleblower and I do not believe there is any longer any serious denial of my
testimony on torture and extraordinary rendition, which is widely cited and a key source
on the subject. But the government denied it at the time.
17. My purpose in this affidavit however relates to one key aspect of the governmental
behaviour on torture and extraordinary rendition. This illustrates the willingness of civil
servants to hide the evidence of what policies are being pursued and why, at the
instruction of or in pursuit of the perceived wishes of ministers.
18. I refer to the report of the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee on
Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition 2001-2010 HC 1113, under the chairmanship of
the Rt Hon Dominic Grieve KC. Paragraphs 130 and 131 of this report are crucial to my
evidence.
” 130. This was not unique to the Agencies. Their sponsoring Departments appear to have
adopted the same approach. We heard evidence from a former FCO official, Craig Murray,
who suggested that “there was a deliberate policy of not committing the discussion on
receipt of intelligence through torture to paper in the Foreign Office”. In July 2004, when
he was Ambassador to Tashkent, he raised concerns about the use of Uzbek intelligence
derived from torture in a formal exchange of telegrams with the FCO. Mr Murray drew our
attention to FCO documents from the same time, which we have seen, one of which
referred to “meetings to look at conditions of receipt of intelligence as a general issue”. He
told us that the meetings specifically discussed the receipt of intelligence under torture
from Uzbekistan and were absolutely key to the formation of policy on extraordinary
rendition and intelligence. Mr Murray told us that, when he had given evidence to the
Foreign Affairs Select Committee about this, they sought the documents from the FCO
which replied that the “meetings were informal meetings and were not minuted”. He went
on to say:
the idea that you have regular meetings convened at director level, convened by the
Director of Security and Intelligence, where you are discussing the receipt of intelligence
from torture, and you do not minute those meetings is an impossibility, unless an actual
decision or instruction not to minute the meetings has been given . … Were it not for me
and my bloody-mindedness, … you would never know those meetings had happened.
Nobody would ever know those meetings had happened.
131. We note that we have not seen the minutes of these meetings either: this causes us
great concern. Policy discussions on such an important issue should have been minuted.
We support Mr Murray’s own conclusion that were it not for his actions these matters may
never have come to light.”
The footnotes are essential as they detail evidence including documentary evidence, not
available to the public, which supported my testimony.
“229. Craig Murray was the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to July
2004, during which time he raised concerns about the UK’s use of intelligence derived from
torture. He had been in contact with the Gibson Detainee Inquiry, with a view to appearing
as a witness. He contacted the ISC in August 2014 for the same purpose and gave evidence
to the Committee in 2016.
230. Mr Murray gave the example of photos of a torture victim in Uzbekistan that he had
sent to the FCO, which sent them to a Professor of Pathology at the University of Glasgow,
who is said to have reported that the victim had been beaten about the face and neck, and
eventually had died of immersion in boiling liquid.
231. Oral evidence – the former FCO official, 20 October 2016; FCO telegram from the
Director General, Defence and Intelligence, to the British Embassy in Tashkent, 22 July 2004
(‘Receipt of intelligence obtained under torture’).”
19. The Government response to the committee made no challenge to this account.
20. So the government machinery, especially in matters concerned with intelligence and
national security, demonstrably can produce a false narrative. The fact it comes from
government should not imbue their narrative with a false authority. Not only that, but
the written record from government can deliberately conceal inconvenient facts, policies
or other information.
21. I can testify to the truth of both these assertions from direct personal experience. They
should be borne in mind when considering the government’s assertions about Palestine
Action.
22. We have a blatant example of deliberate concealment before us. As a result of the closed
session process in Scotland, a number of redacted phrases in a Proscription Advisory
Group document have been unredacted and introduced into the open sessions.
(Respondent’s 6th inventory of productions, 7 /103 to 7 /106 of process)
23. None of these phrases was redacted because its revelation would impact UK national
security. I state that as a former expert practitioner in the field. What is obvious on the
face of these redactions is that every single one of them tends to strengthen the case
against proscription. That is why they were redacted by civil servants anxious to conceal
truth in order to forward the agenda of government.
24. This is one small example of the much bigger picture.
25. In an earlier hearing, the Advocate General stated that the reason the Scottish Counter
Terrorism Strategy Board (CONTEST) found that Palestine Action was not close to
meeting the bar for proscription, is that CONTEST is a mere “local board” without full
knowledge of the facts.
26. In fact, to my experienced eye the much more probable explanation is that CONTEST
Scotland is remote from the political desires of London ministers – in this case
particularly to please Israel – while JTAC and the Proscription Advisory Group operate
under their direct influence. The Scottish view is the less distorted view.
27. The government’s narrative of an escalating pattern of violence is simply untrue as a
matter of fact. I have been closely following all trials of Palestine Action activists and to
my knowledge there has been only one single conviction for violence against the person,
and even in that one instance the specific charge of intent was rejected by the jury.
28. The government’s claims of the escalating pattern of violence were heavily based on two
cases, usually called the Filton and Thales cases.
29. In the Thales case, in Scotland, there were no convictions for violence. In parliament
introducing the proscription and in subsequent media statements, the Home Secretary
relied on rather florid sentencing remarks by a Scottish sheriff without mentioning that
key fact.
30. I view it as relevant that the Sheriff Appeal Court in Scotland recently overturned a
decision of the same Sheriff McCormick in another case of a pro-Palestine activist; and
the court’s remarks called into question the fairness of McCormick’s proceedings.
31. In the Filton case, I attended in person two days of the trial of six activists, plus the
sentencing hearing. I carefully read detailed reports of the case every day, both trial and
retrial.
32. In an effort to substantiate its claims of violence against Palestine Action, the State
brought six charges of aggravated burglary, and six charges of violent disorder. There was
also one charge of grievous bodily harm with intent.
33. I believe these are the main “serious charges” to which the Advocate General referred in
response to my petition.
34. All six charges of aggravated burglary failed before a jury, returning not guilty. So did the
six charges of violent disorder, returning three not guilty and three no verdicts. These
charges were not attempted again by the prosecution at retrial. GBH with intent also
failed. GBH with no intent was found guilty.
35. So there is simply zero factual basis for the narrative of an escalating pattern of violence.
There is no charge of violence at Brize Norton.
36. The extent to which the state ‘s case for proscription rested on this false narrative of
violence is vividly illustrated by the bloodcurdling list of charges in the third paragraph of
page 5 of the gisted report of the Proscription Review Group in the respondent’s 6th
Inventory of Productions:
“The criminal offences of Aggravated Burglary (s.10 Theft Act 1968) and Violent Disorder (s.2 Public
Order Act 1986) have been applied to the majority of offenders identified as being directly involved in
each of these incidents, while more specific criminal offences have been applied to individual subjects
for: Administering a Noxious Substance (s.24 Offences against The Person Act 1861); Threats to Kill
(s.16 Offences against The Person Act 1861); Actual Bodily Harm (ABH) (s.47 Offences against The
Person Act 1861); Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH) with intent (s.18 Offences against The Person Act
1861); and Participating in Activities of an Organised CrimeGroup (s.45 Serious Crime Act 2015).”
37. I understand from contact with defendants across a number of cases that the state has
failed to obtain a single conviction on any one of the specific charges identified in that
long list. Today 19 August the state has failed yet again, as the jury in the second batch of
eight defendants in the Filton trial did not convict on any of eight charges of violent
disorder.
38. The state has now brought charges of violent disorder against 14 individuals and
achieved zero convictions.
39. This is a narrative which proved entirely false.
40. I find it a reflection on the honesty of the government and of its legal representatives
that these jury verdicts, which are a matter of fact, and the collapse of this narrative has
not been admitted in these proceedings and the false narrative has not been withdrawn.
41. They may of course be relying on concocted evidence from the security services in closed
proceedings, on which I am unfortunately unable to comment.
42. Similar caution needs to be exercised in relation to the claims of the extent of property
damage. In the Filton trial, the damage was not evidenced. The jury was given an
inventory of the tools the defendants had taken to break or damage Israeli weapons, but
no account at all of what was actually damaged.
43. It is my understanding from trial reports that concealing what was damaged from the
jury was a ruling by the judge, in pursuit of his further ruling that the motives of the
defendants in acting to prevent genocide must not be put to the jury.
44. Only after the verdicts in the second trial was an alleged account of the damage from
Elbit Systems given to the court. The defence lawyers attempted to question this
account, but this was not permitted by the judge. He accepted a figure of £1.1 million
from an insurance claim. As this was not open to interrogation I do not know if it
includes consequential loss.
45. Similarly the extent of property damage at Thales has not been subject to scrutiny. The
Sheriff also referenced £1.1 million and it is not clear if this includes consequential loss.
The aircraft leased by the RAF under the Private Finance Initiative which were sprayed
with water based paint at Brize Norton were reported to have been back flying within
ten days. Whether they would otherwise have flown earlier I do not know.
46. It is unique to designate an organisation involved in damage to property only as a
terrorist group. The least that might be expected is a serious explanation of the property
damage, which is subject to some ability to scrutinise.
47. There is no serious effort by government to itemise property damage by Palestine Action
in a transparent way. Let alone to give comparison to property damage by similar direct
action groups like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion which have not been proscribed.
48. The JTAC documents reveal no effort to quantify property damage or to make the
relevant comparisons. Again, I question the fundamental evidence base of the
proscription.
49. That property damage alone, which does not endanger life, is capable of being classified
as terrorism is an unusual feature of UK legislation. As opposed, for example, to property
damage to an air traffic control facility which obviously might result in deaths.
50. Some actions of other direct action groups in, for example, closing down railways and
major motorways for substantial periods, have had far greater economic effect on the UK
than actions of Palestine Action. They have been dealt with by ordinary criminal law.
51. As there is no escalating campaign of violence, and the property damage is not life
endangering nor on a massive scale, that feeds directly into the question of whether
proscribing this kind of “terrorism” is having disproportionate effects in constraining
human rights.
52. I have met personally with scores of people over the age of 70 years old who have been
charged with terrorism offences for no more that speech and assembly. All of them are
entirely respectable members of society, often from distinguished professions. Many are
pacifists, and Quakers. We do not have a consolidated figure from the Crown Office for
how many face charges in Scotland.
53. Across the UK I understand over 3,500 are charged. Recently 1,855 were listed in a single
day at Westminster Magistrate’s Court. While the simultaneous listing was explained as
an error, a further 152 were arrested, the vast majority for speech offences, outside the
courtroom.
54. Being charged with a terrorism offence is life changing. Not only do they face possible jail
sentences, they face serious international travel restrictions. On 9 August 2026 in
Glasgow I met one who told me that, as a consequence of being charged with a terrorist
offence, his home and car insurance premiums had gone up by over £600 a year in total.
I had previous met a lady who suffered debanking.
55. None of those that I have met charged with speech offences including placards was
previously a member of Palestine Action or participant in their direct action. At the last
hearing it was claimed on behalf of the Advocate General that I effectively represent
Palestine Action in this case. In my own view I do not. I represent myself as a resident of
Scotland whose human rights are curtailed in Scotland, and insofar as I can be said to
represent a group, I would view that group as the ordinary citizens of Scotland whose
human rights are being curtailed by this proscription, who usually had no past
connection to Palestine Action.
56. That all of this is proportionate is an absurd contention and the heartlessness of the
state apparatus and those who control it fill me with dread.
57. I am a resident of Scotland. I believe the direct action campaign of Palestine Action was
necessary, proportionate and in general well conducted. I should like to be able to say so
here, in Edinburgh, where I live. I apply for protection of my human rights to the court of
my own jurisdiction.
58. Where there is obviously a major and widespread effect on human rights of ordinary
citizens, a “margin of appreciation” that assumes the executive violating people’s rights
to be undeniably beneficent, truthful and well-intentioned is not reflective of the real
world.
59. I have a perspective that gives weight to that fact from relevant personal experience. I
am particularly keen to put this testimony before a judicial review in my own jurisdiction.
It is not a perspective available in the English case.
All of which is truth as the deponent shall answer to God.
Signed:
This: NINETEENTH day of AUGUST 2026
At: EDINBURGH
before me DAVID JAMES FINLAY HALLIDAY, Solicitor and Notary Public
~
PAPER APART FOR THE PETITIONER
1. THE PETITIONER’S MOTIONS
1.1 The petitioner moves the court:
(1) to recall the sist granted on 28 May 2026
(2) to invite the Lord Ordinary to report the whole cause to the Inner House for a ruling
under and in terms of rule 34.1(1) of the Rules of the Court.
2. RECALL OF THE SIST
2.1 On 28 May 2026 the court sisted this cause till such time as the Court of Appeal gave its
judgment in Ammori v SSHD (Appeal No. CA-2026-000583) “and the question of onward
appeal to the UK Supreme Court being resolved”.
2.2 On 30 July 2026 the UK Supreme Court granted its permission for the claimant in the
English proceedings to appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal of England and
Wales in her Judicial Review Ammori v SSHD [2026] EWCA Civ 721. The Supreme Court
has fixed a two day diet (4 and 5 November 2026) for the hearing of this appeal
https://supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2026-0099.
2.3 The question of onward appeal to the UK Supreme Court now being resolved, the sist falls
to be recalled.
3. THE RESPONDENT’S MOTION TO RENEW THE SIST
3.1 On 19 August 2026 the respondent advised the petitioner that the position of the UK
Government is that it will be moving this court to “renew the sist” (sine die ?) and that the
UK Government will oppose the reporting of this cause to the Inner House.
3.2 Neither the legal nor factual bases upon which the UK Government will argue that the
court should adopt these positions has not been vouchsafed to the petitioner.
3.3 As is clear from the repeated applications made by the respondent to sist these proceedings
– as well as the respondent’s previous reliance on (misplaced) claims concerning “judicial
comity” and (it may be anticipated, given remarks by the respondent’s counsel at an
earlier hearing) fanciful and wholly unfounded submissions concerning res judicata
/issue estoppel – the UK Government’s position in relation to these Scottish proceedings
is to seek to try and avoid (or at the very least delay) the UK Government having to defend
in open court its policy of the proscription of Palestine Action on two fronts in two separate
jurisdictions.
3.4 The Advocate General’s motion for a new sist to be imposed in this case is of a piece with
that overall aim. It is not however open to this court to accede or facilitate any such aim
of the respondent further to delaying matters in the progress of this case, as we have noted
above. Instead, the only orders which this court may competently pronounce as regards
further procedure following the lifting of the 28 May 2026 sist are orders which ensure the
speedy determination of the petition”.
3.5 In seeking a further sist of these post-permission judicial review proceedings the Advocate
General has failed to identify or specify any specific Rule of Court on which she relies as
the source of the court having power to renew this sist.
3.6 That is because there is no such Rule of Court. The relevant Rules of Court applicable to
judicial review proceedings are set out in Chapter 58. This Chapter contains the principles
which are the court is obliged to apply within the context of procedural decision within
judicial review procedure, as a distinct form of recourse to the courts in public law matters.
These Chapter 58 rules make it clear that the principle of “speedy determination” applies
to the procedure to be adopted in judicial review application, both before (per Rule of
Court 58.4(4)) and after permission has been granted (Rules of Court 58.11(2) and
58.12(2)).
3.7 Whatever legal basis upon which the Advocate General now seek this court to renew and
continue a sist in this case, it clear that ex facie an order for sist does not constitute “an
order for further procedure which is “appropriate for the speedy determination of the
petition.” The Advocate General has therefore to satisfy that the principle of speedy
determination of judicial review application should be disapplied in the circumstances of
this case. She has to date failed to specify any such ground.
3.8 When acceding to the Advocate General’s motion to sist these on 28 May 2026 this court
stated that “a sist of proceedings, whether on an agreed or opposed basis, is a regular
feature of litigation” in explanation/justification for the sist. In so stating the court
misdirected itself, and acted per incuriam. This is because judicial review proceedings
are not “regular litigation”. And sists are not a regular feature within the context of judicial
review proceedings.
3.9 A search for cases in which a sist has been pronounced in judicial review proceedings
(whether in the Outer or Inner House) reveals only two Outer House case, in both of which
a sist was pronounced in highly unusual circumstances. In Craig v. Parole Board [2013]
CSOH 110, 2013 SLT 953, because of a formal written undertaking given to the court on
behalf of the Scottish Parole Board, that if two conjoined pending NI and E&W UKSC
decisions found against the Parole Board on a Convention rights issue (re Article 5(4)
ECHR and the need for oral hearing in parole cases) the UKSC decision would be followed
by it in Scotland. This meant that the Lord Ordinary, Lord Pentland, did not have to deal
with this ground of challenge and so after dismissing the common law case simply agreed
to sist the remaining aspect of the JR challenge pending the UKSC decisions.
3.10 In Greenpeace Ltd v Advocate General for Scotland [2025] CSOH 10, 2025 SLT 303,
three JRs had been raised in Scotland to beat the 3 month time bar and got first orders.
Before the case reached the permission stage, parties agreed to sist the JRs pending UKSC
decision. Again the sist was done by agreement In any event, given that permission had
not been considered or granted by the time the sist had been pronounced, so the provisions
of Rule of Court 58.11(2) on which we rely – and which provides that “(2) When permission
is granted, the Lord Ordinary must make such orders for further procedure as are
appropriate for the speedy determination of the petition” – did not come into play.
3.11 So in both the cases in which a sist was pronounced the court was simply endorsing the
prior agreement of the parties, and so no argument was put before the court as regards the
competency of such a course. And there are simply no cases (other than this court order
of 28 May 2026) in which a sist of judicial review proceedings was pronounced by the court
in the face of opposition by any of the parties.
3.12 As we have noted judicial review proceedings – unlike ordinary litigation – are
proceedings characterised by the principle of “speedy determination”. This is the key
principle for judicial review procedure. The aim of judicial review procedure is
“to focus the issues so that the court can reach a decision upon them, in the interests
of sound administration and in the public interest, as soon as possible”
3.13 Rule of Court 58.11(2) specifies that
“when permission is granted, the Lord Ordinary must make such orders for further
procedure as are appropriate for the speedy determination of the petition” (emphasis
added).
3.14 The only express mention of the possibility of the court pronouncing a sist within the
context of Chapter 58 judicial review procedure is within the context of the pre-permission
procedure for intimation, service and advertisement of the petition, the lodging of answers
and relevant documents, and notification of intention to contest. Rule 58.4(5)(h) allows
that the court might sist the cause for legal aid, but only, per Rule of Court 58.4(4), after
having “regard to the need for the speedy determination of the petition” (emphasis
added).
3.15 Rule 58.12(2) again specifies that “at the procedural hearing the Lord Ordinary may
make such order for further procedure as is appropriate for the speedy determination of
the petition and in particular may make any of the orders listed in rule 58.11(2)” (emphasis
added).
3.16 Yet Rule of Court 58.11(2) does not list the sisting of the cause as being a possible option
in terms of the court’s procedure in judicial review application where permission has been
granted.
3.17 In this, the judicial review rules are to be contrasted with various Rules of Court
applying to procedures other than judicial review, where express provision is made
regarding the possibility of the court pronouncing a sist.
3.18 Against the general principle of statutory construction that expressio unius est exclusio
alterius, the legal basis upon which the Advocate General for Scotland purports now to
rely, as she would have it, to give this court the power to pronounce a further sist in these
post-permission judicial review proceedings, is unclear, given that the possibility of
pronouncing a sist is not listed among the particular orders which may be pronounced by
the court in relation to the speedy determination of a judicial review petition once
permission has been granted for it to proceed, and there is nothing in the Rules of Court
applicable to judicial review procedure which would allow for it.
3.19 In these circumstances the primary position of the petitioner is that this court should
refuse on grounds of competency the respondent’s motion for a new sist to be placed in
this case on the grounds that:
– to grant a sist at this stage of these proceedings would be incompatible with the
principle of speedy determination which applied to the present judicial review public
law proceedings; and
– there is no applicable Rule of Court (nor any inherent power compatible with the
principle of speedy determination) under reference to which a sist might properly be
pronounced.
4. PROCEDURE TO DATE
4.1 Permission was granted for this judicial review to proceed as long ago as 26 January
2026. By interlocutor pronounced on this date the following timetable and case
management orders were made:
– parties to adjust their pleadings until 9 February 2026 being two weeks prior to the
date of the procedural hearing fixed for 23 February 2026
– final versions of parties’ pleadings to be lodged no later than 16 February 2026,
being one week prior to the procedural hearing fixed for 23 February 2026
– affidavits to be lodged in respect of those facts founded on by a party at the substantive
hearing no later than 16 February 2026, being one week prior to the procedural
hearing fixed for 23 February 2026
– statements of issues to be lodged no later than 16 February 2026, being one week
prior to the procedural hearing fixed for 23 February 2026
– notes of argument to be lodged no later than 16 February 2026, being one week
prior to the procedural hearing fixed for 23 February 2026
– parties to confirm whether they are ready to proceed to the substantive hearing no later
no later than 16 February 2026, being one week prior to the procedural hearing fixed
for 23 February 2026
– 23 February 2026 at 10am being fixed as the date for the procedural hearing;
– parties to lodge a list and bundle of authorities, marked up to indicate the parts the
party intends to rely on no later than 7 March 2026, being 10 days prior to the
substantive hearing.
– 17 and 18 of March 2026 at 10am fixed as the dates for the substantive hearing;
4.2 This original timetable appears to have slipped and was not adhered to.
4.3 Instead by interlocutor of 26 March 2026 the court – after granting a declaration under
section 6 of the Justice and Security Act 2013 that these proceedings are proceedings in
which a closed material application may be made to the court and refusing in hoc statu the
respondent’s motion for the proceedings to be sisted – set out the following timetable for
further procedure:
– by 4pm on 9 April 2026 for the respondent to lodge with the court and serve on the
Special Advocates, any application in terms of section 8 of the Justice and Security Act
2013, together with any material subject to any section 8 application;
– by 4pm on 15 April 2026 for the Special Advocates to advise the respondent
whether they object to any section 8 application, and intimate to the Respondent any
submissions in response to any section 8 application,
– by 4pm on 29 April 2026 for the respondent to intimate to the Special Advocates
any response to the Special Advocates’ said submissions,
– by no later than 6 May 2026 for the Special Advocates and counsel for the
respondent to meet in order to narrow any outstanding section 8 issues;
– by 4pm on 13 May 2026 for the Special Advocates and Counsel for the respondent
to notify the court whether a hearing to consider the section 8 application is required,
– no later than 4pm on 15 May 2026, if a hearing is considered to be required,
appoints for the Special Advocates and Counsel for the respondent to lodge with the
court a Joint Minute in terms of RCS 104.9(5) identifying the issues which cannot be
agreed between them, together with any CLOSED Notes of Argument and/or CLOSED
affidavits that they wish to rely upon,
– on Wednesday 27 May 2026 at 10am for a CLOSED court hearing to be held before
the Hon. Lord Young;
– within seven days of the hearing of 27 May 2026 for the respondent to provide,
if required, any further disclosure to the petitioner, to do so;
– for the Special Advocates and Counsel for the respondent to agree, if possible, a date
for a CLOSED substantive hearing together with a procedural timetable for the
respondent and Special Advocate to intimate to each other and to lodge with the court
any CLOSED Note of Arguments and any CLOSED affidavits that they wish to rely
upon at the CLOSED substantive hearing;
– no later than 10 days prior to the substantive hearing for parties to lodge a list
and bundle of authorities, which should be marked up to indicate the parts the party
intends to rely on
– by no later than 4pm on 2 June 2026 for parties to adjust their pleadings and to
lodge final versions
– appoints notes of argument, statements of issues, productions and affidavits to be
lodged no later than 4pm on 9 June 2026;
– assigns 10 June 2026 at 9.30am as the date for a further continued procedural
hearing in respect of open procedure at which the petitioner might participate
4.4 Again, this timetable was not adhered to.
4.5 By interlocutor dated 28 May 2026 orders with the following effect, among others were
pronounced by the court:
– permission granted to the respondent under sections 8 and 11(4) of the Justice and
Security Act 2013 for:
(i) the respondent to withhold sensitive material otherwise than to the Court and
the Special Advocate, for the purpose of the respondent’s section 6 application;
(ii) the sensitive material lodged by the respondent in relation to the section 6
application to be kept separately from the process by the Deputy Principal
Clerk;
(iii) for the sensitive material lodged by the respondent in relation to the section 6
application not to be borrowed or inspected by any party other than by a legal
representative of the Secretary of State or by any Special Advocate; and
(iv) the requirements of RCS 4.5(1)(b), 4.6 and 4.11 to be disapplied in respect of
the sensitive material lodged by the Respondent in relation to the section 6
application
– sists the cause until 30 July 2026 (being the date when the question of onward appeal
to the UK Supreme Court from the decision 15 June 2026 of the Court of Appeal of
England and Wales in Ammori v SSHD [2026] EWCA Civ 721 had been resolved)
(which occurred on 30 July 2026).
4.6 There has already been significant (and frankly unacceptable) delay in the progress of this
judicial review application since permission was granted on 26 January 2026 for the
matter to proceed to a substantive hearing and decision.
4.7 The delays in progressing this matter may largely be attributed to litigation tactics adopted
by the respondent in this case, which run contrary to the requirements properly to be
expected of public authorities when faced with public law based challenges to the
lawfulness of their actions.
5. THE LITIGATION STRATEGY OF THE UK GOVERNMENT IN THE ENGLISH PROCEEDINGS
5.1 In the Ammori proceedings before the English courts the UK Government has appeared
to conduct their defence to these challenges as if a “war of attrition”. In the English
proceedings the UK Government has taken (ultimately ill-founded) procedural points and
has pursued procedural appeal wherever possible.
5.2 Its overall aim in adopting such tactics appears to be to delay as much as possible any final
reckoning before and by the court as to the lawfulness of the policy to proscribe Palestine
Action in England and Wales and perhaps also seeking to deplete the financial resources
available to the claimant to fund the prosecution of this challenge.
5.3 Thus:
– the UK Government first of all opposed permission being granted to the applicant in
the English proceedings: R (Ammori) v. Home Department [2025] EWHC 2013
(Admin) (per Chamberlain J. judgment handed down on 30 July 2025).
– the UK Government then unsuccessfully appealed against the grant of permission to
take the judicial review: R (Ammori) v. Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 1311
[2026] WLR 1000 (per Lady Carr CJ, Lewis LJ, and Edis LJ judgment handed down
on 17 October 2025).
– the UK Government lost in the substantive hearing of the judicial review application
before the Divisional Court: R (Ammori) v. Home Department [2026] EWHC 292
(Admin) [2026] HRLR 9 (per Dame Victoria Sharp President of the King’s Bench
Division, Swift J and Steyn J handed down on 13 February 2026).
– the UK Government then sought and obtained an expedited hearing of its appeal to the
Court of Appeal with hearing dates between 28 to 30 April 2026.
– as noted above some 6 week later, on 15 June 2026 a 5 judge Court of Appeal (Lady
Carr CJ, Sir Geoffrey Vos MR, Edis LJ Vice President of the Criminal Division of the
Court of Appeal, Lewis LJ and Whipple LJ) handed down its decision upholding the
UK Government appeal.
– once the EWCA judgment was handed down the UK Government then immediately
filed a motion with the Court of Appeal requiring that the applicant apply to that court
for permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court by 22 June 2026 (i.e. just seven
days of that court’s substantive decision upholding the UK Government appeal).
– an application for permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court was duly put before
the Court of Appeal by the applicant on 22 June 2026. But the UK Government then
opposed the grant of permission, which was then refused by the Court of Appeal.
5.4 Had the concern of the UK Government truly been for there to be a final authoritative
decision applicable across the UK on the lawfulness of the proscription of Palestine Action
it would have supported the applicant’s PTA application.
5.5 In any event, notwithstanding the UK Government opposing permission to appeal from
the decision of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in its favour, the UK Supreme
Court granted the Ammori applicant such permission and the matter is now, as we have
noted above, going to a substantive hearing before the UKSC on 4 and 5 November 2026.
6. THE SCOTTISH DIMENSION TO THE JUSTIFICATION FOR THE PROSCRIPTION OF
PALESTINE ACTION
6.1 The Advocate General appears to be proceeding on the basis or assumption that if the UK
Supreme Court on an appeal from the Court of Appeal of England and Wales upholds the
lawfulness under English law of its proscription as a terrorist organisation in England and
Wales, this this ruling will apply equally to and for Scotland (and to and for Northern
Ireland).
6.2 And if the UK Supreme Court says that Palestine Action cannot properly be proscribed
under English law then – on the Advocate General’s analysis at least – it must follow it
cannot have been properly proscribed under Scots law or under Northern Irish law, again
on the assumption there are no principles specific to English law, Scots law or Northern
Irish law that might allow for a different approach on this issue to be taken across the
internal national jurisdictions of the UK.
6.3 But as we have seen from the UKSC decision in Jwanczuk that is to approach matters from
completely the wrong way round. What Jwanczuk tells is that the courts in each of the
jurisdictions of the UK have to reach their decision independently of how courts in other
UK jurisdictions have reached them.
6.4 One of the central planks offered by the Home Secretary in justification of her decision to
proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was an incident in Scotland in June
2022. In her written statement to the House of Commons made on 23 June 2025 (over 3
years after the Glasgow incident) she said this of it:
“During Palestine Action’s attack against the Thales defence factory in Glasgow in
2022, the group caused over a million pounds worth of damage including to parts
essential to submarines.
The Sheriff, in passing custodial sentences for the attackers’ violent crimes, spoke of
the panic among staff who feared for their safety as pyrotechnics and smoke bombs
were thrown in the area where they were evacuating.
He further recorded the extent of damage to legitimate business activities which
included ‘matters of nationwide security’ and disputed the groups’ claims its actions
were non-violent.”
6.5 But it is important to bear in mind that in the English proceedings no challenge is made to
the Home Secretary’s statement made in justification for the order at issue that what
occurred during a protest incident at Thales SA, in Glasgow on 1 June 2022 constituted
acts of terrorism on the basis that they involved the use or threat of action which was said
to “serious damage” to, and only to property and was “designed to influence a government
to advance a political, religious or ideological cause” such as to fall within the ambit of
section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
6.6 Because the Claimant’s application for permission for judicial review on this ground was
refused in the Administrative Court below (see R (Ammori) v Home Secretary [2025]
EWHC 2013 (Admin) at [77]-[80]), the retrospective characterisation of what is said to
have happened in Glasgow on 1 June 2022 at Thales SA as “terrorism” is not a matter
which can be disputed in the English proceedings. Indeed the Court of Appeal (in its
judgment at para 150) relies heavily on what it understands from the sentencing sheriff’s
reported remarks as happened in Glasgow on 1 June 2022 in support of its finding in
favour of the lawfulness of the Home Secretary proscription of Palestine Action as a
terrorist organisation.
6.7 This is a matter which can however usefully and properly be examined in the present
Scottish proceedings. So too is the issue of consultation with actors in Scotland. A court in
Scotland is in a far better position to understand and situate the relevant actors in the
Scottish context; and separately, the circumstances of the June 2022 protest action at
Thales SA in Glasgow in respect of which the five individuals charged all pled guilty to
charges of breach of the peace. Two of these five also pled guilty to “damaging property”
in gluing their hands to the edge of the roof. And one of the five, in addition, pled guilty to
behaving in a threatening or abusive manner when police arrive to de-bond her hands from
the roof when she was obstructive and required to be restrained using leg restraints. The
first four accused were sentenced by the Sheriff to serve a total of 12 months incarceration
and the fifth who resisted arrest received a total sentence of 14 months imprisonment.
6.8 Much was made by the Home Secretary and by the courts in England and Wales that the
sheriff mentioned in his remarks the setting off of “pyrotechnics including smoke bombs”
at the start of what turned out to be a day long occupation of the premises. The sheriff
noted in his sentencing that “in one criminal justice social work report it is said that ‘the
offence is non-violent in nature and was planned as well as intended to cause disruption’”.
He then comments in passing that “throwing pyrotechnics into areas where people are
being evacuated could hardly be described as non-violent”.
6.9 But the reality is that fireworks are not firearms. The throwing of smoke bombs was
charged as and only as “breach of the peace”. None of the individual was charged with any
form of terrorism offences. The justification for the Home Secretary to found on the
circumstances of this case as a primary basis for the proscription in Scotland, as well as
the rest of the UK, of Palestine Action can therefore usefully be considered and determined
by the courts in Scotland in the present proceedings. So too can the issue of consultation
with relevant Scottish actors, a matter not considered by the courts of England and Wales.
7. FURTHER PROCEDURE: REPORTING THE CAUSE TO THE INNER HOUSE
7.1 The only question which is therefore before this court is what procedural orders should
now be pronounced in this case (given the history slipping timetables and frankly
unwarranted delays) which will best allow for the “speedy determination” of the petition.
7.2 The reality of this situation is that the present challenge to the proscription in Scotland
will not be finally resolved by the decision of this court at first instance.
7.3 Whatever decision may be taken by the Lord Ordinary – whether to uphold or refuse the
challenge to the proscription in Scotland of Palestine Action – will be reclaimed against to
the Inner House.
7.4 Neither will any decision by the UK Supreme Court on the Ammori appeal finally and
authoritatively determine the question of the lawfulness of the proscription in Scotland of
Palestine Action, because the UK Supreme Court will be exercising its jurisdiction as a
court of England and Wales rather than as a Scottish court and its decision on this matter
will bind neither this court nor the Inner House. 9 Section 41 of the Constitutional Reform
Act 2005, so far as relevant, as follows:
“41. Relation to other courts etc
(1) Nothing in this Part [3 concerning the UK Supreme Court] is to affect the
distinctions between the separate legal systems of the parts of the United Kingdom.
(2) A decision of the [UK] Supreme Court on appeal from a court of any part of the
United Kingdom, other than a decision on a devolution matter, is to be regarded as the
decision of a court of that part of the United Kingdom.”
7.5 In these circumstances it is clear that the most expedient course for this court to take in
order to ensure the speedy final and authoritative determination of the present challenge
is for this court to report the whole cause to the Inner House, without the matter going to
a substantive hearing and determination by the court.
7.6 The Inner House will be properly placed to hear and determine – without the benefit of
the view of the Lord Ordinary – the substantive challenge to the proscription in Scotland
of Palestine Action because it will have the advantage of knowledge of two reasoned
decision from the English courts – on the equivalent proscription in England and Wales –
at this stage of proceedings.
7.7 The petitioner now invites the Lord Ordinary to report the whole cause to the Inner House
for a ruling under and in terms of rule 34.1(1) of the Rules of the Court.
7.8 Rule of Court 34.3(2) provides that “the decision of the Inner House on a report to it
under rule 34.1(1) shall be final”: qv Davidson v. Scottish Ministers (No 3): incidental
application re Leave to appeal to House of Lords, 2005 1 SC (HL) 1 at §13.
7.9 This means that any decision of the Inner House, on the court’s Chapter 34 report to it, is
habile to be appealed to the UK Supreme Court (see subsection 40(2)(a) of the Court of
Session Act 1988), provided that the necessary permission to appeal has been granted by
the appropriate court (subsections 40(1) and/or 40(3) of the Court of Session Act 1988).
7.10 The petitioner submits that, instead of considering the petition and answers at a
substantive hearing and reaching his own determination on it, the option of reporting the
case to the Inner House is the most appropriate procedure to be adopted by the court in
all the circumstances of this case.
7.11If this proposed course of action is followed then it will at least allow the possibility of: the
Inner House making a decision on the Scottish challenge; and then for the UK Supreme
Court to have the benefit of the decision of two appellate courts, respectively determining
at the same time under Scots law and separately under English law, the lawfulness of the
proscription of Palestine Action. The UK Supreme Court will then be able to determine
this matter finally and most importantly authoritatively both in and for Scotland, and in
and for England and Wales.
7.12 The UK Supreme Court indeed welcomes the opportunity of being able to hear at the
same time appeals from the decisions of the (intermediate) appellate courts in relation to
legislation which applies across the United Kingdom. The resolution of any differences in
approach as between the Scottish and English intermediate appellate court is indeed said
in Jwanczuk to be one of the justifications for the UK Supreme Court’s existence.
7.13 What hearing appeals from Scotland and from England together means is that the UK
Supreme Court to get the benefit of the views of experienced appellate judges from both
sides of the border: see for example: R (Cart) v. Upper Tribunal [2011] UKSC 28/Eba v.
Advocate General for Scotland [2011] UKSC 29; and Cherry v. Advocate General for
Scotland/Miller v. Prime Minister [2019] UKSC 41. Indeed, standing that a powerfully
constituted bench of three in the Divisional Court (including the President of the King’s
Bench Division) reached one conclusion on the lawfulness of proscription; and a (very
unusual) bench of five in the Court of Appeal reached a different conclusion, the Supreme
Court would perhaps be assisted to an even greater extent than normal by also having the
reasoned determination of the Inner House available to it.
7.14 This course of hearing Scottish and English appeal together ensures, too, that a final
authoritative ruling can be handed down by the UK Supreme Court which unequivocally
applies to both sides of the border and thereby enhances and achieves the legal certainty
required to ensure compatibility with and respect for the Convention rights of all those
many individuals, north and south of the border, affected (including in relation to its
chilling effect) by the decision of the Home Secretary to list Palestine Action as a proscribed
terrorist organisation. Such an authoritative determination affording legal certainty is
needed in the present context, given that individuals in Scotland have been arrested and
prosecuted, and continue to face the risk of arrest and prosecution, for offences grounded
in the proscription of Palestine Action.
7.15 Against that background it is clear that the proper course to be followed in this case is
for the Lord Ordinary to report this case to the Inner House.
7.16 Accordingly, once the sist has been lifted in accordance with the first part of this
motion, the petitioner moves that the court – acting under and in terms of Rule of Court
34.1(1) – report the cause as a whole to the Inner House for its ruling on the substance of
this judicial review challenge.
7.17 Any suggested alternative course which may be anticipated from the Advocate General
on behalf of the UK Government – for example that the present proceedings remain sisted
pending the determination by the UK Supreme Court of any appeal against the decision of
the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, leaving the petitioner with the possibility simply
of applying to intervene in any English appeal in the UK Supreme Court – would be wholly
inappropriate, for at least the following reasons, among others:
(1) Any resulting decision of the UK Supreme Court in a solely English appeal would not
be binding as a matter of precedent in and for Scotland.
(2) The UK Supreme Court might choose to deny outright any application for the
petitioner to intervene.
(3) Even if the UK Supreme Court allowed the possibility for an intervention by the
petitioner, that court might determine that it will allow limited intervention only on
particular aspects or arguments, rather than the full range of the argument which the
petitioner might wish to present.
(4) Any arguments which the UK Supreme Court might allow to be heard from the
petitioner would be considered and determined against a background of there being
no independent Scottish court consideration of these arguments.
(5) It is particularly important for the UK Supreme Court to hear the views of the Scottish
courts because one of the main justifications on which the Court of Appeal of England
and Wales relied upon in deciding that Palestine Action was engaging in and
advocating for terrorism is a decision and sentencing remarks of a sheriff in a
criminal case at Glasgow Sheriff Court and how the Scottish authorities (the police,
the Crown and the sheriff) dealt with it (Ammori, [2026] EWCA Civ 721 paras 53,
150). Therefore, it is crucial that there is a complete and full understanding of the full
details and circumstances of that decision (and all other Scotland related decisions),
which only the Inner House can bring.
(6) In any event, there is no identity of parties (or arguably interests) between the
English and Scottish proceedings. Ms Ammori, the applicant in the English
proceedings, is a co-founder of Palestine Action and may be said to be a
representative of that organisation. But membership of an association is not to be
conflated with a desire to express support for the organisation and its action and
aims. The petitioner in the present Scottish proceedings is in no sense a
representative of the proscribed association. He is not its agent, or alter ego, nor
can he bind it in any way, nor does he in any sense act for it. He seeks to review the
proscription order because he is not, in Scotland, ‘able to freely express his political
support for the organisation’. It is on that basis that he has standing to pursue the
present challenge as a concerned and politically involved citizen and Scot.
7.18 In the whole circumstances the petitioner renews the second part of his motion and
once more invites the Lord Ordinary to report the whole cause to the Inner House for a
ruling under and in terms of rule 34.1(1) of the Rules of the Court.
8. CONCLUSION
8.1 The petitioner in the present proceedings accepts that that the UK Supreme Court should
be afforded the last and authoritative word on the lawfulness under Scots law of Palestine
Action in Scotland. That is a separate question in law from the issue of the lawfulness
under English law of the proscription of Palestine Action in England and Wales. There are
undoubtedly some common background factual and legal issues as between the two
challenges. It is accordingly expedient that the two appeals be heard and determined at
the same time before the same bench of the UK Supreme Court.
8.2 This aim can only be achieved by the court following the course of action which the
petitioner urges on the court.
8.3 The UK Government’s position by contrast seems to be one of impeding or delaying the
final authoritative resolution of these matters in Scotland. That course should not be
permitted it by this court.
8.4 In all these circumstances the petitioner renews his motion as enrolled and moves the
court to grant both parts of that motion.
AIDAN O’NEILL KC
MARK BONI, ADVOCATE
TONY CONVERY, ADVOCATE
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The post Scottish Judicial Review Hearing Tomorrow appeared first on Craig Murray.
