Labour leader’s Establishment stance puts him on wrong side of Roman Catholic Primate
Pope Francis has put Keir Starmer in a tight spot after the Primate said that NATO’s aggressive expansion toward Russia’s borders may well have ‘facilitated’ or even ‘provoked’ the invasion of Ukraine.
Starmer has declared war on the Stop the War group and has said that there is no place in the Labour party for anyone who questions NATO’s actions, but the Pope – speaking to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera – said that while he could not say for sure whether the west’s actions ‘provoked’ Russia’s reaction, NATO’s ‘barking at Russia’s door’ ‘facilitated it, perhaps yes‘.
One Labour backbench wag told Skwawkbox that Starmer is now ‘anti-God’ and that the Pontiff would not be welcome in the Labour party – but this is hardly the first time that Labour’s notional leader has taken positions that would disgust the anti-war, anti-poverty and anti-capitalist head of the Catholic church.
Francis has blasted the reliance on ‘free market’ economics and the poverty and disenfranchisement it creates, while Starmer shamelessly binned promises to renationalise vital industries and even wants further privatisation in the NHS – and the Pope would surely take a dim view of Starmer breaking every one of the pledges with which the brylcreemed one conned Labour members into supporting his leadership bid.
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The Pope, when a priest, is also alleged to have tried to procure 20 × Exocet missiles for use during the Falklands War:
http://www.salem-
news.com/articles/april112013/queen-thatcher-itccs.php
Well would you believe it….. the MSM don’t appear to have covered this story! I wonder why not??!
NB The only thing I found that is somewhere close to being MSM was this piece in The Herald:
Kevin McKenna: We should listen to Pope’s warnings of Nato’s role in Ukraine war
https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/20114256.kevin-mckenna-listen-popes-warnings-natos-role-ukraine-war/
He’ll be on in a minute, telling us that Smarmer’s position simply cannot be Anti-God because keef is God.
Keir’s going to suspend the Pope, now- can’t have any major religious leaders supporting peace and making “people on benefits” welcome in their pews.
Next thing will be to expel any Labour member who’s ever read the Sermon on the Mount.
The west has sanctioned the head of the Coptic church. Careful papa.
What a repulsive rearend tragedy Keef has turned out to be. Maybe he and others need some guidance re the 10 commandments. I think the pope could teach him a thing or two. Just saying.
………re the 10 commandments or keeping the 10 pledges?
I think we all know on here who’s alter Starmer worships at, and it ain’t God’s!
Make that… whose!
The thing that angered me most was the banning
of any discussion – yet again of course !
How can any progress be made about anything
when any discussion about it or
conversation including it is not allowed ..?
The man would never make a scientist ..
“The ability to obtain energy from mass ..?
It is against nature Herr Einstein – and what
is more – against the interests of the Labour
Party..”
Albert would be sent one of THOSE letters
which are incomprehensible to most sensible
people which ends up giving him 7 days
to reply with the sanction of being expelled
from the Labour Party ..
World Beyond War’s Mapping Militarism 2022 makes interesting reading. “The maps on military spending and military spending per capita show increases that the world cannot afford.” …whilst we are in the middle of what is being referred to as the ‘cost of living crisis’.
https://worldbeyondwar.org/mapping-militarism-2022/
Am quite sure the pope would have some relevant
comments on the theology of Zionism as referenced
by the scriptures ..
I believe he put Netanyahu right about one or two
things ..
Craig Murray’s latest post in case you didn’t see it:
Texaco operations in Ecuador from 1962 to 1994 dumped 70 billion litres of “wastewater”, heavily contaminated with oil and other chemicals, into the Amazon rainforest, plus over 650,000 barrels of crude oil. They polluted over 800,000 hectares…….
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/04/donziger-a-tale-for-our-times/
Please share far and wide!
It was good to see Stephen Donziger is finally free from house arrest …
“However, in dark news for defenders of human rights, a former partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Jennifer Rearden, who aided in the prosecution of Steven Donziger, was renominated by Biden to be a federal judge in the Southern District of New York and advanced unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee, over the loud objections of well over 100 grassroots organizations and climate activists. Rearden’s lifetime of legal work displays extreme loyalty to corporations and private interests over the needs of children, people with disabilities, the environment, Indigenous communities, and workers.”
https://amazonwatch.org/news/2022/0426-steven-donziger-is-finally-free-onward-toward-justice-for-the-people-of-ecuador
Here is the exchange which I mentioned in my
last post:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x_VM4aU-pg
I wonder what he would say to Starmer ?
