UK Column News - 4th July 2025

Good afternoon, it's Friday the 4th of July 2025. Happy Independence Day, Patrick. Thanks for remembering, Mike. Yeah, just after 1:00. And welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson. My Co host today in the studio is Patrick Henningson. And journalist Mark Anderson joins us by video link from the United States.

Now let's get straight on Palestine. Action is at the Royal Courts of Justice for what they describe as the last opportunity to stop their prescription as terrorists. This follows the agreement by the House of Lords yesterday to prescribe the group. Now, in an act of sheer hypocrisy, Yvette Cooper, amongst others, attended the House of Commons on Wednesday wearing a sash to celebrate the suffragettes who used even worse tactics, including explosives, than Palestine Action to make

their point. So absolute hypocrisy because most of the lot in that photograph there then went on to vote to prescribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organization. Now we are hoping at some point during the course of the programme to have some life. In fact, Willsey is just joining us as we speak. Willsey, I don't know if you can hear us at the moment.

Hello. So we're just down near the protest today at the High Court and we've got a massive crowd down here and we've just been interviewing people. A lot of people are extremely concerned that this is going to be the thin end of the wedge in terms of protests in this country. And as you can see, there's an absolutely massive crowd here down at the High Court. We weren't sure the turn out was going to be this big, but it's absolutely massive. Well, let's, let's hold on one

second. Let's make a formal welcome to the program. This is Willsey from Resistance GB. As you say, a massive crowd there, Willsey, And has it been well behaved so far? How how are things going at the court? Are the crowds protesting well? You can see there are a huge amount of people. It's an absolutely massive crowd. I'm sorry that it's slightly harder to hear you down here, but you can see there's a huge

crowd. They've got speakers, they've got a sound system and I'm estimating there might be. It's maybe 1000 people down here. It's a really big crowd. And is there any indication yet as to what the likely outcome of this is going to be? People are very unsure what the likely outcome is going to be. People aren't certain, given that they've been talking especially about Israeli infiltration and they say there is a lot of Zionist control within the government.

And so they're worried that no matter how many numbers they have down here that it will just be ignored. But they do have hopes. They believe that there's a human rights argument on this and I think hopefully, fingers crossed, they can win, but no one really knows. And does anybody know how long this is, this hearing is likely to take? Are we going to get a result today? You know, hoping to get a result today, hoping to get a result today.

And a lot of people are very angry at the and the fact that they're going to be designated terrorists. And people have expressed to me that they're happy to continue with Palestine action despite the terrorist designation A potentially challenging that under human rights grounds. Well, we'll see. I've got to say, thank you very much for joining us today. That has been extremely interesting. It's great to see that number of people out on the streets. And we have, you have sent us a

little video report. We're going to put that out during extra today and that'll go out alongside the news program later on. So thank you for joining us today. Thank you. Very. Much. OK. Thank you. Now that is quite the situation there, Patrick. The, the, the issue as I mentioned on Wednesday is aside from the hypocrisy of Yvette Cooper and so on it went wearing the, the sash, honouring the suffragettes at the same time

that they're making this vote. Of course, the action, the, the actual activities of Palestine action no different to others, including Just Stop Oil and others. This this was not terrorism by any definition. No. So the criminalization of what used to be legal protest in the country.

And I think that's let's just underline the point here that the government, the Yvette Cooper, the Starmer, the Israeli lobby strong arming parliament, strong arming parliament in order to criminalize protest on behalf of it looks like according to their their involvement with the various law, Israeli lobby actors Mike it on behalf of a foreign

government. Yes. So, well, look, we are going to talk more about the context of this in a little set in a little moment, but you've got more on the Palestine action situation here. As you can see, there's a shot here from the High Court, of

course. So as Wilsey was reporting, there a lot more people. This was earlier from a previous hearing, I believe. So this is the scene and there's a lot going on here. There's a lot going on here. And the government is is not looking good on all any of this. Let's just look at chapter 1 here revealed how the Israel lobby got Keir Starmer to ban Palestine action.

So clearly there is activity in the background here with regards to the various Israeli lobby organizations and they're playing a pivotal role, Mike, in pushing for the banning of Palestine action or worse than banning, labeling them a terrorist organization here. But here's what we spoke about before and this is what you need to pay attention to. And this is again from Yvette Cooper's statement here she is the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Home Office

there. This the disgraceful attack on Brize Nortney talking about RAF Brize Norton Air Base in the early hours of the morning on Friday the 20th of June where I guess they put red paint on one of the. Yeah, I mean, to call it an attack, it's just ridiculous. An attack. They broke in and they put some red paint on a plane in the engine Bay and wait a minute, what can we say? It's it's that used to be considered legal and might be criminal damage.

We'll get to that in a minute. But back up on screen here is saying that here we go this latest. It is in a long history of unacceptable criminal damage committed by Palestine action. So it's right there in the words of the home Secretary, criminal damage. It doesn't say terrorism. It's criminal damage, which is

legal is protected protest. OK, so and they go on here, and this is also important, it says EU KS defense enterprise is vital to the nation's national security and this government will not tolerate those that put that security at risk. So defense enterprise, What is the definition of enterprise? Well, that's like industry. It's it's something productive. It's profit driven industry enterprise.