Between ten and five years ago, specifically in the light of Brexit, it was not in the least unusual for Scottish Independence supporters to discuss a declaration of Independence as the way forward. Debate more often centred on who should make the declaration – the Scottish parliament or some form of national convention or assembly. Very few Independence supporters considered the idea outrageous.
On the day that the UK left the European Union, contrary to the referendum vote of every region in Scotland, Sturgeon called a set-piece speech and summoned the whole SNP party hierarchy to be there, as were all the Scottish and UK media. Nobody knew what she was going to say. The belief she may be about to declare Independence, or give an imminent date for it, was widely shared.
In the event, to everyone’s great puzzlement, she said nothing meaningful at all and made no effort to make the break with the EU a decisive moment in taking forward Scotland’s Independence.
In 2020 I stood for President of the SNP and my published manifesto included this passage:
As I was a British diplomat for over 20 years, including six years as a member of the Senior Management Structure of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I can assure you that MI5, GCHQ and the other organs of the UK security state are targeted on us. Scottish Independence supporters are rightly perceived as the biggest threat to the UK state.
My intention is to ensure that we are indeed the biggest threat to the UK state. Anybody who believes that the security services are not already targeted on us is a fool. The security services would not be doing their declared job otherwise. This new legislation is a threat to us. Remember Pat Finucane. Remember David Kelly. Above all, remember Willie McRae.
All the more reason to strike now for Independence and get out of the UK.
Let us use the economic powers of an independent nation to build a fair and just society with no billionaires, no foodbanks and no children living in poverty. Let us build a nation with a foreign policy not dictated by the interests of the USA, dedicated to human rights, international development and support for the United Nations.
Let us move quickly to secure an Independent Scotland. Let our descendants be proud of us.
Nobody accused me of being some kind of unrepresentative outsider. The SNP leadership were so panicked that, the day before nominations closed, the sitting President was told he was retiring and being replaced by the extremely popular Mike Russell MP as the party establishment candidate.
Voting was restricted to Conference delegates, where the party leadership had a huge payroll vote. Even so I came second out of four candidates, with 25% in the final round.
In those days we had AUOB marches for Independence of hundreds of thousands of people. One in Edinburgh I timed as taking three hours to go past. We had marches which, as a percentage of Scotland’s population, were bigger than the equivalent two million person march in London against the Iraq war.
It says a very great deal about how far the Independence movement has come – and all of it downhill – that my article last week caused pearl-clutching and fainting fits in the Independence movement, for daring to suggest that Scotland should announce that it will declare Independence if Westminster continues to block a referendum.
The SNP leadership-aligned newspaper, the National, even accused me – on its front page, no less – of aiming to start a war with the UK.
Nicola Sturgeon had never been on a single one of those AUOB marches. We were told that, as First Minister, it would be too divisive for her to attend Independence marches.
It was, it transpired, not too divisive for her to attend trans-rights events and attempt to push extreme and uncompromising trans-rights legislation through the Scottish parliament that went way beyond what public opinion would currently bear. It was not too divisive for her to attempt to abolish juries in sexual assault cases.
Sturgeon led the SNP down a cul-de-sac marked “identity politics” and left it there. Naturally, anyone who queried this was a misogynist.
Remember, I was never an opponent of the gender reforms. I thought they could have been improved, notably by Michelle Thomson’s amendments. But I was never against them. What I was entirely against was the prioritisation of this issue over Independence. The debate should have been left until after Independence. An independent Scotland could sort out these issues on its own terms.
Instead the issue was used deliberately and entirely successfully to split the Independence movement.
The SNP is still in the identity politics cul-de-sac.
The SNP is now absolutely wedded, as a matter of doctrine, to staying loyal to UK domestic legislation. That course was set by Sturgeon; the Scottish government brought a case for an Independence referendum to the London Supreme Court in the certain knowledge they would lose, and deliberately argued the case in a way that was bound to lose.
The Lord Advocate even stated in terms on behalf of the Scottish Government the British nationalist doctrine that Scotland had permanently ceased to exist on the coming into force of the Treaty of Union.
The SNP of Sturgeon, Humza and Swinney is the only instance in post-1918 world history of an Independence movement which does not advance its case for national self-determination as a right in international law. It really is.
The notion of an Independence party which swears unshakeable allegiance to the legal system and political diktats of its occupying power is so obviously risible, it astonishes me, truly genuinely astounds me, that some people still do not see it.
The harsh truth is this: Independence for Scotland will only happen against the opposition of the UK government and by doing things which UK law and its Supreme Court consider illegal.
The enacting of Independence itself will – as the UK Government explicitly stated in its intervention in the Kosovo ICJ hearing – by definition almost always be illegal in terms of the legislation of the state being seceded from. But as the UK also stated, that is not a determining factor.
By abandoning the possibility of disobedience to the UK state, the SNP has doomed itself to waiting for London agreement which will never, ever come. London is highly dependent on Scottish resources. It needs the UK to stay together to retain its permanent member status at the United Nations. It is never going to agree to lose Scotland.
My own view is that the SNP leadership is riddled with MI5 agents, and that the rest are careerists who love the big fat pay packets they get from their privileged position as administrators within the British state. They will never risk all their personal material success for Independence. Their unswerving allegiance to the laws of the UK state is reinforced by their extremely well-feathered position within it.
Their plan for achieving Independence always boils down to this: if you vote us into our highly paid jobs again, we will actually do something about Independence this time. This time. This time. This time. This time. This time. Astonishingly, decent well-motivated Independence supporters still fall for it.
In 2014, at the start of the referendum campaign, support for Independence was somewhere between 29 and 32%. That is why Cameron agreed to the referendum – he thought the result would kill off Independence. Over several months of campaigning support leapt and finished at 45% – despite massive media bias against us, on an incredible scale, in a referendum which met no international standards.
Since then, nothing has happened. Alex Salmond resigned, Nicola Sturgeon took over and she deliberately took all momentum out of Independence campaigning.
This was Sturgeon’s speech at the Aberdeen conference in 2015. Members failed to grasp the import of what she was saying:
I don’t just want to win the votes of independence supporters. I want to inspire people who voted No last year to vote SNP too. I want them to vote SNP because they know we are the best party, with the best ideas and the best people to lead Scotland forward. Everyone, from the strongest supporter of independence to the stoutest advocate of the Union, has the right to know we will continue to govern well with the powers we have at any given time.
Independence support has gone up very slightly over the 12 years since the referendum and now hovers around or just over 50%. Nothing has been done to replicate the months of campaigning, enthusiasm and hope which permanently raised support in a 20% step change during the referendum campaign.
If you do nothing, nothing happens.
The SNP has done nothing. It almost never mentions Independence outside elections. SNP MPs never participate in Westminster by saying how the subject under debate will be handled in a post-Independence Scotland; they operate entirely within the UK framework. At Holyrood, if the word “Independence” is ever heard, other than in a taunt from a Unionist MSP, it is a certain sign that an election is shortly pending.
You cannot increase active popular support for an event which its own supposed advocates accept is subject to a veto by a power you cannot control, and which is determined permanently to veto.
“Sign up to surrender to Westminster” is not an inspiring slogan.
I sympathise greatly with those, like my good friend Robin McAlpine who have been so disillusioned and demoralised by the SNP that they have tipped into the slough of despond and – ironically – joined the ranks of the very gradualists they despise, because they cannot see a way out.
Momentum is important in politics. If you accept to stay stuck behind a barrier you will never achieve momentum. The only way forward is to say that the people of Scotland will refuse to be bound by the laws of the UK state if they offer no democratic option for Scotland to leave the union.
That is the only effective pressure Scotland can bring. My own proposed solution remains to threaten to declare Independence unilaterally if London does not agree a proper, international-standard referendum subject to international norms on media, franchise, vote security etc. And then to declare Independence if our demand for a referendum is not met.
This last week I have heard other proposals to defy London – holding an “illegal” referendum, ways of withholding revenue, ceasing government cooperation in various areas. They are all worth exploring.
Support for Independence will leap up another step change when we actually do something about it. Leadership sweeps people along with it. No country which ever became Independent did not have a substantial number of sceptics among its own population. History shows us that such sentiment soon dies following Independence.
You will look very hard indeed for an example of any country that went Independent and then wanted to go back.
There is a tide in the affairs of men which, if taken at the flood, must lead on to success. That remains today a crucial insight. Momentum is vital and to build momentum you have to surge forward.
It is equally true that stagnant water starts to stink. That is the lesson the Scottish Independence Movement must learn from the dead end of the Sturgeon years and from what then happened to internal governance and probity in the SNP. The answer is to abjure stagnation and to embrace the urgent need to move forward.
No nation ever achieved Independence without leaps of faith and acts of courage. I am sorry if that shocks people. There is no safe, agreed path to Independence, and never will be. The Independence movement needs to shake the parasites who hold us back.
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The post A Tide in the Affairs of Men appeared first on Craig Murray.
Unlike the USA, where it is obsessively watched, the UK has no political culture of scrutinising the political composition of its Supreme Court. This is a big mistake.
The UK Supreme Court has been deliberately and openly, even ostentatiously, packed with hard-right judges selected on the specific criterion that they will not oppose the will of the government.
This is neither a crank theory nor a secret. It is much discussed in the most respectable of specialist law journals, though couched in the jargon of jurisprudence. It has not reached a wider audience because the Establishment is entirely in favour. Just like all recent authoritarian legislation, it is supported by New Labour, Reform, Conservative and Liberal Democrat branches of the Uniparty and favoured by the entire mainstream media – indeed it is openly framed as responding to the mainstream media, of which more follows.
In 2019 the Supreme Court ruled that the suspension (prorogation) of Parliament by Boris Johnson to get Brexit through was illegal. This outraged conservatives.
Lord Reed of Allermuir, President of the Supreme Court, was appointed by Tory Lord Chancellor Robert Buckland specifically to push back against the notion that the court should be a limitation on the power of the Executive. As Reed stated in evidence to the House of Lords Constitution Committee:
The challenges really came in the earlier part of my presidency… One was the aftermath of the prorogation judgment. I became President a matter of a few months after that judgment was given. It would be fair to say that the judgment had been regarded by the Government and many people in Parliament as an example of judicial activism. I think it was, if you like, the straw that broke the camel’s back. It and other cases no doubt prompted initiatives to push back against judicial review, the Human Rights Act and specifically the Supreme Court, with some briefings suggesting that the court would be abolished.
The challenge was to rebuild trust and build a relationship with the Government and Parliament in which our role was understood.
Reed thus began a crusade against what he called “judicial activism” – a crusade which included blocking, as Chair of the Judicial Appointments Committee, any judge from promotion who believed the Courts and the Human Rights Act should be used to constrain the actions of Government. As he said to the same Lords Committee meeting:
“we ask the shortlisted candidates to give us a presentation and we have very often chosen one on that very topic. I can remember asking something along the lines of, “Do you think that the relationship between the courts and Parliament has been damaged by an overenthusiastic interpretation of the Human Rights Act?”. If the candidate says, “No, there’s no problem. We had a wonderful relationship with Parliament, and the Human Rights Act had no impact on that whatever”, you wonder, “What planet has this person been on?”.
…So long as I am chairing the selection commission, I would be looking for people with a better awareness of constitutional realities.”
So here Lord Reed states openly that any judge who believes the executive is constrained by the provisions of the Human Rights Act will not get on to the Supreme Court.
The vital point to note here is that the appeal to the Supreme Court which has been granted to Huda Ammori on the Palestine Action proscription is on exactly this point. It is on, and indeed limited by the Supreme Court precisely to, whether the actions of the government in proscribing Palestine Action are a disproportionate limitation of ECHR rights enshrined in the Human Rights Act.
So Huda Ammori in the Palestine Action case has been granted leave to appeal to a court which specifically and openly disbars from membership any judge who might find in her favour.
In case you think I am selectively quoting or am twisting Lord Reed’s meaning, here he is delivering the Peter Taylor Memorial lecture, in which he mentions issues for which the courts face public criticism:
The first is judicial overreach or activism: that judges do not know their place in the constitution, and interfere unwarrantably in the democratic process. As it was put in an editorial in the Daily Telegraph earlier this year, under the headline “Judicial reform is long overdue”: “Roughly 29 million people cast their votes, elect their representatives to Parliament, those representatives pass laws, and, at the end of this process, a group of judges appear to then decide what the law should actually be instead”. This is not a new criticism. In 2006 an editorial in the Daily Express stated: “Britain’s out-of-touch judges are increasingly using the Human Rights Act as a means of asserting their will over our elected representatives”.
As I will explain, a concern that judges do not understand their constitutional role is not confined to a section of the press, but is also felt by some members of Parliament.
The second concern is that judicial decisions are based on the application of values which are not shared by Parliament or the general public. The same editorial in the Daily Telegraph cited tribunal decisions in asylum and immigration cases as demonstrating “the extent to which the values held by this country’s judiciary have diverged from both those held by the general population, and those held by the legitimate legislature in Parliament”. This too is not a new criticism. A Daily Mail editorial in 2003 asserted that “Britain’s unaccountable and unelected judges are openly, and with increasing arrogance and perversity, usurping the role of Parliament, setting the wishes of the people at nought and pursuing a liberal, politically correct agenda of their own…”
While Reed frames these as merely noting outside criticism of the courts, and “balances” them with a single unreferenced claim of left-wing criticism of the court over trans rights, the whole lecture makes entirely clear that Reed sympathises with these right-wing criticisms. He repeatedly quotes the viewpoint of the Telegraph, Express and Mail but shows very little awareness of other viewpoints. He nowhere – not just in this article, nowhere – indicates that he thinks liberal criticism need be similarly heeded.
He carries on in this lecture:
…we should not deceive
ourselves into thinking that the reasons for the distrust have nothing to do with the courts. Cases in which, for example, judges have said that they might disapply an Act of Parliament which they regarded as contrary to the rule of law, or in which they have interpreted ouster clauses so narrowly as to render them ineffective, have left a legacy. The courts’ approach in recent years has been more attentive to the separation of powers; but the more ambitious decisions and dicta of the past have not been forgotten.If it is desirable for politicians to understand the judiciary better, it is also desirable for the judiciary to understand politicians better. It is important that a sense of proportion is maintained and that we do not cry “wolf” in response to every proposed statutory intervention in the work of the courts. It needs to be recognised that not all proposals for the modification of judicial review, or sentencing policy, or the protection of human rights, are constitutionally improper.
That is not the easiest paragraph to parse, but he is stating that proposals for the modification of judicial review or the modification of human rights are not constitutionally improper. He is asserting the government’s right to limit judicial review and human rights. Which rather puts a shade on the Palestine Action proscription judicial review on the grounds of human rights.
The ultra-conservative think tank Policy Exchange was extremely influential during the Conservative administration which appointed Reed. It published in 2019 a series of papers arguing that judges must be prevented from overruling the executive, particularly on human rights grounds.
The same year, Conservative Lord Chancellor Buckland appointed Reed to carry out this project.
In December 2021 Policy Exchange’s Head of its Judicial Power Project, Oxford University right-wing ideologue Richard Ekins, was in a Conservative Home article praising Lord Reed for judgments moving the law in their direction:
In deciding if a state has breached the ECHR, the Strasbourg Court often recognises a “margin of appreciation” within which the state is free to decide how best to limit rights. Lady Hale and others reasoned that within the margin of appreciation, the UK courts should develop and apply their own understanding of Convention rights.
…In its Wednesday judgment, the Supreme Court disapproves the 2008 judgment that began this line of reasoning, as well as one of the most high-profile subsequent cases. Lord Reed, giving judgment for the court, rather understates the extent to which his colleagues had been willing to go beyond Strasbourg, but his judgment firmly restates the understanding of the 1998 Act for which Policy Exchange’s Judicial Power Project has argued now for many years.
Buckland himself in 2022 also praised the work of his appointed agent:
the current Supreme Court, under Lord Reed’s leadership, has in the last year demonstrated the appropriate degree of restraint. It is essential that this continues and that we remain blessed with sensible judges like Lord Reed.
Again this is exactly the argument in the Palestine Action case, where Lady Carr in the English Court of Appeal ruled that the proscription of Palestine Action was lawful because a “wide margin of appreciation” had to be given to Yvette Cooper in deciding to proscribe Palestine Action.
Court of Appeal judges frequently aim for promotion to the Supreme Court. There is an appointment process open now. Lord Reed has made absolutely plain that one unavoidable criterion to become a member of the Supreme Court is to agree with his doctrine that government ministers must be given “a wide margin of appreciation” in relation to the application of the Human Rights Act.
We therefore have a situation where the English Court of Appeal has ludicrously ruled that, for 85-year-old grannies to be jailed as terrorists for holding a placard, falls within the “wide margin of appreciation” to be given to Yvette Cooper and Shabana Mahmood in judging what is necessary for “national security”.
Well, it would certainly not have been in the Appeal Court judges’ career interest to have decided otherwise.
You can find small areas of specialist commentary where all this has been noted. Here, for example, on The Justice Gap:
Under Lord Reed, the Court has retreated into itself, becoming less confident and more deferential. No longer are decisions of the executive subject to searching scrutiny, but instead there is a focus on the ‘democratic credentials’ of an act, such as whether it was introduced after a ‘manifesto commitment’ or subject to ‘vigorous debate’ in the House of Commons.
The last two weeks alone have seen the Court hand down decisions that approved the cuts to child-tax credit despite their discriminatory consequences on women, and which allowed children to be kept in solitary confinement. In the former decision, Lord Reed even saw fit to condemn charities and campaigning organisations for trying to use the courts, as he sees it, as a way of compensating for their failures in the political arena. Not only does this show a hopeless naivety about how politics is conducted, but it ignores the reality which is that in a modern liberal democracy, there is no bright-line boundary between ‘legality and the political process’.
The consequences of this naivety are all too clear to see. Alongside last week’s troubling decisions, Lord Reed’s presidency has seen the Supreme Court permit the Home Secretary to unilaterally strip British citizens of their nationality without due process; while a decision handed down at the end of last year allowed ministers to sidestep their pledges and international commitments to engage with the threat of climate change. In this latter case, the UK’s Supreme Court seems especially out of step with its brethren across the globe, who are doing much to emphasise the existential threat that climate change poses to human rights, and are also more adroitly balancing the need to respect both democratic decision-making and fundamental rights.
Here is a tremendous graphic, from an article seeking to quantify the change under Reed. It shows the percentage of Human Rights cases which succeed before the Supreme Court. Remember the Court only takes cases which are well-founded with a good prospect of success. Under Reed the percentage of successful human rights appeals has fallen from 60% to 15%.
Reed has done what he was openly put there to do.
The Palestine Action case is being rushed through by the Supreme Court in November, before Lord Reed retires in January having successfully reduced human rights in the UK.
The UK has passed a whole raft of extremely authoritarian legislation recently, including the National Security Act, the Online Safety Act and the National Security (State Threats) Act. To institute extreme authoritarianism, you must have judges prepared to enforce it.
Let me however caveat this. Nobody is totally malign, not even Lord Reed. In the Rwanda case he presided over the unanimous Supreme Court judgment against the government, showing that when the executive do something totally bonkers and argue plainly untrue fact, he has the intellectual self-respect not to endorse it. Or possibly he has the desire to maintain credibility and authority among his fellow judges. Whatever the exact workings, it is not impossible for Lord Reed to find against the government.
On top of that there has been a discernible shift in the position of some Conservatives – precisely the ones that Lord Reed will see in his newspapers of choice. Both Andrew Neil and Daniel Hannan expressed dismay at the latest arrests of protestors outside Westminster Crown Court “for expressing an opinion”, to quote Neil.
Neither of these two had previously any problem with the arrest for expressing an opinion of priests, people in wheelchairs, or ladies in their 80s, but when Sir Jonathon Porritt, knight of the realm and a close personal friend of King Charles, was arrested again, it began to dawn on them that this was not perhaps really terrorism.
We’re losing the plot when it comes to free speech. There are few issues on which Jonathan and I agree, especially on Palestine Action. That’s irrelevant. But for him to be arrested for no more than expressing an opinion? That way lies madness and dictatorship. Free Jonathan… https://t.co/DPZv619Uov
— Andrew Neil (@afneil) July 30, 2026
As it stands the Supreme Court starts with the decision that the Palestine Action proscription was lawful, made by the High Court of England and Wales. We need to seek to counter that with a decision by the Scottish Court of Session that the proscription was unlawful. I am very optimistic that the Scottish court will come to this conclusion.
In the proscription case, the English courts decided that Johnson’s suspension of parliament was lawful whereas the Scottish courts ruled it unlawful. The Supreme Court agreed with the Scottish courts.
The Scottish judicial review has been suspended or “sisted” by Lord Young after a whole series of horribly expensive procedural motions in view of lawfare tactics by the UK government to delay, delay, delay and either time out the Scottish judicial review or make us run out of money to pursue it.
The suspension or “sist” falls now the Supreme Court has decided to hear the appeal. Indeed the sist was designed to end as soon as the Supreme Court decided on whether to allow an appeal, and the sist ended if they decided to allow an appeal or if they decided not to allow an appeal. In which case, there was no possible logical reason for the sist, except to agree to the Government’s attempt to time out the Scottish judicial review.
Rather to my amazement, the UK government has agreed that the sist is now over. There will be a hearing on timetabling we hope next week. At which point, doubtless the UK government will apply for another suspension on the grounds there is no time for a Scottish judicial review before the Supreme Court hearing in mid-November.
That however is simply not true. The Scottish courts do not have a summer break and we have longer than the English judicial review took. I don’t think the court will dare to suspend the Scottish judicial review yet again. I am very optimistic indeed it is going to go ahead and we will win a real victory against this absurd and unprecedented proscription of a non-violent direct action group as “terrorist”.
But I am afraid we do desperately need more funds to get through this. To answer a slur, I do not get a single penny from it, not even my expenses. The money is all for legal fees and nothing else.
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The post The Hard Right Packing of the UK Supreme Court appeared first on Craig Murray.
The Scottish Government urgently needs a bold and radical approach to achieving Independence in spite of the firm London veto on a referendum. It is plain that there is no plan at present.
The Scottish Parliament has a pro-Independence majority and government. This is how to achieve Independence consistent with international law and practice.
1) Set a Date for Independence
The First Minister should write to the Prime Minister informing him that a referendum is preferred, but if there is no prior referendum then he will invite the Scottish Parliament to declare Independence on a specified date (I suggest 14 September 2029).
State that an Independent Scotland will then hold a confirmatory plebiscite in February 2030.
2) Canvass the International Community and Tee Up a UN General Assembly Vote
Independence is not primarily a matter of domestic law. It is existence as a state recognised by other international states. What actually makes you a state is not any domestic act, but recognition by other states, expressed formally through recognition by the UN General Assembly and obtaining a seat at the United Nations.
As part of a team from Liberation Scotland and Salvo, I have been lobbying diplomatic missions of the UN to this end for 18 months now. We have found enormous support for Scottish Independence and literally no outright hostility. What we have repeatedly met is astonishment that the Scottish government and/or the governing party the SNP, has made no effort to carry the case to the international community.
At the time of writing to the Prime Minister, the First Minister should write to the Foreign Ministers of all UN states and say the following:
This should be followed up with extensive in-person lobbying of member states, at the UN and other international organisations, including but not limited to the Council of Europe, OSCE, BRICS, African Union and other regional organisations.
If the Courts block expenditure this activity can be carried on without public expense but with Scottish Government endorsement, or if that is blocked with SNP/Greens endorsement. Liberation and Salvo have already proved that other nations are prepared to engage with Scottish Independence representatives right up to senior Ambassadorial level. I have done it myself. Representatives from or credentialed by Scotland’s governing parties will be still better received.
3) Planning to Secure Scotland
There needs to be a strategy in place for carrying through the Independence declaration. The single most important criterion that states take into account in deciding whether to accord recognition of a state, is whether its government actually has de facto control of its territory.
This is where Catalonia failed. Its referendum was disrupted by brutality to which it had no answer. Scots must be prepared to stand for Scotland.
Advance preparation must be needed for the following, to be immediately implemented on declaring independence:
1) Oaths of allegiance.
On Independence all public servants must immediately be asked to sign oaths of allegiance to the government and community of Scotland, renouncing any previous allegiance. The alternative is immediate suspension during a two-week grace period to reconsider pending dismissal.
The allegiance to Scotland of public servants is essential, particularly those involved in law enforcement. Judiciary, police and security services are of the highest importance. All national civil servants, whether employed by the UK or Scottish governments, should also be required to take the oath.
2) Establishment of central bank accounts.
The Inland Revenue is already established separately in Scotland and should be instructed to pay all revenue, both personal and corporate, into Scotland’s accounts. Other revenue-collecting departments, principally customs and excise, should act similarly with all necessary arrangements planned in advance.
3) Institution of Key Ministries
Establish embryo Defence, Foreign and Home Affairs ministries with prepared key personnel.
4) Institutional Arrangements for Cross Border Public Bodies
Devolution has limited the number of cross-border regulatory and other bodies with authority in Scotland, but any UK ones should be told immediately they no longer have authority in Scotland and need urgently to identify their Scottish operations for full autonomy in cooperation with the Scottish government.
5) Physical Control of Public Buildings
This needs to be a popular movement to regain Independence. The people should be mobilised to take physical control of all UK government buildings in Scotland, and of key institutions like the law courts and the BBC, to guard against any attempt at physical retention by unionist holdouts.
6) Blockading of the armed forces
Scottish units should be asked to take the new Oath of Allegiance. In the immediate term to avoid any repeat of tanks in George Square, military establishments containing troops not loyal to Scotland should be subject to peaceful and friendly civilian blockade, not allowing armed forces to leave base with their weapons.
It is worth a side note that Independence support is strongest in what we historians call the fencible section of the population: where indeed it is overwhelming. The Scottish government has three years to prepare this activity: again legal challenges may mean some work has to be done outside Government structures. There is no shortage of ability or willingness in the SNP itself and the Independence movement, if the Scottish Government will seek to collaborate rather than to exclude.
Effect of This Approach
There is currently no pressure whatsoever on Andy Burnham to agree to a referendum, and every sign that the Scottish Government are content to pick up their pay checks for another five years, having pulled up their armchairs comfortably to the referendum roadblock.
By announcing a date for a declaration of Independence if there is no referendum, immediate pressure would be put on Burnham to avert a constitutional crisis and a situation with potential to turn violent.
Burnham would be in a politically very weak position – all he is being asked for to avert this serious crisis is a democratic vote. There is no compelling reason to refuse the democratic vote other than naked retention of power over Scotland, but nothing is being done to highlight the issue and make it important.
Lobbying which will bring a focus on Scotland’s national status and the denial of the right to self-determination will also be very uncomfortable for the UK internationally. The UK is very unpopular, not least over Gaza. Breaking up the UK as a means for opening up UN reform and the membership of the security council P5 is very desirable to much of the world. Scotland also benefits from a widespread international understanding and sympathy that it has done remarkably little to exploit.
The British government position is internationally indefensible – not least because it is the opposite of the position the British government has adopted in relation to the rest of the world.
These quotes are from the British government’s intervention before the International Court of Justice in the Kosovo hearings:
“In most cases of secession, of course, the predecessor State’s law will not have been complied with: that is true almost as a matter of definition.”
And the still stronger formulation:
“Nor is compliance with the law of the predecessor State a condition for the declaration of independence to be recognised by third States, if other conditions for recognition are fulfilled. The conditions do not include compliance with the internal legal requirements of the predecessor State.”
Every Scottish nationalist should have these British government quotes hardwired into their brain. The British government argues one position abroad and a different position at home.
Being Serious About Independence
It is a logical impossibility to believe both that Scotland is a nation with the right of self-determination, and that Independence requires permission from London. The Scottish government’s attempt to hold both these incompatible positions has resulted in its current impotence.
The only way to make progress is to make plain to Andy Burnham that a straight veto of democracy and the rights of the Scottish nation will not be accepted. Ultimately Scotland will take its Independence – preferably with London’s cooperation, but if necessary without it.
Let me put it this way. If, in the end game, you are not prepared to stand unarmed in front of a British army tank to achieve Independence, you are not actually a supporter of Scottish Independence at all.
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The post Scottish Independence: Set the Date! appeared first on Craig Murray.
Social media is not conducive to nuance. In the interest of reach, cut and dried positions are more effective and binary moral judgement expected. This leads to over-simplification of complex issues, and to skipping over facts inconvenient to your chosen narrative.
There are issues affecting two high-profile people where it is worth considering the detail before coming to a firm view – and in doing so perhaps acknowledging that we may not have sufficient information to make that view more than provisional.
I want to look at the furores around Karim Khan and Delcy Rodríguez.
Karim Khan has been dismissed as Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, by the Bureau of the Court (consisting of the diplomatic representatives of its member states). This follows a lengthy investigation in which three judges found there was no evidence that met the standard of criminal proof, set against member state committee reports that argued in effect that in cases of workplace harassment, the standard of criminal proof is not applicable.
The essential background is that Khan had requested and obtained arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and two Israeli ministers, pursuant to charges of war crimes against them.
The allegations against Khan did not emerge until after the Netanyahu arrest warrant.
The effort to remove Khan was undoubtedly promoted within the ICC structures by those governments aligned with Israel. The Israeli government itself appears to have been actively pushing for Khan’s removal.
The very well-connected Israeli journalist Guy Azriel, from right-wing Israeli TV channel i24NEWS, has posted that a team of Israeli diplomats was involved in promoting the allegations against Khan. Azriel is a former Israeli diplomat himself and well plugged in.
Against the backdrop of the dismissal of International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan, a senior Israeli official tells me that Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar played an active role in efforts to advance the move. According to the official, Sa’ar oversaw a dedicated…
— גיא עזריאל Guy Azriel (@GuyAz) July 24, 2026
The ICC has of course suffered from massive pressure from Israel and the United States, with sanctions applied to its judges and personal threats made directly against both judges and staff.
Karim Khan has stated that his family were threatened by Israel. But just as I noted that the allegations against Khan only emerged after the obtained arrest warrants against Netanyahu, we should note that Karim Khan only spoke about this after the sexual allegations.
Yet none of this makes the allegations against Karim Khan automatically untrue. All of that could be true, but the sexual harassment genuine.
That is the viewpoint of Em Colquhoun in this opinion piece in the Canary. Colquhoun also notes correctly that the ICC has a long history of pro-Western narrative bias in its targets for prosecution, and ludicrously targeted Hamas figures for prosecution as “balance” to the Israel warrants.
On December 3 2023 I wrote extremely critically of Karim Khan:
I saw the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court shuttled around Israel and the West Bank in a fleet of armored Toyotas, looking like the most arrogant of VIPs, while refusing to act against Israel and seeking to “bothsides” the genocide unfolding before our eyes.
I realised that Karim Khan KC, brother of an ex Tory MP, himself should by rights be charged with complicity in war crimes.
Karim Khan is not a standout crusader for justice who sought to redress the balance of ICC prosecutions. He only sought the Netanyahu charges when the war crimes of the Israelis in Gaza became so blatant that they could no longer be avoided. The limited number of warrants in circumstances where the entire Israel cabinet and senior IDF command are plainly implicated in Genocide, alongside thousands of soldiers, is glaring. But Khan did appear assiduously to be pursuing the warrants against Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben Gvir, and Israel was sufficiently worried to actively seek to displace him, with eventual success.
I part with the Canary article where it argues that where the truth of the sexual abuse allegations is not plain, the appearance of impropriety is sufficient to warrant dismissal.
What? This is extraordinary. “It doesn’t matter if you did it, it looks like you could have done it” is an extraordinary measure of guilt. What does it mean in practice?
In my diplomatic career, I frequently travelled in many countries and to many conferences with female staff who often were subordinate to me, and we would quite normally stay in neighbouring hotel rooms. I never had any non-professional relationship with any of the staff concerned and no allegation was ever made against me. But if one had been, I don’t see how I could have avoided Colquhoun’s appearance test.
What would be the consequences in practice? A man could never be alone in a room with a junior colleague, could never travel for work with one? Otherwise there is the appearance of impropriety?
This is nonsense. It is not just nonsense, it is nonsense of a return to Victorian societal standards and actually a threat to the advances in women’s professional status.
The problem with the conveniently timed allegations against Khan is that we have seen the playbook often. The state weaponises sexual allegations, and the agency of apparently left-wing commentators like Colquhoun, to undermine and even destroy those whom the state sees as a threat – as Khan had somewhat unexpectedly become.
Let me give you a personal anecdote.
When I was attempting to stop the acceptance of intelligence from torture by Western intelligence services in the War on Terror, I was suddenly faced with 18 disciplinary charges. They were sprung on me at a meeting in FCO personnel department, where I was told that they would be investigated if I did not accept reassignment to a less controversial Ambassadorship.
I did not accept and an investigation commenced.
One of the charges was that I had extorted sex from visa applicants. I was astonished by this accusation. After months of investigation I was eventually faced with a visa application form as the evidence against me. It had written on it – I do not know by whom, but not by me – “Ambassador says approve”.
The application form was for a young lady named Albina Safarova – a person I had never met in my life. Furthermore it eventually transpired Ms Safarova had not made any complaint against me and had not claimed I had ever met her. The only “evidence” of any kind was “Ambassador says approve”, written by an unknown hand on an application form.
There is more. I started to get messages from many people who had worked for me. It became obvious the FCO was systematically contacting all the women I had worked with in my 22-year career with them, and was encouraging them to make accusations against me.
They could not find one person to accuse me. Many of those contacted still worked for the FCO. It was made plain that their employer would like them to make complaints, yet none did.
In my own case, I know for certain that the state fabricated a sexual abuse accusation against me because I was seen as having become a threat.
This happened to me in 2003. I suspect in today’s peculiar atmosphere the state may have had more success in getting me completely cancelled, despite the complete lack of relevant evidence and the absence of any woman actually accusing me of anything. Doubtless there were situations where Em Colquhoun could have discerned an appearance of impropriety, even though nothing actually happened.
I was eventually cleared of all 18 charges. It is impossible accidentally to make 18 separate accusations against somebody, all of which turn out to be untrue. I was disciplined for having revealed the allegations existed, and eventually forced out.
I subsequently saw sexual allegations weaponised against close personal friends of mine, each of whom was seen as a threat to the State – including Julian Assange and Alex Salmond. I know that I was innocent, and everything I know of their cases makes me believe those two were also. Otherwise, you have to believe that people who have dedicated their lives to anti-imperialist causes are routinely, sexual psychopaths. This is akin to believing Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite.
You would also have to explain why Murray, Assange and Salmond have faced formal investigation when nobody on the Epstein list has – and then further explain why all the resources of the Deep State, fully deployed, were unable to convict the anti-Imperialists.
We do not know how events in the ICC will play out. There is no doubt whatsoever that the UK, EU and allies will seek to obtain the appointment of a Zionist prosecutor who will deprioritise or even drop action against Netanyahu. I expect they will succeed; but we shall see.
I do not know the truth about the Karim Khan allegations. It is important to repeat that. But I am deeply, deeply suspicious of their timing. Any abuse of power imbalance at work, if it existed, is very bad. It has come to be a part of the narrative surrounding the ICC’s actions against Netanyahu. We also have the facts of the Genocide in Gaza and Lebanon, and the scale of the everyday sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees.
So we have potentially two wrongs, the just resolution of which has come into conflict through circumstance and timing.
The first potential wrong is an individual instance of sexual abuse in the workplace by Karim Khan. I do not know if this is true or not. But I do know it has been weaponised by those seeking to stymie the investigation of the second wrong. The second wrong is Genocide and war crime on a mass scale. I do know for certain that this is real.
If pursuing the first alleged wrong does indeed come to prevent justice for the definite crime against humanity, it is difficult to see that as a desirable outcome.
Now, gentle reader, I give you an elegant segue. Let nobody think I do not work at my writing.
Just as Karim Khan was removed as prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Venezuela announced it was withdrawing from it. Left-wing commentators immediately seized on this as further evidence that Venezuela is under Trump’s direct control. Yet the withdrawal decision was pronounced by new Foreign Minister Felix Plasencia, a man of impeccable left-wing credentials who survived Chávez’s extremely thorough purge of the diplomatic service and earlier served as Foreign Minister under Maduro. The reasons Plasencia gave were impeccably left-wing and entirely valid, relating to the ICC’s Western bias and disproportionate action against leaders from the Global South.
If Venezuela had done this a year ago, it would have seemed a move consistent with the values of the Bolivarian revolution. But happening now, it all seems too convenient that it aligns, in practical effect if not in expressed motivation, with Donald Trump’s campaign against the ICC. It does so at a time when US and Israeli troops have been in the country providing earthquake relief.
The presence of the Israelis had sparked the first demonstration in Caracas by hitherto loyalist Chavista elements against a policy of Delcy Rodríguez’s government.
There has been much written recently about the appropriation of Venezuelan oil revenues by the Trump administration. This remains an entirely illegal arrangement, with no founding agreement by the Venezuelan government and based on straight military force. The US still has naval ships off the Venezuelan coast to intercept any tanker not carrying oil to a US Treasury-approved destination.
The USA has been illegally selling Venezuela’s oil. It has not physically occupied the oilfields, but Venezuela has been filling tankers with oil for which the US Treasury has collected the payment. Trump has boasted repeatedly of the huge amounts of money his administration has made from Venezuelan oil. The Financial Times this week ran an article on Venezuela’s missing oil money.
The answer to this question is a prime example of the truth taking us away from the simple narrative that gives a comfortingly clear picture. The answer will surprise you. I have direct first-hand knowledge of this from my time in Venezuela and from access to the highest levels of government there.
The US Treasury has been paying Venezuela its oil revenue regularly and promptly. It has been paying 97.5% of it into the Venezuelan treasury within one week of receipt. 2.5% of it has been retained by the US Treasury as a “fee”. The idea of a transaction fee for illegal military seizure of control of the asset is a blatant racket, but that is the extent of the American depredation.
So the total amount the USA has stolen from Venezuela is about $300 million to date, not the billions Trump has claimed. In fact the US naval operation to blockade Venezuelan tankers (and kidnap President Maduro) will have cost much more than the money the US has made from its illegal venture. It is however not in anybody’s interest to say so, of which more in a moment.
There had been an initial period when the money was going to a personal account in Qatar rather than the US Treasury, and no doubt at that time Trump was considering what he could get away with. But that only lasted a couple of weeks, and that money was recovered quickly into the new arrangement.
I can only state for certain that 97.5% was being paid over within a week for the first four months of the period, until I left Venezuela. But it is my understanding that it has continued smoothly.
There is more. The US has been selling the Venezuelan oil at a 5% discount to the world price. How you calculate a benchmark price for Venezuelan crude before applying the discount I am not sure, as the stuff is quite particular. But – and here we get into the realms of inconvenient facts a lot of my audience will not wish to hear – this compares to the 15% discount that China was imposing when it was the main recipient of Venezuelan crude.
On top of which, China was making payment not within a week, but with a delay of months and sometimes years. Plus China was deducting money at source for repayment of Chinese loans to Venezuela. These loans were genuine and for excellent infrastructure projects, but obviously the deduction of repayments from oil revenues hit Venezuelan government fiscal flexibility hard.
So the truth is that Venezuela is (even apart from the price bonanza from the Hormuz closure) getting a great deal more revenue from the United States than it was from China (and Russia) and getting it much quicker. That is an inconvenient fact if ever I heard one.
The Rodríguez government does not trumpet this, as it does not wish to appear complicit or happy with a client relationship that is imposed on it and illegal. The Trump Administration does not trumpet this, because it wishes its base to believe it is making billions out of Venezuela, not engaged in a military-led venture that is actually costing billions.
That is why the whereabouts of Venezuela’s money is a mystery. I know the answer because I was told and shown at the highest levels of government. I actually both phoned and emailed the Financial Times to try to tell them the answer to their front-page question, but they did not reply to me.
However, the basic and rather dull answer is that Venezuela’s money is in Venezuela.
I would add to this a point which Delcy Rodríguez made to me personally. Venezuela had never voluntarily stopped selling oil to the United States. The USA imposed sanctions on Venezuela, not the other way round. In a free world, the United States would be the largest destination for Venezuelan oil and is the country’s most obvious economic partner – a point made by Anya Parampil in her excellent book Corporate Coup: Venezuela and the End of US Empire.
The difficulty is the United States’ unwillingness to engage in fair trade with anyone.
What Venezuela desperately wants is the normal ability to trade fairly with any other country, including the ability to supply Cuba. It has been prevented from doing so because the Western powers are desperate to destroy any state running an alternative economic model – which if capitalism were genuinely an economically superior system, they would have no need to do. China did not impose the sanctions on Venezuela, but exploited its advantage from them.
The USA has imposed a classic Imperialist resource-extraction operation.
The imperial extraction does not lie primarily in the headline price paid for the crude. The oil can only be sold through and to US-approved companies, which capture the larger margins in trading, refining, shipping, financing and marketing. Venezuela receives payment for the raw commodity (minus the small fee), but is locked out of the higher-value stages and denied the freedom to sell to other buyers. That is how classic resource imperialism frequently works: control of commodity access, logistics and the value-added chain rather than simple open seizure of the export revenue.
There was a stunning Freedom of Information release last week of a CIA note that indicated that the CIA did not believe that the Venezuelan elections from 2006 to 2020 were significantly affected by election fraud. So the imposition of the vast bulk of Western sanctions which crippled Venezuela over that period – and at one point caused devastating famine and mass emigration – were knowingly based on a lie.
