Liverpool council cabinet continues to hide reality of its ability to cancel controversial weapons event and protect ‘merchants of death’ – but leak reveals that legal challenge is ‘credible’
The people of Liverpool have been fighting to force the cancellation of the ‘AOC’ weapons fair taking place soon in the city, after Labour ‘whipped’ its councillors not to vote against the event and Liverpool’s mayor claimed she was powerless to stop it even though the council owns the venue. Thousands gathered earlier this month in the city centre for a march and rally against the event, hearing from local Palestinian and Yemeni communities, as well as figures such as Jeremy Corbyn and actress Maxine Peake.
The Labour establishment in the city responded by removing critics from the region’s Labour WhatsApp group and claiming that cancelling the event would be economically damaging as well as legally impossible – despite the cancellation of other large events at the venue in protest – but a legal challenge from a local resident argued that the mayor’s excuses were an “improper and unlawful delegation of powers”.
Now the council – and the Tory commissioners imposed on the city with Keir Starmer’s complicity – have forced Liverpool councillors to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before allowing them to see the legal advice provided by the council’s lawyers on the issue, as the Merseyside Pensioners Association pointed out:
‘Credible’ leak
But despite the council’s efforts to ensure secrecy, some details of its own legal advice have leaked – most critically, so far, that the Public Interest Law Centre’s (PILC) legal challenge on behalf of a local resident – that the mayor’s excuses are unlawful – is ‘credible‘, in other words that it would stand a good chance of success in court if the judicial review goes ahead that PILC has threatened if the council does not use its lawful powers the event.
This raises a number of questions about the council’s conduct, but especially that of why, if the council knows it’s likely to lose in court, it continues to do nothing except protect the arms fair and those who profit from selling means of killing and oppressing people.
To be clear: the economic argument about the loss of revenue from the weapons fair doesn’t stand up because other events are being cancelled because of it, with unions now also reconsidering their conference arrangements there – and the legal argument looks as shaky as a two-legged tripod.
So why are mayor Joanne Anderson, her cabinet and the Labour party that controls the city council still refusing to act?
Protests continue tomorrow with a lobby of the full council meeting taking at Everton Park Sports Centre, Great Homer Street, Liverpool L5 5PH from 3.30pm.
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That’s the type we r told to “unify with” “work with” 4 something they call “a LABOUR government”
Anyone PLEASE explain that if not LOW expectations, ZERO self worth, ZERO TRUE confidence of beliefs.
I challenge ANYONE to explain the inconsistency / incoherence / confusion, and most of all the “SURPRISE” at the experienced, who have stated up to these last 24hrs that they are now seeing what was OBVIOUS four years ago.
HOW??? And HOW were these people voted in to CLP posts etc.
THEY try STILL to silence FACTS while admitting they did not see it coming ???
WHO then are “F***** clueless” according to The Toffee???
How can the clueless so effortlessly out smart the clued up???
… “SURPRISE” by the experienced …
Who tells us to unify with them signpost? Could you elaborate? Cheeers
Here we go again. As I mentioned in a couple of recent posts, the Human Rights Act is a worthless collection of promises leading around in circles and ultimately to nowhere. This particular “right”, that of alleged ‘Freedom of Speech’ features under Article 10 in close detail and is one that is routinely snatched away before the ink of your signature has dried on any application to join a major UK political party.
Lots of patience, the best and most expensive lawyers, deep pockets and a prevailing political wind will be required to win a legal case and to secure the ‘right’ to talk again freely.
Tony Blair gave the justice system ‘compromise agreements’, which soon became ‘settlement agreements’, which quickly became broader ‘non-disclosure agreements’.
As time goes on and the names keep on changing, we’ll end up with all human ‘rights’ diluted to nothing, but we’ll still believe we are free because that’s where our money is invested … mass deception.
The only rights we have is to pay Taxes and die that’s it everything else the scum controls. They want just nice little workers,soilent and subservient who know their place and be kept comfortably numb by their propaganda masquerading as news. Welcome to the right wing UK where we have far right Torys and Tory-lite Labour. I love my country but if I could afford it I whould be gone in a heart beat…
They don’t need any legal advice. An arms Fair in Liverpool is anathema and it should not have even been considered in the first place CANCEL IT NOW.
