British Election Heralds Collapse of United Kingdom

Finian CUNNINGHAM

Boris Johnson is entitled to crack open a few bottles of champagne after being re-elected prime minister, with his Conservative party winning a landslide majority. But when the celebrations are over, Britain is facing a thumping hangover – from the inescapable fact that half of the United Kingdom is now on an irrevocable path of separatism and independence.

Johnson has won a decisive mandate to “get Brexit done”, at least from London’s perspective. His party now has a substantial parliamentary majority of 80 seats in the House of Commons which will ensure delivery on his promise to execute Britain’s departure from the European Union on January 31. The actual final severance will take another year or two to complete because of negotiations between London and Brussels to definitively hammer out divorce terms. But at least Johnson can claim that he has consummated the final journey to leave the EU on January 31, a journey which began over three years ago when Britons had originally voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum.

However, crucially, the Conservative government’s mandate for Brexit only applies to England and Wales. It was in these two countries that saw the significant swing of voters from the opposition Labour party to Johnson’s Tories. Thus, in effect, his parliamentary majority stems from voters in England and Wales.

By total contrast, in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the other two regions which make up the United Kingdom, the voters resoundingly rejected Johnson’s Brexit plans and voted for parties wanting to remain in the European Union. The outcome is consistent with the 2016 referendum results when Scotland and Northern Ireland both voted against Brexit.

Moreover, the latest election results have reinforced the call for independence in both Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The Scottish Nationalists swept the election to enhance their already existing majority. They now control nearly 90 per cent of all seats in Scotland. Party leader Nicola Sturgeon says there is an unquestionable mandate to hold a second referendum for Scottish independence. The previous independence referendum held in 2014 was defeated. But Scottish nationalists claim that popular support for their cause has surged since the Brexit referendum in 2016. The Scots, by and large, do not want to leave the EU. To remain in the EU therefore necessarily means separating from the United Kingdom and its central government in London.

Boris Johnson has so far rejected calls for holding a second Scottish independence referendum. But his position is untenable. Given the parliamentary numbers for separation stacking up in Scotland, he will have to relent. Nationalists there are demanding the holding of another plebiscite as early as next year.

In Northern Ireland, the election outcome is perhaps even more momentous. For the first time ever, nationalist parties have a majority over pro-British unionist parties. Mary Lou MacDonald, the leader of Sinn Fein, the main nationalist party, says that there is now a clear mandate for holding a referendum on the question of Northern Ireland leaving the United Kingdom. Given the breakthrough nationalist majority in the latest election, that would inevitably lead to a United Ireland, from the northern state joining with the existing southern state, the Republic of Ireland.

Nationalists in Northern Ireland have long-aspired for independence from Britain. Northern Ireland was created in 1921 from an audacious act of gerrymandering by the British government when it partitioned the island of Ireland into an independent southern state (which became the Republic of Ireland) and a small northern state (which became Northern Ireland). The latter remained under Britain’s jurisdiction. The arbitrary, imperialist act of partitioning Ireland was done in order to give the British authorities in London a mandate to rule over a portion of Irish territory because in newly created Northern Ireland the pro-British unionists were in a majority over nationalists. It was British establishment cynicism par excellence.

The present political structure of the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is only a century old. (Before that, the UK included all of Irish territory, but London was forced to grant partial Irish independence due to an armed insurrection.)

In any case, nearly a century after the setting up of Northern Ireland the natural demographic changes in its population have now created a majority for nationalists. The outcome of the election on December 12 is an undeniably huge historic event. For the first time ever, the nationalist mandate has overcome the unionist vote. The historic violation by British gerrymandering against Irish nationalist rights to independence and self-determination has finally been reversed in terms of electoral ballot.

When the Northern Ireland peace deal known as the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998 to bring an end to nearly 30 years of armed conflict, enshrined in that treaty is the “principle of consent”. The British government is treaty-bound to abide by the electoral mandate of a majority in Northern Ireland wanting a United Ireland.