So EU, KS, profit generating defense industry is vital to the national security and anybody that touches it or disrupts it for any reason is putting the national security at risk. Or Mike, are they actually putting maybe that corporation's profits or share prices at risk? Because are those two the same thing? Now that's my question. That's my question. So we're just looking at their own statements and you know, you can draw your own conclusions here and let's bring this in as well.

And of course, this one certainly is one for the books. The UK High Court held back evidence whilst upholding the F35 controversial exports to Israel. So what exactly happened here? Let's take a look. Well, it seems that the UK ignored its own spy footage when assessing Israel's compliance with international law. We're talking about human humanitarian law. So are they guilty of war crimes or genocide? Key documents withheld from court on Israel's shooting of minors. That also happened.

And again, the Foreign Office paid according to documents that are published. We'll show you in Declassified UK, £750,000 for quote, independent analysis on Gaza. And meanwhile, the firm contracted by the Foreign Office happens to have been founded by a former UK embassy official in Tel Aviv. So no conflict of interest there. Nothing to see move along. And here to the report by declassified UK withheld evidence from court in Israel arms case and we'll take a

closer look here. This is just stunning, like using data from Cir. and elsewhere, the Foreign Offices IHL cell revealed over 400 incidents in Gaza, but found only one attack to be impossible, breach of international human rights law by Israel. And that was Israel's airstrike on the World Central Kitchen convoy, which killed 7 international aid workers, including three Britons. That's the only one of all the Israeli airstrikes that garnered any concern in this.

I can't believe I'm reading this. But anyway, the other 412 incidents that were looked at, those aren't the total Israeli incidents by the way. Those are just the ones looked at were judged as, quote, inconclusive. As such, the Foreign Office has still not decided whether Israel has actually committed any problems or, you know, is is not complying with international human rights law in its general war conduct. And here's the one obviously that was left out.

They refused to submit one of CIR's research reports, long range shooting or shooting of minors, IE sniping at children, to the court despite a duty to disclose and explicit requests made for its disclosure. It didn't make it into the evidence. So I mean, what kind of a legal process is going on here? Sure, that's the question. Here's low. Oh, go ahead. No. I would say it's obviously a fitted up legal process. I mean there is no legal process. It completely subverts the legal

process. We've seen this in other areas like the the fact that MI 5 was prepared to lie to court recently. It doesn't matter what the circumstances where they lied. And so we're just saying this, you know, this is the the government or the regime that has, no matter what color the the political party has said we're standing for the rule of law. Well, that's long out the window.

So they're they're willing to dismantle the rule of law, all for Israel. They're willing to dismantle and to destroy the international legal system, the international post World War 2 legal system, the Genocide Convention, international humanitarian law to protect Israel and to protect the corporations supplying weapons to Israel as its committing A genocide. Did I get any of that wrong?

Nope, I'm not sure that I did. Let's look at Loki, the great UK based rapper and poet, entertainer and happens to be an amazing journalist. This is just a clip of a report he did recently for Double Down News.

Take a listen. In addition to that, we believe in Israel has even boasted about being given access to classified police information from a counter terror investigation into Palestine action in 2022. Why would a lobby group for a foreign power not only be so deeply involved in the security state of this country, but why would it have access to

classified documents? We Believe in Israel came out of Icon, Israel's largest lobby group in Britain, which is currently led by Richard Pater, a reserve in the Israeli military who previously was employed by the Israeli Prime Minister's Office. We Believe in Israel campaigned to remove my music from Spotify. At the time it was led by Luke Acurst, now serving as a Labour MP. Here is Israeli political officer from the embassy discussing Luke Acurst. And We Believe in Israel.

So Lukas is the director of We Believe in Israel. He's a great guy. He's. One of the best of the inside. Why are we allowing a foreign lobby group led by an alleged spy to dictate what is and isn't acceptable protest in this country? So the NGO he's talking about, We believe in Israel, are the ones that look like they they pushed the initial push to ban Palestine action. He's talking about an alleged spy. Let's look at who that alleged spy or who is referring to there.

And there's the organization we believe in Israel, it's trying to ban Palestine action. This is a Israeli, clearly an Israeli lobbying organization, whatever you want to call it here. And this is the person, one of the heads anyway, of this organization.

Her name is Catherine Shaktam. That name sounded familiar when I first saw it. And lo and behold, it is this woman, a woman of many faces who allegedly or apparently converted to Shiite Islam and made her way onto Press TV and RTV, RT International and other international networks posing as a type of resistance journalist. And the allegations are that she was an Israeli spy or British and Israeli spy infiltrated

those organizations. She on record has said, I managed to infiltrate to the highest levels. Quote. It's in Loki's report at Double Down News. We'll give you the link to that in a moment. But here she is there we are executive director of We Believe in Israel. So that's quite a jump from bring being a pro resistance Shiite convert gallivanting around Tehran and returns to the UK and is affiliated with the Henry Jackson Society and this organization. I mean, that's just a little bit

fishy. I can see how the allegations of her being a spy are certainly prevalent because it it it does look very suspicious. So that's what's going on there. If you want any more background on this story with her, this is a great piece by Alan McLeod at MIN Press news entitled Catherine Perez Shachtem, a French born UK, a Jewish French Jewish and lives in the UK. Apparently here Israeli spy who infiltrated Mint press so apparently made her way into mint Press as well. So very effective.