We have a large defence business in the NW, employs lots of people on high wages. This objection from PILC may be all very woke and moral but I don’t want Liverpool and the wacky woke weirdos who get so much publicity further diminish the cities reputation and make it seem like an anti business hub, you can see how Portland has gone downhill over the last year with the same influences. The time to beat our swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks is by agreement when everyone else does.
Anti-bloodstained slaughter don’t equate to anti-business. Do you understand words and their meanings?
Plain Citizen, the old right wing argument, ‘let’s build weapons of war to create jobs’. By the same perverse logic, we could all build scaffolds in our sheds and export them to third world countries.
Not to mention MILLIONS of POSITIVE, NON murderous jobs which need doing.
The jobs mantra is an obscene lie‼️‼️‼️ Plus why not fund more clinical jobs rather than keep people OVERWORKED and some GROSSLY underpaid??? BtW we DONT need the bloated GROSSLY OVERPAID NHS vultures‼️‼️‼️
Further more, many other countries next door to us, Year after year, decade after decade surpass our life satisfaction WITHOUT feeding the Military Industrial Complex as we do.
🔴👀🔵🔴👀🔵🔴👀🔵
There is little defence business in the NW.
It is an attack business.
The objective of the arms fairs is to sell arms to foreign, usually despotic, regimes and to fuel conflicts across the globe.
It’s not in any way ‘woke’ under the slur meaning you apply to it, to not want to play along with the ridiculous economic argument for a trade that has no intrinsic value unless your business is murder. Also, we do not have an independent military, we are totally subjugated to American foreign policy. America has made weapons sales and eternal war a part of the economy and because of lobbyist power, can never be rid of either. We have to make a stand against this nihilism and Tommy Robinson style working class nationalism beloved of plain Citizen
What is Tommy Robinson style working class nationalism?
To me it’s when someone’s views increasingly coincide with those expressed by Tommy Robinson.
Steve Richards – “What is Tommy Robinson style working class nationalism?”
Whatever it is, it’s a bit like allowing your neighbour to operate a brothel where all the sexworkers are under 16 y.o. because the neighbour keeps her gardenias healthy.
Metaphors aside, a moral compass would be a valuable tool (instinct) here.
WHO then are “F***** clueless” according to The Toffee???
The gobshites that’d vote for a toy windmill if it had red sails. joanne anderson is nowt but a stammer stooge. And the people knew but STILL elected it.
anderson’s candidacy was was no more than a PR/Race relations stunt; keef being desperate NOT to appear racist after giving Ann Rothery (And the other two, in an attempt to make it look ‘fair’) the heave-ho.
mizz anderson will be known to keef from her CPS days. She won’t say a peep because keef might get upset if she attacks the ‘rags (Who control the city anyway, thanks to the potato-headed predecessor)
What’s that? ‘But joanne anderson voted for Corbyn twice’..
.Yeah, and so did wee steven….Allegedly
There was competition for a platform @ the Arms Fair Protest last Saturday & only the ‘chosen ones’ were allowed a platform, however Maxine Peake was in the latter group & took the opportunity in both hands by ‘reading aloud’ the words of the song ‘War’ version by Edwin Starr. I can’t tell you how impressed I was!
SW in article: “So why are mayor Joanne Anderson, her cabinet and the Labour party that controls the city council still refusing to act?”
This is the key question, Skwawkie.
Whatever the reason(s), a democratically elected Mayor, the senior (Labour) councillors collectively responsible for implementing the Mayor’s policies and the fundamentally democratic Labour party itself should not refuse the need for open, transparent decision-making here.
Should they?
‘Defence’ is an extremely ill defined budgetary expense that covers everything from foreign aid, nuclear weapons, research and development, army, navy, air force, space force (FFS), royal visits, NATO committments, spies, gchq, MI5/6 budgets, countless societies, think tanks, NGOs, overt/covert wars etc, etc and costs many, many hundreds £billions more than the approx £40billion pa figure claimed.
The questions should be: do we want or need to spend ever increasing amounts of money on something that we will become economically reliant upon. Are we happy to relinquish control of foreign policy to NATO planners? And given the fact that we never have any problem paying the bill, no matter how much it is, shouldn’t we, in light of climate change, the great reset/green Revolution etc start again and question everything? And shouldn’t we have a serious conversation about the link between regime change wars, terrorism and immigration?
Instead of that we seem to be having stupid arguments about ‘wokes’, actresses, the wrong kind of left and authentic working class as opposed to BLM supporting racists, trans rights middle class etc.