Tag Archives: British Government

Skripal and Syria… The Imperative of Criminalizing Russia, by Finian Cunningham

Posted on September 12, 2018 | Leave a comment

The British and American governments say Russia poisoned the Skripals with deadly chemicals because they say so, and Russia’s ally in Syria, the Syrian government, uses chemical warfare because they say so, and anyone that would use chemicals on civilians in Britain would do so in Syria and vice versa, because they say so. From Finian Cunningham at strategic-culture.org:

There is a direct link between Britain’s sensational allegations against Russia in the Skripal affair and NATO’s losing covert war in Syria.

That’s not just the opinion of critical observers. Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations made the explicit link when she called an “emergency meeting” of the Security Council earlier this week.

The Security Council meeting was convened only hours after British counter-terrorism police released video images claiming to identify two Russian men, whom it said were responsible for the alleged poison assassination attempt on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in England earlier this year.

The council meeting also followed swiftly on the heels of British Prime Minister Theresa May telling her parliament that the culprits were Russian military intelligence officers acting on orders from the Kremlin. May did not give supporting evidence. It was bald assertion. Continue reading →

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Britain Should Be in the Dock Over Skripal Saga, Not Russia, by the Strategic Culture Editorial Board

Posted on September 11, 2018 | Leave a comment

The Skripal investigation has about as much credibility as Russiagate does in the US. From the editorial board of Strategic Culture at strategic-culture.org:

The latest announcement by British authorities of two named Russian suspects in connection with the alleged poison assassination of a former Russian spy and his daughter is more absurd drama in a long-running tawdry saga.

No verifiable evidence is ever presented, just more lurid innuendo and more refusal by the British authorities to abide by any due process and international norms of diplomacy. It is all scurrilous sound and fury aimed at smearing Russia.

This week, Britain’s Metropolitan Police released video shots of two alleged Russian men purporting to show them arriving at London’s Gatwick airport on March 2. Other video shots purport to show the same men walking the streets of Salisbury on March 3, the day before former Russian Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were apparently stricken with a powerful nerve agent. The two would-be assassins then allegedly flew back to Moscow from London late on March 4. Continue reading →

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Britain Prepares for War Against Russia, by Brian Cloughley

Posted on August 27, 2018 | Leave a comment

The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! Or maybe not, but Russia makes not just a great scapegoat (Skripal poisoning) but a great excuse to throw money at the British military. From Brian Cloughley at strategic-culture.org:

The headline in the UK newspaper the Daily Mail on August 7 encapsulated much that is paranoid in sad modern Britain. It read “Russian warships pass through English Channel as Putin’s armed forces ratchet up pressure on the Royal Navy.”

Certainly, the United Kingdom is in a state of crisis; but it isn’t because of any sort of military threat. The vote to leave the European Union was a major slide down the greasy pole of decline and Time magazine summed up the debacle by pointing out that “At heart of this political saga is the fact that the politicians leading the Brexit “Leave” campaign — Boris Johnson chief among them — never actually explained to the British public what a vote for ‘Leave’ entailed. The promise of Brexit was all things to all people, which is how it managed its 52- to 48-percent victory over the ‘Remain’ side. Then prime minister David Cameron resigned, and it fell to his successor Theresa May to figure out what Brexit actually means.”

The Brexit pantomime is taking place in an era in which it is recorded that “As benefits are cut and rents soar, Britain has seen a staggering rise in homelessness: the number of rough sleepers in England alone has more than doubled since 2010. Almost 1.2 million older people in Britain, as well as another one million disabled people, are living without the social care they need for basics such as eating, dressing and washing. It’s horrific: severely ill people forced to wait 14 hours to go to the toilet or wheelchair users who, with no assistant to help them cook, are now malnourished.”

But this dreadful state of affairs means nothing to those who lack for nothing — which includes politicians of the governing Conservative Party who demand that more taxpayers’ money must be spent on military hardware. The previous defence minister, Michael Fallon (who had to resign because he was found out to have indulged in some sexual shenanigans), told the BBC last year that “we will be adding to defence, there will be new equipment and the budget will grow every year” and the present one, Gavin Williamson (the man who said that Russia should “go away and shut up”), demanded in June that Britain increase its annual military spending by £20 billion, or about 25 billion dollars.

