Analysis Breaking

Parliament to reconvene to approve UK airstrikes on Yemen

As world unites in horror at Israel’s genocide, UK Establishment reaction is to protect Israel and billionaires by attacking country taking action for Palestinians

UDPATE: The UK is bombing Yemen tonight, without bothering to have Parliament approve it – and will recall MPs tomorrow to rubber stamp it. The UK is not at war with Yemen but is acting as a rogue state to protect Israel from the economic impact of the shipping interceptions.

The government is reconvening Parliament to push through a vote to approve airstrikes against Yemen, because of Yemen’s success in intercepting Israel-bound shipping to put pressure on Israel to end its genocide. The disruption to seaborne trade is said to be having a significant impact on the Israeli economy.

Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has been taken to a Whitehall briefing tonight and is expected to recall MPs from their usual Friday activities away from Westminster to vote through the attacks – of course, ‘opposition’ leader and ‘Zionist without qualification’ Keir Starmer is fully expected to vote with the Tories.

With most of the world united in horror at the ICJ evidence of Israel’s genocide and war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the UK Establishment reaction, always ready to side with the oppressor against the oppressed, is to protect Israel and billionaires by attacking a country to help Palestinians, regardless of the likely consequences of igniting a regional war.

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40 comments

  1. Why are so many of our political class and Establishment so keen to be accomplices to genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and illegal occupation?
    They need constant reminding of what they are doing, and that the majority of people strongly disapprove.
    Netanyahu is pushing ahead with this inhumanity in order to keep himself and his wife out of jail.
    History will, correctly, not be kind to the lot of them.
    A richly deserved accounting.

    1. Apologies for pushing in near the top (and I’ll post it again when Skwawkbox posts another article with a comments section, as most people will have read this thread by now):

      A poster on Craig Murray’s blog linked to the following article by The Cradle, published a couple of days ago:

      ‘Israeli army ordered mass Hannibal Directive on 7 Oct: Media’

      An investigation from Israel’s leading newspaper indicates Israel deliberately killed many of its own civilians and soldiers during Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Flood to prevent them being taken captive back to Gaza

      The Israeli military implemented the “Hannibal Directive” during Hamas’ attack on 7 October, killing some of its own civilians and soldiers to prevent Hamas from taking them as captives back to Gaza, according to an investigation by Israel’s leading newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, which will be published in full on 12 January.

      The Hebrew edition of the paper wrote on 11 January that “one of the revelations revealed in the investigation is that at noon on October 7, the IDF [Israeli army] ordered all of its combat units in practice to use the ‘Hannibal Procedure’ although without clearly mentioning this explicitly by name.”

      The order was to stop “at all costs any attempt by Hamas terrorists to return to Gaza, that is, despite the fear that some of them have abductees,” the paper wrote…….

      https://new.thecradle.co/articles-id/18512

      Please read the whole article and share far and wide to every single person you know, and ask them to do likewise, and so on. I haven’t yet checked to see if any of the British MSM have reported this or, once the full investigation is published, if any of them cover it, but I can only assume that most of them won’t. And DO mention about the two hundred Hamas fighters who were killed on October 7th and had to be identified by their DNA because they were so badly burnt, and how Israel then reduced the number of Israelis killed on October 7th from 1,400 down to 1,200 on November 10th, and did so without explanation.

      1. Here’s the Skwawkbox article (posted on November 18th) about how Mark Regev inadvertently let the cat out of the bag:

        https://skwawkbox.org/2023/11/18/video-israeli-govt-spokesman-lets-slip-that-kibbutz-victims-killed-by-israel-not-hamas/

        NB The reality of course is that ‘Israel’ must have known that a certain proportion of those killed and burnt beyond recognition on October 7th must be Hamas fighters, and of course knew that they wouldn’t know the actual number until they’d been identified by their DNA, and obviously knew that THAT was going to take some time to do, and that once they HAD determined the number (from amognst ALL the people who were burnt beyond recognition), they would then have to deduct that number from their inital figure of 1,400. The point is that they HAD to release a figure to the media within a few days of the numbers killed on October 7th, and had no choice but to include everyone – ie those who could be identified along with all those who couldn’t be.

