UK Column News - 23rd May 2025

Good afternoon. Today is Friday the 23rd of May 2025. We're a little bit after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News. I'm your host Brian Garish, delighted to have with me in the studio. Patrick Henningson. Great to be with you, Brian. OK, excellent. And we've also got Mark Anderson joining us from the United States by live video link.

Now, we've got a interesting mix of news for you today, because we're going to be having a look at what seems to me at least, to be the rush towards deeper war with the Russians and of course Britain and the BBC at the lead of that charge. We're going to be having a look at relations between or what Americans are thinking about Israel.

We're going to be having a look at Trump's comments in relation to South Africa. And we've also got an update on that mysterious political adviser that we mentioned on Monday, Charles Smith and Mark Hanson is also going to be covering a little bit on the Trilateral Commission, one of the powerful agencies at work helping drive global political policy. So I think this is going to keep us busy, Patrick. So let's kick off with how the

BBC views the world. And here we've got their report, which was clearly delighted that the Germans are now putting troops into Lithuania. I'll just put a little banner over this. The German troops are to be sent permanently to Lithuania's eastern border. Now if we just play this little video clip, we can have a we can get a little bit of a feel for the pomp and ceremony about the Germans arriving back in Lithuania.

And then we're going to show some other clips and comment on what the reality of the history, the relation with the German army in Lithuania is. But let's see the pomp and ceremony. Well, Patrick, great music, uplifting as the military get onto the eastern flank of NATO. And to my mind, this is another provocation of the situation with Russia. Don't know whether you've any immediate reaction to seeing those happy troops on the ground

and the cheerful music. No, I can only say that to the Baltic states are among among the most virulent anti Russian forces right now within NATO and the European Union. Yeah, So what have we got going on? Well, let's have a look at how the BBC reported this arrival of the German troops. I'm on a German military plane heading to Lithuania because Lithuania is where Germany is in the process of setting up a brigade there in response to

Russian aggression. And this is a big deal for Germany because it will be the first permanent foreign troop deployment it's done since World War 2. This. Display by the German army in a country the Nazis once occupied would have been almost unthinkable. Not long ago. Germany's been seen as a country with an underfunded military and a nation, too, that's almost allergic to showing military

might because of its past. But now the German Chancellor, Friedrich Mertz, says he wants Germany to have the strongest conventional army in Europe as a way of deterring future aggressors. Peace in Europe has been broken each and every day. Russia is violating the order that we collectively adopted as a lesson from the horrors of the second. World War. Lithuania is on what's known as the eastern flank of the NATO

military alliance. A small country, it borders Belarus, Moscow's ally, and the Russian exclave Kaliningrad. Well, there we are another happy BBC video, clearly delighted that the German troops are back in Lithuania. And there was the underlying reason because those nasty Russians have upset our order. If you listen to it, to what the chancellor was saying there, the the order that's been established by the West, nobody can touch that.

So the German troops now going overseas, This in my mind is a very, very dangerous escalation of the of the situation in Eastern Europe. But the BBC absolutely not concerned about it. Now I've got another little video clip here about Lithuania. This is going back to the Nazis in Lithuania. If you want to or you feel the need, look away because there's some very, very upsetting images

in this clip. But I think we need to put it on screen to understand why the average person in Western Europe should be very concerned about what Germany is now up to. With the full support of UK and the European Union, let's have a look at this little clip. Then in the summer of 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union and occupied Lithuania. Many of the local citizens collaborated with the Nazis and within six months 50,000 of the 70,000 Vilnius Jews were killed.

So we make no apologies for putting that little clip up and of course we could we could put up a lot more material about the horrors that went on in Lithuania as a result of the Nazi German troops on the grounds. But for the BBC, what happened to the Jewish population, and indeed what happened to the population Lithuania as a whole, that's of absolutely no concern. The BBC is thrilled to have the

German army back on the ground. Patrick, as I, as I put this section together, the arrogance and the I run out of words really to describe the BBC and what's going on here. How can anybody be elated that we've got Germany now talking about building a substantial army and getting into Lithuania to ramp up the tension with the Russians? It's madness. Well, you say you've run out of words, Brian, but the BBC provided those words for you. Did you hear the reporter on the ground?