Socialists, Non Zionists particularly non Zionist Jews, Muslims, Kashmiris , Irish, free thinkers ,the youth and now potentially Roman Catholics – is there anybody left for Starmer to alienate? Never mind – the Chief Rabbi, the BoD, the JLM and the CAA all think he’s the tops so he has nothing to worry about.
‘Come you masters of war, you that build the big guns, you that build the death planes, you that build all the bombs, you that hide behind walls , you that hide behind desks, I just want you to know I can see through your masks………& that Jesus could never forgive what you do”. Nato’s war, no debate.
Here’s an excellent cover version of it:
And whilst we’re at it:
And…..
Agreed!
Sqwawkbox, just because you see a shark doesn’t mean you have to jump over it.
A big boy made me do it.
When someone as apolitical as the Pope takes a position that would see him expelled from the labour party. Just goes to show how absurd Starmer’s ‘NATO an unalloyed good’ absolutism is.
If political party’s can’t cope with varied opinions and debate within the ranks, and from that evolving policy positions, then there is no point in that party continuing.
Andy – APOLITICAL?
Are you having a laugh?🤣
Well, the Vatican tries to remain neutral and out of politics is what I meant. Other than the usual calls for peace of course.
A similar view has been expressed by Brazil’s Lula da Silva in a recent interview. I think South Americans are well qualified to speak from knowledge about the US fanning coups and instability, if it suits some geopolitical objective.
Above typo *parties.
Andy – Any assertion that the Catholic Church, or any other major religion, is apolitical is palpable nonsense.
Reply to Steve H
I take it you are including the Board of Deputies in your remarks and I couldn’t agree more. I agree 100% that their interventions ( and that of the Chief Rabbi) were politically motivated
Smartboy – There has been an interesting new report published –
All-Party Parliamentary Groups: improving governance and regulation
One of its recommendations is that “APPGs should be required to register whether a foreign government or organisation closely associated with it is the eventual funder of any benefit or benefit in kind (and if so which government or organisation), and conduct due diligence to this effect;
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmstandards/717/report.html
Keefs god is mammon.
The universal church has by the very size of it 1.3.. .1.5billion members has got to be political.Just ask the former members of the USSR or the current chinese government who recognise the power of Rome This Catholic church thinks and makes decissions for the centuries ahead.not just the present The leader of the Labour party is a very dangerous man but I doubt very much that the pope has even heard of him and probably never will…The knight of the realm is a parasite but a minor distraction in the world.
This really is a silly article – does the left really give any credence to the pope? And does it consider the pope apolitical? There’s enough credible material on the bloke to determine his uselessness without this, which just looks stupid and desperate.
Tim, why is it a silly article? The Pope is just saying what experts like John Mearsheimer have been saying for years.
Anyway, why don’t you have a read of THIS silly article Tim (posted on April 27th):
The United States and the NATO powers of Europe have set into motion a chain of events that is leading to World War III.
On Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin presided over a meeting of the representatives of forty nations in a council of war assembled by Washington on its Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the headquarters for the US Air Force in Europe and the NATO Air Command.
Austin, fresh from a visit to war-torn Kiev, confirmed that the war in Ukraine is a war between US and NATO, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other. He announced that Washington would be assembling every month going forward a comparable international gathering of high-ranking military figures—which he termed the Ukrainian Contact Group—to “focus on winning” the conflict with Russia.
The aims of the war are now clear. The bloodshed in Ukraine was not provoked to defend its technical right to join NATO, but rather was prepared, instigated and massively escalated in order to destroy Russia as a significant military force and to overthrow its government. Ukraine is a pawn in this conflict, and its population is cannon fodder.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/04/27/pszn-a27.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
And I just came across the following article by John Pilger in the Guardian from May 2014:
In Ukraine, the US is dragging us towards war with Russia
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/13/ukraine-us-war-russia-john-pilger
But it’s just silly of course!
Thanksl for the article Allan and it really is world on a cliff edge and lunatics in charge.They the US \nato must have very good reasons for the war on Russia and its looking every day like Ukraine and its people are little more than a sacrifice for the mineral and food wealth of the Russian federation whos land stretches to the borders of China.and to the other side of the planet.Greed and fascism go hand in hand .