        And needless to say, they knew at the time that everyone who had been burnt and charred beyond recognition had been killed by Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships.

      2. Just to be clear: Israeli authorities HAD to release a figure to the media within two or three days, but they couldn’t very well say that 1,400 people were killed on October 7th but X amount of people were so badly burnt they will have to be identified by their DNA – eg 1,400 people were killed on October 7th but 475 of them are so badly burnt they will have to be identified by their DNA.

        Not without giving some explanation or other as to HOW they came to be burnt beyond recognition, that is!

      3. Just to be even CLEARER, they couldn’t very well say that 1,400 people were killed on October 7th, but 475 of them are burnt beyond recognition, and until they are identified by their DNA, we won’t know how many of them are Israelis, and how many of them are Hamas fighters/Palestinians.

        Anyway, as I said in one of my earlier posts, they were of course reticent about the 200 Hamas fighters when they reduced the number of Israelis killed on October 7th from 1,400 down to 1,200. Here are some examples (from The Times of Israel, Al Jazeera, and the Guardian):

        Israel said Friday it had revised the death toll of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli communities and military bases in southern Israel down from around 1,400 to roughly 1,200 people.

        The revised figure was provided by Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat, as Israel continues its painstaking efforts to identify all victims, five weeks after the atrocities took place.

        Haiat did not offer details on the reason for the revised figures.

        (from an article headlined: Israel revises death toll from Oct. 7 Hamas assault, dropping it from 1,400 to 1,200)

        Israel has revised downwards the death toll from an attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on October 7, to approximately 1,200 people against a previous government estimate of 1,400.

        “Around 1,200 is the official number of victims of the October 7 massacre,” spokesperson Lior Haiat of Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday in a written statement*, according to the Reuters news agency.

        The figure had been updated on Thursday, he said.

        According to Haiat, the number was revised since unidentified corpses previously included in the tally likely belong to Palestinian fighters, the AFP news agency said.

        “This is the updated number,” Haiat told AFP. “It is due to the fact that there were a lot of corpses that were not identified and now we think those belong to terrorists … not Israeli casualties.”

        (from an article headlined: Israel revises down toll from October 7 attack to ‘around 1,200’)

        Israel has revised downwards the death toll from last month’s Hamas attacks in the south of the country from 1,400 to about 1,200, a foreign ministry spokesperson said. The revision is “due to the fact that there were lot of corpses that were not identified and now we think those belong to terrorists … not Israeli casualties,” they said on Friday.

        (from an article headlined: Israel-Hamas war: what we know on day 35)

        * Yes, well it would be a written statement of course, so as to avoid any tricky questions!

  2. THE RETALIATION HAS STARTED

    The UK and US have launched air strikes on targets linked to Houthi rebels based in Yemen in a bid to stop attacks on ships travelling through the Red Sea, it has been reported.
    Four US officials told the Reuters news agency that strikes by Britain and the US had begun against the Iran-backed group.
    Explosions were reported to have been heard in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. US officials told the Associated Press the military strikes were targeting more than a dozen sites used by the rebels, including logistical hubs, air defence systems and storage locations.

    https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/uk-and-us-launch-military-strikes-houthi-rebels-red-sea-attacks-2850066

    1. Well that’s this month’s Clown World slam dunk sorted.

      Someone here is clearly confused as to who it is has escalation dominance in this theatre.

      Not content with deindustrialising Europe via sanctions which have exponentially raised the energy costs of domestic households and businesses in a predictable blowback the numpties running the ‘Garden’ are now further impoverishing us in an ill considered action which will similarly drive up oil prices and every other product by turning the Red Sea into a war zone.

      Now I wonder what that will do for insurance rates on Western shipping in the area?

      Take your time there at the back of the classroom; no rush.