The threshold for triggering a referendum on Northern Ireland leaving British jurisdiction has now been reached. And nationalist parties are openly demanding that the legislative process to achieve that separation is now implemented.

Jonathan Powell, a seasoned British diplomat who oversaw the negotiations of the Good Friday Agreement, is not one for hyperbole. But in an interview with Matt Frei for Britain’s LBC Radio on December 14, Powell said he expected to see the “collapse of the United Kingdom” within the next decade, if not sooner. He was referring specifically to the electoral results in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Boris Johnson’s seeming victory in the British election is a double-edged sword. He may claim to have a mandate to cut off ties with the European Union. But the results also mean Scotland and Northern Ireland are empowered to now cut off their ties with the rest of Britain. The separation of those two states, leaving behind England and Wales, spells the end of the so-called United Kingdom.

Johnson’s election success is not “unleashing great potential” as he claims. Rather, it is unleashing an existential constitutional crisis for the British establishment.

Finian CUNNINGHAM

Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages

The Story of the UK General Election Is Not Brexit, it’s the Coming Breakup of Britain

John WIGHT

To grasp the real meaning of the 12 December UK general election result is to understand the history of a state born in mercantilism and sustained by centuries of empire and colonialism.

Allow me to explain.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to give the UK its Sunday name, is the epitome of an artificial state. It was and remains the product of the grafting together of divergent cultures, histories and national identities. At inception, this grafting together was undertaken not in the interests of its peoples but in the interests of national elites eager to take advantage of the commercial opportunities of a unified polity with added manpower and resources in an age of empire.

The venality, greed and corruption of the Scottish ruling and political class in the late 17th- early 18th century delivered the Scottish people into the arms of the union with England without their support, establishing thereby the Kingdom of Great Britain. This was reflected in the social unrest and riots that ensued in Scottish towns and cities both during the negotiations that brought into being the 1707 Act of Union, and upon its passage.

For the ruling elites of both Scotland and England the union of both parliaments into one had demonstrable commercial and strategic benefits. The former had been left bankrupt after Scotland’s failed attempt at establishing its own overseas colony in Darien (modern day Panama in Central America) in the late 17th century. In order to forestall national immiseration the need to gain access to England’s overseas colonies was thereafter considered essential.

Meanwhile the English were eager to prevent the possibility of Scotland being used as a staging ground for an invasion from the north by the French in the context of the War of the Spanish Succession that raged between 1701 and 1714.

Wales, the third nation that makes up the UK, had already been merged with England in 1536. Ireland on the other hand was a subjugated English (latterly British) colony, and was officially brought into the orbit of what would then be known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.

In 1922, after a prolonged national liberation struggle in Ireland, the 26 counties that make up today’s Republic of Ireland achieved dominion status before winning full independence in 1948, while the remaining six counties that make up the the rest of the island of Ireland were partitioned to become what is now Northern Ireland: hence the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland of today.

This necessary historical detour out of the way, here is where things start to bear relevance to Brexit.

An unintended consequence of the Industrial Revolution, one that allowed Britain to go on and establish an empire whch at its height covered a quarter of the globe, was the forging of a united working class whose unity was able to transcend national, cultural and regional differences. This working class unity mirrored the unity of the UK’s ruling elites around the various semi-feudal institutions that underpin the British state — namely the monarchy, House of Lords, and a network of private schools that have reared and churned out succeeding generations of the country’s ruling class.

British working class unity, meanwhile, was the product of the country’s heavy industries — coal mining, steel, shipbuilding, etc. — and was expressed in common economic interests and struggles against a common enemy, the bosses and owners of those industries, in the context of the trade union movement. It also began to manifest politically with the formation of the Labour Party at the start of the 20th century.

In tandem, forged over time, was a British national identity that was nourished by the countless wars the state’s ruling elite unleashed and waged over the centuries of an empire that existed not to spread civilisation and modernity to the ‘dark peoples’ of the planet, as its proponents and apologists have always claimed, but as a juggernaut of exploitation, subjugation and oppression.

