Leaked emails expose top Tories’ historic relationship with Israel

Martin Williams and JOHN McEVOY | Declassified UK

The historic relationship between top Tories and the Israeli government has been laid bare in a remarkable cache of leaked emails seen by Declassified.

Over several years, senior figures within the party exchanged strikingly friendly correspondence in private with Ron Prosor, the former Israeli ambassador to the UK.

In one email, a Conservative lord wrote simply: “If you don’t call me while you are here, I will cry.”

Another Tory grandee told Prosor: “You still have friends close to number ten!!!”

The correspondence was discovered by Declassified after thousands of Prosor’s private emails were published by the file sharing website Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoS).

In one case, in 2016, the director of a right-wing British think-tank boasted to Prosor about playing a “key role” in orchestrating critical news coverage about then Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Tory Lord Dean Godson, director of Policy Exchange, said: “We played the key role in organising and placing this excellent double page spread in the Daily Mail, and the quotes inside from some dear comrades.”

The article’s headline accused Corbyn of backing “terrorists who bomb Israel”, and included quotes from the likes of Dave Rich from the Community Security Trust, Labour MP John Mann, and journalist Tom Gross.

Godson attached the article, saying he was “delighted” with it. Prosor responded with a “big hug”, adding: “Phone me today”.

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Japan's hardline conservative Sanae Takaichi elected first female prime minister

France 24

Japan's parliament elected ultraconservative Sanae Takaichi as the country’s first female prime minister Tuesday, a day after her struggling party struck a coalition deal with a new partner expected to pull her governing bloc further to the right.  

Hardline conservative Sanae Takaichi was elected Japan’s first female prime minister on Tuesday, shattering the nation’s glass ceiling and setting it up for a forceful turn to the right.

An acolyte of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and an admirer of Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, Takaichi received 237 votes in the lower house election to choose the next premier, topping the majority of the 465-seat chamber.

Her victory marks a pivotal moment for a country where men still hold overwhelming sway. But it is also likely to usher in a sharper move to the right on things like immigration and social issues.

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Britain's spiral down towards civil war is no accident

The Daily Sceptic | Michael Rainsborough

Having lived in Australia for the past three years, I sense that this country is the least advanced down the road towards the multicultural dystopia confronting much of Europe. That is not to say there is room for complacency: Australia has its own canaries in the coal mine, echoing trends observable across the Western world. Yet relative prosperity, firm immigration policies, a distinct welfare regime (mandatory health insurance, means tested pensions), a robust federal system, and above all a unique electoral framework of three-year cycles and compulsory voting all help, willy-nilly, to keep politicians on a short leash and broadly tethered to the popular will.

The greatest safeguard against social fracture and disintegration in Australia, however, is not institutional design but rather watching Britain implode in real time. Many Australians, still bound by ties of kinship and tradition to the old country, see in the United Kingdom both a cautionary tale and an anti-role model: a once-settled, relatively harmonious state busily teaching the world how to dismantle itself through the enthusiastic embrace of liberal dogma.

As an observer no longer resident in Britain, I am reluctant to pontificate on the fate of my homeland. Yet it is a sight to behold: an establishment seemingly bent on self-destruction, clinging to an incontinent immigration system and an almost devotional attachment to international and human rights laws that disadvantage its own citizens. The Epping hotel protests — complete with the Home Office's recourse to legal appeals — illustrate the point. No doubt the legal complexities are real, as David McGrogan rightly pointed out in these pages, but such manoeuvres only pour petrol on an already combustible national mood.  

One is left to wonder whether Britain's Labour Party, now so hopelessly enthralled by socially progressive ideology, will ever rediscover the ability to represent anything resembling national sentiment — or whether it will, like the Conservatives, simply perfect the art of political self-evisceration. 

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Farage's Emphatic Victory in European Election Spells Doom For Both Tories And Corbyn

George Galloway
RT  via Sott.net

Desperate spin notwithstanding, the tsunami created by Nigel Farage's six-week old Brexit Party may sweep away centuries-old parties which may now begin to split into their constituent parts.