And here's one of the people mentioned in Loki's report. This is a former head of Labor Friends of Israel, John Woodcock. He had to leave the party for some reason, did he? He did. There was a sexual harassment scandal as far as we could. We could see apparently he left his his post after that, but he he landed on his feet. Mike managed to get a, a title there, a peerage, lifetime peerage there in the House of Lords. Lord Walney, he is now known as,

so you know, there we are. But he, he's featured in this report and it's quite damning actually. And you can see the direct link with this gentleman and all of these organizations and then the move to ban Palestine action. So there we are. We see all these operatives working pretty much in concert for the same ends. There's Loki's report there. If you want to go look at this double down news. He is just a fantastic

journalist. I I don't need to say any more Mike, but all the receipts are there. Yeah, OK. Thank you, Patrick.

Well, look, let's, let's just have a look at some of the context behind this because of course, it shouldn't be really surprising that the British government is behaving this way. On Wednesday, we were discussing the fact that the inconveniences of elections and representation of the electorate have been removed from the MP's job description on the British Parliament website. And this is just one of the recent signs that we, in fact, do live in a dictatorship.

So let's just remind ourselves of where we're at. So first of all, let's look, look, sorry, look at the shutdown of any criticism of the state. We have the Online Safety Act that everybody will be aware of. We've got the new National Security Act, the Foreign Influence Registration scheme, the Terrorism Act, as examples.

The Terrorism Act, as everybody knows, is increasingly used to terrorize anyone who's speaking out through arrested borders with interrogations, phone and laptop seizures and so on, and of course, now with the prescription of organizations. But it's the foreign influence and registration scheme that I want to focus on for a second here because this is a subset of the National Security Act that's just been made active yesterday. The the land, Sorry, I'm just going to quote a little bit

here. This landmark measure introduces an unprecedented enhanced tear protecting our economy and society from covert, sorry activities by Iran and Russia. That was from the Home Office. It is A2 tier scheme. The political tier requires registration of any arrangements to carry out political influence activities in the UK on behalf of a foreign power, including political communications or lobbying senior decision makers such as MPs and election

candidates. But a more straight stringent enhanced tier applies to foreign powers considered to pose a risk to UK safety of interests or interests. The whole of the Russian and Iranian states have been placed under this tier. Now there are limited exemptions for journalists and so-called recognized news publishers.

But the Starmer regime says that quotes individuals and organizations brackets, including news publishers and journalists, who are required to register under the enhanced tier if they are directed by a specified foreign power or entity to carry out or arrange for others to carry out a broader range of what are described as relevant activities in the UK. Now, relevant activities in the context of the media include, but they're not limited to

conducting or arranging interviews at the direction of a specified foreign power or specified foreign power controlled entity, publishing news reports at the direction of a specified foreign power or specified foreign power controlled entity, creating video reports at the direction of a specified foreign power or specified foreign power controlled entity, and investigative journalism activities at the direction of a specified foreign power or specified foreign power controlled entity.

Of course, they can make up what at the direction of a specified power or specified foreign power controlled entity means. But I've seen nothing which suggests that Russia Today or Press TV are not foreign power controlled entities. I'm certain they are. But then we're left with what the what at the direction of means this is. This is still absolutely unclear. But coming back to the dictatorship, let's look at the next group of statute and those are designed, sorry, those

designed to criminalize protest. And we have here the Police Crime Courts and Sentencing Act and the Public Order Act, which both place major limitations on the ability of the public to protest government or regime actions. And now as we've highlighted on Wednesday and today, the Terror Terrorism Act is being used in this area as well as Palestine action represents. And finally, surveillance that

we'll talk about here. The investigatory powers in this country continue to be used to surveil us all and with the ongoing row with Apple over the use of end to end encryption, it's clear that the Starmer regime wants no limitations on bulk to the collection in this country. Now in news related to this, then Brian Leveson has been reappointed to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. This is the body which is supposed to hold the use of

these powers to account. Leveson's been doing this job for the past six years and has been appointed for a further 3 now. This is to a so-called independent oversight tribunal, which has frankly at this point upheld almost no cases brought against the state in recent years. And even for the few cases that they have found against the agencies, in fact, it turns out there's nothing they can do about it anyway because they apparently can't apply any kind of financial sanction or

anything like that. But coming back to this again, the Data Use and Access Act recently passed is another contribution to the dictatorship as well as it enables the sharing of bulk data with private companies such as Palantir and others that Patrick's already mentioned just a few minutes ago, so that AI can be leveraged by the state.

So this is quite an incredible batch of legislation that we've seen coming through in the last few years, although the Terrorism Act goes back a bit further than that, but it's now being used in a way that it was never intended.

But let's not forget the daddy of them all, and that is the covert human intelligence sources brackets Criminal Conduct Act. If you remember this, the short text of this went on, it says a bill to make provision for and in connection with the authorization of criminal conduct in the course of or otherwise in connection with the conduct of covert human intelligence sources.

Now, there are apparently no real restrictions on the types of criminal conduct permitted by this act, and the range of government agencies is virtually limited that can make use of this as well. Now, it is true that there's an undoubted decline in the use of covert human intelligence sources, but they are still used.