      Additionally, as Larry Johnson points out……

      https://sonar21.com/will-crossing-the-rubicon-in-yemen-expose-u-s-and-u-k-weakness/

      …..”This bombing is unlikely to achieve any meaningful degrading of Yemeni missile and drone capabilities, but it will rally more of the global Arab and muslim street to the side of the Houthis. It also raises the risk that the Houthis, who up until now had only targeted ships linked to Israel, will expand targets to include U.S. and U.K. vessels. Important to remember that the U.S. and U.K. ships can only spend a limited time in the Red Sea before they have to set sail for a port, such as Dubai, where the destroyers can replace the empty VLS missile tubes.

      I think it also is likely that U.S. and U.K. embassies, consulates will be attacked and that commercial enterprises viewed as U.S. or U.K. will be targeted. Nabil Khoury, a former deputy chief of the US mission in Yemen, appeared on Al Jazeera and observed, “the attacks on Yemen are a “failure of American diplomacy.” He also noted that as a result of these actions:

      ‘the US and UK bombing of Houthi targets in Yemen, the Biden administration effectively became “a direct participant in the war in Gaza,” Khoury told Al Jazeera.

      “The situation can only get worse from here,” he said. “I think this is a serious mistake. I think more effort should have been made to contain the Houthis… If the US and Britain think this will silence the Houthis, I think they have something else in mind.””

      The point about having to restock missiles in port – it not being possible by sea in situ – is not exactly quantum mechanics to work out. Because as soon as the pirate ships of the US and UK have shot their bolt and need to go back to port to re-stock with missiles they are sitting ducks.

      And as Johnson points out every asset of the Western oligarchs across the entire Near East – from embassies to military bases; shipping to oil refineries; and port facilities for merchant and military shipping to personnel has just become a legitimate target.

      You just cannot educate pork.

  3. As obedient US lapdogs, it’s only fitting we mirror their contempt for Congress and make a joke of our own parliamentary “democracy” by going ahead regardless, rubber-stamping the deed after the fact, later today.

    The empty ceremony will vie for airtime with Israel’s laughable attempt at a defence in The Hague, where they will insist black is white, that 2+2=5 and ask who are you gonna believe? Us or your own lying eyes!

    The NATO war for the human mind continues…

  4. Slightly off topic…..

    Just came across this Electronic Intifada video (28mins) posted three hours ago (at the time of writing) which is a MUST watch for a number of reasons (especially the bit at around 14mins 30secs of a video clip of a phone call that Max Blumenthal makes to a Washington Post journalist who’s doing a hit piece on The Grayzone (and the EI). Please, please watch, and then share far and wide. Thanks

    1. Spotted the following article from Jan 7 when I went on Common Dreams:

      Israel Accused of ‘Effort to Intimidate the Judges’ Ahead of Genocide Hearings

      “Israel is pressing others to denounce the case in the hope of persuading the International Court of Justice to decide based on politics rather than the facts”, said one critic

      The Israeli government has mounted a pressure campaign urging governments around the world to publicly denounce South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice…..

      According to a cable obtained by Axios, the Israeli Foreign Ministry is calling on the country’s embassies to pressure host country diplomats and political leaders to swiftly issue an “immediate and unequivocal statement along the following lines: To publicly and clearly state that YOUR COUNTRY rejects the outrage[ous], absurd, and baseless allegations made against Israel.”

      The United States, Israel’s top ally and arms supplier, has already rejected South Africa’s case, calling it “completely without any basis in fact”…..

      Raz Segal, an Israeli historian and genocide scholar, has called Israel’s assault “a textbook case of genocide,” which is defined under international law as “a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part.”

      Israel, which is a party to the Genocide Convention that it stands accused of violating, reportedly plans to argue at the ICJ that some of the officials quoted in South Africa’s application “are not decision-makers”—and those who are “didn’t mean what they said.”

      Oh, right, even though they are doing precisely what they said they would do!

      https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-south-africa-genocide

      PS At the very end of the CD article it links to a recent New York Times piece entitled America Must Face Up to Israel’s Extremism, which is well worth reading. See post below for some clips from it.