In those countless colonial wars working class men were used as cannon fodder in a dynamic that has continued to the present day.

Margaret Thatcher began the destruction of this material base of working class unity across the UK in the 1980s. Her free market revolution and its deindustrialisation of the nation’s economy turned Britain into what it is today — a service economy underpinned by financialised capital.

Today, now, in consequence, the country’s trade union movement, which once wielded considerable economic and political clout, is but a shadow of its former self . The Labour Party, meanwhile, struggled even under Corbyn’s leadership to make a full return to the party’s founding principles after Blair and his centrist crew in the 1990s and on into the first decade of the noughties had gutted them in favour of an embrace with the City of London and big business.

The remnants of this Blairite crew within Labour bear much responsibility for the party’s disastrous showing in the election, having acted as an anti-Corbyn fifth column, determined in alignment with the country’s Tory ruling media, political, and security establishment to prevent Corbyn entering Downing Street at all cost

In so doing, they have only succeeded in ensuring that the break-up of the UK is now well-nigh inevitable, what with the SNP receiving a thumping mandate in Scotland and nationalism in the North of Ireland now a majority political current over unionism. In poetic irony, it was only Corbyn’s socialist programme, offering economic and social transformation, massive investment in the deindustrialised Brexit regions of South Wales and the North and Midlands of England, as well as Scotland, that provided any hope of repairing the regional, national and cultural fault lines that correspond to the breakdown of the 2016 EU referendum vote.

The post-industrial North and Midlands of England, parts of the country virtually untouched by investment and left without hope after being decimated by Thatcher, voted overwhelmingly for Brexit in 2016 a veritable scream from the bowels of austerity Britain. Every one of Scotland’s 32 local authorities, meanwhile, voted to Remain.

Both did so again in the 2019 general election, with Corbyn’s message of social and economic justice failing to penetrate the fog of emotion, rooted not in class but national and cultural identity, surrounding the Brexit-Remain divide.

The result of the election, which Corbyn fought in the teeth of an unprecedented assault by the British ruling establishment, confirms that what was once the United Kingdom is now the dis-United Kingdom, with those previously mentioned national and regional differences informing its peoples’ identities and worldview over the identity of class to an extent previously unseen.

Karl Marx reminds us that: “To call upon people to give up their illusions about their condition, is to call upon them to give up a condition that requires illusions.”

The illusion that Brexit is actually relevant to the needs of those who’ve seen their lives devoured by the beast of neoliberalism and bludgeoned by austerity must soon give way to the unvarnished truth that the UK as we know it is past its sell-by date.

“A reactionary,” the great postwar Labour left icon Nye Bevan once said, “is a man walking backwards with his face to the future.” Surveying a political class presently engaged in ripping itself apart over Brexit, who could argue otherwise?

End.

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The original game in UK has just started !

By Hanif Ghafari

The British Conservative Party finally won the House of Representatives by winning 364 seats. Many analysts believe that Boris Johnson's victory in the election means solving the riddle of Britain's exit from the EU. Some believe the British prime minister will leave the EU by the end of January 2020 (less than two months later) on his own accord. Essentially one of the reasons why British public opinion favored the Conservative Party and Boris Johnson was their desire for agreement with the European Union. But the key question is, is this equation easily formed?

The answer is no! In the coming weeks, U.S. President Donald Trump is trying to convince Boris Johnson of "disagreement with Europe" and the "hard exit of Britain" from Europe. Trump uses a variety of methods in this regard. It should not be forgotten that Trump is not only strongly opposed to the "soft British exit of Europe", but he also sees it as the destruction of Washington's economic dominance over London in the coming years. However, if Boris Johnson succumbs to Trump and puts a tough exit from the European Union on the agenda, at least half of those who have voted for the Conservative Party will turn away from him and become angry opponents! In this case, Johnson's control of British political and social Equations is impossible.