And it's in this contact context that we, I think we should be looking at the Palestine action issue because even if you disagree with their aims, the fact that their right to protest and express themselves is shut down in this way is as dangerous as it gets for all of us. And anyone welcoming this regime action, I think, does so at their own peril.

And to add to that, Mike, what Loki shared in that double down report is Elbit Systems. Elbit Systems has their own corporate intelligence cell which they used to surveil and monitor members of Palestine Action and then report to the government corporate intelligence. So this is another layer to that whole thing that you just just

laid out there. So we we have got ourselves in quite the pickle in this country with respect to the level of power and the degree of power that the government has claimed for itself just in the last few years. And this isn't the labor thing. This is, this is cross party, it's the UNI party in action and we really have to consider that when we are making a judgement of whether whether we should be supporting this court action on behalf of Palestine action or

not. And it is a dangerous situation when I don't know how many judges are going to be involved in making this decision. Probably 3 I suppose, but nonetheless it comes down to those 3 individuals. And it also the the the continued blurring of the line, Mike, between national security and national interests and then between national interests and corporate interests. Ergo, corporate interests become national security because what are we protecting here? What's all this surveillance

for? Why is the government need license to break the law? Is anything in in in in Palestine putting the UK at risk? No. No, the danger is to the entities that operate in this country. To the corporations that are based here, as well as Leonardo and other big defense contractors, which their stocks are doing very well right now, OK, through the roof, European defense stocks. And I wonder how many people in government own those shares or have them indexed in their

various funds. So the performance of these defense contractors that are killing people right now, let's just kind of put it bluntly. Somehow, that's in the interest of politicians in Britain, Europe and the United States to keep the killing going. Sorry to be crude and blunt about it, but that's what it looks like.

Right now, we were talking about foreign influence there a second ago. Now, of course, when we're looking at journalists who may be affected by this, there are a number of British journalists who have worked with RT and with Press TV, and those are the two countries sort of media outlets which are absolutely on the list for foreign influence.

Now, one of the people who does is seen on Press TV from time to time, if not actually regularly, is David Miller and of course, a very outspoken critic of Zionism. He's coming under increasing pressure, Patrick. Yeah, and they're all going after David. One of the reasons they're going after David Miller is because he's stood up and he has fought them and won at least in the tribunal earlier regarding his dismissal of Bristol University. But this latest challenge is a whole another level.

We've got a video message which David posted on his ex account. Everybody listen to this very closely and we'll tell you how you can help. But go ahead and roll this. So I'm here at Westminster Magistrates Court where I came this morning for the first hearing in the case being brought against me by the Campaign against anti-Semitism.

They have accused me of sending 3 menacing tweets under the Communications Act of 2003. It was the case hearing today, there was no pleading done and we will come back in a couple of months for further discussions and hearings before a trial date has been set for the 15th of December. They will try and silence me. They'll try and silence me

through this whole procedure. And of course what we're doing is fighting back against the Zionist attempt to completely destroy any speeches, support of the Palestinians and against the existence of the Zionist movement, which is of course a fundamentally racist, genocidal movement. Obviously this is yet another court case which I'm fighting, which will have significant legal costs.

We have a great legal team from Bermberg Pierce and we need to raise funds to support both the Bermberg Pierce team and the barristers who are acting from the influential, well known and high profile barrister. So I would appeal to everyone who could afford it to supply us with anything they can afford to support the legal fees in this case to the left, legalfightingfunds@fightingfund.org. Yeah. So just just to get some more details on this, we'll bring

this up on screen. This is the basis this is attempted a private prosecution and it's a strategic lawsuit against public participation or a slap. Talk about an acronym there. And an act of desperation by the state of Israel in a propaganda war it has already lost.

This is up on David Miller's crowdfunding site here and this is what he says and this is basically the gist of it, that they say that some of my posts on this platform X were quote menacing against Jews and Zionists says David Miller. Now if you want to help out in this legal challenge here, there's his crowdfunding campaign right there, Left Legal Fighting Fund, Stop the CAA. The campaign against anti-Semitism is what's being used to try to skewer David

Miller here once again. And again, take a closer look at the URL. We'll bring that up on screen. That's the URL. If you want to get involved fightingfund.org/stop the CAA and. It'll be in the show notes. This will be on the show notes as well. And for those of you who don't want to use the online facility, think they have a facility. If you want to send a check, if you prefer to send a check,

there's the address right there. Take a screenshot of this right now on the program and that's in Darby, England. That address there. Please indicate on the back of the check what is for IE right David Miller on the back of the check so they know when you send it to that address. But of that was posted by David Miller himself on his ex account. So we are just copying that information and sharing it with you.

Very important precedent. Obviously, they're really going after David. They lost in the tribunal. They tried to take him down. He fought back and he won. And now they're coming at him to try to shut down his free speech, to deny him of his rights of freedom of expression as an academic and also as a journalist as well.

Now, let's welcome Mark to the program. And Mark, the protest against what's going on in Gaza isn't restricted to the UK. Many other countries as well are protesting what's been going on in the Netherlands. Good day, gentlemen. I was looking into similar things and I happened to find an item from NDTV World News out of Holland and it's very poignant. It kind of speaks for speaks for itself. There's a video clip we can roll

in a moment. It also comes as an Irish politician who was falsely labeled as the Prime Minister spoke out in the Irish parliament very emotionally about Benjamin Netanyahu's targeting of children. He believes in Palestine with, with basically murder, you know, with all the, all the blunt force of the IDF. Anyway, this, this is very poignant.