To continue reading: Britain Prepares for War Against Russia

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Pilger Excoriates Media on Assange Silence, an Interview with Dennis Bernstein and Randy Credico

Posted on August 7, 2018 | Leave a comment

The mainstream media’s cowardice with regards to Julian Assange is even greater than that of the governments that are persecuting him. Assange is protecting the freedom of the press (see today’s SLL article, “America’s Kristallnacht?“). From John Pilger, Dennis Bernstein, and Randy Credico at consortiumnews.com:

DB: John, what is the latest we know about how Julian Assange is being treated and his current state?

John Pilger: His state of health is just about the same, as I understand it. He needs medical attention, the kind of treatment you get only in a hospital. But it has been made clear to him that if he attempts to go to a hospital he will not be given free passage and he will be arrested. Since he was arrested in 2010, Assange has not been charged with a single crime. His treatment amounts to the most unprecedented persecution. Julian could leave the embassy if his own government, the government of his homeland, Australia, applied legitimate diplomatic pressure on behalf of its citizen. We must ask ourselves why this hasn’t happened.

My own feeling is that there is a great deal of collusion between the Australian, the British and the US governments–meant to close down WikiLeaks completely and/or deliver Julian Assange to the Americans. Recently the Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, traveled with senior officials to London and to Washington and raised the whole matter of Julian. But they raised it in a way that didn’t support the idea that a government should represent its citizens. These people listened to the more powerful governments. In Washington they met Mr. Pompeo, who refused to discuss Assange altogether. I think there is collusion which amounts to an attempt to try to do a deal with Assange whereby he might be allowed free passage of return to Australia if he shuts down WikiLeaks. I think that is very, very likely.

As I understand Julian, this is something he would not even contemplate. But that might be one of the so-called “wretched deals” that are being offered Assange. Some very strange things are being said by senior members of these two governments. The new foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, Jeremy Hunt, said sarcastically that the British police would offer Julian “a warm welcome” when he came out, when he would face serious charges. There are no serious charges. He hasn’t been charged with anything.

Was Hunt referring to a deal which has already been done with the United States on extradition? I don’t know. But this is the milieu of machination around someone who has the right of natural justice concerning his freedom. Putting aside freedom of speech, the persecution of this man has been something that should horrify all free-thinking people. If it doesn’t horrify us, then we have surrendered something very valuable.

To continue reading: Pilger Excoriates Media on Assange Silence

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UK Parliament: Little Interest in Grooming Gangs, by Andrew Jones

Posted on July 9, 2018 | Leave a comment

You’re more likely to attract the attention of British authorities if you talk about grooming gangs than if you’re in one. From Andrew Jones at gatestoneinstitute.org:

  • The approach the British authorities have taken in response to this national disaster appears largely based on countering secondary issues — most notably, individuals that protest the grooming, including at one point the arrest of parents attempting to rescue their daughter from her abusers.
  • There also seems to be a tacit alliance with much of the media to silence public discourse and, when all else fails, outright suppression.

In response to Britain’s ongoing sexual grooming scandal, a group of 20 MPs signed an open letter to recently appointed Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, urging coordinated action.

As the UK Parliament has 650 MPs, the 20 signatories constitute a mere 3% willing to support the protection of children subjected to gang-rape, trafficking and torture, and at times murder. Such a paltry number of politicians willing to speak out against child sexual slavery seems yet more evidence of the moral bankruptcy of Britain’s political elite and how low the country appears to have sunk.

Britain’s media elite have ignored the letter. Reporting has been limited to the local press in Oxford and Rochdale — areas afflicted by grooming — as well as a few alternative media outlets such as Breitbart London, and indirect reference on Sky News.

Of the British Parliament’s 650 MPs, a mere 20 were willing to sign an open letter to support the protection of children subjected to gang-rape, trafficking and torture, and at times murder. Pictured: The Palace of Westminster in London, meeting place of the Houses of Parliament. (Arpingstone/Wikimedia Commons)

A key signatory of the letter, Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, whose constituency was made infamous by grooming, was forced from Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party front bench in 2017 for speaking openly about the prevalence of “British Pakistani men” in this type of child sexual exploitation. Given that Sajid Javid, then Communities Secretary, spoke in support of Champion, it is perhaps intentional that this letter was addressed to him in his new role as Britain’s first Muslim Home Secretary.

Javid’s Muslim faith and Pakistani heritage place him in an untouchable position regarding accusations of racism or bigotry, should he continue to address the uncomfortable ethnic and cultural realities of grooming. Prior to becoming Home Secretary he touched on these and could now continue to say what needs to be said and act effectively — in ways many other politicians could not — without being pilloried by the UK’s largely left-leaning media.