My own investigations in Venezuela led me to believe that opposition claims that they won the 2024 Presidential election – claims promoted by all the Western powers – were equally untrue and the “evidence” incomplete and often forged.
Venezuela has obtained very little by way of sanctions relief from the Trump administration, and appallingly it has received no sanctions relief at all from Western nations to help it cope with the devastating earthquake. This has made it difficult for the relief charities to pay for anything, move goods and equipment to Venezuela or operate there at all. The Western media has delighted in making claims of government inefficiency in earthquake response, while never mentioning the crippling effect of decades of sanctions on government supply chains.
In truth, the resilience of Caracas has been extraordinary. I am in contact with the team I assembled in Caracas and a score or so of other friends and contacts. Mobile phone contact was never cut to the large majority and only for a few hours to those who did lose access. Electricity has been almost constant, and so has potable water supply.
What is more, the massive Russian- and Belarusian-built social housing blocks – which I had greatly feared would have collapsed with huge loss of life – withstood the earthquake comparatively well. It was the modern glass and steel blocks in the wealthier areas which proved most prone to disaster. That may be due to those areas being on flatter alluvial land more prone to shake.
Of all the decisions for which Delcy Rodríguez has been criticised from the left, the one with which I struggle most has been the acceptance of an Israeli earthquake relief team, with accompanying IDF PR personnel. For Israel, which buried tens of thousands of children under rubble, to be parading its assistance in digging people out of rubble, is too much for me.
But consider this. You are Delcy, and your capital has just suffered as much catastrophic damage and loss of life in an hour as Gaza did in many months. You have thousands of people potentially alive and desperate to be dug out. Could you turn down any offer of specialist relief in those circumstances? It was an agonising decision to be forced to make. I received a personal assurance from the Venezuelan government that the Israeli deployment was temporary and had a time limit which, if true, means they have already gone.
I have struggled with this. But ask yourself this question before you condemn, as I asked myself:
If your own children were buried under rubble, and an Israeli rescue team to hand, would you forbid them to dig your children out? When you have considered that question, then you can condemn the Venezuelan government.
I would not, I think, have allowed the Israelis to come and conduct an exercise where I suspect propaganda value to them was in the event greater than any real help: but I am not on the ground to verify what they really did.
It is worth noting here that repeated speculation that Venezuela is about to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel is so far unfounded. I was told in person by the recently departed foreign minister that Venezuela had made plain to the Trump administration that, in its new enforced relationship with the United States, a red line on the Venezuelan side was the anti-imperialist alignment of its foreign policy. That appears to be the case, as reflected at the UN, where Venezuela has not switched to the US camp. [This paragraph was amended on 28 July to reflect the fact that, while it participates in all committees and debates at the UN, Venezuela is currently suspended from voting in the General Assembly due to arrears].
Delcy Rodríguez’s point that Venezuela never voluntarily stopped trading with the USA is also relevant to its position with the IMF. Venezuela never left the IMF. Chávez said that he would, but then changed his mind. Maduro also did not leave the IMF.
Contrary to much disinformation, Venezuela has therefore not rejoined the IMF. Nor has Venezuela accepted an IMF loan, a Structural Adjustment Programme, or any IMF budget-monitoring mechanism. What Venezuela has done is to take some 500 million dollars in Special Drawing Rights to which Venezuela was entitled. Access to these had been blocked by financial sanctions, which were voided by the slight easing under Trump.
The money was Venezuela’s share of a general release to assist developing countries through the COVID years. Venezuela was simply blocked from its share. It was, in effect, Venezuela’s own money. To portray taking this as some “betrayal” of socialist values is ludicrous.
I have no reason to adjust the assessment of Delcy Rodríguez that I reached after careful study. In fact I have the strongest reinforcement, in that I now know with absolute certainty that Delcy Rodríguez did not betray Maduro. I have had direct access to documentary, eye-witness, audio and visual evidence that conclusively showed me that:
I believed these things to be true from first-hand accounts before I wrote my last major article on Venezuela: I am now absolutely certain they are true.
Venezuela abjured the path of armed resistance to the poised US forces. Venezuela is a quarter the size of Iran, has far weaker armed forces and is within direct bomber range of the United States. It is a pacific country and has chosen to try to ride out the Trump storm, while maintaining the key benefits of the Bolivarian Revolution – especially free and universal education, free healthcare, widespread pensions and the commune system.
The Chavista system already drew much criticism from the international Left for simply aiming to spread these social benefits from oil revenues, while allowing capitalists to dominate the rest of the economy. Communal ownership of means of production and distribution was growing organically, particularly through the communes, but there has been no fundamental change to the capitalist sector in a mixed economy. It is this factor which makes accommodation with US capitalist firms possible.
This is dependent on the Venezuelan government tolerating US predator capitalism and the US government tolerating Venezuelan wealth distribution. This is the basis on which Rodríguez has been avoiding war and waiting for Trump to pass. It is the basis on which Trump has been exerting no pressure for regime change in Caracas, where he said again this week that Venezuela was “not ready” for early elections.
Where there is room for genuine criticism from the Left is that this approach effectively cooperates with imposed American imperialism in key economic sectors; that the US is seeking to expand its monopoly into other Venezuelan mineral resources; and that imagining this is temporary and the Democrats would now be any better is probably illusory.
But a devastating war is the only currently available alternative, and that definitely would destroy Chávez’s social achievements.
There is no plain right or wrong answer. All of Rodríguez’s options are bloody awful, compounded by the rightward shift of Latin American governments and the new US-backed electoral fraud next door in Colombia. Those who have romantic notions of wearing bandanas and brandishing AK-47s in mountains and jungles have for the most part not seen children die in agony. This is not easy.
I have addressed two apparently disparate topics. What unites them is simple. In both cases the available facts are messy, the moral weights pull in more than one direction, and the political incentives of powerful actors are obvious. Social media, and much of what now passes for political commentary, cannot tolerate that. It demands a clear good guy, a clear villain, and the suppression of any fact that complicates the story.
That demand is not moral clarity. It is intellectual laziness dressed up as principle. It produces the spectacle of people who will not look at the timing of the allegations against Khan, or at the actual flow of Venezuelan oil money, or at the evidence of Rodríguez’s conduct on the night Maduro was taken, because those facts make the preferred narrative less comfortable.
There are truths that conflict. There are sometimes choices in which every available option is bad. Facing that reality, weighing what is known against what is only alleged, and then deciding, is the actual work of political and moral judgement. Declaring the complexity itself illegitimate, and treating those who acknowledge it as morally suspect, is the opposite of seriousness.
The age we are in rewards the opposite. That is not a reason to join in. An important concomitant of this viewpoint is that I absolutely have no claim always to be right. If I have guided you through the facts and some key issues around them, and helped stimulate you to form your own opinions, then I am very happy.
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An advert for the RNLI caught my attention because it indicated that the majority of their income comes from bequests in wills. The pitch was that, after you provide for your loved ones, you should leave money to the RNLI. I have no problem with this, having generations of lifeboatmen in my ancestry, but it tied in with criticism I had seen recently on X of “boomers” for hoarding wealth.
It appears to me simply true that those of my generation were able to acquire wealth, often largely invested in residential property, simply in the normal course of our working lives. It also is true that succeeding generations do not appear so easily to do this.
It is not that wealth is no longer created. It is that my generation benefited from a social democratic consensus in which wealth was much more equally spread around society. I lived through and witnessed in real time the destruction of the social democratic system that produced that outcome – the advent of neoliberalism and its mechanisms of deregulation and globalisation.
This framing is misleading, however. The establishment narrative is that extreme wealth concentration and inequality is the natural order of things and that deregulation is the removal of artificial constraints. But actually the opposite is the truth. The entire economic structure is unnatural. The very concepts of capital itself, of company structures, of banking systems, of taxation are each a carefully manufactured construct.
Extreme concentration of wealth is produced by design, not by accident. Hedge funds, family offices, share dividends, banking bonuses, massive salaries – none of this is ordained either by God or by nature. It is a construct which is becoming unworkable.
The chief executive of a FTSE 100 listed company now earns over 130 times the median UK salary. Listed companies are themselves the less extreme end of capitalist excess. I am struck that this median salary itself is about £38,000 pa. I was earning £38,000 as a muddling diplomat in about 1995, 30 years ago. Wage stagnation for ordinary people is stunning.
In 1985 I bought my first home for £32,000. My salary was £14,500. Those same little terraced houses in Abbey Wood now sell for over £400,000. They have gone from twice a normal salary to ten times the average salary. I have no idea how a normal person can buy a house now. But the housing market is only a symptom of the distorting effects of the extreme inequalities of late capitalism.
Foodbanks, benefit dependency, lack of career progression opportunity, the collapse of social mobility. This is all incredibly unhealthy. The rise of the world’s first trillionaire and of incredible concentrations of wealth. I stood for election in Blackburn – a city with pockets of real deprivation and, incredibly, seven billionaires.
Wealth is largely digits in laptops. Some of it translates into physical control of property or productive units. All of it needs to be fundamentally rebalanced in favour of those who actually produce the wealth. The accounting tricks of Jim Ratcliffe do not amount to wealth creation. In fact asset stripping and dismantling of productive capacity is much more often the path to riches than producing material things.
The world is deeply sick. Society needs a thorough and imaginative re-engineering, with altruism as a founding principle.
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The post Where Are We Going? appeared first on Craig Murray.
Unsurprisingly, today at the Court of Session Lord Young refused to lift his suspension or “sist” of the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. He did however grant us leave to appeal against this decision.
What was surprising was an extreme extension of the UK government’s argument.
The UK government stated that Huda Ammori in England and Craig Murray in Scotland are the same litigant, because both are in essence representing Palestine Action. This case therefore is Res Judicata – a matter already judged. It has been decided in London by the Court of Appeal of England and Wales.
This is an astonishing claim. A matter decided in another jurisdiction cannot be Res Judicata. The Labour government is here asserting in terms that the High Court of England and Wales has jurisdiction over Scotland.
This would of course be in direct breach of the Act and Treaties of Union. That this is no misunderstanding was underlined in court by use of the words “Antiquarian” and “Desuetude” in relation to “18th Century legislation”.
The Crown had already made the argument of “comity” in the previous hearings, and Lord Young had accepted the principle of “comity” in his ruling suspending the Scottish judicial review. “Comity” is the principle that neighbouring jurisdictions should seek to adopt the same approach out of mutual respect. But here the Labour government went much further and is denying the right of the Scottish courts to decide differently.
The UK government did not merely invite the Court of Session to follow the English decision out of comity. It argued that the matter is already res judicata — that because both proceedings are, in substance, brought by Palestine Action, the Court of Appeal’s ruling in England has already determined the issue for Scotland as well. This is a much more radical position than has normally been taken between the two jurisdictions.
If accepted, this argument would mean that the finality of Scottish judicial review proceedings in reserved matters could be determined in London. That would represent a significant practical shift in the relationship between the two legal systems that have coexisted since the Union.
This is of course consistent with Andy Burnham’s declared intention to reduce the powers of the Scottish parliament and introduce more direct funding from London to Scottish councils, and his questioning of the Barnett financial settlement. The Labour Party is adopting aggressive unionism.
Incidentally Lord Young today denied that “comity” had been his primary reason for suspending the judicial review. Having sat through that hearing and ruling, I have to say, you could have fooled me. It appeared plainly his primary reason. If that wasn’t it, I have no idea what his motive was. Pretty well the only other reason he gave was to save money on the cost of a judicial review.
Which I suspect is a lot less than the cost of banging up in jail a lot of mostly elderly people for the “terrorism” offence of holding placards.
This case has revealed in startling detail the contempt for Scotland of the Labour Party. It was demonstrated brazenly when Nepo baby Catherine Smith KC, Advocate General for Scotland (a UK govt minister) told the last hearing that CONTEST Scotland, the Scottish government’s counter terrorism strategy organisation which includes Police Scotland, the Crown Office and the security services, was a “local board” whose opinion that Palestine Action did not meet the bar of terrorism could be ignored.
The disclosure papers reveal that nobody in Scotland was consulted by the Home Office before the proscription of Palestine Action. The Israeli Embassy were consulted, but the Scottish government were not. The arms industry was consulted, but Police Scotland were not. No civil society organisation in Scotland was consulted.
Yet policing and human rights are not reserved matters.
That lack of any consultation in Scotland is going to be a key point at the actual review, when we eventually get the Scottish judicial review.
Lord Young did not today accept the res judicata argument – that won’t even get to be heard unless we eventually get out of the endless procedural thicket into which he has deliberately steered the case.
We gained ground today. Lord Young clarified that the Scottish judicial review is paused until the Supreme Court decides whether it will hear the Ammori appeal, after which our judicial appeal may resume.
What the purpose of such a pause could be, other than to allow the Crown then to argue there is not time for a Scottish judicial review before the Supreme Court hearing, is entirely unclear to me. Our KC, Aidan O’Neal, at this point became as furious with the judge as I have ever seen a KC exhibit in court, decrying the “delay, delay, delay”.
But unless the Establishment stitches up a very quick Supreme Court hearing, there is a better chance we may finally get the Scottish judicial review than appeared likely yesterday. We also have the chance to appeal to get the Scottish judicial review running.
I have to say I am furious at the total lack of interest shown by the Scottish government and the SNP in this case. It is addressing fundamental constitutional questions and the UK government is directly seeking a maximalist unionist gain in reducing the autonomy of Scottish courts from London. But the Scottish government – which could have intervened in the case – has shown no interest whatsoever and is just pretending it is not happening.
The Scottish government has also had the ability this whole time to instruct Police Scotland that arresting people for holding placards is not a priority “crime”, and they should concentrate on burglary, rape and other such violence. But they have not done that either.
One consequence of this just being ordinary citizens against the unlimited resources of the state, and of the continued use of procedural devices to postpone the judicial review, is that we have simply run out of resources. The legal team told me on the steps of the court after today’s hearing that we simply do not have the funds to appeal against today’s decision.
In short, unless there is a substantial uptick in crowdfunding I am going to have to throw in the towel. I am very aware we cannot expect the same people to give again and again – and a great many of the 1800 people who donated so far are not in a good financial position themselves. It is also a real limitation that, as no big organisation is with us, the only real outreach is my own heavily shadowbanned social media.
But somehow we need to fight this.
Again please contribute if you can but do not contribute if it causes you difficulty. If you know people who are able to afford to help and likely to be sympathetic, please do contact them and ask their assistance. We are trying to keep a lot of very good people out of prison.
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The post Extreme Unionism and Res Judicata appeared first on Craig Murray.
Nigel Farage is the most consequential British politician of the 21st century. Certainly a more important historic figure than any of the last eight Prime Ministers. Tony Blair is the only realistic rival.
Without Farage, the UK would never have left the European Union. Farage’s role in forcing the issue to the top of the political agenda, and putting electoral pressure on the Tory Party which Cameron sought to assuage through a referendum, was indispensable.
Subsequently Farage has been central to placing racism at the centre of British electoral politics. Farage has been key to redirecting the frustrations of ordinary people at twenty years of falling living standards, while wealth concentrates to an incredible degree in the hands of the billionaire class. That the blame for this has been loaded onto hapless immigrants, rather than those looting the economy, owes much to Farage. He has more than anybody made UK elections revolve around who can promise the most blood-curdling measures against immigrants.
In doing so, Farage appeared to have shattered the UK’s two-party system. He certainly brought about the biggest shift in Labour/Tory dominance since 1921. It was entirely thanks to Farage splitting the right-wing vote, that Starmer could gain a thumping parliamentary majority with just 32% of votes cast, under the UK’s appalling electoral system. Reform had the same effect in the recent Scottish parliamentary elections, enabling the SNP to win 57 out of 73 constituency seats despite a 10% drop in their vote.
Even after all the abuse hurled at Farage by the media in recent weeks, Reform still leads in UK opinion polls.
I am by nature diametrically opposed to Reform’s brand of politics. For me tolerance, empathy and compassion are the most important virtues in life, and I deplore the atavism and racism which is Reform’s stock-in-trade. I also detest their anti-intellectualism, while the stupidity of believing that the hardship to ordinary people caused by the structural imbalance of late capitalist systems, is somehow the fault of poor refugees, fills me with contempt.
I am however relaxed about leaving the EU.
It has become a right-wing bloc of a very unpleasant nature, under leadership of von der Leyen and Kallas. The sight of MEPs chanting “send them back” in the European Parliament was chilling. I am glad to be out of it. However the decision to reject all sensible trading arrangements with the bloc has greatly damaged the UK economy and harmed the prospects of young people. Again at base this was due to Farage’s electoral pressure on the Tory Party and Johnson’s desire to exploit the sentiment which Farage had created.
I would argue that Blair is in fact a more harmful and more evil figure than Farage.
Blair fundamentally changed British society by gutting the political instrument prepared to use the power of the state to improve the condition of the working class – the Labour Party – and turning it into another reliable agency of neoliberalism. The Uniparty in Britain started with Blair. His government furthered privatisation, particularly of services within the NHS, and ended free university education. Together with Brown, Blair brought in the ruinous Private Finance Initiative, to guarantee looting by private capital of public provision. Brown went on to bail out the banks in the biggest single transfer of wealth from poor to rich in history.
Blair killed hope and progress – in addition to the millions he killed in wars. He now rakes in large multiples of the money made by Farage, from even dodgier sources, while receiving none of the media scrutiny.
Farage of course did not change history on his own. He was relentlessly promoted by both state and corporate media for decades. He has been by a mile the most frequent guest on BBC Question Time, and the relentless media promotion started when he ought to have been an obscure figure, from a party, UKIP, which had never won an election.
In 2005, when I left the FCO and went on to fight Jack Straw in Blackburn in the General Election that year, Nigel Farage contacted me and invited me to lunch. As an Independent I had obtained 5.0% of the vote in Blackburn. UKIP had got 2.2% of the UK vote. Despite having just 2.2% of the vote and no MPs, Farage was already all over the BBC and massively promoted by the newspapers.
Farage said he wanted to explore my joining UKIP. I did a little research, and declined the invitation, finding too much evidence of racism. But interestingly, Farage’s approach to me emphasised his opposition to the Iraq War and to the attack on Human Rights in the name of the “War on Terror”. I believe he was genuine about this – and it is forgotten now that Farage was an outspoken, though in 2001 not very important, critic of the Iraq War – a position he has never repudiated.
All main party politicians are frontmen for other interests. They are owned and controlled by the defence industries, by Big Pharma, by the Israeli lobby, by media barons, by the media industry. Sometimes there is an element of symbiosis, where a politician becomes so confident in the power they exercise in the state as to feel able to address the billionaire class on equal terms, but this is rare.
Farage was promoted, systematically, into a major political figure by intense media coverage. He took full advantage of this, and is a canny operator. His bluff manner and ease in social situations makes him appear different to polished politicians – he can drink a pint without making it look like a rare stunt for the cameras. He was of course always a creature of the wealthy, who promoted him so assiduously.
But having helped turn the dial of politics so far to the right, Farage has been left stranded as it moves rightward still. One problem for him is that Farage is not actually a real racist. He is prepared to pander to racism, to whip it up and exploit it for votes. That is perhaps morally worse than being an actual racist. But Farage does not actually hate brown or Muslim people.
Nor is he enthusiastic for war or NATO expansion.
In the age of the apartheid nurtured, openly racist Elon Musk, the forces that propelled the career of Nigel Farage now want Tommy Robinson and his ilk. Farage is not a stone-cold killer. Trump has cooled his relationship with Farage, and even Farage’s eventual coming round to support Trump on Iran hasn’t changed that.
In UK politics, competing with Shabana Mahmood and Kemi Badenoch, Farage actually comes over as slightly more decent than they are. Politics have moved so far to the right that Farage has nothing really to offer.
When it comes to downright vicious authoritarianism, Robert Jenrick, Rupert Lowe and others now look a far better prospect to the billionaires, with Tommy Robinson as their King (mostly) over the water.
So poor Farage has been dumped. With an extraordinary coordination, all of the media suddenly savaged him. The BBC, the Murdoch press, the Daily Mail, all of those who put him in place have bitten great lumps out of him in just the last three weeks. Farage’s sordid personal financial dealings are revealed bit by bit.
I don’t see a way back for Farage, though he will get re-elected in Clacton. Mainstream media exposure has been his only weapon. It was devastating when fully lined up behind him, but what has he now?
————————————————————————————-
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The post The Ditching of Nigel Farage appeared first on Craig Murray.
I publish below in full the Note we have submitted to Court today to re-establish the separate Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. Not only is the state doubling down on prosecution of pro-Palestine activists, a new National Security State Threats Bill is being fast tracked through parliament to extend the attack on free speech.
Under this bill receiving a benefit including “information” from a state entity designated as “hostile” by the Home Secretary will be a crime bringing up to 14 years in prison. So publishing casualty figures from Iranian sources, for example, will be terrorism. Publishing information about Ukrainian attacks on Russia will be illegal.
This is the relevant clause of the Bill. My emphasis:
17C Obtaining etc material benefits from a designated body
(1) A person commits an offence if—
(a) the person—
(i) obtains, accepts or retains a material benefit which is not an excluded benefit, or
(ii) obtains or accepts the provision of such a benefit to another person,
(b) the benefit is or was provided by or on behalf of a designated body, and
(c) the person knows, or having regard to other matters known to them ought reasonably to know, that the benefit is or was provided by or on behalf of a designated body.
(2) A person commits an offence if—
(a) the person agrees to accept—
(i) a material benefit which is not an excluded benefit, or
(ii) the provision of such a benefit to another person,
(b) the benefit is to be provided by or on behalf of a designated body, and
(c) the person knows, or having regard to other matters known to them ought reasonably to know, that the benefit is to be provided by or on behalf of a designated body.
(3) Material benefits may include financial benefits, anything which has the potential to result in a financial benefit, and information…
Please note there is specifically no public interest defence, no journalism defence and it is to be illegal to receive true information. It is not about the spread of disinformation, it is about the spread of information contrary to the British state narrative. Receiving information from a designated enemy of the UK is the offence, whether you publish it or not.
There in no modern precedent for this in peacetime. It is being forced through all its parliamentary stages – three readings, amendments and two Lords sittings – in a single day. I have repeatedly said that liberal democracy has collapsed. I do not need further proof.
Under the current legislation, yesterday prominent international lawyer Dan Kovalik was detained in Liverpool, his phone and laptop seized and he was questioned about his support for Palestine. Dan is a lawyer. He is entitled to lawyer/client confidentiality. His clients include the President of Colombia and other international figures. The UK is a rogue state.
In the height of irony, I was detained at John Lennon International AirPort in Liverpool, England by anti-terrorism police concerned about my opposition to the Genocide on Gaza and the war on Iran. They seized my phone, computer, fingerprints and DNA sample. More to come . . . pic.twitter.com/WOtXQLjjO2
— Dan Kovalik (@danielmkovalik) June 29, 2026
What a nice surprise to run into @CraigMurrayOrg in Beirut. Of all the gin joints in the world . . . pic.twitter.com/GHDtofXI5K
— Dan Kovalik (@danielmkovalik) February 20, 2025
The UK state is currently attempting to gaslight us with a concerted campaign of messaging about a few millions in aid to Gaza – much of which is concentrated on assisting ethnic cleansing by various medical and educational routes for people to leave Gaza. But with Labour Friends of Israel member Andy Burnham to take over as PM with former Chair of Labour Friends of Israel James Purnell as his Chief of Staff, support for the Genocide will continue unabated.
The absurd National Security (State Threats) Bill shows that attack on dissidents and free speech will continue at home too. The debanking by Lloyds of The Canary is another prong of the extraordinary destruction of civil liberty under New Labour.
So I am determined not to bow to the sisting of the Scottish judicial review and we have lodged a motion to “reclaim” or restart proceedings.
We have not yet reached the actual Scottish judicial review or had any chance to give the arguments we will use there. It is my intention that we will attack the proscription in the most fundamental way, making these points among others:
Lady Carr’s judgement is entirely and directly predicated on the notion that in any conflict in law between the state and the citizen, special deference should always be given to the state as more noble and trustworthy. That reasoning is fundamentally flawed.
To get heard at all we have to roll back Lord Young’s extraordinary ruling that the English Court of Appeal judgement should be accepted as law in Scotland in the interests of “comity”. This overturns centuries of doctrine on the separate jurisdiction of Scotland going back to the Treaty of Union itself – though it does reflect what had in truth been the unchallenged though illegal practice of deference to England in such matters.
I live in Scotland and it is in Scotland that my human rights are being restricted, The English Court of Appeal simply has no jurisdiction over me or ability to cancel my right to a judicial review before the courts of my own jurisdiction in my own country, a review which crucially had already been granted on the merits of the case.
This is the Note we have entered in support of our Motion. Before you read it please understand that we cannot continue the case without funding. This is incredibly expensive, and we have been through months of lawfare where the UK government has continually stalled the action, increasing the costs until we have real difficulty continuing. Please speak to anyone you know who is sympathetic and has some financial ability to help. Over 1700 people have donated so far. Donation links at the end of the page.
The Note published below addresses only the procedural question of lifting the sist and allowing the Scottish judicial review to proceed. It does not set out the full substantive case against the proscription of Palestine Action. That will be developed once the case is back before the Scottish courts. In summary, the Note argues:
The substantive arguments against the proscription itself — including the state’s obligation to prevent genocide, the flawed evidence base, and the improper deference shown to the Home Secretary — are set out above and will be developed fully in the restarted proceedings.
For ease of reading I have deleted many pages of footnotes from the Note.
PAPER APART FOR THE PETITIONER
1. THE PETITIONER’S MOTIONS
1.1 The petitioner moves the court:
(1) To recall the sist granted on 28 May 2026, in respect that the Court of Appeal handed
down its judgment in Ammori v SSHD (Appeal No. CA-2026-000583) on 15 June
2026 ([2026] EWCA Civ 721), and the question of onward appeal from that decision
was resolved as regards the Court of Appeal by that court refusing on 22 June 2026 the
applicant’s application made to it under CPR 52.3B (which application was opposed by
the Home Secretary) for permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court.
(2) To invite the Lord Ordinary to report the whole cause to the Inner House for a ruling
under and in terms of rule 34.1(1) of the Rules of the Court.
2. RECALL OF THE SIST
2.1 On 28 May 2026 the court sisted this cause till such time as the Court of Appeal gave its
judgment in Ammori v SSHD (Appeal No. CA-2026-000583) “and the question of onward
appeal to the UK Supreme Court being resolved”. The court also adopted a fall-back
position of the sist being lifted by effluxion of time to 27 September 2026, if the question
of onward appeal to the UK Supreme Court had not been resolved by that date.
The non-applicability of forum non conveniens considerations in the present
case
2.2 There is no dispute that the Scots law principle of forum non conveniens (which was
subsequently imported into English law 1) may apply in public law cases. But in Tehrani
v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] UKHL 47, 2007 SC (HL) 1 Lord
Hope noted at para 59: that
“the plea of forum non conveniens can never be sustained unless the court is satisfied
that there is some other tribunal having competent jurisdiction in which the case may
be tried more suitably for the interests of the parties and for the ends of justice.”
2.3 But for a court to be able to uphold a plea of forum non conveniens it requires (1) that the
courts of England have jurisdiction to adjudicate over the matters at issue between the
parties in Scotland and (2) there is an identity between the parties in the different
litigations. Neither of these conditions apply in this case: the English courts have no
jurisdiction to determine any matters of Scots law (including whether Palestine Action has
lawfully been proscribed as a “terrorist organisation” as a matter of Scots law); and the
petitioner in these Scottish proceedings is different from the applicant in the English
proceedings.
2.4 The UK wide proscription of Palestine Action does not in any way change the fact that
Scotland and England remain wholly distinct legal jurisdiction whose systems of criminal
law, in particular, “are as distinct from each other as if they were two foreign countries”,
as Lord Hope put it in R v Manchester Stipendiary Magistrate, Ex p Granada Television
Ltd [2001] 1 AC 300, 304G—H.
2.5 And just why in the present case it be should thought in the interests of the parties who
have sought to support Palestine in Action Scotland, and who are facing (the threat of)
prosecution in Scotland by the Lord Advocate under Scots law that there cease to be any
consideration of the merits of the challenge under Scots law to the proscription of Palestine
Action as a terrorist organisation is not explained, whether by the UK government in
seeking the sist or by the Lord Ordinary in granting it.
The decision of the EWCA in R (Liberty) v. Prime Minister and the principle of
“judicial comity”
2.6 Because there is no identity between the applicant parties in the English and Scottish
judicial reviews and because these judicial review deal with different, and non-
overlapping, issues of law (respectively: whether or not Palestine Action has lawfully been
proscribed in England and Wales under English law; and whether or not Palestine Action
has lawfully been proscribed in Scotland under Scots law) the Advocate General could not
include a plea of forum non conveniens in her Answers.
2.7 Given that there was no identity of parties and no identity of issues the Advocate General
instead referred to and relied upon before this court a “soft law” principle of “judicial
comity”, relying heavily in this regard on observations from the Court of Appeal in England
and Wales in R (Liberty) v. Prime Minister [2019] EWCA Civ 1761 [2020] 1 WLR 1193
(Lord Burnett of Maldon CJ, Sir Terence Etherton MR, Dame Victoria Sharp P).
2.8 The issue of public law which was being discussed in R (Liberty) v. Prime Minister [2019]
EWCA Civ 1761 [2020] 1 WLR 1193 wasprecisely that raised and considered by the Inner
House in Vince v. Advocate General for Scotland [2019] CSIH 51, 202 SC 90. This was
whether the court could and should positively ordain the Prime Minister to carry out his
duties under Section 1(4) of the European Union (Withdrawal) (No 2) Act 2019 to “seek to
obtain from the European Council an extension of the period under Article 50(3) of the
Treaty on European Union ending at 11.00pm on 31 October 2019 by sending to the
President of the European Council a letter in the form set out in the Schedule to this Act
requesting an extension of that period to 11.00pm on 31 January 2020 in order to debate
and pass a Bill to implement the agreement between the United Kingdom and the
European Union under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union’’.
2.9 But unlike the situation arising with the proscription of Palestine Action across the UK,
the issue of decision in Liberty/Vince had no direct implications for individuals’ civil
liberties, nor did it involve the criminalisation of conduct across the various legal system
within the UK.
2.10 By contrast, those who seek by their action in Scotland to support Palestine Action are
subject to Scots law, and would be liable to prosecution at the instance of the Lord
Advocate under Scots criminal law and procedure.
2.11 It is therefore necessary – as a matter of legal certainty – for the position in Scots law
to be authoritatively determined. As we have seen this can only be done by a Scottish court,
and not by any court sitting within the English legal system, including the UK Supreme
Court sitting in an English appeal, even where (which is not guaranteed) it has allowed
intervention from parties from other parts of the United Kingdom. This is because Article
XIX of the Acts of Union 1707 provides, as a fundamental condition of the Union between
Scotland and England that
“no Causes in Scotland be cognoscible by the Courts of Chancery, Queens-Bench,
Common-Pleas, or any other Court in Westminster-hall; and that the said Courts, or
any other of the like Nature, after the Union, shall have no Power to cognosce, review,
or alter the Acts or Sentences of the Judicatures within Scotland, or stop the Execution
of the same.”
2.12 Accordingly, no court in England and Wales has jurisdiction to pronounce orders
which purport to extend to the realm of Scotland. This extends (as Lord Mansfield –
speaking against the background of the terms of the Acts of Union of which he would have
been well aware and to which he would have been particularly sensitive, being himself a
Scot raised in Scone in Perthshire – confirmed) to the writ of habeas corpus:
“to foreign dominions, which belong to a prince who succeeds to the throne of England,
this Court has no power to send any writ of any kind. We cannot send a habeas corpus
to Scotland”
2.13 In claiming in Liberty in a judgment handed down on 22 October 2019 that it is “wrong
as a matter of principle for litigants to press for determination of issues which are already
being litigated in another jurisdiction within the United Kingdom in public law cases”, the
Court of Appeal seems to have invented or newly minted constitutional principle. This
was not a constitutional claim which appears to have been known to, or applied by, the
very same (formally Divisional) Court (Lord Burnett of Maldon CJ, Sir Terence Etherton
MR, Dame Victoria Sharp P) in its judgment handed down just six week before on 11
September 2019 in Miller v. Prime Minister [2019] EWHC 2381 (QB).
2.14 In Miller – despite the fact that the Scottish proceedings of challenging the prorogation
of Parliament had already been raised and determined at first instance in Cherry v.
Advocate General for Scotland [2019] CSOH 70, 2020 SC 13, and this decision of the Lord
Ordinary was already known to be on appeal to the Inner House, before the English court
even heard argument – Lord Burnett of Maldon CJ, Sir Terence Etherton MR, Dame
Victoria Sharp P sitting as a Divisional Court did not – whether on grounds of judicial
comity or forum non conveniens – decline to hear the case, and allow the Scottish litigation
to take its course. Instead, they decided to hear the case as a matter of English law and
hand down its judgment, noting as follows (at paras 1-2):
“1. …. The main issue we have to decide is whether the decision of the Prime Minister
to seek the prorogation of Parliament is justiciable (is capable of challenge) in Her
Majesty’s courts or whether it is an exclusively political matter.
We heard argument on Thursday 5 September and the following morning gave our
decision. We concluded that the decision of the Prime Minister was not justiciable. It
is not a matter for the courts.
In formal terms we granted permission to apply for judicial review but dismissed the
claim. We acceded to an application that any appeal from our order could leap-frog to
the Supreme Court pursuant to section 12(3A)(c) of the Administration of Justice Act
1969 should leave to appeal be granted.
“2. Parallel proceedings were progressing in Scotland. They had been issued long
before the order to prorogue Parliament had been made in the context of a growing
concern that the Prime Minister might secure prorogation either side of the date
appointed by statute for the departure of the United Kingdom from the European
Union, currently 31 October 2019. Their focus changed following the prorogation
order.
On Wednesday 4 September Lord Doherty sitting in the Outer House of the Court of
Session dismissed the claim. He too concluded that this was not a matter for the courts.
An appeal is proceeding in the Inner House of the Court of Session. We have had the
advantage of reading Lord Doherty’s judgment.”
2.15 In sum, the discussion, observations and decision of the EWCA in R (Liberty) v. Prime
Minister concerning the principle of “judicial comity” is simply not a reliable guide to how
that concept might be applied within the context of the UK constitution, and in particular
as regards parallel litigations being pursued occurring at the same time north and south of
the border. It should be treated with extreme caution. To quote the Advocate General’s
own words in relation to Cherry and Miller litigations concerning the prorogation of
Parliament:
“Those cases arose during an exceptional period on matters of critical and immediate
national importance and must be viewed in that context.”
2.16 Precisely the same (if not more so) can be said of the Vince and Liberty litigations. The
Liberty decision is in any event readily distinguishable from the present proceedings. It
does not establish any general approach to be followed by this court. It certainly does not
give an authoritative or accurate account of the principle of judicial comity, certainly as it
might be prayed in aid within the UK.
The decision of the UKSC in Jwanczuk
2.17 Instead, the more authoritative and most recent discussion of that principle of judicial
comity in the decision of the UK Supreme Court in R (Jwanczuk) v Secretary of State for
Work and Pensions [2025] UKSC 42 [2026] AC 699. As the UK Supreme Court notes in
its judgment (at para 61 – emphasis added):
“[A]s a matter of practice based on comity and good sense, rather than on legal rules
of precedent, decisions of any of the appellate courts of England and Wales, Northern
Ireland or Scotland will be treated as having persuasive authority when a similar legal
point arises in one of the other jurisdictions. The weight which is attached to them will
generally depend, in the first place, on how convincing the reasoning is found to be.
Where practical problems are liable to result if the earlier decision is not followed,
those will also be a relevant consideration. …. The question which arises in this appeal
is whether greater weight should be given to a decision, and if so, how much weight,
where it concerns the interpretation or application of a statutory provision which
applies in more than one jurisdiction, or where, as in the present appeal, distinct but
identical statutory provisions apply in different jurisdictions”.
2.18 The UKSC Jwanczuk decision was handed down on 20 November 2025. It therefore
postdated both the Court of Appeal in Liberty and the order of 16 May 2025 of
Chamberlain J in R (Juliette Poynter and others) v the Secretary of State for Work and
Pensions to stay an English JR pending a decision (then at avizandum) of the Lord
Ordinary, Lady Hood, in Fanning v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2025]
CSOH 50, 2025 SLT 787. Jwanczuk was therefore a UKSC decision in a case to which
the UK Government was a party and it had been decided well before the sist hearing.
2.19 The Advocate General appears to have referred this court, very much in passing, only
to paragraph 100 of the Jwanczuk UKSC decision. This is where the UK Supreme Court
observed that “pragmatic good sense, is generally for the appellate courts of the United
Kingdom to treat each other’s decisions on the interpretation of legislation with great
respect, since it is undesirable that there should be conflicting decisions on the
construction of provisions which are intended to apply in the same way in more than one
jurisdiction”.
2.20 But it is clear from the Jwanczuk UKSC decision read as a whole that these remarks
in paragraph 100 were never intended to be read in isolation. They are immediately
followed paragraph 101 where the UK Supreme Court in Jwanczuk states unequivocally
that “however, appellate courts should not regard themselves as being under an obligation
to follow decisions which they consider to be wrong. They do not require to identify some
other compelling reason for departing from a wrong decision. They do not have to identify
exceptional circumstances. It is better that they should explain clearly why they consider
the decision to be incorrect, give what they consider to be the correct decision, and grant
leave to appeal to this court so that the difference of views can be resolved without undue
delay”.
2.21 Because this court appears not to have been referred fully to the UKSC decision in
Jwanczuk as a whole there is a danger that this court made its decision to grant the
Advocate General’s motion per incuriam inadvertently misdirecting itself in law (notably
in the court’s observation that “where the identical matter extending to Scotland has been
argued and determined by a competent court in the UK, it is contrary to the principle of
comity for this court to seek to re-litigate that issue”). That would appear to be an
allusion to what was said in paragraphs 28-29 in R (Liberty) v. Prime Minister [2019]
EWCA Civ 1761 [2020] 1 WLR 1193. But what is said there is not consistent with what the
UK Supreme Court overall says in Jwanczuk.
2.22 The decision of the UK Supreme Court in Jwanczuk, a case in which the UK
Government (of which she is a member) was a party, was clearly central to the question of
the weight that should be afforded in the present case to this claimed principle of judicial
comity. In their jointly authored judgment in Jwanczuk the UK Supreme Court held that
the Court of Appeal of England and Wales (Underhill, Elisabeth Laing and Falk LJJ in
[2023] EWCA Civ 1156 [2024] KB 275) had misunderstood and misapplied the principle
of judicial comity when the Court of Appeal dismissed the Secretary of State’s appeal.
Arguably too judges of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in in R (Liberty) v. Prime
Minister [2019] EWCA Civ 1761 [2020] 1 WLR 1193 also failed properly to understand,
expound and apply the principle of judicial comity in that case.
2.23 The Court of Appeal of England and Wales in Jwanczuk wrongly thought that the
principle of judicial comity across the UK required the English courts to follow the decision
of the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland in O’Donnell v Department for Communities
[2020] NICA 36 [2021] NI 490. Despite the judges of the Court of Appeal of England
and Wales holding and expressing some doubts about the correctness of that NICA
decision, the English court held that the NICA interpretation was to be followed in England
and Wales, because the EWCA judges were unable to say that the NICA decision was
“clearly wrong” or that there were other “compelling reasons” to depart from it.
2.24 In their jointly authored opinion in Jwanczuk Lord Reed and Lady Simler instead
confirmed (at § 92) that
“a decision of an appellate court in one part of the United Kingdom on the decision of
an appellate court in a different part of the United Kingdom is not a matter governed
by the law of precedent”
and (at § 94) that in the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom, in relation to
“legislation which applies across the United Kingdom (or Great Britain, as the case may
be) … it is even more important that statutory provisions should be interpreted
correctly than that they should be interpreted consistently”.
Their judgment further noted (at §§ 66, 67, 98, 101, 102) that
“66. … [C]onsiderations of comity and practicality strongly encourage the adoption of
a common approach, but the Scottish and English courts will nevertheless diverge
where they are unable to accept the correctness of each other’s decisions. The adoption
of this approach has not caused practical problems in the administration of the
criminal law …
67. … When it comes to questions of civil law, any differences between the approaches
adopted by the intermediate appellate courts to legislation which applies across the
United Kingdom can normally be resolved by an appeal to the Supreme Court. Indeed,
the resolution of such differences is one of the justifications for the Supreme Court’s
existence. […]
98. … It cannot any longer be assumed that similarly worded legislation enacted in
different parts of the United Kingdom should necessarily be treated in the same way.
There are different legislative and executive bodies, which may be acting for different
reasons, and on the basis of different background material.
Issues of justification under the Human Rights Act 1998, in particular, generally
depend on judgements about legislative choices made in the light of conditions in the
jurisdiction to which the legislation applies, and the constitutional arrangements in
place in that jurisdiction. […]
100. … [I]t appears to us that the best approach, as a matter of pragmatic good sense,
is generally for the appellate courts of the United Kingdom to treat each other’s
decisions on the interpretation of legislation with great respect, since it is undesirable
that there should be conflicting decisions on the construction of provisions which are
intended to apply in the same way in more than one jurisdiction. As we have indicated,
it may be appropriate to attach particular weight to another court’s view of the
meaning of statutory language where it is difficult to say with any confidence that one
interpretation is correct and another is wrong. Somewhat less weight may attach to
another court’s interpretation of a similar but different provision.