Even if Boris Johnson puts an agreement with the European Union and a soft exit from the EU, the game won't be over! The effects of Britain's soft exit from Europe, such as declining economic growth, rising unemployment and inflation, and protest movements by Labor, Democratic Liberal Party, Scottish National Party and extremist nationalists will cause Boris Johnson to face many crises over the next year. . In the meantime, radical nationalists in Britain, such as Trump, are in favor of a "tough British exit from the European Union", becoming a tough, uncontrolled social and political force by the Johnson administration.

As can be seen, the game in UK is never over! Although with the defeat of the Labor and Liberal Democrats, another option called "Repeat New Referendum on EU Exit" has been removed from British political equations, the choice of either "soft exit" or "hard exit" option "From Europe, there will be costs and consequences for the Boris Johnson government. These costs could lead to the fall of the British government and Johnson becoming the third political victim (after David Cameron and Theresa May).

The original game in UK has just started !

By Hanif Ghafari

The British Conservative Party finally won the House of Representatives by winning 364 seats. Many analysts believe that Boris Johnson's victory in the election means solving the riddle of Britain's exit from the EU. Some believe the British prime minister will leave the EU by the end of January 2020 (less than two months later) on his own accord. Essentially one of the reasons why British public opinion favored the Conservative Party and Boris Johnson was their desire for agreement with the European Union. But the key question is, is this equation easily formed?

The answer is no! In the coming weeks, U.S. President Donald Trump is trying to convince Boris Johnson of "disagreement with Europe" and the "hard exit of Britain" from Europe. Trump uses a variety of methods in this regard. It should not be forgotten that Trump is not only strongly opposed to the "soft British exit of Europe", but he also sees it as the destruction of Washington's economic dominance over London in the coming years. However, if Boris Johnson succumbs to Trump and puts a tough exit from the European Union on the agenda, at least half of those who have voted for the Conservative Party will turn away from him and become angry opponents! In this case, Johnson's control of British political and social Equations is impossible.

Even if Boris Johnson puts an agreement with the European Union and a soft exit from the EU, the game won't be over! The effects of Britain's soft exit from Europe, such as declining economic growth, rising unemployment and inflation, and protest movements by Labor, Democratic Liberal Party, Scottish National Party and extremist nationalists will cause Boris Johnson to face many crises over the next year. . In the meantime, radical nationalists in Britain, such as Trump, are in favor of a "tough British exit from the European Union", becoming a tough, uncontrolled social and political force by the Johnson administration.

As can be seen, the game in UK is never over! Although with the defeat of the Labor and Liberal Democrats, another option called "Repeat New Referendum on EU Exit" has been removed from British political equations, the choice of either "soft exit" or "hard exit" option "From Europe, there will be costs and consequences for the Boris Johnson government. These costs could lead to the fall of the British government and Johnson becoming the third political victim (after David Cameron and Theresa May).

Balfour declaration’s disastrous legacy for Palestinians

Crescent International

Some people may take comfort in the fact that Britain is facing its Brexit moment. It is twisting and turning as it tries to find a solution to a dilemma of its own making.

Britain’s Brexit travails, however, bring little comfort to the Palestinians. On November 2, 1917, Lord Arthur Balfour, then serving as British Foreign Secretary, promised without any legal basis the Palestinians’ land to create a homeland for the Jewish people.

Balfour was not motivated by sympathy for the Jewish people. Britain and Europe in general have had an appalling record of anti-Semitism that dates back centuries.

The British Foreign Secretary was motivated by two sinister motives.

First, Britain was desperate for American participation in the First World War.

For this, Balfour wanted the British Zionist leader Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild to use his links with American officials to convince them to join the war effort on the side of Britain.

Second, Britain wanted to transfer its “Jewish problem” to the Middle East for others to deal with.

This was not predicated on any sympathy for the Jewish people; rather it was Britain’s colonial enterprise to create problems for others.

This is precisely what Britain did with the state of Jammu and Kashmir whose disastrous consequences have bedeviled not only the Kashmiris but held back the progress of nearly 1.4 billion people on the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent.

If the Palestinians are not thrilled by Britain’s colonial decision-making that consigned them to become the dispossessed of the world, who can blame them?