She said what was once unthinkable? Well, it's still unthinkable, but unthinkable once. Once is past tense for the BBC, but for normal people, for people who live in that region, people who remember the legacy of the Second World War, it is still unthinkable. And Frederick Mertz said that Russia has broken the peace in Europe. What what did NATO do to Yugoslavia, by the way, in the 90s? Where does that come into that equation? Want to start with the bombing? Or should we just?

How about 75 days of bombing Belgrade straight and then partitioning countries and drawing borders? And then what about the Minx peace process that was confirmed by the UN Security Council that Britain, France and the other major powers all agree to unanimously? They let that lapse intentionally. We have that on record. And and what about NATO expansion? What about commitments made by previous governments in the US and so forth not to expand

eastward? Maybe it's maybe NATO broke the peace in Europe. Is that a controversial statement? Well, it absolutely is a controversial statement, Patrick, because you're not allowed to say it. And although I've been a huge critic of Nigel Farage in many areas, when Nigel Farage talked about this publicly, he was vilified for daring to suggest that maybe Cato policy was wrong. And here we are now. The fighting hasn't stopped in Ukraine. We're ramping up the tension.

BBC delighted those Germans troops are going overseas. But I'm going to encourage our viewers if you really want to understand the horrors of German troops in Lithuania and other countries on the eastern flanks of out of the European Union, just simply look at some really excellent documentaries on lines truly astonishing. Now I just. Wonder one last thing, Brian. Brian, they didn't show in that last historical film you showed, which was excellent, but it left

out something. Brian, You know what? That was the ending. How did it end for the Germans after Operation by Grechen? It didn't end well for Germany. Destroyed a destroyed country and Europe and millions dead. You're you're absolutely right on that. Let me just add this because this is the way that the UK is crowing about this very dangerous situation. I've put in this headline here. Great news for UK. We're going to ramp up the war. We're going to build EU defence

unification. This is something many people thought had gone away, but of course it was Brexit without the exit and now Germany is allowing the UK to build the gun barrels for this future war that these people are trying to create. What am I talking about? Well, first of all, I'm just going to bring in this. Look at the colours that are being used in order to report sanctions against Putin. This is like Nazi Germany, the stamp, the red and the black and

the Russians to be attacked. This is a report from this is Defence HQ Twitter stream where they're talking about the wonderful rise of the UK, EU security and Defence partnership UK column warning and warning and warning about this over many years. And of course, it never went away. It's now broken surface. And here's the I beg your pardon. Let's come through those again. Let's come to this which a little bit of a technical issue here see whether we can do this

will it behave itself? No, I don't know why that is the last of those slides is actually saying that the German company Rhine Metal is going to allow is going to help little UK to build gun barrels. So no real jobs and expertise for British companies. We're going to use a German company in UK to build the gun barrels for this future war hat trick. Outrageous. Have we learned anything from the last 80 years? That's the that's the fundamental question.

Well, I'm I'm going to say I have, but I'm not sure the BBC has at all. Yeah, with the Royal, we, we need, we need. Right, indeed.

So once we've got the European rules based international order ramping up war in in Europe, we've got a what a distracting dialogue in America now with Trump. It's very distracting, but it's actually much more once you dig beneath the surface on this. This is a fascinating story. Donald Trump has really outdone himself, Brian. And you remember what he did to Zelensky at the end of February where he invited him to the White House and really took him

out publicly. And, you know, 22 great applause from a lot of people. Obviously, Zelensky, not a particularly popular character, but South Africa's had very friendly relations with the United States for a very long time and they've always had good Republicans and Democrats, Brian. So what's changed in the last 12 months? Well, I would say propaganda, Patrick, but you, you take us through this segment.

Well, so Sarah Ramaphosa was invited for a state visit to the Oval Office and he's probably expecting there was going to be some aggression from Trump. So he brought his white agricultural minister and two top PGA golfers because Trump loves golf. Very canny by Cyril Ramaphosa, South African president. But that wasn't enough.

Donald Trump basically unleashed what can only be described, Brian, by not my, not just myself, but many others as a, as a absolute tsunami of propaganda to to basically demean, defame and to discredit the president and his government. And we'll tell you why in a moment. Here's Donald Trump and a small clip from from their exchange yesterday. That I could show you a couple of things and I would I just, I have to, it has to be responded to. Yeah, sure we do.