      1. America Must Face Up to Israel’s Extremism

        Two far-right members of Israel’s cabinet — the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich — caused an international uproar this week with their calls to depopulate Gaza. “If in Gaza there will be 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs and not two million the entire conversation on ‘the day after’ will look different,” said Smotrich, who called for most Gazan civilians to be resettled in other countries. The war, said Ben-Gvir, presents an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza,” facilitating Israeli settlement in the region.

        The Biden administration has joined countries all over the world in condemning these naked endorsements of ethnic cleansing. But in doing so, it acted as if Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s provocations are fundamentally at odds with the worldview of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to whom America continues to give unconditional backing…..

        https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/opinion/israel-gaza-displacement.html

      2. I want to hear the views of, and see the looks on the faces of all those international politicians who support Netanyahu’s criminal enterprise of a government, when he and the missus are found guilty of corruption and he is forced to”retire” disgracefully from politics.
        I just can’t wait.

    1. The bourgeois socialists (top down often Vanguardist Trotskyists who want to transform society FOR the working class ONLY under their Leadership) can’t win alone so they often desperately try to latch on to Left Wing Democratic Socialists who want to transform society WITH the working class, and WE don’t need them.
      A new JC Party would do well – hundreds of thousands of us (experienced campaigners) and well read members + millions in the bank to campaign with, or if not 620 or so JC Supporting Independents (not standing against the very few Labour Lefties).
      Either way we will make history.
      Keep The Corbyn Dream Alive!

    2. Herr Flick
      The Fuhrer’s poll leads are about to disappear before your eyes
      All Geordie Galloway and JC have to do is promise PR to clear the pitch for a single progressive challenger
      The Reform Party will do the rest

      1. Bazza – It’s a shame that Jeremy has wasted more than 3yrs prevaricating instead of building a party.

        …… and he’s still at it, we still don’t know whether he’ll stand for election

      2. a 20 -25% ‘lead’ is unlikely to produce a GE97-type result for SirRigger and Co – especially when much of Labour’s former ‘dearly-departed’ membership apply their campaigning effort against the “show-me-your-papers” party. Independents and WPGB won’t have to do well electorally for Starmer’s party to (d)under-perform and result in a weak/minority Government.

        Read your own LabourFirst GE2019 Election Review and see how Starmer fails to make Labour massively electable in 2024 (a-la Corbyn in 2017).

      3. Herr Flick
        The reality is the Fuhrer is a one legged man in an arse kicking contest, the electorate have never taken to him and never will.
        Any serious challenge will take away any benefit he gets from cheap and nasties disappearing up their own backsides
        If JC enters the race the Fuhrer is proper fucked
        Geordie Galloway is the perfect Hatchet Man to JC’s decency and integrity and manifesto, JC rallies the electorate GG does the dirty work with MSM and Toilet papers
        Dream Team

      4. Yes, but in ’97 people wanted to believe that ‘new’ Labour would be a worthy ‘fresh start’, there’s nothing inviting or attractive about the Sir servant of the Security State Keir Starmer. His record with austerity, Assange, Saville, Gaza, mandatory vaccination, Ukraine and how he treated the wonderful person that was his predecessor tells us everything we need to know to see how inappropriate and dangerous he’d be as PM.

      5. Assuming we actually have a GE in the present climate – there is an escalating war on multiple geographical and other fronts (economic; industrial; ideological; Geo-political etc) unfolding after all – the runes are not looking that rosy to try and shoehorn an evident fragmentation of traditional tribal loyalties into an electoral model/paradigm which is rapidly fraying at the edges.

        Tribal loyalties which are fragmenting across the traditional political spectrum.

        For example: Labour have lost Councillors across the Country going over to ‘Independent’ or ‘Community’ groups not just on the political left but also on the political right.

        A few months back on this site I gave details of the shenanigans in Sheffield in which Councillors on the political right were being targeted under the authoritarian Labour regime run on behalf of the oligarchy by Herr Starmer.