In the light of previous experience – or, to be more accurate, form – the question arises as to how it will be determined whether or not the kind of weapons which will trigger this have been used and who – again following the form – has actually used them, if at all?
Given the history of False Flags originating from and implemented by the ‘West.”
Because doubtless with any claim there will be counter claims. But don’t fret. The US Department of Homeland Security is already on the case with its own expert Head of disinformation Governance:
https://www.tiktok.com/@paultarsus1611/video/7092037332987137322
This, folks, is where we are. Those who should be on what the late Douglas Adams [Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy] categorised as “The ‘B Ark’” are now ensconced in every decision making position and level across the entirety of institutions and organisations which make up the Western World. Or, as it likes to be known, “THE Free World/THE International Community” [WE make the rules, YOU obey the orders].
This is the sort of video eleven year olds post from their bedrooms to gain kudos with their peer group. The idea that someone like this who claims to be an adult has the power to decide what is truth and what is not in this or any context is not simply deeply disturbing its a reality for which no description is ever going to be adequate.
Right now if aliens landed tomorrow the only sane response from any sentient individual would be to beg them for asylum.
As usual, glen Greenwald nails it;
“the term “disinformation expert” is designed to disguise ideological views on behalf of state and corporate power centers as Official Truth….
….Who among us thinks the government should add to its work list the job of determining what is true and what is disinformation? And who thinks the government is capable of telling the truth?…
… Making the federal government the official custodian of truth would be like Brink’s giving a safe-cracker a job driving an armored car.”
Welcome to Rimmer World.
Dave – Or to put things in perspective
You can get sentenced to 15yrs behind bars in Putin’s Russia for telling the truth.
You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you up the backside steveH.
As a litany of examples from Assange, Murray, Jean Charles de Menezes, David Kelly, and a whole host of other individual and collective cases demonstrate. Not to mention the known and recorded kidnap and torture or the fitting up suspects in our own backyard.
Those who live in glass houses should be careful of throwing stones.
Besides which the safest, most redundant, least courageous thing to do is condemn Vladimir Putin. Its the equivalent of an empty calorie.
As though one individual is ‘THE’ problem and the problem will magically disappear if that single individual is removed.
To be frank this line of bollocks represents the level of analysis which a five year old would be embarrassed about.
But, as previously demonstrated, you are that busy all day and all night long flitting from one thread to the other on this site you only have time to write one liners. No depth whatsoever.
Like a demented Tonka Toy rushing around before his battery runs out. The living embodiment of an empty vessel. Making lots and lots of noise but no sense. Part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
You have, once again, merely demonstrated your membership, along with the rest of your fellow incompetent not fit for purpose twelve year olds who you seek to slavishly champion – from Starmer to Nina Jankowicz; Sleepy Joe Biden to ‘Ursula my grandad was a Nazi von der layden – of an obsolete culture and ideology which the rest of us are going to leave behind.
Because that’s your level stevH. The template for Arnold Rimmer.
In places like Barnsley the appropriate term is ‘wazzock’ or ‘waz end.’
Dave – Wow!😲, all that in response to my few little factual words. I guess I must have touched a tender spot.🤔.
You can rant as much as you like but it doesn’t alter the fact that
In Putin’s Russia you can get sentenced to 15yrs behind bars for telling the truth.
What is it that you admire about Putin?
bless!
Steve H is wrong again
You can get a maximum of 15 years for broadcasting misinformation about Russia’s military operation.
Western reporters in Ukraine are all subject to Ukrainian military censorship. If they break the rules they will be jailed or deported.
Bad news. I’m hearing reports that some of the “White Helmets” have been arriving in Ukraine.
Another false flag in preparation?
Goldbach. The Russians aren’t that stupid, there will be nothing left of them.
What took them (White Helmets) so long? They’ll be contracted to film the Azov’s Last Stand PR videos, I mean rescue civilians!
You mean these people:
https://sonar21.com/neo-nazis-fighting-for-ukraine-are-real-and-other-updates/
One of the photographs in this piece shows the word ‘Mauthausen’ tattooed on the body of this ‘defender of democracy’ from the alleged ‘there are no Nazis in the Ukraine’ armed forces.
“What is Mauthausen? It was one of the most notorious concentration camps the Nazis located in Austria. It started “processing” prisoners in 1938 and was liberated by the U.S. Army on May 5, 1945. An estimated 90,000 Jews, gypsies and homosexuals died in this camp.