Let me see the articles, please, if you would and turn, excuse me, turn the lights down. Turn the lights down and just put this on. It's right behind you. Yeah, Hun. There's nothing this parliament can do with or without you. People are going to occupy land will require no permission from you, from the president, from no one. Few days. Death of people. Death, Death. Death. Horrible death. It's pretty incredible. We had a stack of Internet articles. We can't see what they were.

We found one of them by doing a zoom in on the screenshot, and it was from the American Thinker and it was actually from a Congolese murder case of women in the Congo, black African women. And he showed a clip, Brian, of this thing a lot of people see on social media of white crosses along the road in South Africa. And Trump said this was a mass grave and there was a massacre. And those were graves of people have been slaughtered by blacks, white farmers that have been

slaughtered. And the implication is there's a white genocide in South Africa. So Trump basically laid all this on and basically it really embarrassing for the South African president and probably it's going to make quite a few other world leaders think twice about accepting invitations to the Oval Office. So, but the white crosses is interesting, Brian. We did some research on this and it turns out it's not a mass grave.

Those are crosses that have been put as a memorial to two white farmers, a couple that was killed. The memorial was set up by all the residents in 2020. Black and white residents came together to do a vigil. A giant display of unity. And Trump, Elon Musk and the others have cynically twisted this into a propaganda exercise of division, stocking absolute race hate on an international

level. Here's a documentary showing the story of the crosses that Trump left out of his presentation with Ramaphosa. Here it is. So what happened to him? Although he's white, we don't look at the corner, we look at what we are doing. We are doing the same thing. We are all. Farmers, next time it's going to be me. We here this morning at Newcastle where about a way last where last week there was a couple murdered just outside

towards Normandin way. So all the farmers and, yeah, everyone interested in the causes gathered together now and we are going to be driving from Newcastle to Normandin to the farm where the couple was murdered and yeah and. Fighting for the cause, for fighting for the farmers, Fighting for equality, fighting against corruption. A. Local farmer and friend of the Rafferty's, Rob Hodson. Put up hundreds of crosses.

Along the road. Leading to their farm almost overnight, 3000 people climbed into 1000 or so vehicles, tractors, buckies, sprayers, trucks, combies and cars. It took hours for the sombre procession to pass the Boulevard of Crossing. So Brian Trump showed this, these images, without any context to the South African president, put them on the spot in front of a world audience and said that was a a, a genocide mass grave.

Can I make another just come in to make another point there, Patrick is is when Trump was holding up the pages, another death, another death, another death. He could have done this during COVID. That's one thing I've got to say. But the second thing is he wasn't doing that during the attacks in in Gaza. We weren't seeing, here's another thousand, here's another 10,000.

So the the point that I think it's important for our audience to really think about is why is there this sudden switch between massive death and carnage in Ukraine and Gaza to South Africa? So this is not belittling the people who've been killed in South Africa. We know there's some terrible things going on there. But why the massive switch in attention? This is the key issue. And I've got the I've got the explanation for that in a moment.

But the other thing that Trump didn't mention, Brian, is more farmers in America have committed suicide from the banks doing predatory, you know, land seizures and taking their properties away and making basically the farming industry impossible for small to medium sized family owned farms in America. The suicide rate is off the charts and it dwarfs any what a murders of white farmers and black farmers in the whole of South Africa and that's in the

United States of America. Where's Donald Trump for the American people? This is to me. This is switching. This is a massive attempt to switch world views from 1 area of the world to somewhere completely different. He doesn't want to point it back on America because that would destabilise his own position if he was to talk about these problems in America. But. Gaslighting on a geopolitical level. So not only was this was this memorial that wasn't a mass grave.

We did a little checking, Brian. We, we used Google Maps. We looked at the coordinates of where this was outside of Newcastle and South Africa. And we'll bring the image up on screen here. And obviously anybody can do this at home. Even Donald Trump's research team has access to Google Maps, I'm sure. So the memorial site, here's a shot, Brian. The crosses have been removed. This is a 2, 3 year old picture.

So the crosses have been gone for two years from that memorial, but Donald Trump is is showing it to the world as if it's a mass grave now. So it's not only is it not a mass grave, the crosses aren't even there anymore. Yeah. So can he afford? I mean, I'm happy to provide Research Services for the White House. You can come. We'll do it for you when we'll do it for free because we have access to Google. So we we feel very well equipped in that respect. But this is what it's all about.