But first a word about Farage. As a populist politician he is perfectly evolved. Cheerful, possessed of only the ordinary vices, personable, a communicator of genius. He is neither a philosopher nor an ideologue but gripped by one iron-clad obsession - British withdrawal from the European Union.

Single-mindedly pursued for a quarter of a century, this obsession has changed the course of history in a way not matched since Mr Churchill in the summer of 1940, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair not excepted.

I have privately criticized him for prematurely departing the stage when Brexit was won after the 2016 referendum - but in fact his timing has been perfect. He gave the ruling elites, conspiring to wreck Brexit and defy the voters, just enough rope. And now they have hanged themselves.

The Duke of Wellington was still telling his Battle of Waterloo war stories in the British Parliament when the Tory Party was last this kind of void in British politics and that was only because they hadn't then been formed. In getting on for 200 years the Tories have largely lorded over us and this week they polled in single digits. The departure of Theresa May has triggered a scramble of candidates for her job but it is bald men fighting over a comb.

The Labour Party as we know (and some of us loved) it, is dead. The coalition of Blair-Labour and Corbyn-Labour, of Remain members depending on Leave voters, of right-wing wreckers and liberals masquerading as leftists, identity-politics freaks and shop-stewards peace campaigners and blood-soaked warmongers, that Labour Party is dead.

Jeremy Corbyn's 70th birthday party was surely spoiled as the results emerged on the day. His sincere, often skillful, walk down the middle of the road had ended as such walks always do - in his being hit by the traffic going both ways. I have known Corbyn for nigh 40 years and for decades had a close personal and political relationship with him. I have been his most stalwart defender on a daily basis in the British media for four long years - I could show you my scars. And so it pains me to say that this is the end of the line for him.

When his effectively number-two-man Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell - like so many an erstwhile Trotskyist - joined the betrayal of democracy cause in a tweet, the morning after the results, the writing was on the wall for Corbyn. McDonnell joined up with Labour's disloyal deputy leader Tom Watson, leadership hopeful Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry, and Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer QC, to demand an immediate volte-face by Corbyn in full unequivocal support for a new referendum. With Labour campaigning for remaining in the EU he signed Corbyn's political death warrant.

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'Brexit' claims its second scalp: Theresa May announces resignation as UK PM

Harry Yorke
The Telegraph

Theresa May has confirmed that she will resign as leader of the Conservative Party on 7 June in order for a leadership election to take place this summer.

Following a widespread revolt over her 'new Brexit deal', the Prime Minister has finally caved to growing calls from her MPs to step down. Her decision follows a meeting with Sir Graham Brady, the leader of backbench Tories, in Downing Street this morning.

Mrs May said that the process of electing her successor would begin the week after she finally stepped down as Conservative leader. She said she had informed the Queen that she would continue to serve as Prime Minister until that process was complete.

In an emotional statement on the steps of Downing Street, she said she had "done my best" to get her Withdrawal Agreement Bill through Parliament but acknowledged she had failed to do so. 


"It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit," she said.

"I have striven to make the UK a country that works not just for a privileged few but for everyone and to honour the result of the EU referendum." 

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With a Hard Brexit Looming, UK Invites 10,000 Foreign Troops Over for Military Exercises

Mint Press News

LONDON — As the drama over Brexit continues to reach new heights, the U.K. government has raised eyebrows by announcing that it will host 10,000 foreign troops for a massive military exercise beginning the day after Brexit had been set to take place.

The announcement of the exercise has raised the specter of a post-Brexit “martial law” scenario, given that the Theresa May-led government has been examining the possibility of declaring martial law in the country in the event of a no-deal Brexit since at least this January.

According to a government press release, the NATO-affiliated military exercise known as “Joint Warrior” will take place from March 30 until April 11 and will see the U.K. host 10,000 soldiers as well as 35 warships, five submarines, and 59 aircraft and helicopters. Thirteen countries will participate, including the United States, France and Germany, and the exercise will occur in areas spaced throughout Scotland, Wales and England.