This guy is not an outlier. There are hundreds of similar images.”
But what the hell. Lets impoverish our population by moving tens of billions of pounds, dollars, euros etc out of our economies in support of knuckle dragging Nazi’s and US arms and energy companies like good little lap dogs.
Eighty odd years ago, despite the support for Fascism of many of our elites [including the Monarchy) and much of our establishments, millions of people across Europe & Britain, along with tens of millions of people in Russia spent six years defeating this ideology and its culture.
An effort paid in blood, lost lives, starvation, torture, destroyed infrastructure, and more.
And today the descendants of the same people who supported the Nazis and other Fascists are pissing on that sacrifice by supporting, in our name using our money, the same Nazi ideology in Ukraine.
Along with their useful idiots, even on this site, who are trying to claim there are no Nazis in the Ukraine whilst at the same time claiming on our behalf that no one in Britain gives a toss about it anyway.
It did not end well for the Quislings and Lord Haw Haw’s last time around. And when the time comes, and it will, there will be plenty of volunteers to do the necessary. Wherever such low life’s seek to hide themselves.
Big pharma are about to “deal with the kids” and are soon to be releasing without the normal garranteees of a product that could be dangerous onto the market.Covid for kids vaccine.has already been developed for the USA and my daughter his saying that its already been rejected by the vast amount of parents in Florida were she lives…The market “this time may just be a little bit more circumspect this time around,especially has mr putin and Russia have developed a cure for the flu like virus…..invade the Ukraine.
The point is not the opinion that the Pope has –
but his right to express it. My anger about Starmer
is that he shuts down all reasoned arguments.
What is he afraid of?
It is a stupid political decision and shows
his ineptness ..
Holby the pope has a moral obligation to the world to point out that war brings nothing but misery for the masses of ordinary people.My grandchildren in the USA are young single and male just right for the draft if it comes.to war.My grandchildren in cambodia are just developing and I despair at times if no one steps in to stop the war.None of those who are involved with this fiasco of talking up wars especially in the west are innocent and that includes putin,the actor \comedian and most of the Nato war machine moving slowly but surely East and we know the far East is also on the agenda .We can learn a lot from history but very little from what appears to be the move to Armageddon and the destruction of mankind on the planet we have abused and poisoned with chemicals,disease,and blood that runs in rivers.I watch in horror daily of the hatred and filth coming from the mouths of evil politicians and I sometimes wonder what the hell happened that allowed such people to represent us…or so they claim.
Temporary Embarrassment
Appeals to his base
Re ‘silly’: I appreciate that the term ‘anti-God’ is in single quote marks but nevertheless feel that the piece wants to lean on the assumption that to hold a position distinct from the pope is to be anti-God (are bishops who don’t buy the idea that abortion is murder ‘anti-God’? To the surprise of no-one, for the pope to take up the role of honest broker in trying to reach an agreement between the parties (as has been suggested on a number of occasions) it is important that he not consume wholesale the ‘NATO as reluctant defenders’ narrative that Starmer has required his party to take (and having previously looked at the Mearsheimer and Pilger material and now the Guns of April piece, would hope that the narratives they espouse are subject to the same scrutiny). Personally, it would be more comforting to convince myself of polarities of good and evil in this conflict but I do not know enough, perhaps am too sceptical of anyone held up as the authoritative voice on the matter and perhaps too easily slip back into a position acknowledging that it is a tragedy without the courage to call out those responsible – that, along with the reductive label of ‘apologist’ that is too readily applied to those on both sides who advance a position contrary to one’s own are things I expect in voicing an opinion. Perhaps there exists out there a commentary that resolves the matter (and I am grateful for the various links that get posted here) but I can’t see how concluding that Starmer is ‘anti-God’ is any more credible, relevant or useful than is the man himself.
Starmer is a Jewish conservative convert from what I have read about him and his observation of the Jewish shabatt makes him religious and a believer in a Hebrew god.The jews like my wife believe in a son of God messia …. not yet come to take the “chosen people” to the Promised land..I am no expert on the Jewish faith but I would think that Starmer will have a long wait for the promised land and I doubt that hes a candidate for Heaven god forbid.I am sure that many of you are having a good laugh but you will see that most of the world believe in some form of afterlife and redemption.and like many others I have studdied the beliefs of many of the older faiths and really see the prime motivation should be good and wars for even the good reasons don’t qualify for redemption….although I notice that in the Bible there is a quote that “Theres a time to kill” in the old testament..which is probably the one the knight and his disciples follow.