        Having literally sacked the leadership of the Labour Group – Leader, Deputy Leader etc – by central diktat in favour of their own placemen (the current leader of the Labour Group and the Council looks, and acts, like a prefect from the local school) the autocrats in what passes for the Labour Party these days then sought to rub their noses in it by demanding they sign a declaration which included not only their role in the tree felling debacle but also a number of bog standard campaigning commitments.

        From an objective perspective those responsible for the trees debacle really needed to hold their hands up. However, not all those Councillors from the political right who were targeted – the Deputy Leader for example – were involved.

        The upshot was that the eight Councillors resigned from the LP and formed their own group ‘the Sheffield Community Councillors Group (formed mainly by what has been long labelled members of the ‘fat blokes club’). This group of eight have now been joined by two more Councillors – both from the same Ward in the North West of the City.

        One, now former Labour Councillor, and the sole Conservative Councillor on the City Council.

        The point being that (a) it is not just Councillors on the political left of the Party who are peeling off and away from the Party and taking their voters with them (and knowing the local politics a lot better than any distant polling organisation at least some of those Councillors and the groups/Party’s they represent/stand for will, for very good reasons, take their voters with them regardless of how much Billy no mates huffs and puffs about polls); and (b) they are teaming up with people from other political parties across the political spectrum.

        As the costs and effects of forever wars trickle down through a operating system of neo-liberal economic dogma which never ever had any efficacy in the first place the deplorables across the Collective West are growing increasingly restless with the same bullshit fare on offer from all the political parties – whatever Country you look at.

        Whilst the US merely wants to ban individual candidates from standing, Europe – Poland and Germany being prime examples – are seeking to ban whole political party’s. Just because the UK is an island does mean it is immune from the consequences of its actions and the blowback which is paid for by the general populace. Nor the trends we see across the Channel in our equally disintegrating de-industrialised neigbours in other parts of Borrell’s ‘Garden’.

        Wonder what the odds are between a political hung Parliament/Legislature somewhere in the ‘Garden’ and a literal one?

      6. Lumpen SH. It’s a game of poker, once Right Wing Lightweight Grotesque Labour picks another Labour candidate in Islington the transformation as an example to the world begins.

      7. Bazza – All you can do is hope that you are not let down again.

  5. The Houthis in Yemen have said all ships are welcome in The Red Sea except those linked to Israel as they say what they do is to support Palestinians. The Tory Defence Minsters’s claim that they acted in self-defence is a big lie and he is too stupid (to paraphrase Nye Bevan) to be Defence Secretary. If other countries Iraq, Syria, Lebanon etc who have all been attacked by Israel say & do the same then there will be a dangerous escalation.
    And US/UK bombing other countries for “commercial reasons” is illegal but of course it is really to aid Israel as capital wants to steal Gaza’s land, gas, oil & to build a new canal in The Levant which will benefit Europe too as Palestinians are slaughtered & displaced for profit.
    Gramsci was right we will live in an Age of Monsters & Western Lightweight Neo-Liberal Capitalist Leaders now fit the Bill.
    But the oppressed of the world are fighting back and particularly in the Middle East there are mass boycotts of Israel Apartheid supporting TNCs which is costing them billions so hopefully capital is beginning to sweat!
    Viva South Africa & Palestiine!
    Ceasefire Now, Peace, Justice For Palestinians!

    1. Yes, the sad thing is Jeremy probably holds his former party in such high-regards, he doesn’t want the ‘auto-expel’ bullet to be fired (LOL). “Call-Keir” is prob a temporary aberration in his eyes. As-long as. he never campaigns for any of his uber-labor SCG former-colleagues’ Labour tickets, I’ll continue to hold him in VERY high regard.

    2. Whether Corbyn forms another Party or not does not alter the fact that what we have from all parts of the British State across all vectors of policy at every level is neither viable, as a result of this total absence of practical workable efficacy, nor credible.