101 However, appellate courts should not regard themselves as being under an
obligation to follow decisions which they consider to be wrong. They do not require
to identify some other compelling reason for departing from a wrong decision. They
do not have to identify exceptional circumstances.
It is better that they should explain clearly why they consider the decision to be
incorrect, give what they consider to be the correct decision, and grant leave to appeal
to this court so that the difference of views can be resolved without undue delay”
(emphasis added).
2.25 What may properly be drawn from the UKSC decision in Jwanczuk is that it is
fundamentally important for the proper functioning of the multi-jurisdictional
constitutional polity of the United Kingdom that the primary appellate courts within each
of those jurisdictions are confident in their ability and constitutional duty to make their
own decisions – independently of what other appellate courts may have decided – on what
is the correct interpretation in and for their particular territorial jurisdiction, even of
statutory provisions which are common across the UK. They must not consider themselves
to be bound by the decisions made in another jurisdiction.
2.26 In Marshall v. Caulfield [2004] EWCA Civ 422 [2004] ICR 1502 (in a decision upheld
by the UKSC in Jwanczuk) the late Laws LJ, made the point that even where the
substantive statutory law is identical north and south of the border even first instance
courts and tribunals are not bound by decisions of the Scottish courts (whether the Inner
House or indeed in employment the Employment Appeal Tribunal when sitting as a
Scottish court north of the border). He stated (at §§ 32-33):
“Now, statutory provisions which give dominion to courts in one jurisdiction
(international or otherwise) over courts in another are apt, here at least, to father
constitutional tensions.
But it is at least clear, and here is the point on this part of the case, that it would be a
constitutional solecism of some magnitude to suggest that by force of the common law
of precedent any court of England and Wales is in the strict sense bound by decisions
of any court whose jurisdiction runs in Scotland only or—most assuredly—vice versa.
Comity and practicality are another thing altogether. They exert a wholly legitimate
pressure. Mr Hogarth’s argument on this part of the case is thus in my judgment
mistaken. The EAT here was not obliged by law to follow the Court of Session. And
this court certainly is not”.
2.27 The fact that Scotland and England remain different legal systems, means that the
decision of the courts in England are of comparative law interest only and in no sense
constitute any form of binding authority on Scottish courts, no matter how low in the
hierarchy of courts the Scottish court or tribunal might be, or high within the English legal
system the English court decision at issue might be. Indeed as Lord Neuberger observed
in Willers v Joyce and another (No 2) [2016] UKSC 44 [2018] AC 843 at paragraph 22:
“22. …. The traditional view in Scotland has been that, subject to some possible
exceptions, judgments of the House of Lords in English appeals are at most highly
persuasive rather than strictly binding”.
2.28 And this position has, of course, been statutorily reaffirmed by the Westminster
Parliament in relation to decision of the UK Supreme Court when it provides in Section 41
of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, so far as relevant, as follows
“41. Relation to other courts etc
(1) Nothing in this Part [3 concerning the UK Supreme Court] is to affect the
distinctions between the separate legal systems of the parts of the United Kingdom.
(2) A decision of the [UK] Supreme Court on appeal from a court of any part of the
United Kingdom, other than a decision on a devolution matter, is to be regarded as the
decision of a court of that part of the United Kingdom.”
“Speedy determination” as the “key principle” in judicial review procedure in
Scotland
2.29 Further and in any event, the court appears to have granted the Advocate General’s
motion for a sist in these judicial review proceedings on the understanding that “a sist of
proceedings, whether on an agreed or opposed basis, is a regular feature of litigation”,
without having been referred to the relevant Rules of Court set out in Chapter 58 which
contain the principles which are applicable specifically to judicial review applications, as a
distinct form of recourse to the courts in public law matters.
2.30 Rule of Court 58.11(2) specifies that
“when permission is granted, the Lord Ordinary must make such orders for further
procedure as are appropriate for the speedy determination of the petition” (emphasis
added).
2.31 “Speedy determination” is the key principle for judicial review procedure.4 The aim is
“to focus the issues so that the court can reach a decision upon them, in the interests of
sound administration and in the public interest, as soon as possible”5 (emphasis added).
2.32 The only express mention of the possibility of the court pronouncing a sist within the
context of Chapter 58 judicial review procedure is within the context of the pre-permission
procedure for intimation, service and advertisement of the petition, the lodging of answers
and relevant documents, and notification of intention to contest. Rule 58.4(5)(h) allows
that the court might sist the cause for legal aid, but only, per Rule of Court 58.4(4), after
having “regard to the need for the speedy determination of the petition” (emphasis
added).
2.33 Rule 58.12(2) again specifies that “at the procedural hearing the Lord Ordinary may
make such order for further procedure as is appropriate for the speedy determination of
the petition and in particular may make any of the orders listed in rule 58.11(2)” (emphasis
added).
2.34 Yet Rule of Court 58.11(2) does not list the sisting of the cause as being a possible option
in terms of the court’s procedure in judicial review application where permission has been
granted.
2.35 In this, the judicial review rules are to be contrasted with various Rules of Court
applying to procedures other than judicial review, where express provision is made
regarding the possibility of the court pronouncing a sist.
Where was the legal foundation in the Rules of Court for the court pronouncing
the sist of 28 May 2026?
2.36 Against the general principle of statutorily construction that expressio unius est
exclusio alterius it is unclear just what was the legal basis upon which the Advocate
General for Scotland relied as giving this court the power to pronounce a sist in these post-
permission judicial review proceedings, given that the possibility of pronouncing a sist is
not listed among the particular orders which may be pronounced by the court in relation
to the speedy determination of a judicial review petition once permission has been granted
for it to process,7 and there is nothing in the Rules of Court applicable to judicial review
procedure which would allow for it.
2.37 The Advocate General therefore has this further question to answer in these
proceedings: why, when seeking a sist of these post-permission judicial review
proceedings, did the Advocate General fail to identify to the court any specific Rule of Court
on which she relied as the source of a power to sist and made no reference to principle of
“speedy determination” which applies to the procedure to be adopted in judicial review
application, both before (per Rule of Court 58.4(4)) and after permission has been granted
(Rules of Court 58.11(2) and 58.12(2))?
Sist is ex facie not conducive to “the speedy determination” of the judicial review
petition.
2.38 Whatever the presumed legal basis upon which the sist was founded and pronounced,
it clear that ex facie the 28 May 2026 order for sist does not constitute “an order for further
procedure which is “appropriate for the speedy determination of the petition.”
The court’s past interlocutors to be construed and applied consistently with the
requirement for “speedy determination” of this judicial review petition.
2.39 What this means is that – in the event of any ambiguity in the wording of the
interlocutor pronouncing the sist – the court is obliged under and in term of Rule of Court
58.11(2) to adopt and apply any possible interpretation of that order which shortens the
period of the sist, over any alternative reading which might lengthen it. This is an
application of the general rule of construction in favour of validity.
2.40 Any alternative reading (even if a possible reading) which would result in the sist being
in place for a longer rather than a shorter period cannot – consistently with the court’s
duty to ensure the speedy determination of this petition for judicial review – be adopted
by the court.
2.41 A final resolution of this issue as to whether or not this decision is going to be
considered by the UK Supreme Court would have been if the Court of Appeal had given its
permission to appeal against its decision (such as was done by it in Benkharbouche v.
Embassy of the Republic of Sudan [2017] UKSC 62 [2019] AC 777 granting the Secretary
of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs’ application to it for PTA to the UKSC8).
We would then all know, for certain, that the case was going to the UK Supreme Court for
its consideration and determination.
2.42 But that is not what has happened in this case. Instead, it is common ground that the
Court of Appeal summarily refused on the papers filed on Monday 22 June 2026, the
applicant’s application for permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court. As far as the
Court of Appeal is concerned the question of appeal to the UKSC has resolved by it. So
what we can say is that the Court of Appeal is now functus.
2.43 As we have noted, in order to have been properly and lawfully pronounced by the
court, the court’s interlocutor of 28 May 2026 imposing a sist has to be read in a manner
which is compatible with the principle of speedy determination of this judicial review
application.
2.44 It is wholly compatible with the wording of the court’s interlocutor of 28 May 2026 –
and one which is consistent with the speedy determination requirement – for the court to
find that on the fact of this case the sist conditions have been purified and therefore the
sist has fallen.
2.45 This is because the Court of Appeal duly gave its judgment in Ammori v SSHD on 15
June 2026 [2026] EWCA Civ 721 and one week later, on 22 June 2026, duly resolved, as
far as it is concerned, the question of onward appeal from this judgment to the UK
Supreme Court by refusing such permission to appeal.
2.46 It is presumed that the Advocate General will say that an alternative reading of the
court’s interlocutor is to be preferred, which involves the procedure in this judicial review
being paused until and the question of whether or not there was going to be onward appeal
to the UK Supreme Court has been resolved by the UK Supreme Court.
2.47 It is open to the “disappointed would-be appellant” in the English proceedings within
28 days of the Court of Appeal’s refusal to make an application direct to the UK Supreme
Court for its permission to appeal against the Court of Appeal judgment. And the UK
Supreme Court typically takes 6 to 8 months – and sometimes as much as a year – before
giving its decision on whether or not to grant such permission to appeal. These are
significant delays.
2.48 This would not be compatible with the “speedy determination” principle and is
therefore not a reading of the interlocutor one which it is open to the court to prefer over
the petitioner’s reading of it.
The UK Government’s position before the courts north and south of the border
is incompatible with the requirements of “speedy determination”
2.49 In any event, one may question the Advocate General as to what the UK Government’s
true position on this matter of the need for speedy determination of these Scottish
proceeding.
2.50 The litigation strategy from the UK Government as represented by the Advocate
General to date in these Scottish proceedings has appeared to be one of “kicking the can
down the road”, as far as the court will allow it. But that is simply not compatible with the
“speedy determination” principle which applies in these Scottish judicial review
proceedings.
2.51 The UK Government appears to want to treat these judicial review proceedings as if
they were a commercial litigation. It is submitted that its adopted litigation strategy runs
contrary to its constitutional responsibility of seeking clarity and a final authoritative
ruling from the courts on the crucial issue of public law, constitutional law and Convention
rights raised by these applications. The approach taken by the UK Government both in
the English proceedings (and in the Scottish proceedings) to date is frankly impossible to
reconcile with the (now canonical) observations of Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe
(dissenting on the result) in Belize Alliance of Conservation v Department of Environment
[2004] UKPC 6 [2004] Env. LR 38 at para 86 that
“it is now clear that proceedings for judicial review should not be conducted in the
same manner as hard-fought commercial litigation.
A respondent authority owes a duty to the court to cooperate and to make candid
disclosure, by way of affidavit, of the relevant facts and (so far as they are not apparent
from contemporaneous documents which have been disclosed) the reasoning behind
the decision challenged in the judicial review” (emphasis added).
2.52 In the English judicial review proceedings south of the border the UK Government has
to date adopted an approach of alternatively seeking to impede delay the English judicial
review proceeding or demanding the expedition on the part of the applicant (for example
in seeking PTA from the EWCA) as it suits their litigation strategy. Thus:
– the UK Government first of all opposed permission being granted to the applicant in
the English proceedings: R (Ammori) v. Home Department [2025] EWHC 2013
(Admin) (per Chamberlain J. judgment handed down on 30 July 2025)
– the UK Government then unsuccessfully appealed against the grant of permission to
take the judicial review: R (Ammori) v. Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 1311
[2026] WLR 1000 (per Lady Carr CJ, Lewis LJ, and Edis LJ judgment handed down
on 17 October 2025.
– the UK Government lost in the substantive hearing of the judicial review application
before the Divisional Court: R (Ammori) v. Home Department [2026] EWHC 292
(Admin) [2026] HRLR 9 (per Dame Victoria Sharp President of the King’s Bench
Division, Swift J and Steyn J handed down on 13 February 2026.
– the UK Government then sought and obtained an expedited hearing of its appeal to the
Court of Appeal with hearing dates between 28 to 30 April 2026.
– as noted above some 6 week later, on 15 June 2026 a 5 judge Court of Appeal (Lady
Carr CJ, Sir Geoffrey Vos MR, Edis LJ Vice President of the Criminal Division of the
Court of Appeal, Lewis LJ and Whipple LJ handed down its decision upholding the Uk
Government appeal.
– once the EWCA judgment was handed down the UK Government then immediately
filed a motion with the Court of Appeal requiring that the applicant apply to that court
for permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court by 22 June 2026 (i.e. just seven
days of that court’s substantive decision upholding the UK Government appeal
– an application for permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court was duly put before
the Court of Appeal by the applicant on 22 June 2026. But the UK Government then
opposed the grant of permission, which was then refused by the Court of Appeal.
2.53 Had the concern of the UK Government truly been for there to be a final authoritative
decision applicable across the UK on the lawfulness of the proscription of Palestine Action
it would have supported the applicant’s PTA application. As we have seen from what
happened in Benkharbouche v. Embassy of the Republic of Sudan [2017] UKSC 62 [2019]
AC 777 Such support from the UK Government would have rendered it far more likely that
the Court of Appeal would grant permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court.
Inconsistency in the UK Government’s position depending on whether facing
courts north and south of the border
2.54 Given its decision to oppose PTA before the Court of Appeal it may reasonably be
anticipated (for the sake of consistency if nothing else) that the UK Government will also
oppose any application for PTA made by the applicant direct to the UK Supreme Court.
2.55 The Advocate General can and should be asked by the court to confirm to it just what
the UK Government’s position is on this matter.
2.56 But it all rather looks as if the UK Government in the English proceedings is seeking
to delay (and indeed bring an end to this case at the level of the Court of Appeal decision
without further consideration by the UK Supreme Court.
2.57 The underlying claim and thrust of the position of the UK Government north and
south of the border is in fact contradictory and impossible to reconcile.
2.58 In the Scottish proceedings, the UK Government position as represented by the
Advocate General has been that the present proceedings should really be paused, until the
UK Supreme Court has given permission to appeal and then it can authoritatively
determine for the whole of the UK the legal issues raised by these challenges..
2.59 But in the English proceedings, the UK Government is actively seeking to stop the case
going on to the UK Supreme Court.
2.60 Such opportunistic “cakeism” being demonstrated by the UK Government depending
on which side of the border it is being called to account, is not a position which this court
should tolerate or permit to continue.
Conclusion on first part of the motion
2.61 The petitioner therefore renews the first part of his motion and moves this court, for
all the reason set out above, formally to lift the sist which was imposed on these
proceedings on 28 May 2026.
3. FURTHER PROCEDURE – REPORT TO THE INNER HOUSE
3.1 The Advocate General appears to be proceeding on the basis or assumption that if the UK
Supreme Court on an appeal from the Court of Appeal of England and Wales upholds the
lawfulness under English law of its proscription as a terrorist organisation in England and
Wales, this this ruling will apply equally to and for Scotland (and to and for Northern
Ireland).
3.2 And if the UK Supreme Court says that Palestine Action cannot properly be proscribed
under English law then – on the Advocate General’s analysis at least – it must follow it
cannot have been properly proscribed under Scots law or under Northern Irish law, again
on the assumption there are no principles specific to English law, Scots law or Northern
Irish law that might allow for a different approach on this issue to be taken across the
internal national jurisdictions of the UK.
3.3 But as we have seen from the UKSC decision in Jwanczuk that is to approach matters from
completely the wrong way round. What Jwanczuk tells is that the courts in each of the
jurisdictions of the UK have to reach their decision independently of how courts in other
UK jurisdictions have reached them.
3.4 One of the central planks offered by the Home Secretary in justification of her decision to
proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was an incident in Scotland in June
2022. In her written statement to the House of Commons made on 23 June 2025 (over 3
years after the Glasgow incident) she said this of it:
“During Palestine Action’s attack against the Thales defence factory in Glasgow in
2022, the group caused over a million pounds worth of damage including to parts
essential to submarines.
The Sheriff, in passing custodial sentences for the attackers’ violent crimes, spoke of
the panic among staff who feared for their safety as pyrotechnics and smoke bombs
were thrown in the area where they were evacuating.
He further recorded the extent of damage to legitimate business activities which
included ‘matters of nationwide security’ and disputed the groups’ claims its actions
were non-violent.”
3.5 But it is important to bear in mind that in the English proceedings no challenge is made to
the Home Secretary’s statement made in justification for the order at issue that what
occurred during a protest incident at Thales SA, in Glasgow on 1 June 2022 constituted
acts of terrorism on the basis that they involved the use or threat of action which was said
to “serious damage” to, and only to property and was “designed to influence a government
to advance a political, religious or ideological cause” such as to fall within the ambit of
section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
3.6 Because the Claimant’s application for permission for judicial review on this was refused
in the Administrative Court below (see R (Ammori) v Home Secretary [2025] EWHC 2013
(Admin) at [77]-[80]), the retrospective characterisation of what is said to have happened
in Glasgow on 1 June 2022 at Thales SA as “terrorism” is not a matter which can be
disputed in the English proceedings. Indeed the Court of Appeal (in its judgment at para
150) relies heavily on what it understands from the sentencing sheriff’s reported remarks
as happened in Glasgow on 1 June 2022 in support of its finding in favour of the lawfulness
of the Home Secretary proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.
3.7 This is a matter which can however usefully and properly be examined in the present
Scottish proceedings. A court in Scotland is in far better position to understand and
situate the circumstances of the June 2022 protest action at Thales SA in Glasgow in
respect of which the five individuals charged all pled guilty to charges of breach of the
peace. Two of these five also pled guilty to “damaging property” in gluing their hands to
the edge of the roof. And one of the five, in addition, pled guilty to behaving in a threatening
or abusive manner when police arrive to de-bond her hands from the roof when she was
obstructive and required to be restrained using leg restraints. The first four accused were
sentenced by the Sheriff to serve a total of 12 months incarceration and the fifth who
resisted arrest received a total sentence of 14 months imprisonment.
3.8 Much was made by the Home Secretary and by the courts in England and Wales that the
sheriff mentioned in his remarks the setting off of “pyrotechnics including smoke bombs”
at the start of what turned out to be a day long occupation of the premises. The sheriff
noted in his sentencing that “in one criminal justice social work report it is said that ‘the
offence is non-violent in nature and was planned as well as intended to cause disruption’”.
He then comments in passing that “throwing pyrotechnics into areas where people are
being evacuated could hardly be described as non-violent”.
3.9 But the reality is that fireworks are not firearms. The throwing of smoke bombs was
charged as and only as “breach of the peace”. None of the individual was charged with any
form of terrorism offences. The justification for the Home Secretary to found on the
circumstances of this case as a primary basis for the proscription in Scotland, as well as
the rest of the UK, of Palestine Action can therefore usefully be considered and determined
by the courts in Scotland in the present proceedings.
3.10 The UK Supreme Court indeed welcomes the opportunity of being able to hear at the
same appeals from the decisions of the (intermediate) appellate courts in relation to
legislation which applies across the United Kingdom. The resolution of any differences in
approach as between the Scottish and English intermediate appellate court is indeed said
in Jwanczuk one of the justifications for the UK Supreme Court’s existence.
3.11 What hearing appeals from Scotland and from England together means is that the UK
Supreme Court to get the benefit of the views of experienced appellate judges from both
sides of the border: see for example: R (Cart) v. Upper Tribunal [2011] UKSC 28/Eba v.
Advocate General for Scotland [2011] UKSC 29; and Cherry v. Advocate General for
Scotland/Miller v. Prime Minister [2019] UKSC
3.12 This course of hearing Scottish and English appeal together ensures, too, that a final
authoritative ruling can be handed down by the UK Supreme Court which unequivocally
applies to both sides of the border and thereby enhances and achieves the legal certainty
required to ensure compatibility with and respect for the Convention rights of all those
many individuals, north and south of the border, affected (including in relation to its
chilling effect) by the decision of the Home Secretary to list Palestine Action as a proscribed
terrorist organisation.
3.13 Against that background it is clear that the proper course to be followed in this case is
for the Lord Ordinary to report this case to the Inner House.
3.14 Accordingly, once the sist has been lifted in accordance with the first part of this
motion, the petitioner moves that the court – acting under and in terms of Rule of Court
34.1(1) – report the cause as a whole to the Inner House for its ruling on the substance of
this judicial review challenge.
3.15 Rule of Court 34.3(2) provides that “[t]he decision of the Inner House on a report to it
under rule 34.1(1) shall be final”: qv Davidson v. Scottish Ministers (No 3): incidental
application re Leave to appeal to House of Lords, 2005 1 SC (HL) 1 at §13.
3.16 This means that any decision of the Inner House, on the court’s Chapter 34 report to
it, is habile to be appealed to the UK Supreme Court (see subsection 40(2)(a) of the Court
of Session Act 1988), provided that the necessary permission to appeal has been granted
by the appropriate court (subsections 40(1) and/or 40(3) of the Court of Session Act 1988).
3.17 The petitioner submits that, instead of considering the petition and answers at a
substantive hearing and reaching his own determination on it, the option of reporting the
case to the Inner House is the most appropriate procedure to be adopted by the court in
all the circumstances of this case.
3.18 If this proposed course of action is followed then it will at least allow the possibility of:
the Inner House making a decision on the Scottish challenge; and then for the UK Supreme
Court to have the benefit of the decision of two appellate courts, respectively determining
under Scots law and separately under English law, the lawfulness of the proscription of
Palestine Action. The UK Supreme Court will then be able to determine this matter finally
and most importantly authoritatively both in and for Scotland, and in and for England and
Wales.
3.19 Any suggested alternative course which may be anticipated from the Advocate General
on behalf of the UK Government – for example that the present proceedings remain sisted
pending the determination by the UK Supreme Court of any appeal against the decision of
the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, leaving the petitioner with the possibility simply
of applying to intervene in any English appeal in the UK Supreme Court – would be wholly
unsatisfactory for at least the following reasons, among others:
(1) Any resulting decision of the UK Supreme Court in a solely English appeal would not
be binding as a matter of precedent in and for Scotland
(2) The UK Supreme Court might choose to deny outright any application for the
petitioners to intervene
(3) Even if the UK Supreme Court allowed the possibility for an intervention by the
petitioner, that court might determine that it will allow limited intervention only on
particular aspects or arguments, rather than the full range of the argument which the
petitioner might wish to present
(4) Any arguments which the UK Supreme Court might allow to be heard from the
petitioner, would be considered and determined against a background of there being
no independent Scottish court consideration of these arguments.
(5) It is particularly important for the UK Supreme Court to hear the views of the Scottish
courts because one of the main justifications on which the Court of Appeal of England
and Wales relied upon in deciding that Palestine Action was engaging in and
advocating for terrorism is a decision and sentencing remarks of a sheriff in a
criminal case at Glasgow Sheriff Court and how the Scottish authorities (the police
the Crown and the sheriff) dealt with it (Ammori, [2026] EWCA Civ 721 paras 53,
150). Therefore, it is crucial that there is a complete and full understanding of the full
details and circumstances of that decision (and all other Scotland related decisions),
which only the Inner House can bring.
3.20 Accordingly the petitioner renews the second part of his motion and once more invites
the Lord Ordinary to report the whole cause to the Inner House for a ruling under and in
terms of rule 34.1(1) of the Rules of the Court.
4. CONCLUSION
4.1 The petitioner in the present proceedings – and the applicant in the English proceedings –
hold the common position that the UK Supreme Court should be afforded the last and
authoritative word on the lawfulness under Scots law and under English law of the
proscription of Palestine Action in Scotland and separately in England and Wales.
4.2 This aim can only be achieved by the court following the course of action which the
petitioner urges on the court.
4.3 The UK Government’s position by contrast seems to be one of impeding or delaying the
final authoritative resolution of these matters, whether in Scotland or in England and
Wales. That course should not be permitted it by this court.
4.4 In all these circumstances the petitioner renews his motion as enrolled and moves the
court to grant both parts of that motion.
AIDAN O’NEILL KC
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The post Palestine Action Proscription: We Fight Back appeared first on Craig Murray.
The provisional surrender document signed by Donald Trump appeared to represent a triumph for Iran and indeed for the world; but neither the USA nor Israel has the slightest sense of honour and they cannot be trusted to negotiate in good faith.
Iran knows this – after all, the USA twice attacked Iran actually during peace negotiations, on each occasion killing key Iranian negotiators.
To understand the American position, it is important to realise two key points:
While the US/Israeli alliance were defeated in their attempt to impose regime change on Iran, and indeed have consolidated the popular support of the Iranian government, they have succeeded in expanding Greater Israel. Israel has ethnically cleared and devastated a vast swathe of Southern Lebanon, expanding its military footprint, and notably attempting to repeat its ploy from November 2024 of pushing forward its armour under cover of ceasefire.
Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon has been a major negotiating point for the Iranian government and is a key – indeed the very first – point of the Iran/USA MOU. But in an extraordinary coup aimed at negating that deal, the USA has signed a deal with Israel and its puppet Aoun regime in Lebanon which seeks to legitimise Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon through the agreement of the “Lebanese government”.
This is an astonishing development. I did not think I could have a lower opinion of the appalling bloated traitor “General” “President” Aoun but not even I – nor I think any commentator – believed he would make such a deal with Israel. The plan is that the Americans, Israelis and Lebanese Army will act together to forcibly eliminate Hezbollah, and only after that is certified – by the Israelis – will the Israelis withdraw from Southern Lebanon.
Here are the operative paragraphs. Note that they carefully do not say in terms that Israel will actually leave Lebanon.
“3. …The Government of Israel and the Government of Lebanon commit to a reciprocal, sequenced process, with clear conditions, whereby the LAF will restore effective sovereign authority over all Lebanese territory, pending the verified disarmament of non-state armed groups and dismantlement of associated infrastructure, enabling the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to progressively redeploy out of the Lebanese territory.”
“5 . …The Government of Israel underscores that the termination of this threat, through the disarmament and dismantlement of such groups in all of Lebanon and additional security arrangements to be agreed upon between the two countries, will eliminate any future need for IDF military action or presence in Lebanon.”
This is plainly completely incompatible with the USA/Iran MOU, which states as Point 1:
“The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war are signing this MOU to declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. The final deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon and other provisions of this paragraph.”
Of course, everybody knows that Israel will never withdraw voluntarily, any more than they withdrew from the Golan Heights. Annexation is plainly the goal and expansion of Greater Israel at least to the Litani River and probably further.
It is important to realise that this is not only Aoun seeking the annihilation of the Shia population of Southern Lebanon; he is also betraying his own community. Aoun is himself a Southern Lebanese Christian, and Israel has been destroying the homes, churches, hospitals and families of Southern Lebanese Christians with as much glee as they attack Muslims.
The agreement names two “pilot zones” where the combined Israeli and Lebanese Army forces will eliminate Hezbollah, followed by Israeli withdrawal from those zones. But these are zones which Israel is not currently occupying – they are areas where Israel was defeated in fighting by Hezbollah and which have been since subject to relentless Israeli bombardment.
So Aoun has agreed to support militarily an IDF advance further into Lebanon, against an agreement that Israel will be able to withdraw once these key Hezbollah redoubts have been destroyed. Even if Aoun were stupid enough to believe the Israelis will withdraw after the operation, this is a level of treachery it is difficult to comprehend.
Greater Israel is not a concept. It is a reality being created before our very eyes.
Israel now occupies 70% of Gaza and plainly the entire “Board of Peace” mechanism is nothing but smoke and mirrors, pure fraud. It has zero effect on the continued tightening of the Gaza concentration camp into an ever-shrinking area. Israeli settlements in the West Bank expand daily and every night the skies are red with Palestinian homes and crops burning. In East Jerusalem Palestinians are continually evicted and replaced by fresh European or American arrivals. In Syria, Israel is building permanent fortifications and its armour creeps forward field by field, with the full cooperation of “President” al-Jolani.
Iran was able to resist the combined military might of the USA and Israel. That is cause for celebration. But do not allow it to blind your eyes to the continued hard reality of the expansion of Greater Israel.
There is no gain for the US in the US/Iran Memorandum of Understanding which the US did not already possess before starting the war. It is therefore very possible, and in many senses valid, to read it as the formalisation of US defeat: a surrender document. Which is why you should be sceptical about US commitment to the terms.
The Strait of Hormuz was fully open before the US started the war. Allowing the flow of oil to resume has become a short-term US priority due to high domestic retail prices and pending elections, but the MOU envisages more Iranian control – and potentially fees – in the Strait than existed before the war.
There is no indication of restrictions on the Iranian nuclear programme that were not already available in the peaceful negotiations. Crucially there are no limitations on Iran’s vital ballistic missile production. The proposed relaxation of sanctions and release of frozen assets is a triumph for Iran and long overdue, and the $300 billion in dollars in reparations, from unspecified sources, is stunning.
So stunning of course that anyone with their head screwed on will realise there is no long term American intention to keep faith with the deal.
Trump is not stupid. There are many ways of characterising his kind of cunning, but it is not stupidity. He was not, as the prevailing narrative seeks to state, the only person in the World who did not realise the Strait of Hormuz would be closed by the war. The USA is quite happy to see the Strait of Hormuz closed, or permanently made more difficult and expensive to transit.
The key to understanding Trump’s position is his famous love of tariffs. Trump is a mercantilist. For many years the world worked on the general basis of accepting the economics of Adam Smith – that freedom of trade promoted universal, reciprocal wealth creation. That was the founding basis of the World Trade organisation, and is the internal philosophy of big trading blocs like the EU.
Trump rejects this and returns to the philosophy that other nations are all competitors, not potential partners, and that success lies not only in increasing your own production, but in damaging your rivals’ production – which ultimately will increase domestic production further. Trump rejects the basic premise of free trade.
The long prevailing belief in the beneficial effects of free trade historically was, as logic demands, accompanied by the demand for freedom of navigation.
Sweeping away tariffs goes hand in hand with sweeping away the controls on shipping which carry the goods. Before the rise of liberal economics, almost all states had practised mercantilism, with controls on shipping being a major source of state revenue. The magnificence of Kronborg Castle in Helsingør, in which Hamlet is set, was constructed entirely from revenues from tolls on ships exiting the Baltic by passing the strait it overlooks, for example. Mercantilism not only sought to control passage but to dictate which country’s ships were allowed to trade.
Freedom of navigation was initially enforced ultimately by the British, and later the American, Navy. States attempting to enforce customary passage fees, for example in the Malaccan Strait, were classified as “pirates” and freedom of navigation became a routine justification for imperialist aggression and/or colonial occupation. Freedom of navigation eventually became customary international law, ultimately codified in the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea.
The simple truth is this: in openly abandoning the principle of free trade, the Trump regime has also abandoned the logically linked principle of freedom of navigation. This is evident not just in their indifference to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. It is evident in the naval blockades of Cuba and Venezuela and above all in the worldwide blockade of Russian hydrocarbon deliveries, including the effective end of free passage through the Strait of Dover, and a de facto naval blockade of the Arctic passages.
Following the shale boom, the United States is a net hydrocarbon exporter. The USA balance of trade benefits from high hydrocarbon prices. Trump is doing everything he can to increase US hydrocarbon production by slashing environmental and other controls. This is a core Trump policy.
The USA does not import hydrocarbons through the Strait of Hormuz. That fact is key to Trump’s thinking.
In this mercantilist view, closure of the Strait has two benefits for the USA.
This is exactly the same logic behind the destruction of Nord Stream 2. The same mercantilist system also explains the effective seizure through naval blockade and control of Venezuela’s oil production, and the blockade of Russian hydrocarbons through sanctions and the “shadow fleet” propaganda disguising another naval blockade.
The UK’s recent actions in the Dover strait indicate that the West, not just the United States has surrendered the principle of freedom of navigation in straits.
Trump believes, as he has repeatedly stated in public, that domestic fuel prices in the USA are a blip and will equalise as the USA increases its domestic fuel production and Venezuelan fuel production. However this was not happening in time for the mid-term elections which is why reopening the Strait of Hormuz became a temporary priority that occasioned the ceasefire and MOU with Iran.
None of this implies good faith negotiation or a real prospect for a lasting peace.
————————————————————————————-
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I was genuinely surprised by the Starmer regime’s refusal to state that the Israeli boarding of the Global Sumud flotilla on the High Seas was illegal. I did not realise it was because the UK was planning to undertake similar illegal seizure itself.
The Gaza Flotilla seizure was illegal: while for obvious reasons freedom of navigation had been the undisputed basis of UK maritime policy for centuries. The UK is a set of islands whose population is dependent on food imports to stay alive. Freedom of navigation is a core strategic interest of the UK. The relevant provisions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea were very heavily UK driven, including on passage through straits.
Abandoning the primacy of freedom of navigation is absolutely a radical policy departure for the UK – driven, like so many other changes to traditional British legal positions, by the Starmer regime’s extreme support for Israel.
It is not generally understood how profound a change this is. Even the Tory government of David Cameron, with William Hague as Foreign Secretary, had opposed the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza and particularly Israeli seizure of vessels on the High Seas. William Hague stated in 2010 to the House of Commons of the boarding of the Mavi Marmara:
We are seriously concerned about the seizure of British nationals in international waters,
This is a long-term British legal position now directly repudiated by Starmer, Lammy and Cooper.
I had not realised that not only was the UK now supporting the campaigns of illegal blockade and seizure of vessels being openly pursued by Israel and by Trump, but Starmer was actually intending to abandon freedom of navigation and join the Trump/Netanyahu doctrine.
That is what the UK has now done by its seizure of the Smyrtos as it had passed through the Straits of Dover en route to Sikka in India.
The Dover Strait is a strait. The clue is in the name. The UK has absolutely no right to close it to Russian shipping. This is in Article 39 of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea:
Transit of international straits “shall not be impeded” is pretty plain. This is the applicable legal regime for both the Strait of Dover and the Strait of Hormuz. Obviously in time of war different considerations apply, and commercial shipping of belligerent states – and to and from belligerent states – becomes a legitimate target. Iran is fully justified in also treating states permitting attacks launched from their territory as belligerent states.
If hostilities end, this Article 39 regime should apply again in the Strait of Hormuz.
It is worth a footnote to say that Iran had, until the recent illegal aggression by Israel and the United States, always strictly observed the international law on straits even though Iran did not sign the Convention and actually had entered a formal reservation on passage through straits. Even during the war, Iran had attempted, in extremely difficult circumstances, to establish a system for passage of genuinely neutral vessels.
It is astonishing that at this moment, when navigation of the Strait of Hormuz is arguably the single most live question in all of international politics, the UK has decided to abandon the principle of free transit through straits.
It takes hypocrisy to an entire new level – it truly beggars belief – that the day after closing the Dover Strait to Russian shipping, Starmer issued a joint statement with Germany, France and Italy insisting on “Freedom of Navigation” in the strait of Hormuz.
Even if you don’t care about international law and believe that Trumpian realpolitik is better, to act against freedom of navigation now would seem an unwise decision. The UK is now copying actions like the United States naval blockades of Cuba and Venezuela, and the Israeli genocidal blockade of Gaza. These are gross violations of the Law of the Sea.
UK Government minister Lisa Nandy was on television news last night as the government pumped out militaristic propaganda. The Royal Navy’s action in boarding and capturing an entirely unarmed and peaceful merchant vessel was portrayed as an act of Nelsonian brilliance. Nandy justified the seizure on the grounds that Russia’s oil sales pay for its war with Ukraine, and that the UK was enforcing sanctions against Russia.
Neither provides an atom of legal justification for seizing the vessel. The UK is not at war with Russia. Ukraine is, and the Ukrainian navy would have been entitled to seize the vessel. For reasons of cheap popularity and to increase the massive amounts of public money swirling around the corruption honeypot of military spending, UK ministers seem determined to move us to the brink of war with Russia. But we are still not at war, and the UK accordingly has no right to seize peaceful and innocent Russian bound, owned or flagged commercial vessels.
The UK is legally entitled to put whatever sanctions it wishes on Russia. But it can only enforce those within its legitimate jurisdiction. A foreign vessel, even when engaged in innocent passage or transit passage through a UK strait or other territorial waters, is not under UK jurisdiction. The Smyrtos was in fact in international waters south of the UK when seized.
In fact this attempt to enforce Western sanctions in areas where Western powers have no jurisdiction is a classic example of the current aggressive resurgence of imperialism, where the “rules-based order” – meaning rules imposed by the imperialists – replaces international law.
Nandy also stated that the Smyrtos was a member of the “Russian shadow fleet”. This is a term that the Starmer regime and their client mainstream and corporate media have relied upon repeatedly to demonise the Russian owned or directed merchant fleet.
Russia sells oil to countries like India and China perfectly lawfully. That this oil is carried in ships bearing flags other than Russian is perfectly normal.
Nil or close to nil of those ships carrying hydrocarbons to and from the UK are UK registered and flagged.
It has been a sad truth of international shipping for many decades that commercial vessels bear flags of convenience, and that jurisdictions compete to offer the very lowest standards of crew salary and welfare regulations, officer and crew training, vehicle condition, and maritime safety and inspection regimes.
Most of the registries of well-known international flag of convenience states such as Panama, Liberia and the Marshall Islands, do not really exist in the sense of being government departments of those countries, as they should be. They are private companies with almost no real-world footprint, which pay a fee to the government to operate the registry, and collect the fees from the shipowners registering. The register is just names in a laptop – and very often that laptop is in London.
UK colonies often have substantial such fake registries. The UK is a strong opponent of the International Transport Workers Federation, which has struggled against this system to improve mariners’ rights.
The system evolved for wealthy shipowners to avoid all maritime safety, environmental and welfare regulation, and the UK and other Western countries which pander to the needs of the ultra-wealthy have always been complicit. The incredible hypocrisy of Western states pointing fingers at Russia for running “Flags of convenience” is breathtaking.
The West has spent decades building and profiting from the global flags-of-convenience system. Russia is simply using the same system that Western companies created and still dominate.
Incidentally the MOD’s own propaganda footage, shown by all UK mainstream media yesterday, proves that the Smyrtos is a modern, clean, well-equipped and comfortable vessel and all the propaganda about an ancient rustbucket is completely untrue.
I have finally managed to pin down the alleged legal basis of the seizure of the Smyrtos, and it is that the vessel was stateless and thus subject to boarding under Article 110 of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea.
The UK is claiming that the Smyrtos fell foul of Article 110.1 (d) that it was “without nationality”.
We will inspect that claim more closely in a moment. But, assuming it for a moment to be true, note that you only have a right to visit and inspect on the High Seas a ship that is without nationality. Article 110 absolutely does not confer any right to seize a ship on the High Seas not found on inspection to be in unlawful activity. The UK has seized the Smyrtos, brought it into UK territorial waters and then claimed it is under UK jurisdiction.
Nowhere is that allowed in the Convention.
Now let us look at the claim that the Smyrtos is without nationality. This is an astonishing story which the media will not tell you.
When the Smyrtos set sail from Russia it was flying the Cameroonian flag, and on the Cameroonian register. That is not in doubt.
While the ship was on its voyage, on 10 June Cameroon withdrew its registration. It did so because the EU and UK threatened to halt development aid to Cameroon unless they removed Russian vessels from their shipping register.
So the UK blackmailed Cameroon into deregistering the ship. Then, before the ship could reach a friendly port, the UK boarded it because it had been deregistered.
Now doubtless there are chortling people in the UK security and military industries self-congratulating themselves over how clever they are. But while this may be a clever ruse de guerre, it is hardly a ruse de paix. It is not going to survive scrutiny by an international court. An unexpected change of registration, forced upon the owners, is very difficult to complete instantly, but doubtless one was in train and perhaps finished. The UK actions are patently – and deliberately – unreasonable.
Politicians seek to drum up cheap popularity by stupid jingoism. Starmer has won a cheap headline. The world inches closer to the next world war. The UK loses yet more legitimacy in the eyes of the wider world.
Meantime Trump claims as a great victory a possible return of the Strait of Hormuz to the open status it enjoyed before he started an illegal war in the interests of Israel.
Freedom of navigation was a principle worth defending. It has been abandoned in favour of a return to the rule of the seas by those with the strongest navies. Fortunately Putin is neither as war hungry nor as politically desperate as Starmer. However Russia will now be obliged to send at least a frigate to keep the Strait of Dover open. The drums of war beat ever closer.
Craig Murray is a former Head of Maritime Section of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He is a former Alternate Head of the UK Delegation at the UN Preparatory Commission for the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
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The post The UK Joins the Pirates appeared first on Craig Murray.
Judge Johnson had proved his fascist credentials through rulings much earlier in the Filton trial than his vicious sentencing. Indeed, he had arguably already shown them when he released Tommy Robinson from a prison sentence, or when as a barrister he had chosen to work for the intelligence services and Ministry of Defence.
But in his incredibly vicious sentencing, Johnson did something quite extraordinary. It was not just that he added a “terrorist connection” to the sentencing – a possibility deliberately kept secret from the jury. But in sentencing he recounted the prosecution version of events in its entirety to justify his sentences, including explicitly setting out all the details of alleged violent disorder of which the defendants had been acquitted.
Here’s injustice Jeremy Johnson handing down the sentences at today’s disgusting stitched up Palestine Action trial.