A lot of shoes were recently laid out, 10s of thousands of pair of shoes in Holland to symbolize the deaths of children in Palestine. So let's let that roll. This is a 12th time that we are organizing a memorial protest in the Netherlands. We are in Almira. This time we are saying 18,000 shoes. That's the official numbers right now. But we know that more children and that way more children than that have been murdered. They are under the rubble.

They have not been found yet or not been registered because the system just can't do it anymore. I felt angry today coming here that we have to do this again and again. A year and a half and the genocide is not ending. Actually our family today said to each other maybe we will not wake up tomorrow when they went to sleep in Raza last night, Hamdulillah, they are alive, but we don't know how many more people we are going to be losing.

So I am devastated that we are commemorating all of these children, shoes represent children and that it's not stopping. So I am calling the anybody in power, anybody who can do anything, but also normal people, to keep raising attention and put pressure on governments to end this genocide by Israel in Palestine. So again, a very poignant reminder of the death toll in Palestine, particularly against children as she mentioned so

many of them under the rubble. A truly devastating and tragic outcome. But of course, you know, not unexpected given the ID FS absolutely relentless and barbaric approach to this. So that puts a lot of icing on the cake of what we've already seen. And the protests are in the United States as well, but

they're pretty scattered. And of course, we always have to believe, believe or understand that agent provocateurs or infiltrators will occasionally get into these protests and lead people to do things they otherwise wouldn't do, maybe acts of vandalism. So then they can be labeled as terrorists. That does happen from time to time, but that'll do it for now. Back to you guys. Thank you, Mark Patrick. Sticking with the Gaza genocide then. Yeah, I'll give you an update on

that. And just just to just to let you know there are good people in Holland. Don't, don't let the secretary general of NATO give you the wrong impression in that country. There's wonderful people in Holland and we just showed you one of them there. Now, let's bring this up here.

And just just just so people are aware, this is no longer speculation. It's not video tricks you're seeing on social media. US contractors say their colleagues are firing live munition at Palestinians seeking food in Gaza. As you can see, they've created a concentration camp here funded by the US government and the Israelis. They're calling this humanitarian aid. They're letting them loose to go find and run to get food and then shooting them the number

dead. It's running at a clip, including from these sites as well as the bombing raids by Israel, around 100 Palestinians a day it seems, Mike, like it's a quota by the IDF. They need to kill 100 per day because that's what it's averaging out at over the last few few weeks. Is that all Hamas? I don't think it is. Of course it's not. It's ridiculous to even say so. So the UN has issued a, the Human Rights Council's issued a new report.

We've seen the draft of that. I think the final has been published already. If it hasn't, it's probably up on their website. But here's Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for human rights, talking about what's in this report and why it's so significant and why the time for debate, discussion and trepidation of oh, is it a genocide? Oh, is it not? Oh, is Israel intending to kill civilians on an industrial scale? Or is it just a mistake and it's

just all this collateral damage? That time for that debate has long since passed. Listen. My report exposes a system, something that is so structural and so widespread and so systemic that there is no possibility to fix it and redress it.

It is to be dismantled and you know, had businesses and had the corporate sector observed due diligence, had it honored its commitment to do due diligence even before October 7/20/23, he would have disengaged completely and totally from its entanglement with the with the Israeli economy. Because first of all, it's a fiction that there is a line dividing, separating the good Israel within Israel and the bad Israel in the occupied territory.

No, the economy is 1. Israel's economy is 1 and one only and encapsulates the colonies. The colonies do not exist because some fringy part of the Israeli society is pioneering into the wild, Wild West Bank. No, it's because this is resolving the housing crisis in Israel. These people live and trying within a system that is so connected that it's part of the Israeli state. That's the special rapporteur for Palestine and the occupied Territories, Francesca Albanese

here. Let's take a look at the draft edited version here. This is just the clips that I took from it. We'll bring this up on screen. The UNS Special Rapporteur's 27 page report shows in granular detail how Israel's war economy has mutated from occupation to an economy of genocide, powered by a tight knit web of global corporations and investors. Well, let's take a look at that tight knit web. They're right here. The document names more than 60 firms among them.

Drum roll, please. Ladies and gentlemen, tech Bros, stand by. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Palantir. Anybody own volunteer shares? I had a chance to buy at 60. I passed. I'm glad I did. Lockheed Martin, Elbit Systems, well, we were just talking about them. Caterpillar HD, Hyundai, Volvo. Good cars, but I'm not sure about what they're doing with the Israelis.

Chevron, Drummond and Glencore. Of course, Glencore is in there as direct beneficiaries and enablers of the deconstruction of Gaza and the entrenchment of West Bank settlements. Well, there you have it. It's an economy. So it's it's beyond debate. And what why there is not sanctions already? Why there is not full blown

embargo on arms? They're in violation of the Arms Trade Treaty UK signed to that right, the genocide treaty, Genocide Convention UK assigned to that, as is the United States. They're fully in violation of all of that. So why are governments still shipping weapons? What? And shipping, Anything we did, we everyone sanctioned South Africa for far less in comparison.

