Is the British independent reviewer of extremism a Zionist asset?

David Miller 

Source: Al Mayadeen English

 And has he misstated his declaration on the register of members' interests?

John Woodcock was a right-wing UK Labour MP whose career was made by being recruited at an early age as a Zionist asset and securing a safe seat in Parliament in Barrow in Furness. The constituency in the North West of England is significantly dependent on jobs on the BAE Systems nuclear submarine and weapons plant, which dominates the town. He has been in the House of Lords under the title Lord Walney since 2020.

He was first elected a Member of Parliament in 2010 succeeding the similarly right-wing John Hutton of whom he was a protégé. Hutton is also now in the Lords and is at the same time the director of a subsidiary (Pearson Engineering) of a Zionist regime-owned arms firm called Rafael.

Woodcock was recruited as a Zionist asset via the traditional route of involvement with the right-wing Labour Students organisation and the National Union of Students from around 2002. From there, he took the same path as so many other career Zionists. He was tempted into becoming a Zionist asset by a free trip to the Zionist colony organised by the Union of Jewish Students, the main umbrella body for Jewish student organisations on campus. Given the mendacity of the Zionists, it is worth mentioning that the UJS is a formally Zionist organisation being an affiliate through the World Union of Jewish Students of the supreme organisation of the movement the World Zionist Organisation. He later recalled about that trip that the visit meant he was “able to go to the Middle East and see [with] my own eyes the geographical vulnerability of Israel. Talking to ordinary Israelis you realise how this is ignored and misrepresented by Western media. In a way that probably does filter into antisemitic prejudices.”

“I remember being a student and thinking ‘I can’t believe they are so mean to the Palestinians; they should know better. It really wasn’t based on anything particular’. The sea change came in terms of me being able to visit Israel.”

And there we have it - a Zionist propaganda tour changed his mind. 

After being in parliament for four months, he was appointed Vice-Chair of Labour Friends of "Israel" in September 2010, and then, at the age of 32, he became the Chair in July of the following year until January 2013. Then he moved on to be chair of the Zionist-funded Labour Party group Progress, until 2015.

In 2016, Woodcock supported the vicious Saudi Arabian-led and Israeli-supported assault on Yemen and later met Mohammed bin Salman when he led a six-strong delegation of senior MPs and peers in his role as chair of Labour’s backbench foreign affairs committee.

Walney was appointed by the UK Government as an Independent Adviser on Political Violence and Disruption in November 2020. In the unpaid role, he was commissioned to conduct a review on ‘coercion’ and present it to the Prime Minister and Home Secretary prior to publication.

While in this role, he has continued to enjoy propaganda trips funded by the regime or its proxies.  His most recent trip was in January this year.

It is clear from his background that the report will be a useful weapon for the Zionist movement to suppress protests against genocide.            

Lord Walney’s review took over three years to complete and is said to be 100,000 words long. It focuses in particular on left-wing 'extremism', especially the most effective end of the Palestine solidarity movement: Palestine Action.

The report appears from advance leaks to the media to include a proposed “new category for proscribing ‘extreme protest groups.'" "Militant groups like Palestine Action and Just Stop Oil are using criminal tactics to create mayhem and hold the public and workers to ransom without fear of consequence," Lord Walney said. "Banning terror groups has made it harder for their activists to plan crimes - that approach should be extended to extreme protest groups too."                                           

This is an attempt to smear Palestine Action as "terrorist". Indeed, Walney went on to call Palestine Action “Hamas’s little helpers." On the News Agents podcast, he was confronted with his role in taking funding from and lobbying for "Israel". His response was:                        

I think when any organisation starts talking about an Israel lobby they need to look at their own slide into antisemitism. That is a textbook example of the kind of antisemitism that mainstream organisation have tried to move away from in recent years.                           

The government, though, was so unsure of the evidential claims in the report that they determined to publish it as a House of Commons paper thus meaning that it attracts the protection of Parliamentary Privilege. This prevents any claim for libel or defamation or even - so the government thinks - for judicial review. That remains to be seen.                                  

Walney is of course massively conflicted as has been pointed out by The Guardian.

However, his parliamentary register of interests does not appear to be complete. The register entry for remunerated positions stated he is paid by a PR firm:            

Chair, Purpose Business Coalition (formerly Engagement Director for the Levelling Up Goals), Crowne Associates Ltd (consultancy on environment, social and governance issues) (remuneration is paid to Powerful Street Ltd)                        

The business coalition claims to have more than one hundred corporate members or supporters. Powerful Street is a one-man consultancy business run by Lord Walney himself. Listing his consultancy means that he doesn’t have to say how much money he was paid for this role, which he would otherwise have to do and frankly should be required to do. When one turns to the records of his one-man band consultancy on companies House, one finds that he takes advantage of the accounting rule for companies posting minimal accounts, which do not contain figures for turnover, so there is no way of knowing how much money Walney earns from this and other remunerated activities. His 2023 accounts show a balance of around £35,000 in the bank at the end of the year.

But Walney does not mention on his register, as perhaps he should, that he is also chair of the Purpose Defence Coalition.

From the former website of the Purpose Defence Coalition which was removed on 20 May or shortly before

Walney has stated that the Defence Coalition is part of the wider Purpose Coalition. But the Defence Coalition has its own website and gives every appearance of being a separate venture. 

I say has because that was the position at the time of first writing. But then, on Monday, May 20, several days after his role on the defence coalition had first been raised with him by campaigners, the website was taken down in its entirety. Monday 20th was also, coincidentally or not, the day before his report was launched. After a hiatus of a few hours, the website was replaced by a single page. “This claimed that the Purpose Defence Coalition was a one off project of the Purpose Coalition to bring together those supporting Ukraine, led by Lord Walney in 2023 to host a solidarity for Ukraine event."

This is not at all consistent with the information given on the original website and at the time of the launch. The original website said that it was the “launch event” and in a special video filmed for the occasion Walney stated that “the Purpose Defence Coalition, part of the Purpose Coalition, is made up of the UK's most innovative leaders and businesses in the defence sector.” This would appear to have been a lie in the sense that the “coalition” appears never to have had any more than one defence industry member and not the “most innovative… businesses” (plural) in the “defence sector”. In other words, it was a front for one company: Leonardo. It is also interesting in another respect. The claim that the defence coalition is part of the “Purpose Coalition”. This contradicts the idea that Walney undertook the role as part of his work with the “Purpose Business Coalition”, which is what his declared role is on the Register of Interests.

Leonardo is an arms company that is linked to the Gaza genocide by providing components for F35 fighter jets and which has been repeatedly targeted by Palestine Action in both the UK and Italy - as in this case in Edinburgh. 

When we return to the register of interests, we see that Walney described the Purpose Business Coalition as “involving consultancy on environment, social and governance issues." There is no mention of the defence sector, another omission, making it hard to dispel the idea that Walney has attempted to conceal the arms industry connection. This impression is reinforced by the hurried removal of the website of the Coalition the day before his report was launched.

The House of Lords should investigate the conflicts of interest we have unearthed.