      The basic foundational block of any functioning system is a set of rules which are consistently applied without fear or favour. Otherwise, whatever you are talking about, – from a basic level process, through the intermediate level of a society, right up to the civilisational level – , fails to work properly and eventually breaks down completely.

      Here is a statement which touches on the problem in terms of current Geo-politics which is also evidentially apparent at every level within the ‘Garden’ from the Duran’s Alexander Mercouris:

      “Well. of course, it [the USA] doesn’t want to acknowledge there are any restraints on its behaviour at all. And, if you want to understand the difference between International Law and ‘The Rules based International Order’ there you have it. ‘The Rules Based International Order’ is what the United States decides what it wants to do from one day to another. If the United States does it, its legal. That’s basically the conception behind ‘The ‘Rules Based International Order’ – International Law is this old fashioned idea that there are rules binding on everybody, including the United States.”

      This practice of picking and choosing to when and to whom laws and rules apply and when they do not is not a bug but a feature across the entire Collective West. Across every sector of society and at every level.

      Thus, just as the UK and US elites don’t even bother going to their own legislature before committing an act of war – never mind having regard to International law via the UNSC – because it does not suit the purpose of the oligarchical organ grinder elites and their increasingly non-house trained monkeys, cheerleaders and fellow travellers; the same disdain for the norms of due process and a consistent application of rules and laws is evident not only throughout the Parliamentary farce that passes for democracy but also even in the internal disciplinary procedures of HM Loyal Opposition.

      Procedures which are based on the same Kangaroo Court process described above by Mercouris.

      The notion that Starmer, Davey, and other similar marionettes will be any different to or an improvement on Sunak – or even Johnson and Truss – is simply laughable.

      The objective reality is that in the absence of an alternative to the current non viable operating system the only available future in both Britain and the rest of the Collective West is one of increasingly accelerating collapse.

  6. PW
    We have a democracy in name only, JC and Andy McDonnell should stand as Independents at the very least
    A new party would make sense to fill the gap on the left and be a stop gap before seizing back control of the peoples party
    Anyone with grassroots support or face recognition should consider standing to disrupt Red and Blue parties and deny Sir Gaza Kid Killer a majority
    Political Gravity will do the rest after the GE

  7. I want to thank LABOUR TOGETHER for its timely contribution to my mental health with its wretched anti-‘for-the-many’propaganda piece and piss-take which convinces me that the “Call-Keir” party’s GE24election campaign will be a joke *and* DIY-egg-on-face calamity packagewaiting to happen. Only the mRNA ‘vaccine’ booster-takers (if they’re still living at the GE) and reprobates like Shar-on Graham will be taken-in by it.

    Part-III is where the raucous humour is most apparent and likely to produce a belly-laugh in the reader https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64f707cf512076037f612f60/t/6502d80a36bf4871fa3df09d/1694685197545/Labour+Together+2019+Election+Review+final.pdf

    1. qwertboi
      Here’s a dilemma for you, I’m off for an operation shortly and they asked if I’m comfortable with a blood transfusion if required
      My immediate thought was ‘not if its from a Mudblood’
      Methinks
      There’s a demand there for those who chose not to take a vaccination they didn’t need and which now looks increasingly problematic
      Regards

      1. Don’t worry about any blood transfusion that might be necessary Doug. Haematologists and clinical pathologists (blood experts) HAVE to ensure that any blood donors’ spike proteins (created by mRNA covid ‘vaccines’) and causative agents are destroyed and removed. The myocardial and clotting risks of ‘dirty’ blood (soiled by mRNA covid ‘vaccines’) are well-understood and wpould never be knowingly incurred by a surgeon, so don’t worry. Good luck!

    2. qwertboi
      They are totally corrupt, the traitors in the Labour movement will clear the way for a root and branch overhaul of our democracy
      The alternative is Israel, Jews committing Genocide, fascism plain and simple
      The never ending War Pigs are finished, the rest of the world is on the Silk Road to Peace and Prosperity

  8. Off topic:

    This has probably been posted before but it’s always worth seeing again:

    Honest Government Ad | Visit the UK! 🇬🇧

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