Although the apartheid regime was bad, although it was brutal, but they weren't doing anything near to the level of violence that Israel has been doing for the last 20 months. So what are we waiting for? That's the question. That's a good question. OK, let's leave that there now I

move on. If you like what the UK column does, we do need your support. I want to say thank you again to everybody that does support us. And if you look on the front page of the website, you'll find a link to the support page. We do need your help. As I say, a reminder of the interview that went out 1:00 PM yesterday with Professor Gloria Moss. This is looking at the situation in universities and so on. So do have a look at that described as a higher education crisis.

And of course, that's exactly what it is tonight at 7:00 PM with Jerome. Charles and I are with Germ for our weekly banter. Uh, join us at 7:00 tonight. Uh, a reminder of Vanessa's latest article on the UK column website Iran on its Ring of Fire. If you haven't read it yet, please do please share it. Sharing it is absolutely sharing everything that's on the UK column website is absolutely important for us as well.

And finally, an advertisement here for an event taking place tomorrow in Scotland. This is taking place in Glasgow at the end of Jamaica St. by the River Clyde on the digital slavery, slavery. And so they are going to be out campaigning on that issue tomorrow. Anybody in the area would like to join them. The details on screen will be in the. Notes as well. Keep cash alive. Look at that sign. Absolutely. We love that. Yeah, sorry.

And finally then a reminder of the date for your diary, Saturday 18th of October 2025. Next UK column on location event. The subject will be health and that's taking place in York venue to be organ well to be notified later on so and speakers as well. So keep that date in your Diaries for that.

OK? Let's move on then to Ukraine. And what do we have here? Well, lots of bombing going on. Trump was on the phone again to Putin yesterday. He seems to have offered, well, not very much actually, in fact. So the Western media is presenting this as Putin being unwilling to do a deal. But in the early hours of this morning, then Kiev was under bombardment again. As we could see on screen at the moment, there were several waves

of attacks lasting for hours. And according to Ukrainian Air Force, his Telegram channel, Kiev was the main target of the strikes. As the landscape, of course, piped up, he condemned it. He said that this was one of the most, quote, demonstratively significant and cynical attacks of the war. He was very unhappy, in fact, that the sleep was disrupted. He said it was a harsh, sleepless night. So he also complained that the attacks came directly following Putin's call with Trump.

And he wrote on his Telegram channel that Russia once again demonstrates that it does not intend to end the war. Now, in related news, Mark Rutte, secretary general, gave an interview to interview to Fox News on Wednesday. Now let's just get a feel for how unhinged he actually is. And then to Lavrov, I mean, he's foreign minister of Russia, I think, since the birth of Jesus Christ. And since then, nothing, anything usual came out of his

mouth. So let's not pay too much attention to Mr. Lavrov. This is just quite incredible to be coming out of the mouth of Mark Ruta, the biggest propagandist on the face of the earth as far as I can see. I could also interpret that as he's basically inferring that Sergey Lavrov is the Messiah. So if that's the case, we should organize some prayer. Lavrov prayer candles. They're coming to you by next week, so look out for those.

OK, well anyway, Rhoda's bad message for the United States was around his continuing whingeing that Trump appears to have withdrawn support for Ukraine. In fact, the Department of Defense has only announced a pause in deliveries of some weapon systems, including Patriot missiles and precision guided artillery shells, Hellfire missiles, and munitions compatible with F16. I mean, there's the F16's been shot down, so it hardly matters.

But anyway, Ruda said. I totally understand that the US always has to make sure it's interests are covered when it comes to Ukraine. In the short term, Ukraine cannot do without all the support it can get. I understand the US has to take care of its stockpiles and at the same time we have to allow for some flexibility here. Europeans in the meantime are really stepping up. Well, my question mark, if we can bring you back on screen is are they stepping up? Well, that is certainly the

plan. There is a major move in Europe and I mentioned it, but we can show this first slide. I mentioned it in a couple of reports ago on the 20th of June when I talked about a Bilderberg attendee citing the Savings and Investment Union as part of a greater stockpile of cash and credit to leverage or collateralize to completely revolutionize and enlarge European defense.

And that is to be based on largely European production and far less reliance, they say, on American weapons and American weapons systems. Let's go back to that first slide, because that's the important report.

The Commission, European Commission unveils the White Paper for European Defense and the Rearm Europe Plan and Readiness 2030. The Commission and the High Representative have presented a White Paper for European Defense as part of the Rearm Europe Plan, an ambitious defense package providing financial levers, including the Savings and Investment Union to EU member states to drive an investment surge in defense capabilities. So this is about rumors of war, the possibility of war, real

war. It's it's about basically basing the entire planned economic boost of Europe and basing it all on defense and military. It it seems that we cannot have peace and economic prosperity at the same time. We have to put the entirety of Europe on a war footing, a war production footing. Only then can we have that military based, relatively good economic health, economic vitality. Anyway, here's some key quotes from that European Defence and Rearmament Plan Readiness 2030.

This plan also relies on the European Investment Bank Group to widen the scope if it's lending to defence and security projects while safeguarding its financial capacity. On top of unlocking substantial funding, this will send a positive signal to the all important markets. And we have another call out, I believe, from that same plan. And this relates again to that Savings and Investment Union, providing further validation that that's happening.