Any faith I ever had in the fairness of the British justice system is completely is dead. pic.twitter.com/3c86cjplOz
— Wokerati Marty (@WokeratiMarty) June 12, 2026
In short Johnson used the “terrorist connection” to ignore the ruling of the jury and sentence them as though they had in fact been found guilty of all the things that Johnson had systematically rigged the trial to try to get them found guilty of – and failed.
The “terrorist connection” legislation is merely a part of an enormous slough of extreme authoritarian UK legislation passed in recent years – including the Online Safety Act, the National Security Act and many others. It is bad enough in itself, as it defines as terrorism any illegal activity intended to “influence the government” – which makes all civil disobedience terrorism. But even within these broad powers, Johnson appears to have gone extraordinarily far in pursuit of his fascist agenda.
We should remember that three of the four defendants were convicted of nothing except for criminal damage. They were found not guilty of aggravated burglary and of violent disorder. For a first offence of criminal damage, an absolute maximum of about three years imprisonment might be given in the most extreme circumstances. That would result in spending one year and two months in jail before release on parole – less time than the activists have already spent in prison on remand.
But the six-year sentences given by Johnson (and by the look of him that was the only sexual excitement he has ever experienced) – having a terrorist connection – are not eligible for parole. The activists will serve the full six years in jail: that is five times the length of sentence that might normally be expected in this case.
And all to ensure that there is no interruption to Israel’s ability to commit Genocide or Starmer’s complicity in it.
We should also take head-on the question of Sam Corner and the very slightly injured policewoman. Yet again the internet is full of Zionist propaganda saying that she had “her back broken” or “her spine snapped”.
The first thing is to say that the jury specifically acquitted Sam Corner of intent.
The second thing is to say that her back was not broken in the sense that is commonly understood: there was absolutely no damage to the spinal cord, no loss of spinal fluid or other serious injury.
What there was – possibly – was an extremely small hairline fracture to one wing of a vertebra. And such a marginal fracture that not only was it not visible to X-Ray, it was missed by the first MRI examination also.
The treatment prescribed was ibuprofen and mild rest – not bed rest. Better in 6 weeks, completely healed in 3 months.
The hasbara team have been in full drive trying to give a completely different impression of this unfortunate but unintentional injury, so it is important to understand what the medical evidence actually said. I am sure it was painful, and I extend my sympathies.
It is worth stating that the sledgehammer injuries inflicted on the activists – especially the completely acquitted Jordan Devlin – by the security guards were in fact worse.
The repression continues. Yesterday hundreds of people were again arrested for “terrorism” offences merely for expressing opposition to this state overreach. This little video I took just before the police moved in to arrest gives I think a very fair indication of the kind of concerned, kind and educated people they are – who are being swept up as terrorists in today’s fascist UK.
On Monday we will hear the English Court of Appeal decision on the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. I am pessimistic and suspect that the timing was long since choreographed with the Filton sentencing in order to provide a weekend of headlines and social media stating that Palestine Action activists had been found by a court to be terrorists, before the Court of Appeal upholds the proscription. Indeed I would not be surprised if Judge Johnson is quoted by the Court of Appeal on Monday.
I am back in Edinburgh, where we have submitted a “reclaiming motion” to reinstate the separate Scottish judicial review, and we hope to have an urgent hearing on whether our appeal can proceed.
If you can, please contribute to the costs of the Palestine Action legal case, but do not contribute if it causes you difficulty. If you know people who are able to afford to help and likely to be sympathetic, please do contact them and ask their assistance. We are trying to keep a lot of very good people out of prison.
You can donate through the link via Crowd Justice, which goes straight to the lawyers, or through this blog.
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The post Sentencing the Innocent appeared first on Craig Murray.
Just a quick note to say that I am very aware that lately I have been rather bitter, which is not good for anybody, especially me. The disappointments and state outrages have been no worse than usual; my frustration at my poor health, and the subsequent constraint of my ability to fight back, has rather soured my mood.
My twitter posts have been unpleasantly acerbic. Last Sunday on the Crispin Flintoff Show I gave a rant aimed at the soft zionist English Palestine Solidarity Committee, which I immediately regretted as over the top – not wrong in substance, but lacking kindness and tolerance.
The good news is I am aware of this and think I can overcome it.
It has been a very embittering time. The Genocide in Gaza is entering a new phase, and despite the radical shift in international public opinion, those in charge of states – and not only Western states – still show no genuine intention to stop it. The Palestinians have been written off already by those in power over us, erased as a factor. Israel is now simply repeating the Gaza playbook in South Lebanon. I know the villages and towns they are destroying and in many cases have been a guest of the people there. The killing and the destruction of a profound and ancient civilisation is heartbreaking.
I am deeply shocked by the cancellation of the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. Until I entered the courtroom on Wednesday 27th, I was not worried.
Well, that is not quite true – I started to worry two days earlier when I found that although the permission hearing had been in Court No 1 and livestreamed, this much more substantive hearing would be tucked in Court No 6 and would not be livestreamed. Why was it being hidden?
I still find it hard to accept that the judge Lord Young who, in January, ruled in ringing terms that a Scot resident in Scotland, whose liberties were infringed in Scotland, was entitled to the jurisdiction of a Scottish court, has now ruled starkly that Scotland must accept the decision of the English Court of Appeal in the interests of “comity”.
It would be interesting if there were a clue somewhere that Scottish judges are subject to England. Here is a picture of Lord Young Scott (who is modelling the standard issue uniform):
Interestingly this costume is subject to one of those beloved British lies, which is a straightforward fabrication but which you will find in every publication on the subject.
The lie is that the St George’s crosses, adopted in these Scottish legal robes in Victorian times, were a stylised representation of previous fastenings or rosettes in those positions, and are not St George’s crosses at all.
The problem is there exist many dozens of portraits of Scottish judges in robes before this costume was adopted, and not one portrait, anywhere, shows anything that remotely could be fastenings or rosettes in these positions which later became stylised St George’s crosses.
The official explanation of why senior Scottish judges wear the English flag is simply and completely untrue.
A previous Lord Young in the 1890’s refused to wear the costume with St George’s crosses, which was a scandal at the time.
Let us return to our current Palestine Action case. In January Lord Young ruled this:
I am satisfied that it is appropriate to grant permission for this judicial review to proceed in Scotland notwithstanding the existence of English proceedings which are at a more advanced stage. As a matter of principle, a petitioner who has standing and whose petition sets out arguments of sufficient merit to satisfy s27B(2)(b) of the 1988 Act should not be refused permission because of the existence of parallel proceedings in another UK jurisdiction. The petitioner claims that his legal rights have been illegally circumscribed by the 2025 Order.
He is entitled to look to the courts of his place of residence for a determination of that complaint. The cases of Cherry v Advocate General 2020 SC 37 and R (Miller) v Prime Minister [2019] EWHC 2381 support the petitioner’s argument that there is nothing inherently objectionable with proceedings on the same issue progressing through different jurisdictions within the UK at the same time.
How can the same judge in the same case four months later then rule this, which is the precise opposite?:
In the current proceedings, the legal costs which will be incurred from now until the substantive hearing towards the end of June will increase exponentially. We know that a decision of the [English] Court of Appeal will have been issued prior to the substantive hearing. While that judgment may, or may not, be the final word on this issue, the judgments handed down by the Court of Appeal will be highly significant. It is
almost inevitable that the final decision on the legality of the 2025 Order will be made either by the English Court of Appeal, or by the Supreme Court on a further appeal in Ammori. The petitioner’s challenge to the 2025 Order in these proceedings is likely to be resolved, one way or the other, by the final decision in Ammori. It is said that a sist brings the petitioner’s right to have his claim determined to a practical end. But Ammori will resolve the issue he wants determined
The judge’s volte face was obvious in the courtroom literally in the first five minutes. His mind was not changed in the courtroom; it had been changed for him before we ever got to say a word.
His decision is to “sist” or postpone our case until after the English Court of Appeal case (and any appeal to the Supreme Court) – which means to close down our case permanently. I was informed by our advocates that because this is a “procedural” decision to kill our case administratively – thus avoiding an actual decision on whether the proscription of Palestine Action was legal – there is no chance of appeal.
I am really not happy to let the sleekit Lord Young get away with this and I have instructed the legal team to appeal against the sist. Even if leave to appeal is denied, I think we have to register protest and at least try to resist – the decision takes Scotland backward from the Cherry/Miller case where separate judicial reviews did proceed in Scotland and England over the prorogation of Parliament.
Cherry/Miller was a breakthrough against centuries of Scotland accepting the decision of English courts which have no jurisdiction here.
What is particularly unjust is that Lord Young stated that the reason for his ruling is that the Scottish judicial review had not started yet, whereas the decision of the English Court of Appeal is imminent.
This is infuriating because the Scottish judicial review was scheduled for March. It has been repeatedly – and deliberately – postponed by the Starmer regime by the repeated introduction of “secret intelligence” which has resulted in a number of “closed sessions” with the judge and the security services. We have no access to those sessions, we are never told what “intelligence” was given to the judge, and our interests are “represented” by government-approved barristers who are strictly banned from communicating with us.
It is this UK security service ploy which Lord Young allowed to delay the Scottish judicial review for months. Then something still more suspicious happened.
Last week’s hearing was originally scheduled for early May. It was then postponed for three weeks at the request of the Advocate General, a minister in the Starmer regime, who stated she wished to attend in person and that 27 May was her earliest available date. We protested, but Lord Young postponed the hearing to accommodate her.
During that postponement, the English Court of Appeal announced 15 June as the date they will give their decision in the Ammori case. The existence of that fixed date is now the peg on which Lord Young hung his ending of our case.
But here is the thing: it was really unusual of the Court of Appeal to announce a month in advance the date on which they will give their decision in Ammori. Why would they do that? If they have completed their work, why not give the judgement now? If they have not completed their work, why tie themselves to an entirely artificial deadline?
The English Court of Appeal actually asked the lawyers in Ammori about progress in the Scottish case during that appeal in England. They were very well aware of where we stood.
Was their date for judgement announced so far in advance in order to give Lord Young ammunition to torpedo the Scottish case? That seems to me extremely likely.
We need money to prepare an appeal, and in any event we need money because costs were awarded against us last week (pegged at 50% of the government’s costs). As lawfare is the government’s preferred method, I expect these costs will be substantial.
If we fail to appeal the sist, we may have a route to intervene when the English case gets to the Supreme Court. But unless that gives us a right to be heard (as opposed to just put in a written submission which will be ignored) I am not very attracted by this.
Given the major constitutional implications of Young’s rulings for the operation of the devolution settlement and the autonomy of Scottish legal system, the lack of any interest in the case by the Scottish government or by the SNP as a party – or the Greens or any other political party – has been a further deep disappointment to me.
The potential result of Lord Young’s ruling is that all the work we put into preparation for the Scottish judicial review which had been granted – hundreds of hours of work and tens of thousands of pounds of cost – is wasted. I am very conscious that this is your money from donations. It weighs on me.
One point we wished to raise at judicial review was the fact that the Home Office consulted nobody in Scotland about the proscription – they did not consult the Scottish Government, Police Scotland or the Scottish Counter Terrorism Strategy Board (CONTEST), let alone anybody in Scottish civil society. But they did consult the Israeli Embassy in London.
When I was taken so ill in Venezuela, family was of course uppermost in my mind, but something else was bothering me a great deal. If anything happened to me, the Scottish judicial review would fall. I am the petitioner and the legal team tell me I can neither be replaced nor can a judicial review case be run by my estate. No new petition can be raised by anyone else as it is now time-barred.
So I have to keep going.
Another thing that has greatly disappointed me at the moment is NHS Scotland. I did not have a routine pacemaker implant in Venezuela; it was undertaken as a part of an emergency procedure. I was kept in hospital for a week, and under close observation for another, before I was passed fit to fly. The Venezuelan cardiologist told me that it was essential I see a Scottish cardiologist immediately on return, and that my pacemaker be checked for attachment and function after six weeks.
Arriving home, my GP was excellent and saw me immediately. He sent an URGENT referral to cardiology at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
For a fortnight I was in daily expectation of being called in. Nothing happened. On a Friday I then phoned the Royal Infirmary and was put through to “cardiology waiting list”. After listening to music for 25 minutes, someone answered the phone. He was in a different department, and said the phone had been diverted to his extension. The person who did cardiology appointments was off work till Tuesday. He could not help me.
I called on that Tuesday but nobody answered the extension at all. I tried again the following Friday. After one half-hour wait listening to music, I hung up, dialled the switchboard and said this was not acceptable. The lady told me that the person who did cardiology waiting lists was off work until 1 June.
I found and phoned an NHS Lothian complaints number, and explained the situation. They logged a complaint and said somebody would phone me within 24 hours.
Nobody did.
On 1 June I called again and listened to music. After 20 minutes I took a screenshot to start documenting this.
Then after 35 minutes somebody actually answered. They again stated the person who did cardiology appointments was still off work and the phone had been diverted to them. I said that it was crazy that the entire system was failing because one non-medical member of staff was off work.
They agreed with me but said it was not their fault and they had to handle hundreds of calls. I commiserated.
While I was having that conversation, a letter arrived digitally from NHS Lothian on my phone. It said my referral would be assessed by clinicians, and I would then be added to the waiting list (I already waited almost a month). The letter included a link to see the current waiting times. If it was deemed urgent, waiting time would be another eight weeks. If not urgent, it would be fifteen weeks. 
After a month of trying I have not had so much as an ECG. I am getting odd pangs and twinges, sometimes in series, from the pacemaker but have no idea if this is normal or not. I am continually exhausted and find concentration very difficult. The function-and-attachment test after six weeks is now overdue.
I therefore felt obliged, against my principles, to book a private cardiologist appointment. This is deeply disappointing politically, and also very expensive. Seeing the consultant is £250 – an ECG, ultrasound, X Ray and pacemaker monitoring (all of which the Venezuelan cardiologist says should be done) is each charged as extra. So north of £1,000 in all.
I must confess, I had not understood how dysfunctional the NHS had become. I am told if you actually have a heart attack it is still good; but I would hope we could provide healthcare before the point of death. It is being hollowed out, piecemeal-privatised and viewed as an asset to be stripped for profit.
The frustration of ill health has only grown. My health issues are right now preventing me from attending the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, an event I had been looking forward to. I had also planned to visit Iran in July. I want to get to Cuba. And I long to get back to Lebanon. It is essential to see realities on the ground, speak directly with people shaping events, and report the truth to you in ways that I cannot do from a house in Edinburgh. My body is not currently up to supporting the intellectual fight, and that’s a real downer.
In going through all the things that are getting me down, I would add the Murrell/Sturgeon saga. When Murrell first went off to Saughton jail on remand, I was gleeful. Murrell was at the centre of Sturgeon’s plot to organise her close associates to make false complaints against Alex Salmond. Sturgeon and Murrell’s corrupt influence over the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office were central to having both Alex and me prosecuted and having me jailed.
Having tried at the time to warn everybody of Sturgeon and Murrell’s highly criminal machinations to have Alex Salmond framed, obviously I feel in part vindicated by the public acceptance that Murrell is indeed a criminal. But one of the ways I realised I had become unpleasantly embittered, is that I found I was posting tweets rejoicing at Murrell being sent to jail, and hoping he had my old cell in Saughton.
I don’t really think that.
Scotland’s antiquated jail system is a disgrace to any modern society. The conditions are inhumane and some aspects are positively Victorian – I still have backache from sleeping on a steel slab mitigated only by a slither of ancient foam rubber “mattress” which had completely lost all resistance. I don’t believe anyone should be subjected to deliberate physical suffering.
I should be better than crowing at Murrell’s imprisonment.
On the other hand, it is deeply frustrating to see Sturgeon getting away with it entirely and even playing the victim card, reaching effortlessly for the gender politics in which she has always wrapped her grasping psychopathy. It is precisely the same corrupt hold over the Crown Office, which got me jailed, that enabled Sturgeon to escape prosecution.
Still more troubling to me is the incredible cult following which still worships Sturgeon and refuses to believe she did anything wrong. I am not terribly worried that they cannot see she is implicated in embezzling funds to boost her lifestyle. I am worried they cannot acknowledge her systematically having blocked proper scrutiny of the SNP’s accounts.
But what really fills me with despair is that Sturgeon’s followers cannot acknowledge that she betrayed Scottish Independence; she never did anything to further it nor had the slightest intention of doing anything to further it.
The Union was close to toppling when Brexit was implemented against the wishes of a very large majority of Scots (my opinion on the EU is immaterial here). Sturgeon simply ignored that opportunity for action. She also went to the Supreme Court in London and argued a case on Scotland’s right to a referendum on Independence which was certain to fail, because it was grounded in UK constitutional law and not in international law. The UK Supreme Court would always rule in favour of the supremacy of the Westminster Parliament.
Sturgeon piled obstacles in the way of Independence and never once articulated a coherent plan to achieve it.
John Swinney adopts precisely the same stance. We now have sustained majorities in public opinion for Independence, but a Scottish government not prepared to take any risk to reach for it. Meanwhile, blind loyalty to the governing party in Scotland prevents any radical action. The frustration is that loyalty is caused by an urgent desire for Independence and the deluded belief that the SNP intends to achieve it.
The hero worship of Sturgeon that is so much in evidence is a large part of the problem: Scottish Independence has been driven into a cul de sac. The infuriating thing is that these cult members ought to be those with whom I am most politically aligned: but they hate me because I do not join in their idolisation of She Who Must Be Obeyed.
So this has been, and is, a difficult period for me personally. The political outlook is grim, and I am increasingly worried about my own condition. Also from the Crispin Flintoff Show, this extract of me talking about Sturgeon reinforces my concern. Something is wrong cognitively. My natural fluency is gone in this interview and I appear unable to finish a sentence or maintain a coherent line of thought.
This is all very depressing. The world is dominated by bad people who control advanced mechanisms of power. But there is no fulfilment in resignation, no honour in standing down in a battle against institutionalised evil. The only joy lies in resistance.
Please contribute if you can to the costs of the Palestine Action legal case, but do not contribute if it causes you difficulty. If you know people who are able to afford to help and likely to be sympathetic, please do contact them and ask their assistance. We are trying to keep a lot of very good people out of prison.
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The post The Joy of Resistance appeared first on Craig Murray.
I went through yesterday’s preliminary hearing in the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action with a sense of mounting horror. We had the same judge as at the permission hearing, Lord Young. We had exactly the same arguments and the same case law being deployed again by the UK government as at the permission hearing. But there the sense of déjà vu ended. The judge, Lord Young, appeared to be rowing backwards from his decision to grant the judicial review, as fast as he possibly could.
I may be wrong – we will have his decision in three hours’ time. I hope I am wrong. I quite often am wrong.
But every indication was that I am not wrong. English proceedings at an advanced stage seemed in his mind to have shifted, from an irrelevance in a different jurisdiction, to a fundamental reason not to proceed. The costs of holding a physical review, in terms of the actual pounds and pennies of having courts, had been dismissed contemptuously by Lord Young when advanced by the government as a reason not to hold a judicial review at the permission hearing.
Lord Young now himself raised the cost of a Scottish judicial review as a potential reason for not having one. Three times.
He also made plain from the outset that he was considering the Starmer regime motion for sisting (postponing in effect forever) the Scottish judicial review as a matter of case management, not as a matter of principle of whether the court had jurisdiction. For that reason, if he decided to sist he would not be contradicting his previous decision that the review could go ahead.
The solution was not openly to deny Scotland’s rights, but administrative delay. Forever.
The main obvious thing that had changed was not the government arguments, but the person making them. This hearing had itself been postponed almost three weeks to fit the diary of the Advocate General, Catherine Smith KC, who was representing the Starmer regime in person because – as the Government submission directly stated – of the great constitutional importance of the case.
Catherine Smith KC is political royalty. Daughter of former Labour leader the late John Smith and of Baroness Smith, sister of the BBC’s Washington correspondent Sarah Smith, and sister-in-law of the son of former Secretary General of NATO, Lord Robertson. I could go on.
She is also rubbish in court. She presented the government’s arguments much worse that they had originally been presented, with a really revolting mix of personal arrogance and profound lack of articulacy. She sometimes appeared unable to put a coherent sentence together, and on the rare occasions when she did so, we were generally left wondering in what way it linked to the last one. Lord Young frequently rescued her by expressing the idea she had been groping her way towards with all the alacrity of a blindfolded person in handcuffs.
At one point Lord Young actually said to the Advocate General: “You haven’t explained that very well”.
Nevertheless, he took it that there was great force behind her arguments, now that it had been made very plain by the despatch of this august personage that London took this very seriously indeed. He gave every indication of a willingness to be herded. It merely made his life so difficult that they had despatched such an incompetent shepherd.
Very early in proceedings Lord Young had been at great pains to point out that his agreement that we had the right to a Scottish judicial review had always been subject to possible cancellation for reasons of “case management”. In principle there was a right to a Scottish judicial review. But there were practicalities of case management to consider, and one of those practicalities was the existence in England of the Ammori case which was now at a much more advanced stage, with the English Court of Appeal going to announce its decision on 15 June. It may then proceed to the UK Supreme Court which covers Scotland anyway.
In the course of the day, Joanna Cherry pointed out that our Scottish judicial review had been due to happen back in March – and the reason it had been delayed was the UK government introducing “secret intelligence” evidence which had been heard in closed sessions. To “sist” or postpone the case until the end of UK proceedings meant to drop it forever. To do this on procedural grounds because of delays introduced by the government being reviewed would be unfair on the petitioner.
In the Cherry and Miller cases the UK Supreme Court had been faced with different decisions of the English and Scottish courts on the same issue. The English court could be wrong. Mr Murray as a resident of Scotland was entitled to the protection of the courts of his place of domicile. Scotland and England were separate jurisdictions with separate legal systems and separate legal traditions.
Catherine Smith for the Starmer regime took a hardline unionist position. It was undesirable for Palestine Action to be legal in Scotland and not in England, and she did not believe that such a position could be “competent” as terrorism was a reserved matter under the Scotland Act. She was very scathing about the evidence that, two months before the proscription, the Scottish CONTEST board (the official counter-terrorism strategy board of the Scottish government, which includes Police Scotland and the security services) had minuted that Palestine Action in Scotland “did not come close” to meeting the definition of a terrorist organisation. The Scottish board is a “local board”, she said, which did not have access to all the intelligence available to the main counter terrorism bodies in London.
London sent a regime minister to overawe the court in Edinburgh and remind us of our position in the world. We have been telt.
The Starmer regime’s arguments were founded on “judicial comity”, which amounted to simply an argument that the judiciaries of the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom should not disagree with each other, as expressed by the High Court of England in the “liberty case”. This was almost word for word the argument they had made, and was the case they had advanced, at the permission hearing. Even Lord Young rather bridled at this.
“Are you saying I got this wrong?” he asked.
“Yes”, Smith replied.
There was so much more to report, but my current state of health doesn’t allow me to spend long days in court followed by long evenings writing up, and I suppose the decision today will overtake much of it. I paste below the original decision by Lord Young to grant the appeal – you will notice that is quite a ringing declaration that citizens in Scotland are entitled to the protection of the Scottish courts – is indeed then undercut by an escape route that issues of “case management” may make proceeding with the review undesirable and are a different question.
I hope I am wrong, but I suspect that Lord Young will today rule that I was entitled to a judicial review but “case management” means it should be shelved in favour of the English case.
The one time I was actually furious during the proceedings yesterday was when Catherine Smith said that the Scottish judicial review should be closed down for reasons of cost, and specifically stated that the closed evidence sessions – on which I am given no information and do not even know when they happen – are costing the court system £10,000 a day.
The UK government is introducing spurious and fake intelligence material – making who-knows-what allegations about Palestine Action – and using the cost of fake intelligence hearings to close down scrutiny. It stinks.
We desperately need more money to continue this legal case. Each stage of hearing like this costs us about £30,000 and the eventual judicial review will cost much more.
Again please contribute if you can but do not contribute if it causes you difficulty. If you know people who are able to afford to help and likely to be sympathetic, please do contact them and ask their assistance. We are trying to keep a lot of very good people out of prison.
You can donate through the link via Crowd Justice, which goes straight to the lawyers, or through this blog.
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The post The Power of the UK State Over Scotland appeared first on Craig Murray.
The proscription of Palestine Action was sold to MPs and the media on the basis of a deliberate campaign of lies, fronted by Yvette Cooper, then Home Secretary, and Mark Rowley, Commissioner of the Metropolitan police. Both have deep commitment to Israel. Cooper is owned by the Israel lobby.
What is worse, they then attempted to reinforce these lies by fitting up young activists with false charges and corrupting all principles of justice in an effort to obtain false convictions. This was brought home to me most forcefully in examining thousands of pages of documents released to me by the Home Office as disclosure in the Scottish judicial review of the legality of the proscription of Palestine Action.
I am not allowed to reveal these thousands of pages to you, even though they have already been redacted, with large sections blacked out, and in some instances gisted, or given in precis, removing “sensitive” information.
But I shall reveal one single paragraph of one single document because I think it is overwhelmingly in the public interest to do so. It is an essential illustration of the appalling behaviour which our Israeli-controlled Establishment has been exhibiting throughout this attack on Palestine Action – an organisation which, I would remind you, is trying to prevent the provision of arms to a genocide.
That screenshot paragraph is from the Proscription Advisory Group, prepared by the Counter Terrorism Police, recommending proscription. It is part of a narrative they seek to build of an “escalating pattern of violence”. The claim is in essence that Palestine Action has moved from violence against property to violence against people.
The problem is, it is not true.
In the Filton trial the attempts to convict activists of violence against people – the aggravated burglary and violent disorder charges – all failed before a jury. There were twelve charges between aggravated burglary and violent disorder – and twelve acquittals. In the other incident referenced in the above paragraph – the Sandwich action – the charges of personal violence have all quietly been dropped.
So let us go through the extremely alarming list of serious charges involving violence that were given in that essential paragraph, from the internal Home Office documents arguing for proscription. And let us mark up the actual truth.
The only footnote to this is that there is one single conviction of GBH, but the jury specifically found not guilty of intent, in relation to the melee that developed at Filton after the security guards attacked the activists.
This is an astonishing, lengthy list of fabrication – offences in which the jury found as a matter of fact against the Crown. Non-existent offences were listed by the Police to recommend the proscription.
The proscription was based on an entire litany of offences which never happened.
But much worse than this is the attempt to enforce convictions under false pretences in the Filton trial. The catalogue of how this was done is well known now.
Judge Johnson ruled that the defendants were not permitted to refer to their motives. He ruled that the jury may not be informed of their absolute right to acquit. He attempted to have the leading defence barrister, Rajiv Menon KC, prosecuted for contempt of court for informing the jury of their rights. He ruled that terms including “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” may not be used in court. He ordered that the notebooks and other writings of the accused be redacted to withhold from the jury any information related to Elbit’s supply of weapons to Israel. He enforced the concealment from the jury of the nature of the weapons and equipment that had been damaged. He granted anonymity to senior Elbit staff and admitted their evidence without the defence being able to cross-examine. He ruled that the trial had not been prejudiced by the Secretary of State and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police stating the offences as fact throughout national media. He allowed the release to the media of highly edited and selective prosecution video footage during the trial which gave a false impression of events. He permitted the admission of Metropolitan Police video evidence which they had given over to Elbit’s sole custody for an entire year. He ruled that the jury must not be told of his stated intention to consider adding terrorist aggravation to any convictions – which adds 150% to time served in jail.
That is an astonishing list of nefarious actions by Judge Johnson. Read it again. Many people will surely conclude, it is Judge Johnson who should be in jail.
Despite all of Johnson’s attempts to rig the trial, despite the state trying the defendants twice when it failed to achieve convictions the first time, the Crown failed to attain its convictions on Aggravated Burglary, Violent Disorder and GBH with Intent.
But my God, they tried. How they tried!
Yvette Cooper specifically relied on the specific police litany of lies in her article for the Observer to promote the proscription, where she wrote:
Palestine Action has claimed responsibility for – and promoted on its website – attacks that have seen those allegedly involved subsequently charged with violent disorder, grievous bodily harm with intent, actual bodily harm, criminal damage and aggravated burglary. Charges that include, in the assessment of the independent Crown Prosecution Service, a terrorism connection.
The “independent” Crown Prosecution Service is of course a joke, the independence of both the prosecutor and of judges like Johnson being a polite fiction of the British Establishment. The executive does not issue direct orders to judges like Johnson nor to the Director of Public Prosecutions. They don’t have to issue direct orders. Those people are only in their positions because they know what is expected of them.
The one thing they cannot reliably control is a jury, however much they may try to manipulate the information available to them. The charges in the Filton trial of aggravated burglary (which means going equipped with a weapon intending to use it against a person), of violent disorder and of GBH with Intent were always massive, politically motivated overcharging.
They were never likely to be got through a jury – given the total lack of evidence for them – no matter how much Judge Johnson attempted to manipulate the trial.
Yvette Cooper was prepared to disregard legal advice that her article would prejudice the trial, safe in the knowledge that Johnson would only ever bring contempt of court charges against the defence and not against the State.
Our hearing in the Scottish Court of Session tomorrow will hear our motion that the proscription in Scotland should be suspended pending the Scottish judicial review, because in the meantime hundreds of people are having their civil liberties restricted and facing possible arrest, and scores are facing charges for terrorist offences merely for exercising their right of free speech.
The UK government is opposing with a counter motion to sist (postpone) the entire Scottish judicial review until all English proceedings are concluded, including a probable eventual Supreme Court decision. Their key argument is that it is constitutionally undesirable for English and Scottish courts to reach opposing decisions in a matter of “national security”.
That Scottish courts should respect English decisions they present not as colonialism, but as “Comity”.
They state that the constitutional argument is so important that the Advocate General herself, Catherine Smith KC, will represent the UK government in person. Indeed this hearing was delayed by two weeks to fit her diary.
Their argument is of course disingenuous. They are not seeking to postpone the Scottish hearing, they are seeking to stop it altogether. If it is constitutionally unacceptable to reach a different decision from the English court, then what would be the point of a Scottish judicial review at any stage?
Furthermore they are entirely illogical because the status quo is that the government has lost to Palestine Action in England at the High Court. It is the government which is appealing there. So if they really believed in “comity” they would drop the government case in Scotland to achieve the same position as England!
Most of the argument we have submitted to court consists of analysis of the effects of the proscription and the impact of suspending it.
The government by contrast have not addressed the proscription at all. They are depending entirely on the constitutional argument that the court should not be hearing the case. But these exact arguments were already dismissed by the court at the permission stage. They do not become any more compelling just because a UK government minister is stating them.
Why is the government so confident it will win on the constitutional point and does not need to address the proscription?
I fear the appearance of the minister is evidence of an Establishment stitch-up. My hackles rise particularly at the remarkable fact that, while the permission hearing was livestreamed and in Court No 1, this much more important hearing is not being livestreamed and is relegated to court No 6, with a much smaller public gallery. If the case is, as the government itself states, of such constitutional importance that the minister must appear in person, why is it being hidden from the public gaze?
Unfortunately I can’t think of any answers to that question which are not deeply troubling.
We desperately need more money to continue this legal case. Each stage of hearing like this costs about £30,000 and the eventual judicial review will cost much more.
Again please contribute if you can but do not contribute if it causes you difficulty. If you know people who are able to afford to help and likely to be sympathetic, please do contact them and ask their assistance. We are trying to keep a lot of very good people out of prison.
You can donate through the link via Crowd Justice, which goes straight to the lawyers, or through this blog.
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/scottish-challenge-to-proscription/
Alternatively by bank transfer:
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MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
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The post Palestine Action Scottish Judicial Review – Stitch-Up Incoming? appeared first on Craig Murray.
The furore around the election of Dr Manivannan to the Scottish Parliament is deeply troubling. There is no argument whatsoever that they were eligible to stand for election. The law was changed specifically in order for those on temporary visas to be able to stand in Scottish parliamentary elections.
I confess I am not sure that is altogether a good idea. I can see arguments both ways. There are far too many people amongst our neighbours who have to manage their lives through the Home Office’s discriminatory, hostile and prohibitively expensive immigration application systems. It is good to see such people given a voice.
On the other hand, there is a reasonable expectation of legislators having a fixed stake in the country for which they legislate.
I suspect like most people, the question had never even occurred to me until the current furore over Dr Manivannan and I have to give it some thought.
But whatever view one takes on what the law ought to be, the law as it stands is clear. Dr Manivannan was eligible, stood, and was duly elected.
That Scotland has subsequently been rocked by shrill calls for Dr Manivannan to be deported by the immigration authorities, I therefore find appalling. It is not only a denial of democracy, it is without doubt motivated by the most basic hatred and bigotry, both racist and anti-trans. To see such sentiments so openly espoused in Scotland I find deeply disturbing.
Almost amusing is the argument that, while it was perfectly legal for Dr Manivannan to stand for election, it is illegal for them to be elected.
This argument was first adopted by the radical anti-trans campaigning group For Women Scotland. This group was founded in order to oppose self-ID for trans people. 99% of its output is anti-trans rights argument. They would, however, have us believe that their objection to Dr Manivannan is nothing to do with their being trans, but a longstanding, though hitherto silent, interest in the minutiae of immigration legislation.
The practical reality is straightforward. The Scottish elections happened to fall just after Dr Manivannan completed their PhD.
There is the usual short gap between finishing the thesis and the formal end of the academic year. They are therefore still on their student visa.
They are in the process of applying for the next graduate visa. This would be the position whether or not they had been elected.
A new visa will be needed. It seems highly improbable that the Home Office would refuse one.
A seat in the Scottish Parliament is hardly unrelated to a PhD in Political Science. Quite apart from that, the democratic mandate ought to carry considerable weight.
I know Reform UK has coarsened political discourse across the UK. But to hear gleeful demands for an elected immigrant to be thrown out is dispiriting. Some of these voices even come from within the Scottish independence movement.
I also find the extreme anti-trans positions being put forward in relation to this case downright depressing. The Workers Party of Britain simply tweeted “Trans women are men”, while their lead candidate for Edinburgh argued directly that gender dysphoria is a mental illness and mentally ill people should be banned from parliament.
I have frequently complained that the gender identity question is dominated by such extreme and unreasonable positions. The complete denial of the validity of any trans people is an extreme position. It also rolls back 40 years of broad societal acceptance.
I first met Jan Morris in the 1980s, and have known several other trans people since. For decades, there was little open intolerance. I can’t recall anybody ever suggesting Jan Morris should not use women’s bathrooms – least of all the feminist movement of those times.
Feminism then was about breaking down sexual barriers, not erecting them.
The extraordinary attempt of the US-originated movement to erect differing gender identities into a compulsory and strange ideology transformed the situation. Attempting to introduce compelled speech is not something I support – I try to use people’s preferred pronouns out of politeness, for example, but it is not a matter for the state. The purpose of a pronoun is to specify an individual, not to signal political correctness.
The issue of self-ID led to a real political fracture. Personally I favour treating people as they wish to be treated, which favours self-ID. That is polite, tolerant and kind. But most people find the idea of people self-identifying themselves into women’s elite sports, or reserved women’s positions on boards, to be not obviously desirable.
Personally, I have always specifically opposed the idea that those who have used violence, including but not only sexual violence, against women should be able to self-identify into women’s prisons. That seems to me a blindingly practical exclusion.
The problem is the pro-trans lobby is equally dominated by extremists. They argue that any restriction on the ability of the individual to immediately self-identify is unacceptable, and any restriction on their being treated as their gender of choice is discrimination.
The problem with this position is that it assumes nobody ever lies. The problems for the trans movement has been caused by their inability to accept the existence of fake trans people. You cannot deny by ideology the existence of human criminal behaviour.
In practice, there are a number of men who pretend to be trans, but are not really trans, in order to gain access to women in various situations. I took the position that these were extremely rare and wrongly used to introduce smears against trans people as criminal into the debate.
But then, a succession of shocking cases in Scotland made me realise that my initial views had given insufficient weight to the need for protection of women from fake trans people.
I have had arguments with trans advocates who simply refuse to accept that such people exist. The cases of Isla Bryson, Serenity Francis Johnston, Katie Dolatowski and Alexandra Stewart are notorious and they do exist. They cannot simply be wished away.
They are certainly not representative of trans people in any way, but the debate could helpfully be shifted from the deliberate confusion of trans people with sexual perverts, if only the trans lobby would recognise that men falsely pretending to be trans do actually exist and this needs to be guarded against.
My own position is that anybody guilty of a sexual or violent offence should lose their right to change gender. I believe changing gender should be a right, but some rights are normally lost when you commit a serious crime. It seems to me that is the coherent basis for policy.
However I also believe that nobody should have their rights circumscribed before they have committed any crime, and the mantra of “you can’t tell which man is a rapist” is deeply wrong. It is as offensive and dangerous as racial or other profiling.
The “gender-critical” faction in Scotland have, as usual, reacted to my defending Dr Manivannan on social media by accusing me of adopting all kinds of positions I have never held – like allowing convicted rapists to self-identify into women’s prison, supporting medical intervention in children, or trans women boxers to compete in the Olympics.
Neither side of the debate seems able to comprehend for a moment that people of good will might be trying, in good faith, to find compromises to balance rights so that trans people may lead full and happy lives while hard-won feminine rights – and safety – might not be endangered by faux opportunists.
But it is difficult to explain anything when everybody is screaming at you.
Here is a truth. Scottish people are not stupid. It is extremely well known by now that the Scottish Greens have a very strong line indeed on supporting trans rights and gender self- ID. The Scottish Greens regard my own position outlined above as extremely reactionary. They are fully signed up to the ideology of gender fluidity and its compulsory acceptance.
In the last two Scottish parliamentary elections, alternative pro-Independence parties have stood, noisily, on the very specific and openly stated position that “Trans women are men” and that they oppose trans rights. Most notably Alba in 2021, but also the Independence for Scotland Party and the Workers’ Party of Britain. Famous Independent candidates like Fergus Ewing and Ash Regan also made this a major plank of their platforms.
The party I stood for, Alliance to Liberate Scotland, while having no formal position on the issue, featured mostly candidates who are vocally anti-trans.
Next to nobody voted for them.
A lot of people voted Green.
All of the pro-Independence parties which adopted extreme anti-trans positions got derisory votes, fractions of one per cent. The Greens got many times as many votes. That is how democracy works.
Nicola Sturgeon derailed the SNP when she shifted its emphasis from Independence to identity politics. There is no doubt she shifted the emphasis on purpose. The toxicity of the trans issue in Scottish politics is her legacy – she approached it in the most abrasive and divisive way possible, and used it to force out of her party those not loyal to her. The single most important cause of hatred towards trans people in Scotland is Nicola Sturgeon.
None of which was the fault of Dr Manivannan, but they are the current lightning rod for the resultant hatred. Which is entirely unfair.
It is par for the course that the Tories and Reform are attacking Dr Manivannan. Bigotry is what they do. But for alleged socialists and Independence supporters to join in is deeply dispiriting,
Dr Manivannan has done nothing wrong and is by all accounts a very pleasant and gentle soul. They were elected. Please stop the hate. This member of the Scottish parliament, elected by the Scottish people, must be defended against any attack from the London-based UK Home Office.
———————————
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The post Dr Manivannan appeared first on Craig Murray.
While the Court of Appeal has now stopped the High Court contempt of court action against Rajiv Menon KC for defending his client, this is purely on procedural grounds. They ruled that Judge Johnson had to go via the Attorney General to the High Court, not direct. It is now referred back to Johnson who can use the Attorney General route.
Given that Johnson is a vicious authoritarian, a former lawyer for the security services who did everything possible to rig the Filton trial against the defendants, and that the Attorney General “Lord” Helmer is a vicious pro-genocidal zionist who was Israel’s go-to lawyer on war crimes charges in the UK, this contempt of court action may well not be over.
In addition to barring the use of the terms genocide or ethnic cleansing at trial, barring the defence of necessity to stop war crimes, barring the defendants from explaining the motive of their actions, and barring the jury from being informed of their absolute legal right to acquit, Judge Johnson also barred the jury from being told that he intended to add the terrorism aggravation on sentencing.
This is incredibly important. The norm is in England that you serve 40% of a jail sentence in prison and 60% on parole. If the terrorism aggravation is applied, you serve 100% in jail. So it is the difference between two years in prison and five years in prison. This was hidden from the jury.
A terrorism aggravation will also lead to debanking, severe travel restrictions and very probably loss of career.
The Filton action against the Elbit weapons factory preceded the proscription of Palestine Action, but a judge can add a terrorism aggravation to any offence. (You may recall that in Scotland a young woman is facing charges of “dangerous driving aggravated by terrorism” for an action against the Leonardo weapons factory).
Violence against property can be construed as terrorism in the UK if the objective is to influence government. Extraordinarily, Judge Johnson has indicated that he believes that the actions against the Israeli weapons factories may be intended to influence the policy of the government of Israel. He will announce his final decision at sentencing but he has already told the court (but not the jury) that is his thinking.
The activists have already spent 16 months in jail on remand. In any precedent for a first time criminal damage conviction, including the sentences of Palestine Action and climate activists, they would be extremely unlikely to be given sentences of more than three years in jail. With the standard 40% tariff, that means they would not have further prison time but some remaining time on parole.
Therefore Judge Johnson’s decision to keep them in prison pending sentencing next month appears to indicate he is intending to impose abnormally long sentences and the terrorist aggravation.
Two of the six defendants were completely acquitted. Three were acquitted on all counts, except the most minor one of criminal damage. But for this Johnson can sentence them to ten years in prison, and use the terrorism aggravation to remove the possibility of parole.