On November 2, 2019, marking the 102nd anniversary of the Balfour declaration, PLO Secretary General Saeb Erakat, issued a statement saying:

“It’s time for Britain to act with responsibility to realize the political rights of the Palestinian people, which were denied a century ago.”

Erekat added: “Palestine remains a victim to this colonialist pledge… which denied the political rights of our people and their legitimate right to self-determination.”

Jerome Chanes, a contributing editor of the Jewish magazine, Forward, and a fellow at the Center for Jewish Studies at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center, wrote an interesting article about the “Dark Forces” behind the Balfour declaration.

Published in Forward on August 23, 2014, while the Israeli onslaught was underway on Gaza, Chanes wrote:

“Conventional wisdom has it that the Balfour Declaration was all about Zionism, that British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Arthur Balfour were nice guys, “Zionists” both — whatever that meant in 1917 — and that the declaration written was motivated by some kind of Zionist inspiration.

“Alas, the genesis of the declaration had little to do with Zionism and everything to do with World War I, British interests in the war, power politics — and anti-Semitism.

“Indeed, the declaration derived from classic European anti-Judaism and from the gentile English version of anti-Semitism.”

In 1917, while the Palestinians numbered more than 650,000 the Jewish population was less than 50,000, or about 5% of the total population.

Until then, Palestine was part of the Ottoman State. Muslims had had control of Palestine including Jerusalem since 638 CE except the 88-year-long Crusader interregnum from 1099 – 1187.

Throughout Muslim rule, Jews were allowed into Palestine, especially Jerusalem to worship despite the Crusaders’ horrific massacre of Muslims, Jews and Palestinian Christians.

The Christian Crusaders from Europe considered Palestinian Christians to be too cozy and comfortable with Muslim Palestinians, hence they had to die.

The Balfour declaration followed by the Versailles Conference in 1919 supported Jewish immigration into Palestine without taking into consideration the rights and feelings of the majority Palestinian people.

Despite such betrayal by the great powers, the Palestinians harbor no ill-will toward the Jewish people. Their antipathy is toward the racist ideology of Zionism.

To understand this monstrous ideology of racism and what it produces, consider this.

On October 28, an Israeli military court sentenced an Israeli soldier to one month’s labour for killing a Palestinian child during the Great Return March protest in the besieged Gaza Strip.

An unarmed 14-year-old Palestinian youth, Othman Hilles, was shot during a demonstration on July 13, 2018, the Times of Israel reported.

The military court ordered the soldier’s name be banned from publication.

Israeli snipers have shot more than 30,000 Palestinians since March 2018, firing live ammunition at unarmed protesters on their own land. At least 270 Palestinians among them doctors, journalists and children have been killed.

Palestinians have participated in the thousands in the Great Return March to draw attention to the illegal usurpation of their land and for being bottled up in the open-air prison called Gaza.

To understand the true nature of Zionist ideology, the Israeli sniper using high velocity rifle, shot and killed Hilles who was unarmed and posed no threat to the soldier.

Yet, the military court convicted him of merely “disobeying an order leading to a threat to life or health.” There was no mention of deliberate killing and a youth that posed no threat to the soldier.

Only a racist ideology can produce such a verdict.

END

Third British PM may be crucified over Brexit

By Hanif Ghaffari

TEHRAN - Brexit is getting more twisted every day. It is obvious that Boris Jonson is spending hard days. He seems severely concerned about the political future of himself and his Conservative Party. 

On the other hand, the disagreement between the opponents and supporters of Britain’s departure from the European Union has culminated in recent days. 

Britain has recently announced that it will leave the EU on Oct. 31, despite an unsigned letter that the British prime minister was forced by parliament to send to Brussels. “We are going to leave by October 31. We have the means and the ability to do so,” Michael Gove, the minister in charge of no-deal Brexit preparations, told Sky News. 

He added, “That letter was sent because parliament required it to be sent ... but parliament can’t change the prime minister’s mind, parliament can’t change the government’s policy or determination.”