To continue reading: UK Parliament: Little Interest in Grooming Gangs

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The War on Tommy Robinson, by Stefan Molyneux

Posted on May 29, 2018 | Leave a comment

There are a lot of questions the British government is going to have to answer to establish that there is still some semblance of the rule of law in that country. From Stefan Molyneux at quadrant.org:

Explain why white men accused of pedophilia are allowed to be photographed and questioned by reporters on court steps, while Pakistani Muslims are not. Explain why a police force that took three decades to start dealing with Muslim rape gangs was able to arrest and incarcerate a journalist within a few scant hours. Explain why a man can be arrested for breaching the peace when no violence has taken place. To the British government: explain your actions, or open Tommy Robinson’s cell and let him walk free.

The rule of law is fragile, and relies on the self-restraint of the majority. In a just society, the majority obey the law because they believe it represents universal values – moral absolutes. They obey the law not for fear of punishment, but for fear of the self-contempt that comes from doing wrong.

As children, we are told that the law is objective, fair and moral. As we grow up, though, it becomes increasingly impossible to avoid the feeling that the actual law has little to do with the Platonic stories we were told as children. We begin to suspect that the law may in fact – or at least at times – be a coercive mechanism designed to protect the powerful, appease the aggressive, and bully the vulnerable.

The arrest of Tommy Robinson is a hammer-blow to the fragile base of people’s respect for British law. The reality that he could be grabbed off the street and thrown into a dangerous jail – in a matter of hours – is deeply shocking.

Tommy was under a suspended sentence for filming on courthouse property in the past. On May 25, 2018,  while live-streaming his thoughts about the sentencing of alleged Muslim child rapists, Tommy very consciously stayed away from the court steps, constantly used the word “alleged,” and checked with the police to ensure that he was not breaking the law.

Tommy yelled questions at the alleged criminals on their way into court – so what? How many times have you watched reporters shouting questions at people going in and out of courtrooms? You can find pictures of reporters pointing cameras and microphones at Rolf Harris and Gary Glitter, who were accused of similar crimes against children.

To continue reading: The War on Tommy Robinson

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Britons Rage Over Robinson Arrest As Mass Protests Break Out Worldwide, by Tyler Durden

Posted on May 29, 2018 | 2 comments

The latest on the Tommy Robinson story. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

The arrest, imprisonment, and government-ordered media blackout of UK journalist and activist Tommy Robinson has set off a firestorm of protests around the world.

Free speech advocates and supporters of Robinson’s movement from Melbourne to Berlin came out by the thousands to protest the Friday arrest outside of Leeds Crown Court while Robinson was reporting on a pedophile grooming trial via Facebook livestream. Within six hours of his detention, Robinson was slapped with a 13 month prison term for violating a prior suspended sentence for a similar offense.

“A big police van with about seven police officers pulled up and arrested [Robinson] and told him to stop live streaming,” Robinson’s producer told RT (before their article (archived) was scrubbed from the internet). “They said it was incitement and a breach of the peace.

“No peace has been breached – there were two other people there and he’s been perfectly quiet talking into his phone. [The police] said nothing about the court proceedings. It’s very strange.”

Equally as disturbing are the implications of a court-ordered media ban, making it a criminal offense for news outlets operating in the UK to cover Robinson’s arrest and incarceration. In a page straight out of George Orwell’s 1984, several news outlets were forced to pull articleswhich were published before the ban.

Mass protests broke out following Robinson’s arrest – the largest of which was a crowd of thousands in the UK, demonstrating at the gates of Downing Street to demand the release of the conservative activist.

To continue reading: Britons Rage Over Robinson Arrest As Mass Protests Break Out Worldwide

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As Skripal-Gate Collapses so Will the May Government, by Tom Luongo

Posted on April 6, 2018 | 1 comment

The British government’s Skripal poisoning case has the same credibility as Russiagate. We can hope that these fabrications will eventually bring their fabricators down. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

The United Kingdom is headed for a break-up.  Not today or tomorrow, mind you but, sooner than anyone would like to handicap, especially in this age of coalition government at any cost.

By responding to the alleged poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with histrionics normally reserved for The View, Theresa May’s government has set the stage for its own collapse.

Government’s fall when the people lose confidence in them.  May has bungled everything she has touched as Prime Minister, from Brexit talks and her relationship with Donald Trump to her response (or lack thereof) to the escalating level of domestic terrorism and her pathetic campaign during last year’s snap election.

When I confront such obvious ineptitude it’s not hard to believe that wasn’t the plan to begin with.

Since her initial meeting with Donald Trump after his election where it looked like the two would get along, May has become more and more belligerent to both him and his base.  While he continues to affirm our special relationship “The Gypsum Lady” as I like to call her makes mistake after mistake.