We'll go to the the next image here, Brian. And this, this is the controversial item here. South Africa rejects Trump's accusations on, you know, land seizures. So this is all about from Trump's gaslighting anyway, the Land Appropriations Act controversial that was recently passed, what this was doing. And then here's the irony again. Here's the irony again.

The the old act was in 1975 apartheid era act, Brian, which had all kinds of very harsh government, apartheid government, land expropriation clauses. What this did is put in due process. For the government has to go through a rigorous due process of applications and compensation for eminent domain. We have eminent domain laws in America. The government needs it for a highway or to do anything. Britain has it. The military uses it in all

countries. South Africa now has updated that and that has been twisted by Elon Musk, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump to make it like this is a law to confiscate white land and pay no compensation. It's a total lie. I mean, we could go into the details of that legislation, which I've done on this programme with Mike Robinson a couple of months ago, but that's the fact of it all. So again, more gaslighting, but we we've done a full, we provided a full analysis on this

up at 21st Century y.com. Just see the top story today, Trump's white genocide in South Africa, from fake news to orchestrated propaganda. So really good comparative analysis shows all the crime data to the political system. How where all these fringe parties like Julius Malema, the guy who you heard his voice talking, who's actually a number of court cases against him by the government of South Africa and so forth. But but you have to go no further than Afro form the Afrikaans.

One of their political representatives was asked point blank in a big podcast in South Africa. Is there a white genocide? Here's what he said. Everyone who's lost someone to murder and especially crews of murder and in this context on a farm, whether they're an owner or a worker. I'd like to share my sympathies and condolences to anyone that you may know personally and that maybe some of your colleagues may know personally in the discussion of some of these matters.

And it's very important that we discuss them. We need to always raise the importance of the human element. And then also on behalf of AFRI Forum, are you saying white genocide does not exist in South Africa where the farm murders or otherwise? There's not a white genocide going on in South Africa and AFRI Forum doesn't claim that there's 1. So it's not just me talking. I'm talking as a representative of AFRI Forum. That is not the reality in South Africa.

And we've never said it is a lot of a lot of questions to be asked Patrick, on this. And we want to look the audience in the eye and say we know that we've got viewers and listeners in South Africa. We know there's huge problems in that country. But at the moment there's something very sinister going on over the top of of what's happening on a national level. So. And where did this all come from, Brian? Where? How did this come to the fore? How did this reach the White House level?

It started with Elon Musk and it's also then was picked up by Marco Rubio. Both Marco Rubio and Elon Musk are very much in the capture zone of the Israeli lobby. They tweet pretty much the same things all the time, along with other top Israeli accounts, along with Tommy Robinson. It's pretty much a carbon copy of all how they tweet at the same time on all of these issues. So there's clearly campaigns going on. But why would you attack South Africa? What? Why?

What did South Africa do in the last two years? They. My guess is take your time mention away from something. To no to discredit South Africa, and we'll bring this up on screen here, let's not forget South Africa, Israel not complying with the world court order in a genocide case filed by South Africa.

So there is a basically a campaign, an effort to discredit the government of South Africa to create the idea of a genocide in South Africa while diminishing an actual genocide happening in Gaza. So these two things are absolutely politically linked. And we'll bring this up on

stage. Just further proof Israel asking the US Congress to pressure, putting pressure on Congress to get South Africa to drop the ICJ genocide case and also to curtail aid to South Africa. So Israel in the lobby are very much involved in attacking the country of South Africa. That's where this is coming from. Anybody can see it with a modicum of basic research.

And just to add a little bit of substance to this, one of the main spokespersons here on the white genocide campaign in America is a man named Ernst Rowetz, and he is heavily promoted by the Daily Wire here. Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, they fly him over to the United States.

A lot of money is being spent to bring these people campaigning and promoting the idea of a white genocide in South Africa across certain podcasts, mainly the Daily Wire and other very pro Israel and pro Zion in this lobby, media outlets, because again, this is part of a political PR exercise, a propaganda campaign. It's pretty clear. And they come over to raise funds for NGOs in America.