Public investment alone will not be sufficient to fill the defense industry's investment needs from startups to large established companies. For this, the Savings and Investments Union strategy will make it easier to mobilize private savings into more efficient capital markets and channel investments into critical sectors of the economy

such as defense. And they're saying for now in this report that the Savings and Investment Union would be putting forth money voluntarily from European savers, you know, everyday citizens and their savings accounts and their time deposits and things like that. This next slide is basically just a source that people can access from the show notes.

This is a very in depth report in a lot of ways the economic impact of higher defense spending and it admits pretty clearly here that Europe will go significantly into debt and incur much more debt to do this European wide major defense manufacturing rearmament plan. And so that's very significant

to keep in mind. The next slide also reiterates from a couple of reports ago from me, the Bilderberg link leveraging or collateralizing the savings of Europeans, which numbers in the 10s of trillions in the amount that came up initially in this European financial stability and integration review plan that Maria Albuquerque, a Bilderberg attendee this year in Sweden announced on the eve of Bilderberg. So we've got solid proof that they're going to leverage savings and it's just a matter

of how they'll do it. The next thing is just a basic graph. I only have one of these. It shows from 2014 to 2024. That was the initial commitment a little over 10 years ago for 2% of GDP to be spent on defense by European countries. And by the time you get to 2022 where Russia invades Ukraine, you see the speed up and increase of defense landing from NATO countries. And so another key point here is that it's pretty much all predicated on Ukraine and Russia.

Russia's this big threat. They, they alone wore the black hats when they invaded Ukraine. Therefore, that's kind of the whole central motivating point of this is Ukraine wears the white hats. They can do nothing wrong. And so because of what happened to them, Europe must rearm in a very broad and long term sense with with profiteering being at the top of the game. Anyway, there's some other important aspects to cover here on breaking Defense. This is a trade journal. Let's look at this.

There was a recent Paris Air show where a lot of these, of course, weapons are put out like in an exhibit kind of way. Europe is pouring money into defense, The headline says. Can US firms reap the reward amid transatlantic tensions? And so the US, of course, is chomping at the bit now that it motivated Europe to spend not just 2%, but up to 5% of its GDP. European nations on defense.

But that's a 10 year timeline. That's that's supposed to be up to about 2035. They're giving them 10 years to read that reach that 5% percent threshold.

Excuse me, but the Financial Post noted in this 27 June item, European allies are wary of buying American as they plan this defense build up. So the US may or may not totally cash in on this rearming, rearming and remilitarizing of Europe, where they're going to try and build the entire economic prosperity of Europe pretty much on on military matters, the armaments, AI systems, ammunition, you name it. Now, Andreas Kabulius, the EU

Commissioner for Defense in space, had a couple interest interesting things to say. And I'll mention that before I quote him, that Ursula Vander Leyen, the president of the European Commission, is saying the peace dividend is over. The peace dividend is no more. In order for Europe to prosper, we must be on a war footing, a war military production footing. But anyway, here's what Andreas had to say.

The defense package, the white paper for European Defense and Rearmament of Europe plan that I mentioned marks a defining moment for our Union, a defining moment Europe can no longer afford to be a bystander in its own security. And he also had this to say. We must take our defense into our own hands, reinforcing our commitments to collective security and standing firm against those who seek to

challenge our sovereignty. And a real irony of this, of course, is the the very creation of the EU, which Bilderberg had at least a small hand in, was a, in a lot of ways, the overturning of individual European nations sovereignty. So the European Union really doesn't have a leg to stand on in terms of talking about sovereignty because even for it to exist, it had to at least lessen the sovereignty of its

member states. So that pretty much sums up what's going on. The savings and Investment Union has now been confirmed as one definite way that they'll finance this and Europeans better hold tight on to their money or at the at least they better get a lot more information about how this is going to work. There is one more slide if you want, Mike, we can save it for

extra. But at at the Paris Air Show, they put baffling and, you know, opaque baffles around the Israeli booths at that Paris Air Armament show in a move that Israel called outrageous and unprecedented, evidently a active protest in some respect against what the Israeli military's been doing unless they were somehow protecting them or maybe even a little bit of both. But Israel did protest about that. But that's an interesting twist on the end of this story for

today. Just on the defense thing, Mike, this, this 5% target, the likelihood that any of these countries are going to actually meet that they're talking about all these, as Mark said, all the bail insurance or you know, stealing savings to find they're, they're looking for all these schemes because the cash isn't there. Italy, Italy's doing about 1.5% at the moment. And they're so desperate to add to the, to the NATO tally.

There's a bridge that's planned to join the mainland Italy to Sicily, and Maloney's trying to bundle that in as a NATO expense in order to get up closer to her 5%. And Trump just threatens the Spanish. The Spanish said no way are we going to spend 5% of GDP on military, and Trump threatened them with tariffs. So talk about an attack on sovereignty.

The United States is going to determine whether you're going to go into massive debt to pay for this bloated 5% defense budget to fight a phantom menace, the beast from the East. Talk about an attack on sovereignty. So you can't decide what you spend your money on anymore. Is this the new Europe? It absolutely is.

Yeah. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. No, it is the new Europe and you know, it's, it's absolutely clear Patrick, the UK claims to to be spending 2 1/2% already 2.7% whatever it is at the moment. And there's, they say they're going to go to 3 1/2% whatever in order to, to even come to that number. They are including pensions in, in the, in the figure. So, so, and I'm sure all the other European countries are doing something similar.