The latest of which is pushing everyone east of the Dneiper River in Ukraine to denounce the Russians and President Vladimir Putin personally for this alleged poisoning in Salisbury a month ago.

The result of which was the largest round of diplomatic expulsions in a century, if not ever.

And now that the whole “Russia did it” narrative has been skewered by May’s own experts at Porton Downs, she stands alone along with her equally inept and embarrassing Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson.

The calls for their jobs will only intensify here.

Tinker, Tailor, Traitor, Spy

The whole thing felt from the beginning like a bad Ian Fleming novel.  I said from the beginning this this was a classic false flag to gin up anti-Russian fervor while May’s negotiator betrayed Brexit and pushed to remove Russian businesses from doing business in London.

I’m sorry but it’s not a stretch to think this whole thing was cooked up by MI-6.  In fact, that’s been my operating assumption for a month now.

To continue reading: As Skripal-Gate Collapses so Will the May Government

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The Three Most Important Aspects of the Skripal Case so Far … and Where They Might be Pointing, by Rob Slane

Posted on April 5, 2018 | 3 comments

It’s not difficult to poke holes in the British government’s Skripal poisoning claims, and Rob Slane has poked a bunch of them. From Slane at theblogmire.com:

I have now asked a total of 50 questions around the Skripal case, which you can find here and here. Having gone back through these questions, as far as I can see only three have been answered by the release of public information or events that have transpired. These are:

  • Are they (Sergei and Yulia Skripal) still alive?
  • If so, what is their current condition and what symptoms are they displaying?
  • Can the government confirm that its scientists at Porton Down have established that the substance that poisoned the Skripals and D.S. Bailey was actually produced or manufactured in Russia?

On the first two points we are now told that Yulia Skripal’s condition has significantly improved to the point where she is said to be recovering well and talking. However, although this provides something of an answer to these questions, it also raises a number of others. Is she finally being allowed consular access? Is she being allowed to speak to her fiancé, her grandmother, or her cousin by telephone? Most importantly, how does her recovery comport with the claim that she was poisoned with a “military-grade nerve agent” with a toxicity around 5-8 times that of VX nerve agent?

On the other point, we do now have a definitive answer from none other than the Chief Executive of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down, Gary Aitkenhead: No, Porton Down was not able to identify the substance as being produced or manufactured in Russia.

It is important that reasonable questions continue to be raised, as they not only help clarify the actual issues, but the answers — or lack thereof — are also a good barometer as to how the official narrative stacks up. As a keen observer of the case — especially since it took place just a few hundred yards from my home in Salisbury — I have to say that the official narrative of the British Government has not stood up to even the most cursory scrutiny from the outset. In fact, there are three crucial issues that serve to raise suspicions about it, and to my mind these issues are the most important aspects of the case so far:

  1. The absurd speed at which the British Government reacted to the incident
  2. The British Government’s ignoring of legal frameworks and protocols
  3. The large number of discrepancies between events and the official narrative

Let’s just look at these in turn.

To continue reading: The Three Most Important Aspects of the Skripal Case so Far … and Where They Might be Pointing

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UK Foreign Office Denies Claiming Russia Responsible For Nerve Agent, Deletes Tweet, by Tyler Durden

Posted on April 4, 2018 | 1 comment

The British government has its own allegations and not much proof in the Skripal poisonings. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Update: It appears that either the British government can’t keep its lies and proof-less accusations straight or something far more nefarious is at play.

Following headlines (below) that British government scientists admitted they couldn’t tell where the poison – identified by the UK as A-234, also known as Novichok, used in the Salisbury poisoning of the Skripals – came from, undermining a number of claims to come out of Westminster, The UK Foreign Office denies claiming the nerve agent used in the Salisbury poisoning of the Skripals came directly from Russia, despite admitting it sent a tweet saying exactly that, and Boris Johnson making the same claim.

The UK Foreign Office has admitted it deleted the tweet which directly stated that the nerve agent came direct from Russia.

London has directly accused the Kremlin on at least three occasions of being behind the chemical attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.

As RT notes, bizarrely, the Foreign Office denies Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson claimed the novichock “categorically” came from Russia, despite a recorded interview clearly showing he did.

The Foreign Office has not yet deleted a tweet in which the UK’s ambassador to Russia, Laurie Bristow, reiterates the accusation of Moscow being behind the poisoning.

To continue reading: UK Foreign Office Denies Claiming Russia Responsible For Nerve Agent, Deletes Tweet

 

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