So America's backing, listen this, Brian, America's backing NGOs in foreign countries to help destabilise a government. Isn't that what they, Trump and everyone have accused the left of doing with the USA ID? And then they're weaponizing crime, basic crime in a country and putting a race theme on it, which is exactly what the left did with George Floyd.

That's what Ben Shapiro and these people made their career off of. Calling out the radical left, the woke left for doing exactly as instrumentalizing what are what's crime and then turning into race. Race war. A race war, basically. We called it race hustling back in the old days. And the irony is they do all this whilst calling themselves the rules based international order as if they sit on a platform of high moral standards.

So everything George Soros, it does, Brian, The right is now doing as well, but for different issues. But the mechanisms are exactly the same. Yeah. And that's the point. Thank you. Well, what an excellent point to bring in Mark Anderson. Mark, welcome to. Sorry, you've got you've got one more to cover or. What? No, I was going to introduce this, but we'll bring in Mark and then I'll go to that.

Well, let's, let's bring you on the screen, Mark, and just fascinating how all of this has been coming together and, and the information that we've got for today's UK column news because you've been having a look at what the American opinion of Israel is, but you have to add to that. Before we get to that, and Mark does have some very compelling data to to share with us. But Mike, have you noticed Brian, in the last two weeks, the narrative has shifted.

Mainstream media outlets, European leaders are basically saying it's a genocide in Gaza after being completely silent about it for the last 1920 months. Have you noticed this? It's a sea change. It's a major pivot and here is Jonathan Cook, an amazing journalist here and he's saying, ignore Starmer's theatrics. Gaza's trail of blood leads straight to his door. Why is this narrative come? Let's take a look at what what

Jonathan Cook says. He said the the establishment media's narrative had to shift first so that the sudden outpouring of moral and political concern at Gaza's suffering from the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, after more than a year and a half of indifference, did not appear so abrupt or too strange. And he goes on and he says they are acting as if some corner has been turned in Israel's genocide.

That that. But genocides don't have corners. They just progress relentlessly until stopped. And he finally concludes the media and politicians are carefully managing any cognitive dissonance for their public. So they're basically what Jonathan Cook is saying, Brian, is they are setting up a reconfiguration of the narrative. A reframing exercise is happening right now. What what, what is it going to lead to?

Is this an attack on Iran? Is this to somehow marginalised Bibi Netanyahu and move him off the stage to be replaced by another Israeli leader, thus diminishing the responsibility of the state of Israel and putting it all on Netanyahu? That will wait and see what's going to happen in the next couple of weeks. But it is happening. There is a concerted campaign, an effort, a coordinated rapid response effort. Right.

Let's bring you in, Mark, because you you've been watching what the American public are thinking about Israel. Indeed. Good day, gentlemen. G'day UK column Listeners and viewers Yeah, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the former Chicago CFR created in 1922, does a annual Leicester Crown Centre on US foreign policy survey. This survey was done in coordination not only with the Chicago Council, of course, but Ipsos, A multinational marketing firm based in Paris, France.

Americans grow more divided on US support for Israel, and we can go through this in a relatively brief way. I'll give some preliminary information. The Leicester Crown Centre and US foreign policy. They were established that that centre was established in 2018 with a transformative $10 million gift from the Crown family, a Jewish family very prominent connected to General Dynamics, a major defence contractor.

And the Leicester Crown Centre on US foreign policy is driven by the belief that the public plays a critical role in determining US foreign policies direction and that an informed and engaged public, they say, is critical for effective policy making. And the centrepiece of the Leicester Crown Centre is its annual survey of American public

opinion. And this one this year is on American views, the American publics views towards the support of Israel. Some preliminary information besides imposing a total humanitarian blockade on Gaza to catastrophic effect. This is the summary in the count in the Council's survey of American opinion. Israel launched a massive aerial assault that killed more than 400 Palestinians and injured at least 500 more.