This is astonishing for two reasons:
Firstly, the notion that those damaging Israeli weapons did so in the hope of changing Netanyahu’s mind about destroying Gaza – as opposed to destroying some of his weapons supply – is plainly nonsensical.
The second is that if they were trying to change Netanyahu’s mind, they were trying to influence him against committing Genocide.
Which only a hardwired zionist nutter like Judge Johnson can consider a bad thing.
The legal fight against the proscription of Palestine Action continues. We are back in court on 27 May in Edinburgh with a motion to suspend the proscription in Scotland. We urgently need funds to take on the power and unlimited resources of the state.
I am afraid these proceedings are horribly expensive to keep the legal battle going. Again please contribute if you can but do not contribute if it causes you difficulty. If you know people who are able to afford to help and likely to be sympathetic, please do contact them and ask their assistance. We are trying to keep a lot of very good people out of prison.
You can donate through the link via Crowd Justice, which goes straight to the lawyers, or through this blog.
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The post URGENT FILTON TRIAL UPDATE appeared first on Craig Murray.
Unquestioning Zionism has for decades been the entry ticket to the British political and media Establishment. Anybody who was not a fully certified and compliant zionist would find their career limited – as Jeremy Corbyn, Alan Duncan, Robin Cook and David Mellor all found. Most others, of course, were never allowed to progress that far.
In the media there are any number of examples – Antoinette Lattouf, Emily Wilder, Katie Halper, Gabriele Nunziante and Sangita Myska just from the top of my head. Lack of enthusiasm for Israel is career-destroying.
One consequence is that now, as the UK political system retches to try and vomit up a new Prime Minister, every single one of the contenders – Andy Burnham, Angela Rayner, Ed Miliband and Wes Streeting – has a long history of nailed-on, certified zionism and relationship with both Israel and Labour Friends of Israel, and is a long-term recipient of zionist lobby cash.
The media have spent the last several days since the local elections studiously ignoring the fact that support for Genocide is a key factor in alienating the Labour Party’s traditional voting base – or when they do mention it, relating it only to Muslim voters. One thing we know for certain is that any probable new Prime Minister is not going to change Britain’s support for the genocidal zionist entity.
Zionism has long poisoned the central nervous system of the UK body politic. For many years, due to their media control, this system worked seamlessly. The media portrayed a benign image of Israel as a bastion of liberal democratic values under siege from corrupt and barbaric Arab peoples. The Genocide of Palestinians, which has been in progress almost 80 years, proceeded at a pace and by methods which rigorous media control made it possible to convince Western audiences was not really happening at all.
When a kickback against Genocide came on October 7th 2023, media gatekeeping made the declaration of condemnation of Hamas a ritual which had to be observed to ensure purity before you were permitted to express anything else at all. The media united around false atrocity stories of the events of October 7th. Then they united around false Israeli narratives in which every Gazan hospital, clinic, school, public utility and eventually home was a secret Hamas missile base.
At this point, something broke. There was a spectacular burst in public opinion. From being a lulling, soothing narrative of European civilisational superiority, the zionist propaganda was revealed as obvious lies in the service of the very worst atrocities man could do to man (and child).
The media covered up the horrors and the Israeli government raced to stem the flow of images out of Gaza by murdering every journalist there, but public belief in the zionist narrative was fatally damaged.
The result of that was western zionist governments became scared of their own populations. In virtually every western state, extreme authoritarian measures were adopted to limit free speech and punish pro-Palestinian protest. This was followed by attempts to reinforce the exclusion from public life of non-zionists by a new wave of accusations of anti-semitism, reinforced by waves of false flag or agent provocateur organised “anti-semitic incidents”.
Incidentally the Hasbara invented “Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyya” so-called terrorist group – actually an Israeli-operated Telegram account – was first “revealed” to the Western public by Joe Truzman of Israeli Washington front organisation the Foundation for Defending Democracy (FDD). Nick Stewart of FDD has subsequently been added to the Witkoff-Kushner negotiating team with Iran and flew to Islamabad with them.
The Iranians have entirely sensibly refused to engage with this group as simply representing Israel.
That is where we are now, with extraordinary developments like the effort to jail and debar Rajiv Menon KC for contempt of court for what I had called the greatest legal speech I ever read, and the charging of thousands of peaceful citizens under terrorism laws for supporting Palestine Action.
Those are but horrible symptoms of a wider malaise – and the fundamental shift is that the majority of the population, and above all of younger people, now realise that they are governed by a political and media class which acts in service of a zionist project which is truly evil.
The billionaire class was already allied with the far right. As the appalling fall in living standards of ordinary people since the 2008 banking crisis has been caused by the massive and artificially wrought concentration of wealth which followed, the efforts to divert attention from the hoarders of wealth instead to scapegoat immigrants have entailed massive financial and corporate media backing for racist politicians.
This now synchs neatly with their need for support for zionism. Zionism has found support through an easy alliance with the rampant Islamophobia that underpins much of the anti-migrant sentiment in the UK and rest of the Western world.
Israel’s core support now does not feel the need to hide the fact that Israel was always a deeply racist project. Israel’s core supporters now glory in racist Genocide, as the Tommy Robinson march this weekend will demonstrate and as the Israeli flags at Reform rallies show.
Israel flags at a Reform party leader’s speech is literally all you need to see.
Anyone telling you Refrom will save Britain is a fraud. pic.twitter.com/31PfCl91B9
— Adam (@adamemedia1) May 11, 2026
On last week’s election coverage on all UK TV channels, every single time a Green representative came on they were immediately pushed to criticise Zack Polanski’s comments on the Golders Green incident – where a certified lunatic stabbed two Jewish men after stabbing a Muslim man. I was sad – and somewhat shocked – to hear every single Green party representative head immediately for the Jeremy Corbyn tactic of abject apology and condemnation of “anti-semitism”.
Only Jenny Jones then pushed back against the conflation of criticism of Israel with anti-semitism.
The exclusion of non-zionists is still in force within the political and media class. It will remain in force until we change the political and media class.
Personally, the disconnect between the revulsion of the large majority of people of the western world at the Genocide in Gaza, and the people’s complete lack of political power to stop their uniparty political leaderships from supporting Genocide, has fundamentally changed my view of politics. I now fully accept that the change the western world needs is revolutionary, not incremental.
The problem is those of the exploited classes who have reached breaking point, have so far been easily diverted down the track of racism and away from their true enemies. I fear that is a tactic not likely to fail soon.
We continue to fight with what weapons we have to hand. On 27 May at the Court of Session in Edinburgh we will continue our legal battle against the proscription of Palestine Action.
The 27 May hearing will be on our motion to suspend the proscription in Scotland pending the Scottish judicial review. Decent, caring people are still being dragged through the Scottish courts on potentially life-changing terrorism charges merely for expressing their support for Palestine Action’s attempts to stop Genocide. Many have been dragged to court again and again as their cases are continually put off, while the legal establishment havers over the proscription.
The Crown Office refuses to drop prosecutions and Police Scotland refuses to say it will not arrest people. Nobody has any certainty as to whether the law is being enforced or not. Arrests and prosecutions appear entirely at executive whim – the very definition of arbitrary government. We seek to end this uncertainty.
The UK government is bringing a counter motion to sist (suspend) the judicial review pending the conclusion of the English proceedings – a straight Unionist argument that these things should be decided in London for the whole of the UK.
I do hope you will come to the court in Edinburgh on 27 May, both to witness the proceedings and to demonstrate outside and show that public revulsion at Genocide is not going away, and is only increased by Israel’s illegal attacks on Iran and Lebanon.
I am afraid these proceedings are horribly expensive to keep the legal battle going. Again please contribute if you can but do not contribute if it causes you difficulty. If you know people who are able to afford to help and likely to be sympathetic, please do contact them and ask their assistance. We are trying to keep a lot of very good people out of prison.
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The post Zionism Has Poisoned the UK’s Central Nervous System appeared first on Craig Murray.
We get so trapped inside the logic of the UK’s crazy electoral systems we often do not see what is really happening. Two thirds of active voters, voted against Starmer’s Labour at the last general election. He was always highly unpopular.
Just as Starmer’s landslide victory in the 2024 general election was based on only 33.7% of votes cast, as Reform fractured the right-wing vote across First Past the Post (FPTP) constituencies, so the SNP in Scotland stand to sweep to victory in tomorrow’s parliamentary elections under the D’Hondt system on an extremely similar percentage.
The D’Hondt system is modified FPTP. It consists of two parts. One part is simple, unadulterated FPTP. You elect a member of the Scottish parliament in a constituency, exactly as in a standard UK parliamentary election.
Then there is a second part. Constituencies are grouped into regions. You then have a second ballot paper to elect regional MSPs. On the second paper, you vote not for a person but for a party. As in the constituency vote, the regional vote is a simple X. The constituency MSPs won by a particular party in a region are discounted, and then the regional MSPs are divided between the parties on a basis broadly proportionate to that vote.
So if a party wins all or most of the constituency MSPs in the region, it is unlikely to get any regional candidates, unless it is polling at over 50%.
This is exactly what happened to the SNP in the 2021 Holyrood elections. It swept the constituencies, so 1.1 million regional list votes brought it only two regional list seats. By comparison, minority parties were able to pick up individual regional list seats with as few as 17,000 votes in a region.
This is definitely going to happen again. The SNP is only polling at 33% but will sweep almost all the constituencies, because the Tories, Reform and Labour are each polling between 16 and 20%. The parliament has 73 constituency seats and 56 regional seats.
But Tories, Reform and Labour could each pick up hatfuls of regional list seats because the SNP regional list votes will be discounted by the constituency seats they have won.
The D’Hondt system can be gamed, very easily. If SNP voters were all to cast their regional list seats for a different pro-Independence party, the unionist parties could be virtually eliminated from the Scottish parliament.
There is an argument this is “cheating”. Well it isn’t, because it is within the rules. The UK has rotten electoral systems. That usually assists us to get terrible governments, like the Starmer regime. If we can play the system to some good for once – and we can, perfectly legally – let us do so.
Unfortunately it is extremely difficult to persuade SNP voters to do this. They are very loyal to their party. The tragedy of this is that they view casting “both votes SNP” as a declaration of support for Scottish Independence.
Why this is tragedy is that the SNP’s careerist leadership has only a performative commitment to Independence. They know it is Independence support that gets them elected, so they remember it around elections. Their policy is to ask London for permission to hold another Independence referendum, through what is called a Section 30 process.
The problem is that everybody knows that Starmer, and all the other UK parties, will refuse a Scottish referendum. When that happens, the SNP’s John Swinney and his clique will huff and puff a little, then go back to enjoying their “ministerial” limousines and salaries, and forget Independence until the next election in 2031.
This has been happening for over a decade. The tragedy is the SNP voters who still remain do not see an alternative.
As I said, we get so trapped by these electoral systems that we do not notice what is really happening in politics. What is really happening in Scotland – the biggest single voter movement in decades – is the disconnection between Independence support and SNP support.
Independence support is, across the large majority of opinion polls in the last year, steady around 52%, with polls falling within the margin of error of that figure.
By contrast SNP support is only around 34%, with polls falling within the margin of error of that figure.
There is a profound, long-term gap of 18% between Independence support and SNP support.
Over one third of Independence supporters do not vote SNP.
Where is that Independence support going?
Well, it is with other political parties. Most significantly with Labour, with over 25% of Labour voters regularly showing in polls as supporting Independence. The figure for Reform appears to be at least as high. There is also Independence support for the Green Party, which is significant in D’Hondt.
But unfortunately a great many of the third of Independence supporters who do not vote SNP have given up. They won’t vote at all in the elections. They will just sit on their hands.
The significant tactical voting under D’Hondt is from SNP to Scottish Green. The fifth or so of SNP voters who have worked out that their regional vote is wasted if they cast it for the SNP, mainly intend to vote Scottish Green on the regional list. Indeed, this is the only thing that puts the Scottish Greens into Holyrood.
SNP voters tend to do this because the Scottish Greens have been in coalition with the SNP. But I believe this to be mistaken.
The Scottish Greens are only very lightly committed to Independence. It is point 27 in their 38 point manifesto – and their Scottish Deputy Leader has already stated that the moratorium on hydrocarbon projects is more important to them than Independence in forming a government. They have not ruled out joining a unionist coalition.
I have much time for the Greens in England. The Scottish Greens are an entirely separate party and frankly (remember all politics is personal) are dominated by some extremely weird and unpleasant people who should be nowhere near political power.
Scottish politics desperately need shaking up. That is why I am standing as a candidate for the Alliance to Liberate Scotland, an eight-week-old political party which has one single policy: Scottish Independence. We do not accept a London veto and believe the Scottish people should act immediately on their right of self-determination.
You cannot believe both that Scots are a people with the right of self-determination under the UN charter, and that London should have a veto. The UK Establishment will never voluntarily give up Scotland’s magnificent resources. If we want Independence, we must take it.
That is why I urge people to vote to put real radical firebrands into the Scottish parliament, like myself, Tommy Sheridan, Eva Comrie and many others. You can vote for the Alliance to Liberate Scotland in many constituencies, and on all regional lists.
Now, unfortunately I suffered heart problems and was hospitalised at the start of this election, and was unable to campaign. Had I been well, even a result equivalent to my 2005 Blackburn General Election vote (5%) would have probably seen me elected on the regional list and my 2024 vote (18%) would have seen me not just elected but bringing in at least one other regional MSP with me.
But illness means there has been not one speech, not one hustings, not one interview, not one door knocked, not one leaflet delivered beyond the single Election Communication.
But I have not pulled out because I think it is essential to give people the chance to vote for Scottish Independence if they wish to do so – and genuinely vote for somebody who actually intends to do something about it.
I hope you cherish every vote you give to the Alliance to Liberate Scotland as much as we will cherish your trust. Just do the honest thing with your vote.
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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.
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The post The 2026 Scottish Elections appeared first on Craig Murray.
A vast cloying morass of injustice has visibly submerged the British legal systems in anything connected to Palestine.
In a quite incredible series of linked and kinked events this week, the senior KC representing one of the Palestine Action activists in the Filton trial was in the Court of Appeal arguing against being found in contempt of court for his summing up in that case – a speech which I described at the time as the greatest legal speech I had ever read.
He fell foul of the quite incredible conditions imposed on the defence in that trial – they must not refer to the motive of their clients for action against Elbit, they must not refer to Elbit’s role in the Israeli defence industry, they must not refer to genocide or to ethnic cleansing in relation to Gaza.
Compare this to the public statements of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley and of then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper where they claimed that one of the defendants had attacked a policewoman with a sledgehammer – a blatant attempt to influence the jury in the Filton trial.
What is very plain in the Filton case, as in the Alex Salmond case, is that contempt of court rules are only applied to the defence and not to the prosecution.
Juries had been shown by the prosecution the notebooks of the defendants, with all information about Elbit and their operations removed.
The barristers were also forbidden from telling the jury that they have the right to acquit according to their conscience, irrespective of the direction of the judge.
The first Filton trial famously failed to return any guilty verdicts at all, and all defendants were found not guilty of aggravated burglary, with no verdict returned on more minor charges.
This was extremely important as the aggravated burglary charge carries the meaning of a deliberate purpose to cause harm to persons, not just to property (the phrase “aggravated burglary” does not obviously carry the connotation of intent to harm persons to the layman, but that is the purport in English law).
The acquittals on aggravated burglary were particularly annoying to the Starmer regime because this accusation about intent to harm people was a key part of Yvette Cooper’s entirely dishonest argument for proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.
The Filton verdicts were a major setback for the government, and the unfortunate KC was dragged in by the judge for the unforgivable offence of securing the acquittal of his client in a situation which was extremely embarrassing to Starmer and Cooper.
The subsequent contempt case could lead to both the KC being disbarred and to his imprisonment. To add to the incredibly sinister story, this case is entirely secret. It is illegal to mention the contempt case at all – and could lead to imprisonment for contempt of anyone who mentions it.
Yet that is only the first layer of the heaving mass of injustice around this case.
The government has attempted to make it illegal to inform jurors of their established right to acquit according to their conscience.
In 2023 Trudi Warner was arrested standing outside a Crown Court in a climate activist trial, for holding a sign which said “Jurors. You have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience”. This legal principle is on a marble plaque in the Old Bailey.
The High Court dismissed the case against Warner, stating that she was informing the jury of an established legal principle. In 2024 the government dropped its appeal against the High Court ruling in Warner’s favour.
Yet astonishingly, the Metropolitan Police have again arrested Trudi Warner, for standing outside the Filton Trial holding the exact same sign. They arrested others holding the same wording as well.
The Metropolitan Police claim different grounds for arrest this time: under section 14 of the 1986 Public Order Act they banned the small protest by Trudy and a handful of others. That the protest threatened serious disruption or intimidation – the bar under the Public Order Act – is plainly a nonsense.
The increasingly fascist Metropolitan Police are simply seeking to find a way to get round the High Court judgment and prevent the jury being informed of their right to acquit.
In Judge Johnson the government have an entirely complicit judge in limiting what the jury may hear, and in the Metropolitan Police they have an entirely compliant tool in keeping knowledge of their rights from the jury.
Now we have to delve still another layer deeper into the stench of corruption around this case. The government decided to go for a retrial of the Filton case on the more minor charges on which the jury had been unable to reach a verdict, having returned not guilty on the major ones.
The limitations of what the barristers could say in their defence speeches were so extreme, that five of the six defendants in the Filton Trial decided to dismiss their barristers before the end of their case and make their closing speeches themselves.
Yes, you read that right. The barristers were forbidden from making the defence case, so the defendants had to speak for themselves.
To be plain, the defendants equally face the risk of possible imprisonment for contempt of court for breaching Judge Johnson’s orders in what they said to the jury, but unlike the barristers they do not of course face professional disbarment.
And what great speeches they all made. The Real Media website has done a fantastic job in documenting the trial, and I highly recommend you to read the closing speeches in full. But just this little segment from Charlotte Head’s closing speech in the Filton trial casts some light on what a monumental attempted stitch-up the egregious Judge Johnson has presided over:
The first thing that you might have noticed about the prosecution case is that they didn’t call a single security guard to give evidence. The prosecutor asked you to see things from Volante’s perspective [described in evidence as the most violent of the Elbit security guards], and you could have. She chose not to call him or any security guard to actually give evidence, because they know that they were the ones intimidating us. And if that wasn’t true, they would have called them to the stand.
The truth is that the security guards, like Elbit itself, have been shielded and sheltered by the state.
If this was a shop that we’d broken into, which I would never do by the way, then you’d expect the owner to come to court. You’d expect him to list all of the items that were damaged, and describe the impact it’s had on his business. But where is Elbit? You’ve heard a very detailed and very boring inventory of the tools we brought to dismantle the weapons. You even have – behind Tab 10 – pictures with information like the brand and the weight and the material of every single tool. So where is that information about the weapons that we dismantled? If this case is supposedly only about damage, then where is the inventory?
And I think that brings me to the CCTV. Everything that we’ve heard about the CCTV system came second-hand from PC Sarah Grant. Once again, the prosecution did not want to put an Elbit Systems employee in front of you to answer for themselves. They know that the explanation of why there is missing footage doesn’t make sense. The low frame rate cannot explain the missing footage. You’ve seen it. We spent way longer than a minute in that alcove. No matter how low the frame rate was, it’s impossible that nobody was pictured on that camera, where Volante was being incredibly violent. Coincidentally, we don’t have any body-worn footage from the alcove either. We also don’t have CCTV of the area where Luke [another Elbit guard] had Lottie screaming on the floor, or body-worn. Or when Mr. Volante hit Jordan in the neck with a sledgehammer – you only saw that because it’s captured on police body-worn.
PC Phoebe Webber accepted that there were CCTV cameras that covered all of these areas, and we know that security all had body-worn cameras. Sarah Grant accepted that someone would have to set the frame rates, but of course, Witness Alpha [described as a senior Elbit employee whose identity has been withheld from defence lawyers] , who hasn’t been here at all, couldn’t remember the password to access the settings. Could anyone really believe that a multi-million pound weapons and technology company that specializes in surveillance drones didn’t have a CCTV system that worked?
Not only were Elbit shielded from anything at all being said about their supply of weapons to Israel, not only was it forbidden to mention genocide and ethnic cleansing, but some key Elbit witnesses – I presume from Mossad or the IDF – were granted anonymity.
I previously reported that the police left the recordings of the video evidence, in their police evidence bags, in the custody of Elbit for over a year. Throughout this prosecution the Metropolitan Police, Elbit, the Crown Prosecution Service and the judge have been a part of a seamless zionist security operation.
This is from the closing speech of Zoe Rogers:
After hearing the 6 of us give evidence you might think it odd that what’s happening in Palestine has gone completely unmentioned, you might have noticed certain words that have been blacklisted, that until our closing speeches the word genocide wasn’t said once. There have been interruptions from the prosecution, quick subject changes from our barristers – it’s almost as if whole topics of conversation have been banned. The prosecution know full well that we are right that this factory is supplying weapons to Israel to be used in Gaza. That is why they are choosing to suppress it rather than contest it. The prosecution have decided that the legality of Israel’s actions is irrelevant in this trial. Because they know you could not in good conscience find us guilty of anything if you were allowed to hear the whole truth.
…Now I’m an ordinary person, with friends, family, a place at university, a cat I love, basically a whole lot to lose by going to prison. But you know that we all actually intended to be arrested on the 6th of August. We intended to go to trial. And I won’t speak for the others here, but the reason I was willing and confident enough to allow that, was because I knew that now, 20 months in the future, I would be standing in front of 12 ordinary people like you. Not politicians, not legal experts, not barristers and judges wearing 400 yr old horsehair on their heads, but a panel of my equals. You are the best counterweight to power and tyranny within the legal system as it exists today. It is a privilege to be judged by you. And I don’t say that to flatter you, but because as you’ve already heard, the right to trial by jury is under threat, with a Bill passing through the House of Commons as I speak. Juries as we know them today may not be around for much longer, precisely because your pockets cannot be weighed down by bribes from the rich and powerful. (And also because juries often refuse to convict in these kinds of cases). And that is a very powerful position for you to be in.
No one can tell you to convict in this case, not even the judge. In fact, the judge is explicitly not allowed to tell you to convict! You, and only you, can decide on your verdicts. But not only can you acquit us, but you have the RIGHT to acquit us. No one can punish you for your decision. No one can even ask you why.
On Tuesday the jury will start its third day of deliberation. Once the verdicts are in, it is going to be fascinating to see if Johnson attempts to find any of the defendants in contempt of court for their closing speeches. They went further than the barrister who has already been attacked in this way.
Let us now leave Woolwich Crown Court (a physical adjunct of Belmarsh prison) and head to the Royal Courts of Justice, where the Starmer regime held this week its appeal against the High Court finding that the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful.
I have always suspected that the British deep state will ensure the proscription is upheld at the end of a charade of a legal procedure. I was not diminished in that belief by this article by Joshua Rozenberg, partner of lunatic uber-zionist Melanie Phillips, in which he argues that the extremely unusual forming of a five-judge court of appeal, including England and Wales’s two most senior judges, is to bolster the court with sufficient seniority convincingly to overturn Dame Victoria Sharp and her three-judge panel.
The hearing did not on the surface go terribly well for the Starmer regime. Their primary argument was that the proscription had been democratically approved by parliament and the courts had no right to interfere.
In terms of judicial consideration, the assertion that, in effect, the European Convention on Human Rights does not apply if parliament approves an Order which contravenes it, is problematic (though the English courts would probably uphold it in primary legislation).
In the real world, of course, the sham of democracy ignores the fact that Cooper, Starmer, Lammy and the lot of them are bought and paid for by the zionist lobby.
Huda Ammori’s (co-founder of Palestine Action) legal team made the obvious points of the effect of the proscription on human rights and freedom of expression. This was bolstered by a letter of 1500 signatories openly defying the law and declaring support for Palestine Action and opposition to genocide.
Ammori’s team were able to make rather more of a couple of points that had, in my view, been given insufficient prominence at earlier hearings.
The first is the argument that the measure has a disproportionately severe effect on the Palestinian community in the UK, who feel suppressed in protesting against the devastating attacks on their own people and risk false classification as terrorist.
It is worth noting that Israeli interests were extensively consulted before the ban was imposed, but not one single Palestinian was consulted.
The second is a more pointed emphasis on the astonishing argument by the Metropolitan Police and the Joint Terrorism Assessment Centre in the papers recommending proscription, that designation as terrorism is necessary because Palestine Action keep appointing good defence lawyers and achieving acquittals.
This acknowledgement that the proscription is an attempt to undermine the criminal justice system should be key to the case. It is not a point that to date the judges have been willing to tackle – no judicial decision has acknowledged it so far.
The Starmer regime is intent on the entire subversion of the supposed protections of British justice. It is operating purely in the interests of a foreign state, in order to protect Israel from any potential consequences of the public revulsion against its genocidal onslaught on the Palestinians.
To complete this circle of crazed authoritarianism, after the open hearings on the government appeal over the proscription of Palestine Action concluded, there was a day of “closed hearing” where secret evidence is heard. Huda Ammori will never be told what was alleged in these hearings and never have a chance to answer.
I am the “petitioner” in the parallel judicial review in Scotland. That case should have concluded by now, except the Starmer regime has been introducing “secret evidence” in closed session. I do not even know when such sessions are happening, let alone what is said in them.
My “interests” are “represented” by regime-approved lawyers who are forbidden from any communication with me. We can guess at the lies that are being told in these closed sessions – such guesses might range from Iranian funding to bomb manufacture – but we cannot even testify they are lies.
The Starmer regime has now, for the third time, introduced a motion to “sist” the Scottish judicial review until after the English case has concluded, on the basis that it is undesirable for Scottish and English courts to reach differing conclusions.
This is the third time they have attempted to sist the case, so far without success.
We have applied for interim relief – that the proscription should be suspended in Scotland pending the judicial review, because it is so delayed, in order to avoid people being convicted of terrorism on the basis of an Order subsequently found unlawful.
The Starmer regime is making the process as long and drawn out as possible, partly to postpone a potential politically damaging defeat, but mostly as a matter of lawfare. Each hearing drains our financial resources. I am afraid this tactic against us does have the potential to succeed.
Unless we can widen our donor base we are not going to get this case over the line. That would be a great shame, because it is crucial not only for freedom of expression, not only as a stand against the genocide in Palestine, but as an assertion of the independent rights of Scotland and its legal system.
If you can help fund the case please do so. But if you know anybody else who has the means to make a contribution, and who supports the principles for which we are fighting, please speak to them and see if they can help. I am extremely grateful to the thousands who have contributed so far.
You can donate through the link via Crowd Justice, which goes straight to the lawyers, or through this blog.
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The post The Morass of Injustice appeared first on Craig Murray.
In 2018, at the height of the economic crisis in Venezuela through crippling sanctions, Kellogg’s announced the overnight closure of their Maracay factory with hundreds of redundancies – and massive knock-on effects in the local community.
The workers refused to accept the closure and, with government assistance, restarted the factory. It is still running eight years later, employing hundreds of people. Not only has it expanded production, it now uses 100% Venezuelan raw materials – not only local maize and sugar, but packaging also.
The head of the trade union council in the factory is now fulfilling the role of Managing Director.
This is how governments should deal with the whims of multinational capital, rather than allowing invaluable plants and equipment to go to scrap. If the Grangemouth refinery had been treated this way, when Ratcliffe decided he could make more profit in the Netherlands, then Scotland and the UK would not be facing potential jet fuel shortages now.
I hope you enjoy the video as much as I did my visit there.
This visit was of course before I was taken ill. I am extremely grateful to the Venezuelan medics who saved my life, and to all those many people who have been so kind in helping me. I should say that everything, from the qualifications of the medical staff to the facilities and the hospital services, has been really good. Again the stories of this country as a failed state so vividly and consistently painted by the West are shown to be a complete lie.
I today (20 April) had the pacemaker checked out and it is performing properly, operating at 21% (which I think means that one in five of my heartbeats is pacemaker triggered). The wound is also healing well, but doctors advise the internal healing takes longer and they are keeping me a few more days to make sure everything is OK before I fly back to Scotland.
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As I end my second Venezuelan visit, we have now spent substantially more on this than we raised and I am personally out of pocket. There is still quite a lot of video footage and the editing process is stalled for lack of funds. Please help if you are able – Our GoFundMe link for the Venezuelan operation is here:
This is the same crowdfunding account we used for Lebanon so discount the first £35,000 raised as it was spent in Lebanon.
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Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of subscription 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 to this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.
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The post An Inspiring Story appeared first on Craig Murray.
It was not my intention to run for election to the Scottish parliament from a hospital bed in Caracas, but sometimes we have to take what life gives us.
I went to a clinic a week ago feeling dizzy and was immediately rushed to hospital. My heart rate was fluttering and below 20 bpm. I have since had an emergency procedure to fit a pacemaker.
Long-term followers of this blog (and readers of Murder in Samarkand or The Catholic Orangemen of Togo) know that I am dogged by long-term heart problems which I have to work through. I try to avoid hospitals because such is the apparent seriousness of my condition it is very hard to get out of them again.
In 2005 I was given three years to live with pulmonary hypertension, but I am still here and still fighting for good causes. Now with electronic enhancement.
I can’t however type much as both my hands look like this.
I am not withdrawing from the election, as I believe it is essential to give voters in Edinburgh Central the opportunity to vote for someone genuinely committed to Scottish Independence and who intends to do something about it.
You cannot believe both that Scotland is a nation with the right of self-determination and that London should have a veto.
London cannot afford to lose Scotland’s vast resources and will never agree. Independence will not be given to us, we must take it. When Independence comes, it will be in contravention of UK domestic law. Scottish Independence is therefore a revolutionary cause or it is nothing.
With opinion polls routinely showing a majority for Independence, the SNP will handily win this election on the pretence they will work for Independence. But they have no intention of actually doing so – still less have the neoliberal, Freeport-supporting Scottish Greens.
What will happen is that they will beg London for a referendum, which Starmer has made crystal clear he will refuse, and then they will claim to have tried. The SNP will then yet again forget Independence until the next election needs a slogan, while going back to pocketing their large salaries from the British state for running the colonial administration at Holyrood.
With US bombers taking off from British airports loaded with 2,000 lb bombs for the destruction of children in Iran, with the RAF giving targeting intelligence to the Israelis for the Genocide in Gaza, there is a moral urgency to breaking up the UK. Scotland needs at least some people in its Parliament who feel that urgency.
That is why I am giving people a chance to vote for me as part of the Alliance to Liberate Scotland – an umbrella group for all who support Independence, with other policy choices left to the individual. The party is precisely eight weeks old.
(I had intended to stand for Your Party, which decided firmly in favour of Scottish Independence, but it is not fighting these elections).
Were I able to campaign I would have a good chance of being elected. Scottish parliamentary elections are run under the D’Hondt system. This is a form of (not very) proportional representation in which there are FPTP constituencies, grouped into regions. The voter has two ballots, both marked with a simple X.
The first ballot is a standard FPTP constituent vote. On the second you vote for a party of your choice. This is used to make the regional vote roughly proportional, subtracting the constituency seats won from each party’s vote share, then electing individuals from a party ranked list.
It removes the individual voter choice you get with STV and is not as proportional.
The Alliance to Liberate Scotland commissioned a 2,500-person, properly weighted poll from Find Out Now. This found that – and this is an essential point – when prompted with the existence of Alliance to Liberate Scotland, 7% of voters across Scotland would vote for ATLS and 8% would vote for me, by name, in Edinburgh and Lothians (and similar for my friend Tommy Sheridan in Glasgow).
As I am number one on the list for ATLS in the Edinburgh and Lothians Region that figure would almost certainly see me elected.
BUT real voters are not prompted with the existence of ATLS, and of course the media will keep it that way. That is why an active campaign was so essential and it is so frustrating to be stuck here in hospital in Caracas.
I have not, though, given up. My colleagues are fighting a great campaign and I will get back to join in as soon as I can fly.
Finally, there is really interesting news about the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action, and I will post on that when able.
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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.
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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.
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The post Vote for the Alliance to Liberate Scotland appeared first on Craig Murray.
In international law, Tehran has every right to close the strait of Hormuz to nations with which it is in armed conflict. Two vital points:
1) States who permit attacks on Iran to be launched from their territory can be blocked
2) Iran can block neutral ships from trading with states with which it is in conflict.
Plainly UK ships can be blocked under 1). But it is also undeniable that Gulf states have permitted attacks to be launched from their territory. A-10 Warthog attack jets have been routinely used against Iranian ships and were used in the extraordinary operation at the weekend involving special forces on the ground in Iran.
(If you believe that was a pilot rescue I have a bridge to sell you).
Multiple types of helicopter have also been used. The 5th fleet having run away well into the Indian ocean, these short-range aircraft can only be operating out of the Gulf states.
HIMARS short-range missiles were also used against Kharg Island – again this has to be from the Gulf states.
Iran has the right therefore to close the Strait of Hormuz to ships trading with those Gulf States that are hosting US forces attacking Iran. Which effectively means an almost complete closure of the straits.
The remaining legal obligation – from Article 34 of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea – is to allow free passage to neutral vessels which are not trading with states with which Iran is in armed conflict. That is not likely to be a large number of vessels.
A week ago I participated in a discussion on Al Jazeera in which I was able to make some of these points. I also pointed out the hypocrisy of the Western powers’ sudden interest in freedom of navigation, when they have been supporting or ignoring illegal blockades of Gaza, Cuba and Venezuela, and illegal action against the misnamed “Russian shadow fleet”.
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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.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
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The post The Strait of Hormuz appeared first on Craig Murray.
As I was leaving the University of the Communes in Tocuyito, after a joyful and uplifting visit, an earnest young Professor came up to me and pulled me aside. Very quietly, he asked me what was going to happen. A number of the students were terrified there would be regime change and they, picked as young socialist leaders in the commune movement, would be imprisoned, tortured and executed.
With students at an agricultural project of the Vittoria commune
It was a sharp reality check after a great day at this fledgling university. But it is very real. I had met sober and professional diplomats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who knew exactly which part of the mountains they would flee to with assault rifles in the event of the right coming to power, and were resigned to a life of guerilla warfare, including partners and children. I have met nobody who doubts that a change of regime in Caracas would lead to immediate mass killings of leftists, and a lengthy civil war.
Almost everything you are told in the West about Venezuela is untrue, and the biggest lie is that Machado, Guaidó and the groupings around them are in any sense democrats or liberal. They are not, and have direct family and political links to the murderous CIA-sponsored regimes of the pre-Chávez years. They also have many scores to settle – Machado’s family, to give just one example, dominated the electricity supply before it was nationalised.
A very large number of the “political prisoners” the West is so concerned about, were involved in efforts at military coup or violent insurrection, of which Guaidó’s comic opera attempt in 2019 was only the most publicised. After the disputed 2024 elections many of those imprisoned were actually brandishing weapons – I met the families of three young men who told me their sons were misled into taking to the streets with guns, and hoped they would get out in the current amnesty.
Sanctions caused great economic hardship which affected government popularity. But it is a huge error to conflate discontent at the Maduro government with support for Machado – there is almost no evidence of the latter, no matter how hard you look. That Machado does not have the internal support to run the country is one of the few things Trump has stated truthfully. The alternative to the socialist government is chaos.
So Delcy Rodríguez has to maintain the Socialist Party in government, or see supporters butchered and the start of a civil war. At the same time she has to contend with the blatant colonialist assertion of control over Venezuela’s assets and finances by the USA, while placating the irascible and irrational Trump.
Let us get one thing straight. I have spoken personally to those closest to President Nicolás Maduro. I have spoken with Francisco Torrealba, who followed Maduro as President of the Transport Workers Union and also took over Maduro’s seat in the National Assembly. I have spoken to Maduro’s son, also Nicolás. None of these people believe for one second that Delcy Rodríguez was in any way implicated in the kidnap of Nicolás and Cilia Maduro.
Why does almost everybody in the West believe a narrative that nobody in Venezuela believes, and which I am quite certain is untrue?
That narrative has been force-fed to you. Trump undermined Delcy Rodríguez by open praise of her and assertion that she is his choice. The truth of course is different: as Maduro’s Vice-President, she naturally assumes the duties of President, as confirmed by the Venezuelan Supreme Court. A co-ordinated effort of briefings to journalists by the Trump administration, by the security services, and by Machado-aligned Venezuelans in Miami, gave to the media in a coordinated fashion a detailed story of negotiations between Delcy and her brother Jorge and the Americans, for a strategy of economic reform that included Maduro’s removal.
I have looked again through many articles that forward this narrative, and all of them very obviously come primarily from Washington sources, and it is a narrative that the United States has been very, very assiduous in feeding you.
It begs the question, if Delcy really is a Western puppet, why is the Western Establishment so keen to tell you that? In every other circumstance, like the Gulf monarchies or al-Jolani, they are always anxious to promote the myth that their puppets are not puppets.
My maxim, that if the government really wants you to know something, it probably means it isn’t true, holds in this case. Trump wants it known that Delcy Rodríguez is his puppet because it is part of his victory narrative, the fake story of Trump greatness. It is also intended to divide and weaken the socialist movement in Venezuela.
We have to look at the night of 3 January when Maduro was kidnapped. There is one key fact which again is simply not part of the Western narrative. It was Nicolás Maduro who instructed the military to stand down and not to fight, in the event of an attempt to take him. In fact he was aware that such an event was imminent, though he did not know the exact date.
Maduro’s primary concern was to avoid war between Venezuela and the United States, war which would devastate this peaceful country.
It is important to note that Maduro was consciously following the template of his mentor President Hugo Chávez in his kidnapping in a CIA-orchestrated coup in 2002. (That link is a wrenching reminder that there was once a Guardian and Observer not captured by the security services). Following armed opposition insurrection on 11 April 2002, in which 19 Chávez supporters were massacred and 150 injured, a military coup captured President Chávez and he was flown to the island of La Orchila in a CIA-chartered plane.
Opposition leader Pedro Carmona was sworn in as President by the military leaders and instantly recognised by the Bush regime in Washington. He announced the immediate repeal of all of Chávez’s reform measures. However the people and bulk of the armed forces rose against the plotters and after only 48 hours took back control. Chávez returned to power. This is the basis of the brilliant Irish documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (which, naturally, was never televised).
The key thing to understand is that – remarkably – Chávez did not execute any of the coup participants, not even those in the military. There were in fact few prosecutions, jail sentences were remarkably light and many – including “President” Carmona – were allowed to “escape” into exile. The longest jailings were for those who actually took part in the massacre of April 11. Chávez gave a December 2007 general amnesty.
The same astonishing tolerance was shown to Juan Guaidó, the Western puppet who attempted a farcical military coup on 30 April 2019. While his coup was a pathetic failure and his total number of military defectors was 50, he nevertheless caused the deaths of four people and wounding of 230.
Again the response of the socialist government was astonishingly lenient. Nobody was executed. Proper trials were held of those accused and jail sentences were remarkably light even for those convicted of treason. It is worth saying that the numbers tried and the sentences were notably lighter than those handed down for the Washington Capitol Hill “insurrection” of 2021.
A group of thirty who took refuge in Bolsonaro’s Brazilian Embassy were allowed peacefully to leave the country. Guaidó was never arrested and was tolerated to wander around the country for years claiming to be President, and travel freely in and out, until he was indicted by the Government of Colombia for entering that country illegally in 2023.
The socialists’ refusal to spill blood has never been mirrored on the right. The large majority of those “political prisoners” you constantly hear about were involved in these or a whole series of lesser-known armed attempts, or in the opposition’s very real links to narcotics trafficking and organised crime.
What is surprising to me is not the claimed authoritarianism of the socialist government but, on the contrary, its quite astonishing leniency with the opposition in the face of repeated CIA-sponsored, frequently armed attempts at overthrow.
One has only to envisage how a right-wing Latin American government would deal with repeated left-wing armed coup attempts, to appreciate just how extraordinary this restraint has been. Lack of violence or vengeance has always characterised the Bolivarian Revolution’s reaction to right-wing coup attempts. Though it is admirably principled, I am not even sure I think this extreme degree of tolerance is wise.
It is in the context of this longstanding socialist reluctance to use violence that you have to view Maduro’s decision to stand down the defence forces in the event of an American kidnap mission. This is a government which does not just use revolutionary slogans, it lives by them, and “peace” is a key one. Maduro almost certainly hoped that domestic solidarity would oblige his return quickly, as had happened with Chávez. It is unlikely it occurred to him that Trump would simply – and pointlessly – remove Maduro and leave his government in power.
Multiple sources have confirmed to me that the Venezuelan forces were ordered to stand down. I visited the hillside location at Fuerte Tiuna where young female Lieutenant Alejandra del Valle Oliveros Velásquez, age 23, refused the order to stand down and continued to stand guard with her gun at a vital hilltop communications facility. She died as it was struck by American missiles.
This is also a point missing from the Western narrative of military events. Venezuela’s defensive posture is hopelessly outdated in the age of precision missile warfare. Its radar installations and anti-aircraft batteries are highly visible on open hilltop locations, not in hardened bunkers. Its troops are in open barracks, like the unnecessarily murdered Cuban guards.
Outrage at the entirely unprovoked American assault has restored a much-needed sense of national unity to Venezuela. In the bitter aftermath of the disputed July 2024 presidential election, many government supporters, including some in office, concede that the wave of arrests went too far. That overreach damaged the government’s moral authority at home and handed valuable propaganda ammunition to its critics abroad.