It should be noted that Johnson asked the EU to delay the Brexit process. He also sent another note, claiming he did not want any delay or extension. This act was heavily criticized by many British politicians and even those in Johnson’s party. The move by Johnson amounts to undermining the legal status of the House of Commons in the eyes of other European actors.

The British prime minister stated, “I have made clear since becoming prime minister and made clear to parliament again today, my view, and the government’s position, that a further extension would damage the interests of the UK and our EU partners, and the relationship between us,” Johnson said in the third letter, signed “Boris Johnson”.

It can be said that Johnson has formally called on European officials to postpone the request of the House of Commons to delay Brexit. In the wake of political crises between the government and the House of Commons, which can lead to premature election, the supporters of another referendum in Britain have begun their work to repeal the first referendum and to stay in the EU. Indeed, if the second referendum is to be held, British nationalists, who are major supporters of Brexit, will launch an extensive uprising against the government.

All the developments suggest that like his two predecessors, David Cameron and Theresa May, Johnson will soon become the third victim of Britain’s divorce from the European Union.

A look at London’s suspicious positions on Iran and Aramco

By Hamid Bayati

Recent statements by the British prime minister and foreign secretary indicate that London demote itself to the position of an agent by accepting a new mission, and has begun a suspicious scenario against Iran. Britain, hostility of which to Iranian people is historically proven, has shown that it seizes any opportunity to hit Iran. Following the September 14 attacks on the Aramco oil facilities by Yemenis, Britain launched a new campaign against Iran.

 As evidence shows, London has been commissioned by Saudi Arabia to incite the international community against Iran, and form an international coalition against the Islamic Republic. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab are the main drivers of the scenario.

Immediately after the attacks, the Yemenis announced that they had carried out the strikes, but a few days later Riyadh tried to lay the blame for the attacks on Iran.

Johnson and Raab’s mission began after Saudi officials exposed some parts of missile and fallen drones, claiming that Iran was in charge of the attack.

In this regard, Raab who tried to add fuel to fire since the beginning, started a new phase of his actions on Sunday, September 22. He explicitly claimed that Iran was in charge for the attacks.

Raab said in an interview, “Based on information that I have observed, I found that it is almost impossible that the attacks on Aramco was carried out by Houthis. It is invalid to say that Houthis attacked Aramco.”

Raab did not point out what group or country was responsible for the attacks from London’s prospective.

“Before we blame someone for the attacks, I want that the matter be clear for me, because the action that we intend to take will be powerful and widely backed,” he said.

On Monday, he wrote in a message on Twitter, “London is cooperating with international partners to offer a strong diplomatic response to the attack on Aramco oil facilities, and to establish security in the Middle East. Britain believes that Iran is most likely responsible for illegal attack on Saudi oil facilities. ”

In the meanwhile, Johnson made statements against Iran, claiming that Iran is in charge for the attack on the Saudi oil facilities, and British military is likely to participate in protecting Saudi Arabia against future attacks.

Saudi Arabia turning from the U.S. to Britain

The way that Saudi Arabia responded to the attacks on the Aramco oil facilities shows well that Riyadh is not satisfied with U.S. reaction to these attacks. The positions taken by American officials toward the incident does not meet Riyadh’s desires. Therefore, Saudi rulers decided to use another actor to achieve their goal, so which option is better than Britain?

Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have repeatedly stated in recent days that they are willing to use diplomacy in case of Iran. In case of Aramco, Saudi Arabia should make the final decision about Iran and possible action.

Of course, Trump agreed to dispatch new troops to Saudi Arabia and the UAE to make Riyadh keep quiet, but this position failed to meet Riyadh’s demand.

Supplying Brexit costs

There are many reasons why Britain has entered the game, but the main one is the cost of leaving the European Union.

Leaving the EU, if possible, will have great financial cost for London, one of which is paying £39 billion to Brussels. Johnson has claimed several times that Britain would not pay this sum to the EU and has announced some conditions for paying the bill at a lower cost.