And again, keep in mind that the Chicago Council is backed by the Leicester Crown Centre, the Leicester Crown family, and that's a Jewish family. And the Chicago Council also gets a lot of support from the Pritzker family, a major owner of Hyatt Hotels. And JB Pritzker is the current governor of Illinois, where the Chicago Council is obviously

based. And the the council's summary that goes along with his survey goes on to say that the Israeli government approved a broader military offensive. And that summary, as the most political leaders on Capitol Hill, have remained steadfast in their support for the US Israeli relationship. But the American public has become much more divided in its views. And we'll get into it now. Some of the details on this. The survey was fielded between April 18 and 20 and May the 2nd

and May the 4th. A couple different time gaps there where they did the survey and they're finding a they're finding a widening gap between Democrats and Republicans on the US approach to the so called conflict in between Israel and Palestine. Americans give Israel a lukewarm rating of 50 on a zero to 100 scale, where 100 represents the

most favourable rating. This is the lowest rating Israel has ever received in Chicago Council polling, dating all the way back to 1978. Moreover, more Americans now say Israel is playing a negative role in resolving the key challenges facing the Middle East. 61% of Americans surveyed are saying that now, compared to 54% just one year ago. So that's a bit of an uptick there of some more basic stats and we'll be looking at some graphs in a moment.

Americans are closely divided between those who say current Israeli actions are justified, 27%, and those who say they are not 29%. But a plurality of Americans say they are not informed enough to offer an opinion. That's the other 42%. And I would say a lot of that is from media missteps. The media just doesn't inform people correctly on this overall issue.

Moreover, furthermore, slightly fewer now 55% compared to last year when it was 60%, say the United States should support Israel militarily until the remaining hostages taken by Hamas or returned. Nearly half of those surveyed support continuing U.S. military aid to Israel until Hamas is dismantled or destroyed, 47% similar to 49% that said that a

year ago. And I I would note that totally dismantling or destroying Hamas is probably impossible because it's just a, you know, kind of a networked, disorganised thing. It's not a mechanised army. So to just simply say you're going to weed out Hamas all together is probably the next,

next best thing to impossible. Anyway, we have some very interesting slides to look at. And this is feelings toward Israel, where the red line is Republican way up there of the dark blue line at the bottom is Democrat. The black line is overall, and the yellow line is independent. You'll see that the Republican red line on feelings toward Israel is way up there, and then Democrats, independents and

overall is well below that. And this this drives home the basic finding here, guys, that the Republican Party is the real linchpin to the ongoing military and general foreign aid for Israel across the board. Which is why APEC focuses so much of its lobbying on Republican representatives and why so much opprobrium rains down on people that fight back like Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who don't want to go along with

the with the flow here. You see in the when people were asked, excuse me for just a moment, when people were asked, in your opinion, are the following countries playing a very positive, somewhat positive, somewhat negative or negative role in resolving the key problems facing the Middle East? You'll see that the red line is flat line from 1980 all the way till now.

On Republican steadfast support for Israel again, while independents, Democrats and overall continues to decline somewhat gradually, but a very detectable and consistent decline in support there. It's taking a long time. Yes, there was a flaw. However, in the survey where it mentioned, like I noted the following countries, but it didn't name what those following countries were. So that's one wrinkle I found in the Chicago Council survey. This next one we see justification of breaking the

Gaza ceasefire. The top one. Israel has gone too far and its military actions aren't justified. The Republican response to that is very low. The rest of them are quite high. That's why there's a short red line in the middle one. Israel is defending its interests and its military actions are justified there. Therefore, you see in the middle one, the Republican red line is way to the right, extending well beyond the Democrats, the independence and the overall

response. I don't have enough information to have an opinion. Then things tend to even out a bit, which again is interesting and I think is largely due to the mass media cartel, the legacy media. Now we'll move on to the next one and go through these fairly breezily. U.S. military support for Israel. Do you favour or oppose the United States doing that in support? The top the top 2 are supporting Israel militarily until the hostages are returned. Again you see Republicans almost

off the page in favour of that. That was a year ago. And the the bottom one of the top 2 the the Republican support is almost exactly the same. In fact it is the same. Whereas the overall the Democrat and the independents have shrunk somewhat from a year before. Now. The bottom 2 in this graph have to do with supporting Israel militarily until Hamas is dismantled or destroyed again. Same old song and dance. The Republicans are way up there

almost off the chart. A year ago the other ones were a little less than half. And now this year the overall, the Democrats and the independents have have shrunk even more compared to a year ago. And of course, viewers that watch the this show, once it's archived can freeze these frames and look at these, and they'll be a link to the overall Chicago survey in the show notes.