There was not sufficient discrimination between armed and unarmed protestors, and while many would argue that emergency measures were essential to prevent immediate anarchic violence, it is generally admitted that many incarcerations have gone on far too long.
Acknowledging this does not mean accepting the inflated figures and politicised methodology pushed by Western-funded NGOs such as Foro Penal and their international partners. Those counts routinely lump together genuine dissidents with armed plotters, participants in violent insurrection attempts, and outright criminals — many of whom were brandishing weapons or linked to coup networks.
The NGOs’ inflated numbers are not neutral human rights monitoring; they are part of a longstanding information warfare operation, generously funded by the very governments and foundations that have spent years supporting regime change efforts in Venezuela. Their selective outrage and consistent inflation of “political prisoner” tallies serve a clear political purpose: to delegitimise the Bolivarian process and justify external interference.
Broader perspective is essential. The arrests did not emerge from a vacuum. They followed years of sanctions-induced economic pain, repeated opposition attempts to subvert constitutional order through street violence, election disruption both physical and electronic, and what were forged or selectively manipulated election returns from the opposition. The response was heavy-handed, but it occurred against a backdrop of genuine security threats.
The narrative that the opposition won 70% of the votes in the 2024 election is simply absurd to anyone who knows Venezuela. In their final election rallies, Maduro had 1 million people on the streets of Caracas and the opposition had 50,000. Many of the alleged voting machine printouts bandied about by the Biden regime were very evident forgeries – with the same handwriting in different locations, and multiple examples of returning officers or party officials signing with an X in a country with almost 100% literacy.
The Opposition refused to present these printouts to the Supreme Court for verification. The truth is that the electronic electoral process (I am not a fan) was badly affected by external hacking, almost certainly by the USA. There was indeed popular discontent with the effects of economic sanctions, and many seasoned observers think the elections were close. It will never be possible to discover the real result. But Western claims of 70% opposition support are absolute nonsense.
In fact, I do not believe that either the government or the Supreme Court really knew the true result. I certainly do not. But it was American-orchestrated disruption that made it impossible.
Venezuela is a substantively free country. People have criticised the government to me openly and without fear, including on camera. There was an opposition demonstration in Caracas a few weeks ago. It was very lightly policed. Speakers could say what they wished – support for Donald Trump was a key theme – and nobody has been subsequently questioned. About 500 people turned out. I have seen three or four opposition posters around town. Nobody takes them down.
I have been filming all around Venezuela in total for six weeks, and have never been asked who I am by officials or police, or required to produce identity papers. I received a permit from the Ministry of Communications but nobody has ever looked at it. Nobody has ever suggested what I should say, or instructed me not to film something.
I have been to many different areas and provinces. Everywhere the shops are fully stocked and the bars and restaurants fully operational. People look well fed. I have not seen one drug addict, beggar or homeless person. I have seen five police or military checkpoints in six weeks – three at the Presidential residence, Police HQ, and National Assembly; one checking car tyres and lights; and one at the exit to a national park doing wildlife conservation enforcement.
I have been rather obsessively keeping check because Western journalists always put in police and military checkpoints in their imaginary descriptions of Venezuela, penned from thousands of miles away. The Machado opposition have made it a meme, putting out advice saying you are not obliged to show identity documents at police checkpoints. It would be very hard to find a checkpoint to show your documents to.
This is not a repressive government. The atmosphere of repression is entirely absent and that is because the mechanisms of repression are entirely absent. There is no heavy police presence. People are not scared of informers. I have seen very few guns carried by police, and zero guns carried by anybody else.
The narrative now dominating Western media — that any economic liberalisation or pragmatic opening under Delcy Rodríguez is a sudden capitulation forced by Trump’s pressure — is simply false. Nicolás Maduro himself initiated processes of economic liberalisation years earlier, as a direct survival response to the crushing weight of sanctions. These are Maduro’s policies. The recent legislation liberalising the hydrocarbons sector was entirely developed under, and approved by, Nicolás Maduro.
Dollarisation spread from below as ordinary people sought stability; the government gradually relaxed price controls, permitted greater private-sector involvement in imports and distribution, and developed workarounds for oil sales. These were pragmatic adaptations forced on the revolution long before Trump returned to the White House.
As I told the students at the University of the Communes, if late-stage capitalism were (as it claims) the natural order of society, rather than a series of entirely artificial institutions and arrangements designed to produce an extreme concentration of resources in the hands of an elite, enforced ultimately through the violence of the state, then the capitalist states would not need to crush states practising other systems, through crippling sanctions and isolation from exchange of resources and capital, and ultimately through military force.
Its own founding ideology states that capitalism will naturally prevail eventually in any society through its greater beneficence and more efficient distribution of resources. Yet the rulers of the capitalist states constantly seek to crush any state practising any alternative system. They do this for fear that their own population will see the possibility of a better path than working as effective slaves while the value produced by their labour concentrates entirely into the hands of the Epstein class.
We will never know how the Bolivarian Revolution would have developed were it not for the financial and trade sanctions that crippled it.
But this is the key fact. Venezuela was targeted because of the extraordinary successes of Chavismo, not because it was a failed state. Poverty was more than halved. Literacy increased to better rates than the United States. Free education and healthcare were instituted. Pension recipients were tripled. Utilities were nationalised. Massive amounts of social housing were provided. These were the achievements that precipitated sanctions.
The economic collapse of 2017 was not caused by failures of a socialist system. The collapse – and the subsequent mass wave of emigration – was caused entirely by the sanctions regime, and particularly the blocking of all payment systems and financial transactions.
There is an obvious point seldom discussed: sanctions — particularly the financial sanctions that block normal international payment transactions and banking channels — do not merely cause hardship.
Sanctions actively breed corruption.
When a sovereign government is prevented from conducting legitimate trade and finance through standard global systems, it is driven into the arms of those who specialise in sanctions-busting, informal transfer networks, and money laundering. These forced partnerships with elements outside the formal economy then infect the state apparatus itself, creating new avenues for graft and abuse.
It is a vicious, predictable cycle engineered by Washington policy.
Sanctions force states for very survival to do things classified as illegal, and draw their operatives into the ambit of actual criminals. Some of the criticisms of the Maduro government should be viewed through this prism; and of course there is not, and has never been, any state entirely free of corruption.
Maduro’s rule is not the failure that is routinely portrayed in the West. The economy has rebounded remarkably. Under Maduro, the government scored measurable successes in public security. Murder rates have dropped by over two thirds and the narco gangs are almost entirely off the streets.
Large-scale operations significantly curtailed narcotics production and trafficking routes through Venezuelan territory. Venezuela reported record drug seizures to the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs — nearly 66 tonnes in 2025 alone, the highest level in two decades. UN data states that Venezuela plays only a very marginal role in global cocaine flows, and almost none in production. On fentanyl it doesn’t feature at all.
Maduro has succeeded to an extraordinary degree in suppressing drugs on the streets of Venezuela and in stopping trafficking. That he is now in a US jail charged with “narco-terrorism” is truly a sign of how depraved the United States has become.
At the same time, the overall crime rate fell sharply. Cities that once ranked among the most dangerous in the world became noticeably safer for ordinary citizens. Even Venezuelans critical of the government on other grounds acknowledge this improvement in daily life and personal safety. Just two nights ago I was talking to a Venezuelan visiting home from Germany, who told me she used to be terrified to walk the streets of Caracas at night, but now felt perfectly safe.
It is important to understand what kind of socialism Venezuela actually practised under Chávez and Maduro.
The Bolivarian project was never the full state ownership of the means of production and distribution envisaged in classical Marxist texts. Venezuela has always been a mixed economy. Its distinctive feature — and its greatest strength — was the heavy reliance of the state on ownership of the full range of oil sector activity, upstream and downstream, to channel large public revenues into socialist-oriented goals: universal free education from cradle to university, a national health service that brought clinics and hospitals into every barrio, expanded social security, housing programmes such as the Gran Misión Vivienda, and subsidies that kept basic foodstuffs affordable for the poor.
The nationalisation of utilities — electricity, telecommunications, water — followed the same logic. In many respects it resembled the Western social-democratic model of the 1970s, when European governments used progressive taxation to fund the welfare state while leaving large parts of the economy in private hands. The massive scale of affordable decent quality public housing in Venezuela is truly a marvel to behold for a developing economy.
What made Bolivarianism different, and ultimately more radical, was the commune movement. Its philosophy is genuinely grassroots. The communes did not spring from decrees in Miraflores Palace; they grew from below, from the communal councils that ordinary people in poor neighbourhoods formed to solve their own problems — fixing roads, organising rubbish collection, building clinics.
Chávez gave these organic commune structures constitutional recognition and legal power, but the energy came from the communities themselves.
Decision-making in the communes is direct democracy in action: assemblies debate and vote on how to spend the funds allocated to them. The people decide their own priorities. I have always been a sceptic of people’s assemblies and direct democracy. Visiting Venezuela’s communes has converted me. The key factor is the quite astonishing prevalence of political education and social awareness among the ordinary members of the Venezuelan working class.
For a long time the communes remained largely a mechanism for redistributing oil revenue in a more democratic and transparent way. But it was still, in essence, social democracy with revolutionary rhetoric — spending the rents from oil on social goods.
But the commune movement has not stood still. It has begun to push outward, asserting communal ownership over the means of production and distribution. Increasing numbers of communes now run their own small factories, agricultural cooperatives, bakeries, abattoirs, transport collectives and distribution networks. I have discussed with senior government figures how to use commune-owned enterprises as a spearhead in liberalised sectors of the economy, to socialise profit.
Communes are moving beyond simply receiving and spending state money and towards controlling the actual creation and allocation of wealth. This is the qualitative leap that marks Bolivarian socialism as something more than 1970s-style welfare statism.
Maduro instituted the University of the Communes in 2025. It is predicated on providing practical university-level teaching in the areas of particular value to the communes, ranging from public administration to electrical engineering and agriculture. Agricultural production is an area where many of Venezuela’s over 7,000 communes are engaged.
Agriculture collapsed in Venezuela long before Chávez. This is in common with many oil states.
My first overseas diplomatic post was an appointment to Nigeria in 1986, as Second Secretary (Agriculture and Water Resources), where my favourite statistic was that Nigeria went, in just 8 years, from being the world’s largest exporter of palm oil to being the world’s largest importer of palm oil. Oil-backed currencies frequently make agricultural exports uncompetitive and imported agricultural products cheaper than domestic.
This collapsed Venezuela’s cocoa, coffee, maize and other agricultural sectors decades before Chávez came to power.
The communes are reintroducing agricultural production from ground level up. I visited local commune Vittoria not far from the University. It has over 20 agricultural production units, and students were assisting in developing, for example, bamboo cattle pens to replace iron hurdles no longer imported due to Western sanctions.
At the other end of the production process I visited the Metro HQ in Caracas on the day when all the Metro workers and pensioners are given monthly packages including cooking oil, pasta, flour, eggs and tinned meat and fruit, all of it now produced in Venezuela, and almost all are new products since the 2018 crisis.
What strikes every visitor is the extraordinary level of public awareness of socialist philosophy. In the communes, in the Bolivarian universities, in political education circles, ordinary people discuss with real knowledge the difference between social democracy and socialism, the role of the commune as the “cellular tissue” of the new society, and the necessity of moving from distribution to production.
Ideology is lived daily practice. I have heard teenagers and market sellers quote Chávez and Marx with ease, and with confidence their interlocutors will follow.
These are the fundamental elements of Bolivarian socialism that Delcy Rodríguez is now fighting to preserve and safeguard in the face of the Trump onslaught: the oil-funded social democratic state, the nationalised utilities, the direct-democracy structures of the communes, and the moves to spread the assertion of popular ownership over production.
Consider this: Venezuela has the most beautiful Caribbean beaches I have ever seen. They are as good as Mauritius or the Maldives. These are my own photos and the colours are not retouched.
What is remarkable about this is that all the people you see are ordinary Venezuelans. There is not a foreign tourist in sight: no beachside bar, restaurant or hotel chaining off stretches and covering them in sunbeds. Instead you have happy Venezuelan families with coolboxes enjoying the day for free. That is because, Isla Margarita aside, the Bolivarian Revolution protects Venezuela’s hundreds of miles of white sand beach by National Parks.
Where Chavismo sees a great amenity for the people and an astonishing habitat to be preserved, the Kushner and Machado worldview sees billions of dollars of prime beachside real estate, ripe for condominiums and huge hotels. Do not for one moment believe that they do not have their eye on it as part of the Imperialist grab. They do not want Venezuelans frolicking with their families on those beaches. They want them reserved to American and Israeli tourists, with the only Venezuelans in white shirt and bow tie carrying trays of drinks.
It may seem a small digression, but it is I believe a potent, and poignant, symbol of the clash of worldview that is at the heart of the struggle in Venezuela.
What the opposition wish to do is dismantle this entire architecture. Machado is pledged to abolish communes, to privatise utilities, to return Venezuela to the pre-Chávez model in which oil wealth flowed upward to a tiny elite and foreign corporations, while the majority existed only to serve. Delcy’s task is to hold the line so that the communes, and the consciousness they have created, can continue to develop while the universal education, healthcare and social provision are retained.
But this is the reality Delcy Rodríguez now confronts: Trump imposed a physical naval blockade on Venezuelan oil exports. Tankers carrying Venezuelan oil to buyers not approved by the US were physically seized by the US Navy. The US thus, by military force, imposed control over Venezuelan crude sales.
Revenues were initially routed to a US-controlled account in Qatar, later shifted to US Treasury accounts. Disbursements to the Rodríguez government are discretionary and ad hoc — for example, only $300 million of the first $500 million was released, with US approval required for its spending. The mechanism operates under executive emergency powers in the USA but under no Venezuelan authority. This is not with Delcy Rodríguez’s agreement.
It is totally illegal in every possible way. The naval blockade, the seizure of tankers, the stealing of oil revenue. All of this is absolutely against international law. Precisely what “Emergency” is justifying Trump’s powers, even in US domestic law, I have no idea.
The United States has no treaty agreement with Venezuela or international mandate permitting it to seize Venezuela’s oil and sell it. It is simple theft.
By controlling the tankers, Washington seized control of Venezuela’s only significant source of foreign revenue and crippled the government of Delcy Rodríguez. Oil accounts for over 70% of Venezuelan government revenue.
Oil cargoes approved by the United States are now sold on the international market, but the proceeds are not paid to Caracas. They are, incredibly, paid to the United States Treasury. The Trump regime dispenses ad hoc payments back to the Venezuelan government — whatever portion it chooses, whenever it chooses — to allow basic state functions to continue. It is a system entirely governed by the whims of Donald Trump, controlling another sovereign state.
This is less structured than the formal occupation authority the United States imposed on Iraq after 2003, but the principle is identical. Iraq’s oil revenues have been treated this way for 25 years. A great many people are unaware that all of Iraq’s oil revenue is stolen into United States Treasury accounts: the legacy media never tell you.
It is the classical colonial model. It is exactly how the British East India Company ran the princely states of India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: the local ruler was allowed to remain in nominal office, but the taxes were collected by the British and the local ruler given back whatever they chose. Senior East India Company officials in post were actually titled “Collector”.
Western coverage calls it “safeguarding,” “protection,” or “leverage”; the reality is pure, physical piracy.
Yet Delcy Rodríguez is stuck. She has no military force capable of countering it. The Venezuelan navy cannot challenge the US fleet, while the USA’s giant bombers can reach Caracas with 2,000lb bombs direct from US airbases in Florida. Any open attempt at defiance would spark the US military regime change which would lead to massacre.
Rodríguez is therefore reduced to negotiating with the occupiers over how much of Venezuela’s own money she is allowed to spend on her own people. She is obliged to host a series of sickening visits from smirking Trump henchmen, openly humiliating and raping Venezuela. The claims that Rodríguez wants this, still more that she engineered this, are nuts.
I have seen criticism from the political left in the West, that Venezuela should have fought, should still fight, should join the anti-Imperial resistance. I have seen Venezuelans criticised as “sell-outs”.
Rather few of those making these criticisms have personally taken to the mountains with an AK47 to fight a superpower which has openly abandoned all pretence to follow the laws of war on protection of civilian life and infrastructure. It is certainly an option; but the death toll would be appalling and Venezuela would be condemned to many years of civil war and US military occupation.
It is a suicidal option, as Maduro himself recognised.
Delcy Rodríguez is struggling under an almost unbearable burden. A lifelong socialist whose own father was tortured to death by a CIA-run Venezuelan security service, she now finds herself effectively a prisoner of the United States. Venezuela is not Iran. It does not possess the military capacity, the strategic depth or the alliances to fight the United States. If Trump wakes up one morning and decides on full regime change — and he could — the result would be an immediate bloodbath and the total erasure of all the social gains of twenty-five years of Chavismo.
To prevent that catastrophe Rodríguez must placate Trump. She must speak the language of economic liberalisation that Washington wants to hear, even though the actual policy shifts amount to only the smallest rightward adjustment in an economy that remains overwhelmingly mixed. The fundamental social-democratic achievements — the education, the health missions, the housing programmes, the pensions and welfare, the privatised utilities — are being preserved.
Rodríguez’s strategy is therefore one of grim endurance: hunker down, preserve what can be preserved, and wait for a change of political wind in Washington. Sources very close to her repeatedly mention the November midterms in the USA as the next possible turning point.
The tragedy is that this woman must endure the portrayal abroad, spread from Washington, as a traitor to her class and her country. She cannot publicly kick too hard against Trump without risking the provocation of the psychopath to the very violence she is trying to avert. A friend who has known her for decades told me: “She is doing what she can to keep the peace in this time of war.”
There is very concrete evidence of Rodríguez’s loyalty to Maduro. Far from erasing Maduro or positioning herself as the new face of the revolution, Delcy Rodríguez has covered Venezuela in highly visible “Free Nicolás and Cilia” billboards and street art, while introducing no material that praises herself or attempts to construct her own cult of personality. This public symbolism is a powerful, real-life counter to narratives of disloyalty or betrayal. 
One of my personal critiques of Chavismo is that it is too centred on cult of personality. It is a key fact that Rodríguez is doing the very opposite of trying to move that spotlight onto herself.
Most of Rodríguez’s critics, especially those in the Western media and commentariat, know almost nothing of Venezuela. Most of what the Western public think they know is the very opposite of the truth; the ability of Western media to maintain a false narrative is astonishingly evident on a visit here.
I have now spent a total of six weeks in the country over two trips, talking to students, diplomats, union leaders, commune activists and people inside the government – and a great many barmen. What I have seen and heard convinces me of one thing above all: Delcy Rodríguez is not a traitor. She is a socialist doing the only thing possible to her in this impossible situation — buying time for the Bolivarian Revolution to survive.
———————–
As I end my second Venezuelan visit, we have now spent substantially more on this than we raised and I am personally out of pocket. There is still quite a lot of video footage and the editing process is stalled for lack of funds. Please help if you are able – Our GoFundMe link for the Venezuelan operation is here:
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The extreme nature of sanctions against Venezuela made it very challenging to keep economic activity going. One example is Caracas’s impressive five-line Metro system, where for almost twenty years they had to keep things running with no spares or maintenance support from the train manufacturers.
Yet resilience and ingenuity kicked in, and Venezuela actually reverse engineered and manufactured parts – the need to do this in the oil sector also created a burgeoning small foundry industry, for example. Eventually, sanctions will stimulate domestic production. I spent some time with the Metro looking at how this happens.
As ever we need to spread the load and please we are looking primarily to those who have never donated or contributed before. Our GoFundMe link for the Venezuelan operation is here:
This is the same crowdfunding account we used for Lebanon so discount the first £35,000 raised as it was spent in Lebanon.
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 subscription 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.
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The notion that the Iranian state would discredit itself by choosing to attack an ambulance service in London is crazy. Iran has not even attacked any hospitals or ambulances in Israel. Iran has absolutely zero record of attacks on healthcare facilities. That is of course in stark contrast to Israel which specifically targets them in Gaza and Lebanon. The obvious revulsion of a UK public, that has been opposed to the war on Iran, at the destruction of the ambulances would far outweigh any possible gain. What precisely is the gain that Iran is supposed to have sought?
The organisation that, conveniently for the Zionist narrative, immediately claimed responsibility for the attack is Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia. This is a group which simply did not exist until the US and Israeli attack on Iran, when it suddenly appeared fully formed and started causing small incidents of property damage to Jewish communities in Belgium and the Netherlands. From day one of its appearance, Israeli-backed think tanks and security groups instantly claimed to have linked it to Iranian militias.
These Israeli claims were first surfaced by regular Israeli security service outlet Joe Truzman of the “Foundation for Defending Democracy”, who makes a living from fronting Israeli claims that all the deaths in Gaza were Hamas.
The first online “evidence” of the existence of the group was on 9 March. On 16 March the entire Israeli Hasbara machinery in coordination went into overdrive on Harakat Ashab al-Yamin. Israel’s Diaspora Ministry issued a statement. So did Israel’s MFA. So did the Institute of National Security Studies. So did BICOM – the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre.
All on the same morning. At a time when Harakat Ashab al-Yamin had done nothing except allegedly start a small fire in Rotterdam. This frenzied publicity activity about this, by that point practically non-existent, group was prioritised by the Israeli state on the morning of some of the most intense missile and bombing attacks by Israel, the USA, Iran and Hezbollah of the war.
There are some real red flags about its appearance. The first, as eloquently exposed by Lowkey, is that in its manifesto it uses the term “The Land of Israel” to refer to Palestine. No Islamic group, ever, referred to “The Land of Israel” and the phrase in Arabic is not even what complicit Gulf Arab elites use – they use just “Israel” or “The State of Israel”. “The Land of Israel” is unnatural in Arabic and evidently written by a Zionist and translated into Arabic.
It is worthy of note that the group which is claiming responsibility for the burning of ambulances last night refers to Palestine as “the land of Israel.”
It does so in both English and Arabic, which is particularly unusual. pic.twitter.com/erQ47E742p
— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) March 23, 2026
The other strange thing is that this allegedly Iranian group doesn’t use Farsi. Iranians don’t speak Arabic. Nor would any Iranian government-aligned group ever talk of “The Land of Israel” in Farsi.
To add further to this, the group’s published logo appears to be AI-generated and the Arabic lettering on it is wrong. “Islamic” is rendered incorrectly and some of it doesn’t mean anything coherent at all – it is gibberish, presumably constructed by AI asked to produce a shield with Arabic lettering.
Unlike the Zionist propaganda-pumping UK media, Dutch media asked real experts and was openly sceptical of the claims about the group:
“Political anthropologist Younes Saramifar from Amsterdam’s VU university said the group was “completely unknown” until this month. “Based on what I have seen, this is absolutely not an organised and coherent group,” he told NOS before the Zuidas explosion.
Saramifar said language mistakes in statements accompanying the videos suggest the makers are not native Arabic speakers and may not be part of a trained militant network.”
It is another remarkably happy coincidence that the group chose to attack the London ambulances just hours before Metropolitan Police Chief Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley was due to address a fundraising event for the Community Services Trust, the group which receives enormous payouts from the British Treasury for consistently exaggerating the scale of antisemitism in the UK.
Sir Mark Rowley at @CST_UK fundraiser tonight:
“It’s too early for me to attribute last night’s attack in Golders Green to the Iranian State. That’s for our counter terrorism teams to determine through their investigation. But whoever is responsible, the impact is serious.”pic.twitter.com/gf0oPPCAdn
— Sandy Rashty (@SandyRashty) March 23, 2026
Thankfully, nobody has ever been hurt in any of the “attacks” by “Harakat Ashab al-Yamin”. Isn’t that fact in itself a bit strange for a state-backed terror group? The ambulances in London were the worst damage ever done in the name of the alleged group.
To believe this is a false flag, it is not in any way necessary to believe that the ambulance organisation itself was complicit. Whether or not the ambulances were new, old or decommissioned is irrelevant to the bigger picture. It is certainly true that the ambulance service has for years done a good job, and does not only help Jewish people. There is nothing sinister or wrong about the existence of the ambulance service.
I am unhesitating in condemning all attacks on the Jewish community in the UK. Including those perpetrated by Mossad.
———————————
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The post The London Ambulances Attack: Of Course It Was A False Flag appeared first on Craig Murray.
What if Trump’s apparently chaotic thought processes and intuitive decision making are all a blind, a charade? What if we are really witnessing, in the Middle East and more widely, a carefully constructed plan with very definite objectives? Has Trump in fact “planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway”, while flinging the chaff of apparent chaos? I realise that this is not intuitive, but bear with me…
What kicked off my thinking was the revelation by Lockheed Martin that they had been instructed by Trump, months in advance of the attack on Iran, to massively increase production of interceptor missiles, with a short term goal of quadrupling capacity of THAAD. In January, before the start of the current conflict, Fox News was already reporting on various deals, including a trebling of PAC3 MSE interceptor deliveries, having been finalised between Lockheed and the Department of War.
While obviously there are supply chain and production line constraints on the ability to ramp up production within months, the urgency of this activity – almost entirely focused on interceptor missiles – that started in 2025 is in hindsight a clear indication that early war with Iran was expected. It is plain evidence of premeditation.
The second thing that triggered my thought that this is all carefully planned, is the nature of the breakdown of the nuclear deal talks. It appears there was a broad consensus that Iran offered concessions which made a deal very practical, in particular giving up its stocks of enriched uranium into trust (a proposal Iran had historically rejected when Putin offered to hold the material). Both the hosts, Oman and the British thought a deal was there.
The failure of the talks is being spun as due to the incompetence and lack of technical knowledge of Witkoff and Kushner. But I just don’t buy this. The sending of unqualified negotiators was part of a ploy to use the negotiations as cover for an attack – the second time in a year that the United States had pulled the same trick.
They didn’t need competent negotiators, because they had never intended a good faith negotiation.
The attack on Iran was always planned by Trump. He was not “bounced into it” by Israel. It had been in gestation for months. That fact had been held within a very tight circle to avoid both political opposition and institutional opposition from the US military and intelligence community.
January’s protests in Iran found ordinary people genuinely ready to protest, motivated by economic hardship caused by sanctions. But they were guided and abused by Mossad and CIA agents among the Iranian people, who committed and encouraged violence and initiated pro-Shah chanting.
There was never the slightest possibility the protests would bring regime change, but that was not the intention. The purpose was to incite an over-reaction by the Iranian government that could “justify” the planned attack on Iran. The dead protestors have been great martyrs for Trump’s – and Israel’s – wider cause.
The planting by Western state-sponsored individuals and organisations of ludicrous claims throughout Western state and corporate media of thirty to forty thousand killed, was a deliberate and considered plan to reduce domestic opposition in the West to the forthcoming war against Iran.
Now factor in another apparently random act by Trump – the astonishing kidnapping of President Maduro of Venezuela on 3 January, a month before the attack on Iran.
Trump’s naval blockade of Venezuela’s oil has secured a US monopoly of its sale and distribution. As with Iraq, only US-approved contractors can buy the oil and payments are made to a Trump-controlled account in Qatar, from which revenue is given to the Venezuelan government entirely at Trump’s discretion.
This audacious imperialist grab of the world’s largest oil reserve further insulated the USA against the effects of the forthcoming closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Again, the narrative is being spun that Trump did not foresee the closure of the Strait by Iran. That is plainly a nonsense – every commentary on a potential Iran war for half a century has focused on the Strait of Hormuz. The only possible explanation is that Trump does not mind the closure.
While, as Trump says, the United States does not need the oil that comes through the Strait, the apparent weakness in his case is that higher oil prices are universal and hit Trump’s support, particularly as Americans fill their gas tanks. But to concentrate on this is to make the fundamental error of imagining that Trump cares about what is good for the American people. He does not. He cares about what is good for Donald J. Trump and his immediate circle.
Here is the Chevron share price over the last month:
And here is Lockheed Martin. Note that the start of the 40% leap in share price coincides with those instructions last year on massively ramping up interceptor production.
Not to mention, of course, that the really big fortunes will have been made in oil and derivative commodity futures by those who knew this war was coming (acting through proxies).
The $200 billion Trump is requesting from Congress to continue the war is going to make an awful lot of well-connected people even richer.
So the plan is the making of fortunes, the strengthening of the military-industrial complex and the ratcheting up under cover of national cohesion in war of the authoritarianism that has reduced freedom of speech and outlawed dissent against Israel across the Western world.
To benefit Israel is the other predominant motive.
Trump’s thrashing about to articulate objectives for the war in Iran is performative, a blind to cover his true and steadfast objective – simply the annihilation of Iran as a functioning state, the infliction of the maximum amount of death and infrastructural damage, the reduction of Iran to the condition of Libya.
It goes without saying that the seizure of control of Iran’s hydrocarbons by the US is the ultimate endgame of this destruction, exactly as in Libya and in Iraq. But a linked and crucial objective is the elimination of the source of the only physical resistance to the expansion of Israel. Iran and its allies in Yemen and Lebanon have been the sole support of the Palestinians for years.
The colonial settler state of Israel is central to the projection of imperialist power in the Middle East. Its expansion is an essential part of the plan.
Destruction of Iran on the scale envisaged will take years of hard pounding. Again, it is planned – you don’t ask Congress for an instalment of $200 billion for a war you plan to wrap up in a month. Again, Trump’s taunts about having already won, objectives being achieved and about possibly finishing soon, are all just smoke and mirrors. The scale and horror of what is planned for Iran has to be obfuscated to limit a public revulsion that would be echoed in parts of the state apparatus.
Netanyahu yesterday revealed an interesting part of the endgame – construction of an oil pipeline that brings Iran’s oil out to be shipped from a Mediterranean terminal in Israel. That is a breathtakingly audacious plan, but absolutely aligns with Netanyahu’s and Trump’s actions.
Which brings us to the Greater Israel side of the project. Israel is not going to put any of its ships or soldiers in harm’s way in Iran – that is the American contribution. But while the world is primarily watching Iran, Israel is starting a large-scale invasion of Lebanon with the aim of annexing all of Southern Lebanon permanently, even beyond the Litani River and including the cities of Tyre and Nabatieh, both currently under Israeli evacuation orders.
This land of course adjoins the annexed Golan Heights and the much larger area of Southern Syria that Israel has annexed in the past year with the acquiescence of Zionist puppet “President” al-Jolani.
It is essential not to lose sight of the bipartisan nature of the United States’ long term plan. In a very real sense Trump is continuing – if greatly accelerating – the policy under Biden, who protected and enabled the Genocide in Gaza. The success of this US policy is phenomenal. Just consider that only 18 months ago the Zionist “Presidents” al-Jolani of Syria and Aoun of Lebanon were not in power. Both were brought to power as a result of US-aligned military action, by Israel against Hezbollah and by the CIA- and MI6-sponsored HTS forces. Put in place by Biden, they are now central to Trump’s strategy.
Aoun and al-Jolani are now united in threatening Hezbollah in the rear as it fights a desperate action against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Meanwhile Israel officially occupies over 60% of the Gaza Strip – under cover of Trump’s “Board of Peace”, and continues to murder, blockade and starve the inhabitants of the remnant, while the de facto expansion of Israel into the West Bank and the levels of settler violence are escalating to levels of the utmost barbarity.
Iranian resistance is noble and Iran’s resilience has surprised many. It will be able to make any ground invasion, or even limited incursion, extremely costly for the United States. But as in Gaza or Lebanon, if the US and Israel are content simply to pound from the air for years with devastating force, and with no concern whatsoever for civilian casualties, ultimately all Iran can do is hang on and try to survive.
Given another year of destruction at the current levels of intensity, I do not believe that Iran would effectively be sending many missiles and drones back in self-defence. In a week or two we will hit the period of maximum Iranian effectiveness, where depletion of US-supplied interceptor missiles coincides with Iran retaining significant strike power. Israel’s fragile civilian morale will then be tested severely for a few weeks.
Iran’s capacity to defend against massive, years-sustained aerial bombardment is limited. We should not blind ourselves to that fact out of current joy at the Americans and Israelis getting a bloody nose.
It is comforting to see Trump as a buffoon, to accept the facade he presents of a blustering and ill-educated ignoramus, who swings wildly between policy options, and who does not understand the world of geopolitics.
But that is nonsense.
I have no hesitation in characterising Trump’s genius as evil, focused on personal gain and willing to inflict any amount of death, maiming and deprivation on innocent civilians to attain his goals. But he is indeed attaining his goals on the world stage.
Trump has forced the Security Council to underwrite his Board of Peace. This was a quite astonishing diplomatic triumph over a helpless Russia and China, both of which decided that other negotiations with Trump were more important. Trump has presided over Israel expanding on the ground by the day. Trump has taken Venezuela’s oil, the largest reserves in the world. Trump is currently killing the people of Iran and destroying their infrastructure, while feigning indecision.
You should hate Trump: but he is no clown.
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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.
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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.
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The post Seeing Trump Clearly appeared first on Craig Murray.
There is no place like home, and a few hours after arriving back in Scotland I was in Glasgow giving a talk to Pensioners for Independence. I still covered quite a wide sweep, but my focus came back to what I care about more than anything – the freedom, prosperity and just position in the world of my own nation of Scotland.
With thanks to Scottish Independence Podcasts, IndyPod Special, and of course to Glasgow Pensioners for Independence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBCwV6HUE4c
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The post Radicalism and Scottish Independence appeared first on Craig Murray.
I interviewed a prominent academic who is a profound critic of the Venezuelan government, and in contrast a strong academic supporter. The conversations were relaxed, open and I believe worthwhile.
There is no serious dispute that the Venezuelan government shifted to some degree towards economic liberalism under President Maduro. The question is to what extent this was an unavoidable response to crippling economic and financial sanctions, and whether there is still a socialist trajectory.
There are several more videos from my time in Venezuela still in production, which embody much of what I learnt, and after publishing them over the next few days I shall publish an article giving my considered reflections on the country.
As ever we need to spread the load and please we are looking primarily to those who have never donated or contributed before. Our Gofundme link for the Venezuelan operation is here:
This is the same crowdfunding account we used for Lebanon so discount the first £35,000 raised as it was spent in Lebanon.
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 subscription 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.
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The post Has Venezuela Abandoned Socialism? appeared first on Craig Murray.
I today met our legal team and instructed them to submit an application for interim relief in the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. If successful this will immediately lift the proscription in Scotland, pending the review.
Scores of people in Scotland face imminent conviction for terrorist offences simply for exercising free speech and expressing their opposition to the proscription. Most of these are summary cases with no jury, but up to six months imprisonment. Others face up to 14 years in jail for speeches supporting Palestine Action.
A terrorism conviction is life-changing even without a prison sentence. It routinely leads to loss of employment and inability to get another job, to debanking, and to severe international travel restrictions.
Most of those facing these massively disproportionate effects are entirely respectable citizens who merely wish to oppose the facilitation of genocide.
My calculation is that submitting the application for interim relief is likely in itself to lead the Crown to drop the prosecutions for speeches, placards and T shirts. The UK government is desperate to avoid the situation of Palestine Action being legal in Scotland and not in England, with all the constitutional questions that arise.
Dropping the prosecutions would remove our main argument for interim relief (and probably make that avenue impractical for us). But this would be a huge win, removing the threat of a terrorism conviction from large numbers of peaceful campaigners in Scotland.
If the Crown does not drop the prosecutions, I am very confident our interim relief application in Scotland will succeed. In England, the High Court refused interim relief and then refused to lift the proscription pending appeal, even after it had ruled the proscription unlawful.
This nonsensical position is explained by the fact that in the English case, Judge Chamberlain was replaced at the last moment by three hand-picked very right-wing judges with a long history of finding for the government in “security”-related cases. In Scotland we are not on that kind of rigged pitch.
On the original timetable the judicial review was due to start this coming Monday. It has however been postponed at least until June because the UK government is introducing “secret” evidence from intelligence that we will never be allowed to see or reply to. The veneer of democracy and human rights in the UK has worn extremely thin.
The extent of Zionist domination of the UK government was shown in the astonishing decision to ban the annual al-Quds march for Palestine, which has been taking place for 47 years without incident.
The Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Sarah Sackman, called for the demonstration to be banned.
The Israeli and USA attack on Iran is, beyond argument, illegal in international law. Iran is not a proscribed organisation. It is not illegal to express support for Iran. Whether it is “anti-British” is a matter of opinion, not of law. Personally I think supporting the genocidal apartheid state of Israel is “anti-British”. But expressing an opinion is a specific legal right.
Sackman worked as a clerk in the Supreme Court of Israel. She is a fanatical Zionist with a long-term financing record from the Zionist lobby. As “Courts minister” she has been the leading advocate for the government’s proposed abolition of many jury trials. She is behind the plans for five-at-a-time, two-and-a-half-hour trials in England for 2,700 Palestine Action activists.
The positioning and empowerment of this Zionist monstrosity is yet more evidence of how deep Israel’s tentacles run in the UK Establishment, and in Starmer’s Labour Party in particular.
Interviewed on Sky News yesterday, Sackman condemned “Iranian attacks on civilians” but refused to condemn the US bombing of the girls’ school in Minab, describing this as “the realities of war”.
We are fighting against a deeply entrenched evil. The legal campaign against the proscription of Palestine Action is a small corner of this fight, but it is essential as an assertion of our freedom to carry the fight at all.
I am afraid the full Scottish judicial review is going to be very expensive. The latest estimate we have from the legal team is a final cost of £263,000 – without going to the Supreme Court. Of the £263,000 we have to date through all donation avenues raised a total of £189,000. We are therefore currently an estimated £74,000 short.
We need everyone who can contribute to contribute, even if it is only a pound, dollar or euro. And we need everyone who already contributed to think of another person who they can ask to contribute. All of us have to look towards people we know of good heart with means.
If we succeed, we will save many scores of people from the life-changing consequences of a terrorism sentence and from possible jail. But PLEASE do not contribute if you really cannot afford it – we are trying to make people’s lives better, not worse.
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/scottish-challenge-to-proscription/
I know these are the most difficult of times. But that is why we have to keep fighting. The sums needed to mount a successful legal challenge to the power of the state can be eye-watering. But we are the many. Every penny helps, but please do not cause yourself hardship. You can contribute via the crowdfunder above or via these methods:
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Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of subscription 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.
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The post Fighting Back Against Zionist Control of the UK appeared first on Craig Murray.
President Nicolás Maduro is a working-class man, a bus driver who worked his way to office through the trade union movement.
Compare that to the Western “elite”.
In Caracas I joined a rally of his fellow Metro workers, many of whom know him personally, demanding his release after kidnap by the US.
I intend to return to Venezuela shortly but my period there cost more than the amount we raised for it. As ever we need to spread the load and we are looking primarily to those who have never donated or contributed before. Our GoFundMe link for the Venezuelan operation is here:
This is the same crowdfunding account we used for Lebanon so discount the first £35,000 raised as it was spent in Lebanon.
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 subscription 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.
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The post Metro Workers of Caracas appeared first on Craig Murray.
The United States and Israel are both revelling in inflicting the maximum possible death and suffering on Iran. After the genocide in Gaza, on a far larger field in Iran, those in power in Israel and the USA have a lust to kill and they revel in impunity.
The Epstein files reveal the same dynamic. We live in a society where those who obtain power wish to exercise it in the cruellest possible ways against the most defenceless. It appears to be a feature of late Western capitalist society, where sociopathic tendencies are essential to obtaining power, in a society which rejects altruism and cooperation as concepts and promotes competition, self-love and ruthlessness.
Iran is showing commendable fighting spirit, but as my last article stated, American military power should not be underestimated. They have the ability to destroy Iran from the air, to obliterate the institutions of the state and all of the key civilian infrastructure. Electricity, water, healthcare, education, administration, policing all can be knocked out just as they were systematically in Gaza and – on a scale insufficiently recalled – in Iraq.
Trump is already asking Congress for $50 billion to fund the operation and replenish stocks. The scale of destruction Netanyahu envisages will cost at least half a trillion dollars from the US Treasury. But there is nothing that can stop them.
I witnessed close up over five months the 80 to 100,000 homes destroyed in Lebanon by Israel in the last three years. We have all seen what they did to Gaza. The notion they cannot do this to Iran is simply wrong. It requires a colossal effort of will, a mania for killing, a vast amount of money and the depletion of the US arsenal. But they can do it.
Only political action by the peoples of the West against their leaders can stop it.
Iran and its allies have been the only physical opposition to the creation of Greater Israel. If the physical destruction of Iran is achieved, Greater Israel will be established at pace. One of the world’s greatest civilisations will lie in ashes, covering millions of corpses, but none of that will prevent the extraction of oil.
Pete Hegseth, American Secretary for War, simply comes over as a Nazi thug. He plainly is enjoying this as much as Netanyahu, Ben Gvir or Smotrich. He has gloatingly promised “Death and destruction from the sky, all day long”. He repeatedly signals ever-escalating bombing.
The Iranian Red Crescent has listed the bombing destruction so far. It includes:
By contrast, there has been no credible claim that Iran has inflicted widespread civilian damage. It has very tightly targeted specific facilities – collateral damage seems almost entirely confined to debris from intercepted drones and missiles.
But we know the US/Israel axis targets hospitals and medical facilities. It is proven beyond doubt in Gaza, and I witnessed it in Beirut.
In gloating about US military superiority, Trump advised Iranian civilians:
“Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere.”