So, you know, we are faced with Russia if Russia is our enemy, which I absolutely say they are not. But von der Leyen and the rest and Starmer claim that Russia is our enemy. Now Russia has weaponry with much smaller defence budget than the weaponry that we can't even

get near. And so, you know, do do these people really expect Russia to sit back and wait for the 20 years that it's going to take to get for the for the West to get up to a level where they could actually seriously prosecute a war against them? Or are they just going to ignore us? Or what are they going to do? Well, if it takes 20 years, Mike, then that's just about

right. Because every 100 years, Europe decides they're going to try to invade Russia and it gets the same result every time they run back with their tail between their legs. So let's set our watches for 2040 and let's do, let's do Operation Barbarossa again and Napoleon trying to take Moscow. That went well, didn't it? So I mean, this is just like ridiculous. What is the problem with Europe? What what is this obsession with having to go to war with Russia constantly?

Why didn't they just rollback NATO? And so this is just unbelievable. NATO's a joke, OK? This is all about interoperability. We know there it doesn't work. And how many tanks does NATO produce collectively in a year in Europe, the European side 100? What is Europe we. Don't have the productive capability. What does Russia produce in terms of tanks in a year? About 15 hundred 1500 a year. The whole of Europe can't even do a tenth of the Russian production. Are you guys kidding?

Seriously. Despite sanctions. Seriously. Just remind ourselves of that. Like what world are you living in? But your stocks are doing good, your portfolios are doing good, index funds, you're making money. You'll be able to buy the 3rd or 4th house and maybe buy the yacht. So everybody's happy, right? Because that's what it's all about. Absolutely. Mark, let's come back to you

now. Was it last week? I think you were talking about Chatham House and the sudden interest in Korea in the Korean Peninsula? The event has since taken place. What happened? While I was able to cover it July 2nd virtually and it was called How should Britain build influence and impact on the

Korean Peninsula? It included Colin Crooks, interesting, unfortunate surname, UK ambassador to South Korea, Edward Howell, Korean Foundation fellow, Karen Maddox, head of Northeast Asia Department, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, moderated by Simon Smith of the British Korean Society. And I took some original photos with screenshots here. There's Colin Crooks to the left, Karen Maddox in the middle and Edward Howell to the right.

I didn't happen to include Simon in that, but there is some B roll here that we can show if you'd like. And I can just give it a very brief outline for the time we have left. Colin Crooks talked about a bilateral free trade agreement with South Korea and said that that's in the works. And he said that Russia has positioned itself as an enemy of South Korea. Allegedly, South Korea to the Far East side of Russia is geographically close, he mentioned to Russia.

And he said South Korea has a good leader in place and has constitutional clarity now, even though it's previous president declared martial law fairly recently in 2024, although that president was reportedly impeached. So they believe South Korea is now stable and constitutionally sound so it can enter into the free trade agreement with the UK and so on. Another important point is that South Korea is sort of part of a apparent UK military and diplomatic tilt, you might say, or outreach.

They're basically going to make South Korea sort of an adjunct or add on to what they're calling the arsenal of democracy for Europe. And so in a strange way, it kind of fits into the report I just made about re arming and militarizing the economy of Europe there. There is that connection there. There's some other things, Colin said, the ambassador to the South Korea of the UK. Korean language is the fastest growing for study in the UK.

He called that a soft power connection and said 5000 youth go both directions from UK to South Korea and vice versa in terms of cultural relations and British universities and schools are actively recruiting South Korean students. Karen Maddox mentioned a lot of things.

One of the highlights of Karen Maddox comments was that she doesn't believe North Korea is in with both feet in the axis with Iran, Russia and China. She believes it's more of a transactional opportunistic thing and that North Korea is part of that axis only for its own benefit and it again, it's not in with both feet. That was Karen Maddox opinion on that. A number of other things could be said. It was something of a dry

discussion. But All in all, they are saying that tensions are down in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. However, Karen Maddox said that the channels of de escalation have declined as has the number of embassies. So they're trying to re establish the UK embassy in Pyongyang. But meanwhile, North Korea does have an embassy in Ealing, a adjunct or suburb of London. And the HMS Prince of Wales, a naval ship of the UK, is supposed to visit Korea sometime

this summer. So that's some of the highlights, guys. But they're trying to bring Korea in as sort of a distant adjunct of free trade and some of the military activities and related matters. I'm sure that they'll be more on this as time goes by and we can refer back to this Chatham House meeting from July 2nd. So that should suffice for now guys. Thank you, Mark. Looks like a barrel, laughs there at the at the Royal Institute there.

Global Britain's back, Mike. Global Britain's back standing the empire. I will. Be shocked if the HMS Prince wills makes it to Korea, but we'll see. We'll. See how they have to go through warm water to get there. So it might be some engine. Some engine trouble perhaps? Yes. Well, look, we've we've got to

leave it there for today. I'm going to say thank you very much to Mark and Patrick and a special thanks to Wilsey from Resistance GB and we'll let everybody know what happens at that High Court hearing if we hear before the the end of extra. If you're not AUK column member, please consider joining because you can join us in a few minutes for extra on this live stream. Otherwise, have a great weekend and we'll see you at 1:00 PM as usual on Monday. See you then. Bye bye.