And moving on, diplomatic and humanitarian support for the Palestinians, the top 2 of the top 2, the top one is 2024, where the Republican response to that was quite low, supporting the Palestinians, the reconstruction of Gaza, whereas overall and Democrats and independents were markedly high, especially the Democrats. That's why there's the long blue

line there. And the bottom one of the top 2 is this year 2025, the support for Palestinians is about the same roughly for the everyone but the Republicans, although in 2025 the diplomatic and humanitarian support for Palestinians has went up somewhat, but for the Republicans. And then in the bottom 2 officially recognise like a Palestinian state. The bottom 2IN that same one, the of of Republican Republicans were were 333333 percent against that in 2024, and they're even

more opposed to it now. Whereas again, the support among anyone other than Republicans has remained quite strong for officially recognising Palestine. Again, that has shrunk among Republicans from last year, but it has stayed the same or grown for all the other parties that were questioned. And there's a couple more. I won't take a lot of time with this. the US side in the Middle East, in the Middle East conflict.

Do you think the US should take Israel side, take the Palestinian side or take neither side? You've got the not not taking either side is apparently the top one of those surveyed taking the Palestinian side is I believe the bottom one and then the one in the middle is take not taking either side. So some of the colour coding is a little confusing on that. At any rate, the that, that's basically the, the, the sum and substance of it, guys.

It's a fairly complex survey, but overall, the what's, what it boils down to is the Republican Party is the mainstay in keeping this support going. And it shows the consequences, in my opinion, of not allowing more independence to get on ballots to be elected to public office. And that's a major reason why the two dominant parties have

went to such lengths. To control ballot access and to keep people with more independent opinions out of public office and to keep the Republicans in command of the so called conservative culture. And that has had some good, you know, good, good consequences on domestic issues. But when it comes to this, it's been the the real cement keeping everything together, keep keeping everything in place for supporting the state of Israel at all costs.

So back to you guys on this. Thank you very much for that report. Fascinating to see these statistics and this is really something to help people think about public opinion, real public opinion about events taking place in the world. Just need to correct you on the last slide, if we can pop that one up on screen. So the top line from 2002 to 2025, which is light blue, that is support for taking the Palestinian side up at 58.

The darker blue line below it, which is taking Israel's side is is pegged at 28. So 58 for Palestine, 28 for Israel. And then the light green, which is the bottom, which is not taking either side, which is a view many people you would have thought would take that is 12. So I just needed to correct you on that. But thank you very much for that excellent analysis of of how public opinion is changing there in the States. Now we must move on. I just want to say to viewers

and listeners that UK column can only do what it does with the support of our viewers and listeners. It's your financial support that keeps the UK column going. And we do what we do largely through membership and donations and some generous supporters. But it's very, very important that if you like what we do, please do get on board, become a member and support us. Our objective is to grow and we can only do that with financial support.

Now lots been happening, a lot is happening in UK where people are coming together to try and help one another out and to talk about what's going on, but also to take the pressure off by having it in a a very convivial circumstance. Camping music is often possible. So this bank holiday, so taking place as we speak, we've got the event which is standing the light up in work, Workington, sorry, Workington in Cumbria.

Now unfortunately the UK common team weren't able to go to that, but huge support, all the excellent work that the light newspaper team are doing and I'm sure people are having a good time there, particularly if the weather is being kind. Now we've also got the Sounds Beautiful event coming up June the 26th to the 29th that's in Wimborne, Dorset.

And I think I'm right in saying that we the UK column has two free tickets for that and I'm going to say starting now, that's on a first come, first serve basis. So if you're interested, get in touch with the UK column. We've also got another style event, Thetford Truth and Freedom Beer Festival get together to socialise and to talk about what's happening in the world.

That's Friday the 18th to the 19th of July at the Angel Inn, Swallow Lane, Larling NR 16 Two Qu and we've also got Freedom Music. That's the 22nd to the 25th of August 2025. That's the Bank Holiday weekend and the UK Column team will see you there. Now we just want to give you a reminder that a couple of things that have gone out on the and are now up on the UK Column

website. I did an interview yesterday, part three with Carl Schwartz. Carl has been very very interesting in his analysis on 9/11. He's not well known but he's done a huge amount of work with many other very interesting people and he's really picked apart items and areas that other people haven't tack and tackled. So quietly spoken. But this is worth watching. But you must see Part 1 and Part 2. And then I'm also going to say tonight it's at 7:00.