Yet they are deliberately bombing residential buildings, exactly as in both Lebanon and Gaza. Trump is attempting to terrorise Iran into “unconditional surrender”.
At the Battle of Waterloo – an epic, large-scale and unmissable event – approximately 15,000 people died on the field of battle (more died later of wounds in an age before antibiotics). You are supposed to believe that the Iranian government in January killed twice as many demonstrators as died at Waterloo. This using only small arms and despite the complete lack of visual evidence of killing on anything like that scale.
At the same time you are supposed to believe that tens of thousands of tonnes of the highest explosives have been dropped into the centre of cities all across Iran but that these are “precision attacks” killing very few civilians.
It is obvious nonsense.
AI targeting only adds a new layer of dystopia to an entirely vicious and unnecessary war. The indifference of the Western media to the slaughter of 160 Iranian schoolgirls leads to really difficult questions about the type of society the West has become. Racism is just the beginning of the problems.
The effort to coerce the Kurds into yet again fighting for the USA, only to be abandoned when no longer deemed helpful, is reckless in the extreme. It is bound to lead to further war and fragmentation in Iraq. The repercussions in Turkey are potentially extreme – and possibly may jolt Erdoğan from his complacent furthering of the US/Israeli agenda.
Civil war is close in Lebanon. The traitorous Zionist regime of General Aoun has no forces capable of taking on Hezbollah; but the other Zionist puppet al-Jolani has concentrated forces on the border with the Bekaa Valley ready to attack Hezbollah from the East while they fight Israeli invading forces in the South. Macron has indicated he may send troops and armour to assist Aoun.
This entire conflict sounds like a dreadful regional disaster in which millions could die – and it is. But to the US and Israeli Zionists, the prospect of a devastated region is precisely what they wish to achieve to facilitate Israeli expansion and American seizure of resources.
There is an urgent need for regime change – in the West. The only way for this carnage to stop is for the people of the West to remove their Zionist-controlled ruling classes.
———————————
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.
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The post Joy at Death and Destruction appeared first on Craig Murray.
There has scarcely been an attempt to pretend any justification in international law for the attack on Iran and murder of its leader. The response of the UK government, focusing almost entirely on condemning Iran for exercising its legitimate right of self-defence, takes the Starmer dishonesty meter further off the scale.
The RAF has been actively involved in genocide in Gaza for two years with its surveillance and logistic support for the IDF. It is now fighting for Israel again; intercepting Iranian missiles is not defensive; it is joining in the attack on an already vastly overmatched opponent.
I am afraid that the truth is the Iranian attempt to defend itself militarily will be less impactful than many anti-imperialists hope. The astonishing amounts of money spent by the US government on military and surveillance technology simply do have real-world effect.
Here in Venezuela, having seen the major sites struck by the US on 3 January, I have concluded that no act of betrayal was needed. Just overwhelming force and precision technology applied against a technologically unequal opponent whose key capabilities were all on open hilltops or in unhardened barracks.
Iran is much more militarily sophisticated, but facing exponentially more force. Khamenei was killed in his own home, not hiding away. He is going to prove a lot more powerful as a martyr than as a ruler with his internal critics.
We are facing not only a period of unapologetic imperialism to which virtually all Western countries are prepared to defer, but a return of medievalism, both in the sheer barbarity and scale of physical abuse, as witnessed in Gaza and in general Israeli brutality, and in use of kidnap and murder as methods of high policy. Legitimising the killing and kidnap of leaders of opposing states is of course a double-edged sword.
Having sanctioned genocide, mass killings and deliberate destruction of medical facilities and staff, the mass murder of children, as well as the kidnapping and murder of Heads of State, it is hard now to imagine almost any atrocity which the Western powers are in any moral position to condemn.
While Iran’s military ability to strike back is limited, the ramifications of this attack will not be. The rulers of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have reverted to the norm of being not only reliable US and Israeli satraps, but promoters of atavistic hatred of Shia Muslims.
The West is deliberately exploiting the Shia/Sunni divide, as it has for centuries; but this will now destabilise the region for decades. Iraq in particular is going to be convulsed, and so will Pakistan. In Bahrain, the Shia population has been held in check by its Sunni rulers using systematic Western-sponsored murder and torture. Using it as a base to murder the Ayatollah is going to blow back.
It would appear that we are going to witness an aerial campaign to destroy Iran’s civilian infrastructure, as in Iraq where 65% of clean drinking water, 50% of hospitals and clinics and 80% of electrical generation was destroyed by “liberation” by the NATO powers. The object is the destruction of Iran as a viable state.
It is worth recalling that Iran used to be a Western-style state with a reasonable democracy. It was the election of the Socialist Mosaddegh in 1951, and his nationalisation of British Petroleum, which was met by the MI6- and CIA- sponsored coup of 1953. The vicious and vainglorious rule of their puppet Shah was the cause of the theocratic revolution.
Escalating Western sanctions were imposed by the US or EU on Iran in 1979, 1984, 1995, 1996, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2025. There were UN-approved sanctions imposed from 2006 to 2010. These very substantially hampered Iran’s economic development.
The curious thing is that the founding myth of the Western powers is that economic development leads to an expanding, educated middle class which promotes both economic and social liberalism and produces the conditions for democracy. By this reading, if you wished to cement in power an authoritarian government, then limiting economic development is the way to do it. There is something in this reading; I do not doubt that the West’s relentless efforts to strangle Iran – which have had some real success – have hampered its political development.
That is not to accept all the Western myths about Iran. Female education is very strong, and there is extensive female participation throughout economic and governmental institutions. Iran has an extremely good record of tolerating and even supporting minority religious communities, including the Jewish community. There are plenty of women in Tehran without head coverings – Iran is far more tolerant in this regard than Saudi Arabia. While it retains a retrograde intolerance of gay people, it acknowledges gender dysphoria and assists trans people.
I am not prepared to give a moment of countenance to arguments that bombing Iran back to the nineteenth century is going in any way to improve the lives of its people. It did not do so in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya. It was a disaster which unleashed waves of refugees upon Europe, leading directly to the rise of the far right.
I think it is unlikely to change the form of government in Iran in any significant way. Regime change by bombing is a highly problematic concept.
What it has done is to remove Ayatollah Khamenei, whose fatwa on the creation of a nuclear weapon was the only reason Iran does not have one. It is delusional to believe that Iran, with its excellent scientific base, could not have developed nuclear bombs in secret away from those monitored enrichment programmes, had it chosen to do so. What is likely to result in the medium term from this conflict, if it long continues, is a more primitive, more atavistic and nuclear-armed Iran.
The Iran nuclear deal torpedoed by Trump in 2018 had provided a rare moment of hope. With sanctions easing, there were chances of both smoother economic development and reform in Iran. That is why Israel wanted the agreement scuppered.
The attempted obliteration of Iran is part of a systematic attempt to eliminate by physical force all pockets of resistance to American hegemony. We have seen Rubio’s astonishing assertion of Imperialism as a positive force. Matthew Lynn in the Washington Post exemplified the new Western doctrine. He mocked China for its pacific policy. He argued that for China to build infrastructure for the Global South was futile because the United States might simply seize, blockade or destroy any infrastructure by military force. This he viewed as not shameful, but a great triumph.
What long-term lessons China, Russia and the Global South are learning from the abandonment by the entire West of the principles of international law, we shall see in the decades to come. None of this is going to be good for anyone. It is not just a Trump phenomenon. Biden fully supported the Gaza genocide. Almost all major political parties throughout the West are under firm Zionist control, as is all of the significant major media and the ownership of every significant alternative media platform.
Iran has provided, directly and through proxies, the only military opposition to the creation of Greater Israel. This war is for Greater Israel. But it is also a wider effort to re-establish the failing economic dominance of the United States by military control of key resources. There is no part of the world which will be safe from the fallout.
———————————
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
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The post The War for Greater Israel appeared first on Craig Murray.
There are two things which are extremely difficult to find in Venezuela – government repression and opposition support. I am pretty long in the tooth and very experienced in understanding politics and people around the world, and I have found it difficult to locate either.
I would particularly warn you against accepting the political prisoners narrative. There have been excesses, particularly after the unrest following the last disputed elections, but the large majority of those claimed to be political prisoners have been involved in actual, physical attempts to overthrow the government by force, or are involved in drugs related gangs. A combination of credulity, disinformation and the activity of NGOs supported by Western security agencies has presented you with an entirely false picture. I am sorry to say that generally decent organisations like HRW and Amnesty have been particularly credulous.
I absolutely do not support the claim that the opposition achieved two thirds of the vote at the last election. It is an absurdity. There were one million people at Maduro’s closing rally and 50,000 people at the opposition closing rally. Many of the alleged voting tallies the opposition published were obviously fake. There simply is no groundswell of anti-government opinion here, below or above ground.
The bars in which I spend my evenings generally cater to the wealthier and are in the opposition heartlands of Altamira and Las Mercedes. People naturally assume a westerner is anti-Chavismo. The wealthy speak English so they are more or less the only people I can relax into conversation with. Talking to people in bars is my natural milieu. There is no domestic appetite for regime change and literally not one person has ever expressed enthusiasm for Machado.
I have now entered the phase where it is costing me more to be in Venezuela than we have so far raised to be here. As ever we need to spread the load and we are looking primarily to those who have never donated or contributed before. Our Gofundme link for the Venezuelan operation is here:
This is the same crowdfunding account we used for Lebanon so discount the first £35,000 raised as it was spent in Lebanon.
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 subscription 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.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
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The post Rival Demonstrations in Caracas appeared first on Craig Murray.
I hope to write a serious article shortly about the position of Venezuela, which is rather that of a hostage with a gun to their head, attempting to appease a psychopath.
But for now here are a couple of small videos illustrating that it is a lie that the country is failed, starving or repressive.
Obviously in this crisis the government is under some strain. I am however trying to work my way up to get a minister to talk to me on the record about the extent of economic liberalisation, how far it is being driven by the Americans, how the country’s revolutionary principles can be preserved, and the prospects for the United States lifting its naval blockade of Venezuelan oil to non-US customers.
If I can’t get the access we may reach the limit of how much I can usefully do here; there is still more to bring you from the ground, and simply showing you that long term Western propaganda has given an entirely false image of the country has its uses. A mini documentary on the commune system is in the edit.
As ever with an entirely individual donation and subscriber model, there is also a question of financial sustainability. We are employing a little local team here including Natalia our cinematographer, Andreina our journalist, Jonathan our editor and Greimar our assistant, and we are hiring an apartment. It takes time to get the production pipeline going and I do understand that the output does not yet justify the expense.
As ever we need to spread the load and please we are looking primarily to those who have never donated or contributed before. Our Gofundme link for the Venezuelan operation is here:
This is the same crowdfunding account we used for Lebanon so discount the first £35,000 raised as it was spent in Lebanon.
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 subscription 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.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
| Recurring Donations |
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
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The post Two Little Caracas Videos appeared first on Craig Murray.
On the face of it the English High Court ruling that the Palestine Action proscription is unlawful makes the decision that the proscription remains in place pending appeal utterly illogical. But what if the High Court ruling is deliberately designed to fail at appeal?
I believe that it is. They chose an extremely narrow path to rule that proscription was unlawful and produced an extremely weak judgment. This gives an impression of fairness in the judicial system – except that nothing has changed, the ban remains in force. And it remains in force because the judgment is designed for the government to win at appeal.
The judgment for the most part is precisely what you would expect from three hand-picked, known right-wing, judges. They:
The judges have therefore supported the government on almost all of its key propositions. You may well ask, how did they find all that and still find the proscription unlawful?
Well, they chose a deliberately narrow and precarious path through. They first found that the proscription was unlawful in that it contradicted the Home Office’s published policy on how the discretion of the Secretary of State would be applied in deciding whether to proscribe a terrorist organisation.
It is important to understand this. The ruling is that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation, but that the Secretary of State is not obliged to proscribe all terrorist organisations but may use her discretion.
I have read the judgment again and again and it is incredibly obscure as to in what way the Home Secretary did not follow her policy. It seems to be that she did not consider the factors peculiar to Palestine Action, but merely proscribed as though that automatically followed a determination that an organisation is terrorist. Rather than consider the question in the round, she merely looked at the “operational advantages” of proscription.
I assume the underlying assumption is that this means she failed to take into account the disadvantages of proscription, but it does not say that. I don’t think I am being obtuse. You try.
92. This conclusion may appear to rest on a very narrow basis – the Home Secretary had, after all, formed the belief that Palestine Action is an organisation concerned in terrorism and in these proceedings the claimant does not challenge that decision. However, this conclusion is a direct and necessary consequence of the policy the Home Secretary has applied to the exercise of her discretion to proscribe such organisations. The purpose of the policy is that not all organisations that meet the concerned in terrorism requirement should be proscribed.
93. Any decision-maker who adopts a policy for a particular purpose is at liberty to disapply or modify that policy in a particular case, but any such disapplication or modification must be express and must be for a sufficient reason. In this case, the Home Secretary’s approach was to apply the policy (a policy of long-standing, dating back to the time the 2000 Act was enacted), without modification.
94. The operational consequences and advantages of proscription is not a factor consistent with the policy for the obvious reason that such consequences and advantages will apply equally to any organisation that could be proscribed – i.e. any and every organisation that meets the requirement to be an organisation concerned in terrorism. In principle the position could be otherwise if in a particular case, by reason of an organisation’s structure, membership, activities or otherwise, the measures in the 2000 Act that are the consequences of proscription would be unusually effective. In such a case, it could be consistent with the policy to regard the operational consequences of proscription as an “other factor”. But that is not the present case. There is no such evidence so far as concerns Palestine Action. Nor in the present case could it be contended that the reliance placed on the consequences of proscription was immaterial to the exercise of the discretion or the application of the policy. Both in the note of the meeting of the Proscription Review Group and in the 26 March 2025 ministerial submission, the operational advantages are relied on as providing a clear case to use the discretion to proscribe. Each suggests that it is an important matter going to the exercise of the discretion, if not the central consideration in that exercise in that case.
95. The consequence and conclusion of this point is that, notwithstanding the latitude that the policy provides, the Home Secretary’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action was not consistent with her policy. The closed material does not affect our conclusion on this ground.
There are two problems with this aspect of the judgment.
Firstly it seems so obscure that it is designed to fail at appeal.
The notion that its proscription was unlawful because the Secretary of State had failed to follow, not the established law, but the precise procedures in some buried Home Office policy document that nobody had ever read, is not one that I would have expected to carry the day compared to all the other issues.
It is indeed an established legal point, but one used in objections to planning applications rather than cases of alleged terrorism. Which is what I believe the Court of Appeal will say.
Secondly it leaves it open to the Secretary of State just to change the published policy, then proscribe again.
The second ground on which the court found against the government is that the proscription is incompatible with Articles X and XI of the European Convention on Human Rights – Freedom of Speech and Assembly.
But again this is not what you think.
Remember the judges found that the 2700 people arrested for opposing the ban have been quite rightly arrested, as expressing support for Palestine Action is a criminal act. The court does not hold that their right to freedom of speech is infringed.
In fact the court rehearses all the ways that speech will be chilled and people will be de-platformed as a result of the proscription, but does not find they are unreasonable to combat “terrorism”.
128. The Home Secretary’s pleaded case is that the purpose of proscription was to “disrupt and degrade PA so as to protect the rights of others and maintain national security”. The submissions on behalf of the Home Secretary sought to define the objective as “controlling terrorism” or “controlling terrorist organisations” through proscription of organisations that engage in “terrorism” as defined in s.1 of the 2000 Act. It seems to us that the latter is a description of the means of obtaining the objective. The identified legitimate aims of the proscription decision are “the protection of the rights and freedoms of others” and “the interests of national security”. Those aims appear in each of articles 10(2) and 11(2), respectively and are objectives that, in principle, are capable of warranting an interference with each Convention right.
129. Although the claimant raised the question whether there is a rational connection between the means chosen and the aim in view, no basis for suggesting there is not a rational connection was put forward. Proscription is rationally connected to the objective of disrupting Palestine Action so as to protect the rights of others and the interests of national security. That is so whether the objective was limited to curtailing actions by Palestine Action causing serious property damage within the meaning of section 1 of the 2000 Act, or extended more broadly
When after all this support for the government, the judgment finally delivers the key paragraph on why the proscription was unlawful, it suddenly leaps out at you: the result of a proportionality exercise the judgment had not previously defined or given a methodology.
140. Considering in the round the evidence available to the Home Secretary when the decision to proscribe was made, the nature and scale of Palestine Action’s activities, so far as they comprise acts of terrorism, has not yet reached the level, scale and persistence that would justify the application of the criminal law measures that are the consequence of proscription, and the very significant interference with Convention rights consequent on those measures.
It is a goal entirely against the run of play in the previous 139 paragraphs. I am afraid to say that I think the marked lack of intellectual underpinning again makes it a structure designed to fail.
Three known very conservative judges were appointed at the last moment to replace the liberal judge Chamberlain, who was unceremoniously booted off the case. It seemed astonishing that these known sympathisers with the security state had found the proscription unlawful.
But they cannot really think both that it is unlawful, and that it should continue pending appeal. That is utterly illogical.
They cannot really think it is an unlawfully disproportionate interference with freedom of speech, and that those arrested for holding placards opposing it were criminals and rightfully charged.
That is a logical impossibility also. Yet both sit side by side in this judgment.
The judges are not stupid. It can only be that they do not really mean it when they state one of those opinions. All the signs are that it is para 140, swinging entirely unsupported and exposed and waiting to be struck down, that they do not really mean.
If they believed in their own judgment, the judges would have quashed the proscription pending appeal.
Palestine Action was a proscribed organisation before this judgment and it is a proscribed organisation after this judgment. Everything else is smoke and mirrors.
That is why it is essential that the Scottish judicial review goes ahead. I for one am very interested to discover whether the paragraph
142. We doubt that the consensus claimed exists: see and compare R v Gul (Mohammed) [2013] UKSC 64, [2014] AC 1260 per Lords Neuberger and Judge at paragraphs 44 – 51. In any event, this submission faces the further obstacle that, when taking her decision, the Home Secretary was entitled to rely on the definition of terrorism in the 2000 Act. Indeed, she was required to apply that definition. Had she purported to rely on any other definition for the purposes of her decision she would have acted unlawfully. A “consensus” in international law is not a trump card in English law; any such consensus cannot permit either disregard of or derogation from an English statute save to the extent permitted by statute.
which specifically references “English law”, applies equally in Scotland. The English legal tradition is that the “Crown in parliament” is sovereign and may do absolutely anything it wishes, irrespective of international law, individual rights or any other consideration. The Scottish legal tradition is that the people are sovereign and protected from arbitrary or oppressive executive action.
Should Huda Ammori again win at appeal, Shabana Mahmood will certainly appeal to the Supreme Court. It would be extremely difficult for the Supreme Court to rule against the highest courts of both England and Scotland. So there is reason to continue the Scottish action even if the English case continues to win.
Should the UK government win at appeal in England, the Scottish case becomes still more crucial.
The UK government has succeeded in postponing the Scottish case, in order to give time to prepare for the admission of secret evidence. This is an incredible authoritarian procedure where they can submit “intelligence” to the court, which neither I nor my legal team will ever be permitted to know about, let alone have a chance to reply.
My interest will be “represented” by a “special advocate” with whom I shall never be able to communicate and thus will have no ability to give them the answer to whatever lies the UK government has put forward – probably about non-existent Iranian funding or entirely invented bomb plots.
This system is simply fascist. We have no idea to what extent the “secret evidence” used in the English case contributed to the court’s agreement that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation.
We push on. I hate to say this, but we are now desperately short of funds to continue this action. I cannot keep asking the same supporters to give more, but if you know people who can afford it and will contribute, please activate them.
You can donate through the link via Crowd Justice, which goes straight to the lawyers, or through this blog.
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The post Postpone The Celebrations appeared first on Craig Murray.
My first video report from Venezuela:
My being here reporting is entirely possible due, as is all my journalism and activism, to your individual subscriptions and donations. We now have a Venezuela reporting crowdfunder. I have simply edited the Lebanese GoFundMe crowdfunder, because that took many weeks to be approved and I don’t want to go through all that again. So its starting baseline is the £35,000 we raised and spent in Lebanon.
I do very much appreciate that I have been simultaneously crowdfunding to fight the UK government in the Scottish courts over the proscription of Palestine Action. We fight forces that have unlimited funds. We can only succeed if we spread the load. About 98% of those who read my articles never contribute financially. This would be a good moment to change that. It is just the simple baseline subscriptions to my blog that have got me to Venezuela, and that remains the foundation for all my work.
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 subscription 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.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
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The post Is The USA Controlling Venezuela appeared first on Craig Murray.
As the trial finished at Woolwich Crown Court of the six Palestine Action activists who entered the Filton factory to destroy Israeli killer drones, Starmer, Cooper, Lammy and Mahmood are left bereft of a single guilty verdict in the case on which they relied heavily to label Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.
I could not, on pain of imprisonment, tell you this during the trial. One item produced by the prosecution as evidence was the notebook of Charlotte Head, on which she had written details from her training session with Palestine Action and of the proposed direct action against Elbit’s drone factory.
The first ten pages of her notes were about the Israeli weapons company Elbit, their footprint in the UK, their corporate structure and the weapons they manufacture, and the evidence of the use of their weaponry in the genocide in Gaza.
The jury were shown the notebook but were specifically not allowed to see the first ten pages. Throughout the trial anything that referred to the crimes of Elbit, their role in the mass killing and mutilation of women and children, and their cosy relationship with the British government, was excluded from the jury. The judge continually stopped the defence lawyers from asking or saying anything about who Elbit are or why their property was being attacked.
The defendants were not permitted therefore to explain to the jury why they did what they did – which you might have believed was a pretty fundamental right. The jury were additionally, in effect, instructed by Judge Johnson to convict on the least serious charge, that of criminal damage.
But despite the state taking every possible precaution to ensure that the state got its convictions in this show trial, the jury refused to find that trying to stop Genocide is a crime.
This trial was fundamental to the government’s argument that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation. And the key to that was the accusation that Palestine Action from the start intended harm to people, not just to property. That is why these defendants were all charged with “aggravated burglary”.
Aggravated burglary is an extremely serious charge, carrying a potential life sentence. It is the offence of breaking into a property with the intent to use a weapon. On aggravated burglary, all six defendants were found resoundingly Not Guilty.
So the attempt to portray Palestine Action as an organisation involved in violence against persons has fallen flat on its face. Because the jury could see it was stupid and obviously untrue.
When it comes to events after the activists were attacked by security guards, three of the six were found not guilty of the charge of “violent disorder”. On three others the jury could not reach a verdict.
Most interesting of all perhaps was the charge of criminal damage to Elbit’s machinery and instruments of genocide. Here Judge Johnson to all intents and purposes had instructed the jury to convict. Yet enough of the jury could not accept that stopping Genocide is a crime.
The final question was the charge against Samuel Corner of Grievous Bodily Harm with Intent. This was the famous incident where the security guards attacked the defendants with weapons and there was a melee as they defended themselves.
It is worth stating that the tabloid stories and right-wing meme of “a policewoman’s spine was fractured” was always utter nonsense. As the defence closing speech stated:
The prosecution have said it was a fracture to the spine, a deliberate choice of words which although technically accurate, conjure up a break, a snapping of the spinal vertebrae. Maybe that’s what the jury had in mind until they saw the CT scan – it was actually an injury that wasn’t obvious. The doctors looking at the first X-rays didn’t identify any bone damage, nor in an MRI later.
The injury didn’t require surgery and Sergeant Evans was advised to take painkillers and do physiotherapy. The agreed facts state from medical evidence that you’d expect such a fracture to heal in six to twelve weeks, with full healing in three to six months, and no long-term consequences.
The unfortunate policewoman suffered no damage at all to her spinal cord. She had a possible hairline fracture to the wing of one vertebra. That there was any fracture at all was never definitive from the X-rays and MRIs. Whether it reached the bar of grievous bodily harm was disputed; how it was caused was disputed; and whether there was any intent to harm was disputed. The refusal of the jury to convict was completely consistent with the evidence heard in court.
This has driven right-wingers into a frenzy with completely false claims about the extent of the injury, and continued reference to a highly edited brief video clip.
That video clip is extremely important because it represents the height of the state’s attempt to use this incident to demonise Palestine Action. The police were permitted, during the course of the trial, to release a single and highly edited clip of video said to represent the injury of Sergeant Evans by a sledgehammer. A great deal of other video evidence was not released. This resulted in a massive media frenzy.
Even before this, Yvette Cooper and Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Mark Rowley had caused massive prejudice by stating that a policewoman had been attacked with a sledgehammer.
None of these deliberate attempts to affect the trial was censured by the judge nor resulted in any proceedings for contempt of court. Yet we were strictly told we absolutely could not mention that the judge was withholding the evidence about Elbit from the jury, as that would prejudice the trial and we would face contempt of court proceedings.
On Sergeant Evans, she has become a cause célèbre for the right, but I should say there is no evidence she is herself whipping this up. Her behaviour on the night was admirable. She was not herself involved in the excessive use of force – and, despite her own painful back, tended to others after the event quietened.
In my view, this prosecution was doomed by the overcharging and exaggeration used by the government to demonise Palestine Action. The “aggravated burglary” charge was ludicrous. To attempt to claim that the activists entered the factory with the intent of using weapons against people, went so far against the evidence it was bound to fail.
The massive over-exaggeration of the extent of Sergeant Evans’s injury has successfully whipped up right-wing hysteria, but did not really meet the threshold of grievous bodily harm, and the decision to add intent to that charge was again not backed by evidence.
On criminal damage, the jury plainly refused to accept the destruction of weapons of genocide was a crime. For that, I salute them. For the rest, they simply applied robust common sense to the evidence before them.
The “policewoman attacked with a sledgehammer” nonsense of course featured heavily in the English judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. In the Scottish judicial review, they cannot really use this – not without a caveat that a jury did not agree with them.
The Filton result is great news for the Scottish judicial review. We have to submit all the paperwork for that, in just seven working days. I hate to say this, but we are now desperately short of funds to continue this action. I cannot keep asking the same supporters to give more, but if you know people who can afford it and will contribute please activate them.
You can donate through the link via Crowd Justice, which goes straight to the lawyers, or through this blog.
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/scottish-challenge-to-proscription/
Alternatively by bank transfer:
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Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
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The post Filton Acquittals Demolish Starmer and Cooper Lies About Palestine Action appeared first on Craig Murray.
I have now been here a week and I think that I have absorbed enough to attempt a little analysis, as opposed to the simple impressions I gave shortly after arrival.
Those impressions remain valid however: this is not a repressive state. I was on the Randy Credico show live on WBAI New York on Friday, and by chance my friend, the renowned FBI whistleblower Colleen Rowley was also on, from Minnesota (where I have stayed with Colleen and her husband in their home).
I was explaining that, in a week of going all round Caracas, I had yet to see a checkpoint, that nobody had at any stage asked me who I am, what I was doing or prevented me from going anywhere, and that the shops, bars and restaurants are all functioning normally.
Colleen reported from Minneapolis that there were checkpoints everywhere, that the streets are full of heavily armed men, that people are frequently stopped, questioned, asked to produce documents, and diverted, and that many shops bars and restaurants are closed because the staff are afraid to venture out into the streets. Colleen is heavily involved in detainee support and in getting supplies to people sheltering in their homes.
Remind me again, which of us is in a supposed dictatorship?
I want to tell you a couple of things to help explain Venezuela. I visited the mausoleum of Simon Bolivar, a genuinely heroic man. He has now been removed from the main Venezuelan Pantheon into a connected dedicated modern mausoleum. The Pantheon itself contains the remains of many of the heroes of the Venezuelan War of Independence, and monuments to all of them.
The Venezuelan War of Independence was, of course, in many respects similar to the United States war given the same name. It was a war between colonial elites and their metropolitan masters. Unlike the founders of the USA, Bolivar himself was genuinely opposed to slavery, but that was not true of many of his key allies.
So the Pantheon as originally conceived in the late 19th century was inhabited by the remains and memories almost entirely of those heroic people of Spanish descent who fought against the colonial control of Spain. This is the great founding ideal of Venezuela.
When Chavez and Maduro came to power, they made a very important change. They added a monument to the liberated slaves who had fought against the Spanish. Then Chavez and Maduro each added an extra monument: to leaders of the Native Americans who had fought against Spanish invasion in the first place.
This caused outrage among right wingers furious that the purity of the Pantheon, the great focus of Venezuelan nationalism, was being desecrated for what they viewed as political purposes. Which brings me to what I think is a fundamental observation. Politics in Venezuela are basically racial.
I am treading on eggshells here, but in 2019 I published this post noticing the contrast between opposition and government group photos. The leadership of the right wing are basically whiter. That is simply who they are.
Of course the divide is not absolute, and individual exceptions exist. But it is there. Politics in Venezuela are strongly class based, and in this post-colonial society it is difficult to disentangle race from class.
What the opposition want is simply to turn back the clock and restore economic apartheid in Venezuela. I had a very interesting talk with Ricardo Vaz of Venezuela Analysis. He explained how Chavez’s revolutionary policies had brought people into political discourse who had always been ignored in what was historically an extremely unequal society:
“The rulers, now the opposition, suddenly found that their cook, their cleaner, their driver and even their gardener were learning to read and write and starting to get political ideas. They did not like this at all”.
They still don’t like that. It is not possible for me here now to capture what happened exactly in the 2024 elections. Plainly the opposition performed relatively well, though I do not in the least believe they got 68% of the result. Maduro’s closing rally had 1 million people while the opposition’s had 50,000.
For the government to remain in power against the will of 68% of the population would require a degree of state repression which simply does not exist here. There is very little surveillance compared to Western states, let alone to acknowledged dictatorships. There are no politicised police or militias in the streets. There are no restrictions on people moving around and mingling.
Machado has discredited herself, as effectively as she has discredited the Nobel peace prize. Giving the prize to Trump made her look foolish and suppliant, and praising the bombing of her own country which killed fellow citizens has really not gone down well at all, even with opposition supporters.
But even that has not harmed her nearly as much as her remark to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee that 60% of Venezuelans are involved in narcotics or prostitution. This is not quite what she said, but it is near enough and it really annoyed people here:
We have the Colombian guerrilla, the drug cartels that have taken over 60% of our populations, and not only involving drug trafficking, but in human trafficking, in networks of prostitution. So this has turned Venezuela into the criminal hub of the Americas…
Which takes me back to personal impressions. I have, as those who follow me would expect, assiduously been checking out the bars of Caracas. I have found some very beautiful ones – Juan Sebastian Bar is one of the most lovely bars that I have ever seen. A piece of stunning interior design. I took these photos before it opened one evening. It serves mojitos even better than you can get in Havana.
That is not a mirror, those are two grand pianos!
The point is that not in my hotel, not in any bar, not on any street, have I seen a single person who appeared to be operating as a sex worker. Not one – and I might perhaps be viewed as a pretty archetypal target. Similarly I have not seen any sign at all of narcotics abuse. In two days in Salisbury investigating the Skripal hoax I was shocked by how many obvious drug addicts we saw on the streets. There is nothing of the kind in Caracas.
While I appreciate that the allegation is that Venezuela exports narcotics rather than consumes them, you always get clusters of addiction around production points and transit nodes. I just see no evidence that the common tropes about Venezuela and Venezuelans are true: and I am a trained and seasoned observer.
Sanctions against Venezuela did not start after the disputed 2024 election; they have been applied by the Western powers more or less since the very start of Chavez’s socialist experiment. The repression of socialism in Latin America has been US policy for a century, and the more Chavez succeeded the more the West sought to suppress it. France refused to provide spares for the Mirage jets of the Venezuelan air force, and equally refused to supply spare parts for the trains of the Metro service.
The gold and foreign currency reserves abroad of the government of Venezuela have simply been stolen by foreign governments, and the blocking of Venezuela from the Swift bank transfer system for a while caused havoc. It has however spurred BRICS to develop an alternative, not fully adopted, not finished but working in Venezuela, which accounts for the full stocks in the shops and ultimately might represent a significant moment in international economics.
Slowly, unwillingly, the Socialist Party under Maduro has been forced precisely by the crippling effect of sanctions to allow more space for the private sector and move from a fully socialist to a more social democratic model – though to describe the reforms under Maduro as “neoliberal” is ridiculous. It may theoretically be possible to build socialism in one country, but if the major economic powers join forces to destroy you, it becomes very difficult indeed.
A dangerously simplistic narrative about what has happened in Venezuela has taken hold in the West, fuelled by Trump, CIA and Machado/Miami sources.
On this reading, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez is in collusion with Trump, betrayed Maduro and stood down defences on the night of his kidnap, and is now instituting neoliberal policies, including a new petroleum law which states only the USA may ship Venezuelan oil and that payments for it will go exclusively through the US in Qatar.
In fact this is not true at all. Venezuela’s new petroleum legislation contains no provisions banning oil exports to China or Russia and no provision for payments to be routed through the USA. The new petroleum law is in fact legislation which sets out a new commercial basis for the operation of the Venezuelan petroleum sector on the same kind of concession, licensing and royalty basis as pertains in almost every other oil producer.
The key point is that the legislation was drafted under Maduro, with extensive consultation and debate. It came for its first reading to the Assembly literally the day after Maduro was kidnapped. That was already scheduled, not a result of the kidnapping. The notion that Maduro opposed the legislation and Rodríguez had to get rid of him to get it through is patent nonsense.
The legislation is unrelated to the United States’ current hijack of the sale of Venezuelan oil. This is proceeding through simple piracy. Trump decreed that only two companies, Vitol and Trafigura, would be allowed to load Venezuelan oil, and those companies would pay for the oil to the United States, into a special account held in Qatar under Trump’s name.
This new scheme has been enforced by simple piracy. Any tankers carrying oil not owned by Vitol and Trafigura from Venezuela have been illegally seized at sea by the US Navy, sometimes assisted by the UK government. The United States has been claiming that Venezuela agrees to this arrangement. That is not true. Or it is true in the sense that a hostage held at gunpoint agrees to stay put, rather than get a bullet through the skull.
The Venezuelan government simply has no physical ability to prevent the United States Navy from seizing oil tankers.
Nor is it true that the Venezuelan government gave the United States information on non-Vitol and -Trafigura tankers and requested their interception. Obviously the United States could get the information on “rogue” tankers from Vitol and Trafigura.
Trafigura have featured in my writing for decades as the archetypal extremely corrupt Western corporation. Their record for deliberate pollution and corruption in Africa is appalling, including in Angola and Ivory Coast. They have frequently been involved in CIA schemes for regime change.
How Vitol and Trafigura came to be the beneficiaries of a duopoly, and what backhanders that may have involved, is another question. In fact this is the one area of domestic pressure that has forced a step back from Trump, and last Friday it was announced that the arrangement will be expanded to include more companies.
It is worth noting that the system has not just been invented for Venezuela. It is almost identical to the system imposed on Iraq after its destruction by the United States and its allies, with payments for Iraqi oil made to the USA and a percentage of them returned to the Iraqi government.
The difference is that the Iraqi revenues were paid to the US Treasury, whereas the Venezuelan funds are going to a Qatar account under Trump’s personal control, removed from the reach of Congress. At its most charitable reading, it gives him a massive slush fund to pursue policy outside the United States legal framework. It is like Iran-Contra on a massive scale.
To reiterate: none of this sales arrangement has been agreed by Rodríguez and none of it is contained in the new Venezuelan hydrocarbon legislation on concessions and royalties. There are two separate things being widely conflated.
The line that Delcy Rodríguez agrees both to the kidnap of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia, and to the hijacking of Venezuelan oil sales and revenues, has been deliberately spread by the US and its acolytes, despite Delcy Rodríguez’s furious denials.
If Rodríguez really was Trump’s placed woman, then boasting about it would fatally undermine her within Venezuela and bring about her downfall – which obviously would be entirely counterproductive were there any truth in the claim.
So why is this rumour being spread? Well the obvious reason is precisely to undermine Rodríguez and destabilise the government of Venezuela.
But perhaps a more important factor is Trump’s obsessive need to claim victory. He gathered a massive military force off the coast of Venezuela, and stood in danger of mockery as the Grand Old Duke of York if he simply sailed it away again.
The seizure of Maduro has in fact changed nothing in policy terms within Venezuela, but it has provided a spectacular operation for Trump to claim as a victory. In truth, as a demonstration of the capabilities of the United States’ offensive military technology, it was indeed technically impressive.
For the removal of Maduro to be portrayed as a triumph, Trump has to claim that Rodríguez is solidly pro-USA, even though this is plainly not true. It is merely a part of the parade of triumph that is an essential component both of Trump’s ego and of the bombastic Trump method.
What now happens to Maduro and Cilia is, on this reading, not really relevant. The entirely false narrative of the non-existent Cartel de los Soles has already been abandoned as part of the prosecution. In the USA’s misnamed “justice” system, they have a variety of witness accusations from diverse figures prepared to sign nonsense against Maduro as part of a plea bargain agreement. These include rococo Trump-pleasing standouts such as testimony that Maduro was involved in fixing the 2020 US Presidential election on behalf of Biden.
My prediction is that Trump will “pardon” Maduro before the prosecution gets too silly, and present that as another part of his triumph. But who can predict a madman?
That is precisely the conundrum now facing Delcy Rodríguez. She is dealing with two imponderable equations.
The first was already difficult enough. Historians and ideologues will debate for centuries whether Chavismo could have succeeded economically with its full-on socialist programme, had the Western world not determined to destroy it with crippling sanctions.
What is I think beyond dispute is that the sanctions were so crippling that they caused considerable public hardship, and massive inflation. At the same time, the very fact that Venezuela is not highly dictatorial and both Chavez and Maduro broadly allowed debate, free opposition political parties and media, and the operation of Western-funded NGOs, meant that the Venezuelan population were continually bombarded with Western propaganda which blamed the problems caused by sanctions on the Bolivarian Revolution.
This eroded support for the socialist project, which though still intact, has crumbled at the edges. The Bolivarian government has been obliged to try to mitigate the effects of the sanctions which stole the government’s own capital, and to seek the removal of some sanctions, by the opening up of more space for capitalist investment and operation in the economy, notably but by no means only in the oil sector.
In other words the government has been forced to concede some ground to the West by inching along the spectrum from socialist to social democratic, while attempting to maintain the massive social gains of the Chavez revolution.
This is an exercise in which Nicolás Maduro himself was fully engaged. I believe that both Maduro and Rodríguez have the intention of inching back from social democracy towards socialism over time, once pressures have eased. Theirs is a game of strategy, not of tactics.
To this already extremely sensitive calculation is added the extraordinary factor of Trump. His willingness to simply kill innocent people, to shatter international law, and to impose his will by exploiting massive United States military advantage over a small country, changed all the rules of the game.
The pressure to make changes faster to appease somebody who is plainly mentally unstable, the difficulty of understanding his limits and true goals, is an excruciating experience when the lives and deaths of Venezuelans are in your hands. Trump’s incredible bombast, his wild claims that Venezuelan land and oil is stolen from the USA, are not contained within the realm of normal diplomatic negotiation.
Delcy Rodríguez is not so much walking a tightrope, as navigating an Indiana Jones tunnel full of traps.
One thing that Trump has in fact got right is his contention that Machado does not have the public support to rule. This seems to me indisputable, and an attempt to impose her would result in civil war. This of course in itself undermines the contention that Machado’s team massively won the 2024 election.
Meanwhile life in Venezuela goes on for ordinary people. I had the great pleasure to attend a concert by the National Symphony Orchestra on Sunday. It was very accomplished, and the auditorium was full. The programme was entirely of Venezuelan composers, and I had never heard any of the music before. The opening symphonic poem by Juan Bautista Plaza would stand alongside the European repertoire without blushing.
I make no apologies for bringing little slices of ordinary life to you, because the picture we have been given of Venezuela is so strangely and massively distorted, it requires multiple points of correction.
Chavez instituted a programme of musical education for working-class children that became the envy of the classical music world, known simply as La Sistema. Much more heart-rending examples of Western sanctions might be found, involving medical provision. But as an example of the cruel absurdity of the sanctions regime, the youth orchestra of Venezuela has difficulties getting hold of simple consumables – strings, reeds, plectra – because of sanctions.
In bringing violin strings to a child I should be committing a crime in the United States of America. Let that be a testament to the absurdity of using sanctions to crush human spirit.
I am very aware I have not left Caracas yet and of the limitations of my experience so far. But I am already struck by the great advantage of being here over commentators in the West who I see daily, even when well-intentioned, getting it all wrong. The mainstream media of course produce a fake narrative entirely as a matter of policy.
I am delighted to say that today our new videographer and editor are starting and we will be able to bring you video content. I also hope today to conclude rent of an office/studio space.
We now have a Venezuela reporting crowdfunder. I have simply edited the Lebanese GoFundMe crowdfunder, because that took many weeks to be approved and I don’t want to go through all that again. So its starting baseline is the £35,000 we raised and spent in Lebanon.
I do very much appreciate that I have been simultaneously crowdfunding to fight the UK government in the Scottish courts over the proscription of Palestine Action. We fight forces that have unlimited funds. We can only succeed if we spread the load. 98% of those who read my articles never contribute financially. This would be a good moment to change that. It is just the simple baseline subscriptions to my blog that have got me to Venezuela, and that remains the foundation for all my work.
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