A thoughtful comment Joseph – that we arrive at this juncture due to the actions of ‘men of God’ not only asks questions of the patriarchy but also the belief systems they profess: as Dylan has it
if God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war
Apparently God or gods are on the side of every side in every war, and there are always plenty of “religious” leaders happy to endorse their country’s role in murdering innocents. One might even suggest the entire Old Testament features one “good war” after another, and many of those were wars of conquering and pillaging, or of revenge. I don’t hold with the Pope’s view in this instance, as reported. Whatever UKraine did, it did not invade another country, and nor did NATO. No-one is ever forced to invade another country and kill, rape and pillage its citizens, nor is one country forced the threaten nuclear annihilation of another country, and therefore of the entire planet. So I call out the Pope’s ruling as naive in the extreme. Maybe he could start by having a word with his colleague in the Russian Orthodox Church who reckons HIS god endorses death, rape and grand theft as a “good policy” for his believers?
The pope did have a word with his fellow number in the universal church and unusually was quite blunt in telling him to “stop being putins alter boy” not forgetting of course that the orthodoxy is considered by catholics as part of the “Holy sea and universal church and are not divided on belief in Jesus Christ and the sacraments.ITs a schism between two faiths east and west but not a break like the reformation.The Ukraine Catholic church follow the eastern rite of the mass,whilst still being being part of the Holy Roman Catholic church and recognise the pope as the successor to St Peter the first pope of the Catholic church over two thousand years ago.This might explain some of the distrust between the ethnic Russian and Ukraine speaking peoples of the Ukraine.but never hatred that we see now because of the way Nato has forced Russia into a corner .and of course the Russian response which was inevitable knowing the nature of a tough leader like putin….Russia are commited now and can’t back away without putting the whole federation at risk.from insurrection or inhalation from Nato.PS it seems S.Korea are looking to join in with Nato in cyber development and much more.
Russia was NOT forced ionto a corner, except by its own exceptionalism. And having a total lunatic as leader. You appear to forget that he had already ordered the assassination of LItvenenko, and the Skripals, and had pounded the civilians of Syria. The only one making threats was Putin, at the same time that he was stealing money from Russians at an eye-watering rate and he and his mates building palalces and enormous yachts the size of sea-goin ferries for their own pleasure, cruising round many of the NATO countries he hated so much, because they offered him what? The chance of being somewhere witha decent standard of living, as opposed to the peasantry in Russia that he wilfully kept as peasants becaaus ethey might wnat their share of Russian wealth. The man is totaally despicable. NATO will now expand and all NATO countries will increase their spending on defence, and quite sensibly too.
Christ, go and have a lie down. Would your reason for coming on here be the same as SteveH’s, by any chance?
Ukraine invaded Iraq.
NATO invaded Afghanistan and attacked Libya.
timfrom – Don’t misunderstand JoeRobson. I suspect it”s all done in jest, a perfect caricature of the Daily Mail reader who deals in nothing but folk myth and anger.
Will Tony Blair be asked to denounce the Pope or resign?
I think what the Pope has said will make expulsion
of those who criticise NATO a no-go .. In fact he
has criticised the Russians – to their face at their
Embassy to my recollection? But this is the case
of many who face expulsion but that would not
normally worry Evans.
For they can reasonably say he is discriminating
against Roman Catholics. It won’t shut up the MSM
for no doubt they will say “Politics” is none of his
business!
Incidentally I doubt that Starmer is a person of faith –
of any sort. The fact that many Jewish scholars and
theologians disagree with him about anti-semitism
has passed him by – as it has the MSM. They cannot
ignore the Pope because for good or ill he is more
of a universal figure.
Will this mean that Starmer will expel all catholics from the Labour Party because the Pontif speaks for us?
Haven’t been keeping up – family duties – but someone wrote about someone in Russia (presumably a journalist) having been sent to prison for 15 years for telling the truth. Can’t spot the post now but I guess there was a link to an article and the story was verified. If it’s true, I don’t like it. I dislike even more the imprisonment without trial, torture and probable sentence of 180 years on the journalist, Julian Assange, for telling the truth. UK and US governments are culpable in this instance.