Lammy orders FCDO NOT to check statements about Israel’s attack on Madleen are legal

Foreign Secretary caught trying to bypass lawyers as they’ll tell him he can’t say Israel’s ramming attack piracy on humanitarian ship is ‘defending itself’

David Lammy has ordered Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) officials not to have any comments about the Madleen – the humanitarian flotilla vessel seized by Israel in the dark hours of yesterday morning – checked by the department’s legal advisers or by maritime experts, including the Royal Navy, according to sources inside the FCDO who spoke to former UK ambassador Craig Murray.

Murray said that:

Contrary to all Whitehall practice and culture, [an] edict has gone out from Lammy’s office that replies and statements re the Madleen are NOT to be cleared with Legal Advisers, Maritime Section or the Royal Navy.

A civil servant preparing a ministerial statement or reply, you have to clear the draft with all relevant departments throughout Whitehall and get a consensus text. That includes legal clearance. Lammy is seeking to bypass [them] because they will all say Israel acted illegally.

Asked by one commenter whether this meant that Lammy is going to say Israel “were defending themselves”, Murray responded:

Exactly.

The government, including Lammy and his boss Keir Starmer, have continually insisted Israel’s crimes in Gaza are a manifestation of its ‘right to defend itself’ – or often ‘herself’, as they try to humanise the genocidal colony. Starmer extended that even to Israel’s ‘right’ to cut off all food and water, as it has done now in Gaza for more than three months. He then tried to deny saying it and is trying to soften it now by describing it as ‘intolerable’ while the UK continues to arm Israel and provide spy flights over Gaza for Israel’s military.

In so-called ‘opposition’, Starmer and Lammy demanded that the Tory government release its legal advice on its deliveries of weapons to Israel. In government, it has shipped more weapons to Israel in three months than the Tories did in the previous four years.

The legal advice has still not been released – and the government is fighting in court to keep sending spare parts for Israel’s F-35 jets, which have reportedly carried out over 12,000 bombing raids on Palestinian civilians. Now the contempt of the Starmer government for legality and process is exposed – except when it can be weaponised against anti-genocide journalists and protesters. They are collaborators in genocide.

Please remember to support Skwawkbox if you can, to help ensure it can keep running. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (Skwawkbox will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount as it has to be entered by us). Alternatively, if you prefer to make a one-off or recurring donation by simple card payment, please use the form below:

Thanks for your solidarity so Skwawkbox can keep doing its job of inconveniencing the right and helping to build the left!

If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so, but please include the donor information above – see here for more.