In addition to the financial costs, leaving the European Union will also have political costs for Britain. One of the main costs will be a gap between London and European allies. So being next to Saudi Arabia, a country that world powers bow to its dollars, can minimize Brexit’s political consequences for Johnson.

Increasing the gap between London and France

Britain has launched a propaganda campaign against Iran, while the French president has made every efforts to maintain the JCPOA. Britain’s measures can at least disrupt the space that Emmanuel Macron is trying to create, and it means a gap between Paris and London. In other words, France is seeking to reduce tensions in the region, but Britain’s recent actions are intensifying them.   

Britain has earlier displeased France with a careless action in recent months. It was related to a French plan to create a European maritime coalition in the Strait of Hormuz, while Britain backed the U.S. alternative plan all at once. As a result, France proposed European coalition without Britain.

Relying on the fleeting government

Saudi Arabia has selected Johnson and Raab to carry out the mission, while the situation of the British government is not stable at all. There are arguments about no confidence vote to Johnson as the parliament will start its work after a vacation.

Britain is dealing with Brexit, a crisis that has so far victimized administrations of David Cameron and Theresa May, and Johnson’s cabinet maybe its third victim.

However, the claims against Iran regarding attacks on Aramco are so futile that the U.S. has so far refused to accompany Saudi Arabia properly. The result of these changes will lead to isolation of Johnson and Raab among European allies.

A Taste of Their Own Medicine: the Politicians Who Robbed Iranians and Libyans Fear the Same for Brexit Britain

by T.J. COLES

Photograph Source: Mайкл Гиммельфарб – Public Domain

As part of then-Prime Minister (PM) Theresa May’s supposed preparations for a no-deal Brexit, the government asked different departments of the UK’s civil service, including those responsible for food, agriculture, medicine, and chemicals, to come up with impact assessments. The worst-case scenarios (not leaked or released at the time of writing) were codenamed Black Swan. Michael Gove, the future Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (basically the deputy PM), dismissed Operation Black Swan as a “film about a ballet dancer” and even denied that it is a government document.

Despite government claims to the contrary; Operation Yellowhammer was not a worst-case scenario but contingency plans for likely outcomes of a no-deal Brexit. May’s Yellowhammer documents were leaked to the Mail on Sunday and warned of Britain’s vulnerability to chemical supplies for water purification.

The updated Yellowhammer documents prepared for the incoming Johnson government were also leaked, in this instance to the Sunday Times. Among other things, the documents note that Britain’s importation of packaged medicaments could be severely disrupted by border queues in the event of a no-deal Brexit, particularly where refrigerated medicines are concerned. It also notes the potential unavailability of foods and food price increases. The documents expose the flaws in the corporate, neoliberal globalized order that robs nations of their self-reliance.

But the very politicians now voting to stop a no-deal Brexit in order to prevent this kind of potentially dangerous disruption are the same who supported the infliction of similar pain on other, more vulnerable countries. The first was Libya in 2011. Parliament’s own inquiry into the bombing (led by the US as part of NATO’s mission) found that Britain’s involvement was based on erroneous intelligence.

LIBYA

The bombing also appeared to be a violation of international law, as it violated UN Security Council Resolution 1973. UNSCR 1973 allowed states to use “all necessary measures … to protect civilians” from Libya’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi. But the British Parliamentary report later acknowledged that civilians were not actually in danger. UNSCR 1973 also invokes Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which does not authorize military intervention in other states, but rather, allows the use of military operations to enforce actions short of invasion; for example, international blockades.

At the time, Dominic Grieve–now one of the politicians trying to stop a no-deal Brexit–was PM David Cameron’s Attorney General. Grieve’s job was to provide legal advice to the Cameron government on the Libya bombing. But the government refused to release Grieve’s advice in full. This suggests that Grieve advised that bombing Libya could constitute a war crime. If so, this could make Grieve himself complicit in war crimes. In addition, Grieve voted for the bombing in March 2011.