Though the exercise has occurred for several years, its timing the day immediately after Brexit has raised concerns that the Tory government may, in fact, enact its publicly acknowledged no-deal Brexit martial-law plan despite claims from Health Secretary Matt Hancock in January that, while such an option exists, it “isn’t the focus of our attention.” When the exercise was announced on March 14, Brexit was set to take place March 29 but, a two-week extension having been worked out with the EU, that date was recently changed to April 12, the day immediately after the exercise is set to end.

Following the extension, Politico reported that the EU had essentially taken control of the Brexit timetable and a “no-deal” Brexit still remains the most likely option come April 12, with some EU leaders giving a Brexit deal a 10 percent chance of passing in Parliament.

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Theresa May – Wannabe Con Artist of the Year?

Grete Mautner
New Eastern Outlook

The image of a fatal woman or femme fatale is a sort of an ideal that some women would pursue throughout their lives. This is particularly true for businesswomen, and those females that are dreaming about a political career, as those are generally inclined to show the world that no heels are too high for them. However, a femme fatale of today is unlike Teffi’s classic demonic woman that would wear the black velvet cassock, the chain on her forehead, the bracelet on her leg and the portrait of of Oscar Wilde on her left garter.

Yet, it was Oscar Wilde who made the adventurous spirit of “Jersey Lily” extremely popular with English girls, using her as prototype for his protagonist in Lady Windermere’s Fan. The real name of “Jersey Lily” was Emily Charlotte Langtry, but she would be forever remebered by her nickname. Born in 1853 on the island of Jersey in the family of a priest, she would adhere throughout her life to the belief that one’s captivating appearance and self-confidence were enough to navigate this life without much hardship.

This play and its message did not go unnoticed by Theresa May, who while following in the steps of “Jersey Lily” decided to become MP in the House of Commons as early as in her forties. Then, thought 1997-2002. she would be occupying all sorts of secondary positions in the Conservative shadow cabinet to later become first female Tory chairman. After the 2010 elections she was appointed Home Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities almost simultaneously. Moreover, these appointments were followed by May becoming Britain’s second Prime Minister after Margaret Thatcher.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that such a breathtaking political career can compromise anyone’s integrity, and it seems that May is no exception, since she at some point in time decided that her catastrophic handling of the Brexit situation wouldn’t be enough for her to make history.

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Britain has a real choice on June 8 and the Establishment is terrified

Neil Clark
Sputnik

For the first time in a quarter of a century, the British electorate has an opportunity to make a clean break with the banker-friendly neoliberal policies which have dominated politics since the era of Margaret Thatcher and which have led to a major redistribution of wealth away from the majority to the super-rich.

Well, we can't say we haven't got a choice.

Labour's manifesto, while still being nowhere as left-wing as the ones the pipe-puffing Harold Wilson won two elections on in 1974, nevertheless returns the party emphatically to the territory it occupied before the grinning faux-progressive Tony Blair came along in the mid-90s and turned Labour into a more socially liberal version of the Tories. There's pledges to renationalize Britain's railways — easily the most expensive in Europe — set up a publicly owned energy supplier and take water in England back into public ownership.

The rich will pay more tax, zero hours contracts will be outlawed and tuition fees will be scrapped. If it's an exaggeration to call the manifesto socialist, then its certainly social democratic and offers hope of a better future for millions of ordinary Britons who have seen their living standards fall dramatically in recent years. By contrast the Tories have lurched still further to the hard right and their elite-friendly agenda could not be clearer.

[...]

There's money a plenty to bomb Syria-and continue with the neocon policies of endless war — but not enough to provide pensioners with winter fuel payments or all infants with free school lunches. The desire of the elderly to pass on their property to their children will be hit by what has been labeled a new "Dementia Tax" to pay for social care. Pensioners will also be hit by replacing the "triple lock" on their state pensions with only a "double lock." Meanwhile, corporation tax will fall to 17% by 2020 — the lowest rate of any developed economy.  


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