Another Parliamentary inquiry into the bombing states: “[we] respect the decision not to publish the advice [by Grieve] in full but are disappointed that the Prime Minister [Cameron] felt unable to share the advice with us on a private and confidential basis as this would have enabled us to scrutinise the operation in Libya more effectively.”

In 2018, with Britons still obsessed with Brexit, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization reminded people of the consequences of NATO’s actions, including the ongoing civil war trigged by the bombing in 2011: “the crisis has exacerbated pre-existing challenges associated with agricultural production in Libya, including water scarcity, animal and plant diseases, desertification and labour shortages.”

This makes the disruption envisaged by Yellowhammer look small by comparison. (Ironically, in December 2018, when the Labour opposition brought a motion to force Theresa May’s Attorney General, Geoffrey Cox, to release his legal advice on May’s Withdrawal Agreement with the EU, Grieve—who is now trying to stop a no-deal and get the Yellowhammer and prorogation communiqués published–told Parliament: “the Law Officers’ advice should not be published because it undermines the ability to provide proper confidential advice to Government.”)

IRAN

Let’s also consider the case of Iran. Under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is entitled to enrich uranium for civilian energy. The US and EU, including Britain, accuse Iran of wanting to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapons programme. But successive reports of UN International Atomic Energy Agency find no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons programme. In order to force Iran into agreeing to a uranium enrichment limitation deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)), the US and EU imposed sanctions on Iran.

But the sanctions led to the kind of effects on Iran feared by those who now want to stop a no-deal Brexit in the UK. The science journal Nature reported that “A tightening of already draconian international economic sanctions against Iran is causing serious shortages of certain drugs, vaccines and other key medical supplies in the country, medical researchers and public-health officials are warning.”

Britain’s then-Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, told the Iranians that unless their government was compelled by popular pressure to agree to what became the JCPOA, “We can definitely make the pain much greater.” This appears to have been a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit collective punishments.

Under May and as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hammond was aware of the Yellowhammer documents and now, having been sacked by Boris Johnson, is serving Parliament an independent MP trying to stop a no-deal Brexit, fearing that the same “pain” that he helped to inflicted on Iran could happen to Britons in the event of a no-deal departure from the EU.

CONCLUSION

These examples show that the very politicians who now fear the dire impacts of a no-deal Brexit for Britain are the same who were part of the political machinery that inflicted similar misery on poor, vulnerable populations. Nobody in British media even notices. The Yellowhammer documents also remind us that the real enemies of people are their governments; in this case an explicitly reckless one willing to harm its population for the sake of political survival.

Dr. T. J. Coles is director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research and the author of several books, including Voices for Peace (with Noam Chomsky and others) and the forthcoming Fire and Fury: How the US Isolates North Korea, Encircles China and Risks Nuclear War in Asia (both Clairview Books).

Jeremy Corbyn: UK Parliament Suspension Is Disgraceful

The Labour leader said the prime minister was trying to avoid abiding by a ''clear decision'' made by parliament.

The leader of Britain's main opposition party Monday labeled the government's decision to prorogue, or suspend, parliament "disgraceful."

The comments from Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn came after a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the suspension will begin at the close of parliamentary business on Monday.

Corbyn was also critical of suggestions Johnson might seek to refuse an extension to Brexit.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper said Monday that Johnson's advisers held a meeting on Sunday to counter parliament's attempts at enforcing a three-month Brexit extension. The Labour leader said the prime minister was trying to avoid abiding by a ''clear decision'' made by parliament.

The parliamentary suspension is set to last for over a month from Monday after the MPs vote on Johnson's latest demand for a snap election, a vote that is likely to go against him.

Johnson had set up the suspension - called a prorogation - last month in what opponents cast as an attempt to sideline lawmakers as he attempts to pull the country out of the European Union by Oct. 31, with or without a withdrawal deal.

Brexit, the United Kingdom's most significant geopolitical move in decades, remains in question more than three years since the 2016 referendum, with possible outcomes ranging from a no-deal exit to abandoning the whole endeavor.