German Warfare will be having some friendly banter with Mike Robinson and Charles Mallett from UK column. And we're doing our very best to get some different dynamics into the type of presentation, different viewpoints, different styles. So this won't be for everybody, but we hope that this is something that's going to lift spirits at least and give you a deeper look into into the UK column itself. Where do we go from that?

Well, I just want to focus attention back on Keir Starmer for a few moments over the last couple of my UK column news. I've been talking about this man obviously trying to drag us back into the EU, but also military unification with the EU. We've raised some questions about why these Ukrainians individuals knew him and were targeting. So they're Ukrainians, surely We are friends with the Ukraine. One appears to be labelled as a rentboy.

Not quite sure what that means. But we also said on the side, we've got the UK military simply executing people by means of drone strikes in Aleppo. But this was the key point that I raised, that we had to go to the Jerusalem Post and Middle East media in order to find out what the UK was really up to. This was the Jerusalem Post talking about a meeting of a political adviser, Charles Smith, with the Syrian Defence

ministry. It was also reported here at the Media Line, trusted Mideast news, but it wasn't reported in UK media. So we started to ask questions about what was going on and we were particularly interested in what the UK public wasn't being told. And of course this is clearly that now we've got the British military engaged to help what has been a terrorist organisation to build up its military capability. This was the man who was simply described as a political

adviser. Well, we can now reveal that this man is actually an army officer. He's been an instructor at the Land Warfare School at the British Army. If you go to LinkedIn, you can actually have a look at more of his career. And then when we know who he is, surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, we can find that he's been taking part in other meetings in the Middle East. This is in Lebanon.

But clearly the UK media does not want to talk about these behind the scenes but very high level meetings to restructure policy in Lebanon and Syria itself. Just leave that image up on screen for a moment, Brian. A nice little bit of orwelling new speak to support Lebanon's stability. That means instability. Yes, I absolutely agree with that. If you don't know what they're doing, try using the statement that it will be the opposite of what they say.

So basically UK public is kept in the dark about what's going on. This is actually the report from the from Lebanon itself at the time. So we've got more information about what was going on here meeting with senior Lebanese and UN officials. But no, we don't want the UK public to know about this. People can have a look at this after the news and we'll put this up on the notes to UK column news today.

But here we are, Defence attache Lieutenant Colonel Charles Smith. So that's what's been happening in the Middle East. But closer to home we've got changes in the structure, the high level structure of the British military and we've got Sir Gwyn Jenkins now in post as first the Sea Lord forgive me for this, but I couldn't resist the resemblance. I'd like to know whether we've got UK military being run by an officer and gentleman or Rambo.

It would have been nice if he could have got into some decent uniform in order to present himself to the public, but I think Rambo wins. And then of course, in the background, we've got our illustrious King can barely stand up over on due to the weight of the medals, but presumably he's helping to lever these interesting people into post. And I just want to end with this segment, which I just find astonishing.

Of course, recently we had Sir Ben Key stepping down apparently as the the boss of the armed forces. And in the Telegraph report, he's quoted as saying I am unhappy with the state of the Navy. But of course, the son went for the jugular and said Navy shock head of Royal Navy suspended over quote, secret affair with subordinate as married dad of three faces misconduct pro. Now notice that the junior officer who I believe is female, but I don't know that for certain.

She's not named even though as an officer she was also breaking the rules and silence on that. But there was the man breaking his own rules in having a relationship with a junior female officer. Let's have a look at this video clip where a young lady was in great distress due to some really unpleasant sexual bullying on board a submarine.

I think this report from Sky Side to Chowdhury contains explicit descriptions of sexual harassment that I sort of woke up to was like a bit of a fumble that was going on as a officer senior to myself was trying to get into my bed and kissing me. Two years after this interview with Sky News, the Ministry of Defence is making changes. Sophie Brooke, a former submariner, told us sexual harassment, assault and misogyny was commonplace in the Royal Navy's submarine service.

I'd said a number of times to various people, you know, I'd rather be dead than going on this patrol. Today the MOD admitted a problem. It said a report into Sophie's claims marks an Inflexion point for the Royal Navy. My initial reaction is I am appreciative of the full and unreserved apology that the First Sea Lord has given me. That means a lot to have had that both verbally and in a written letter, an acknowledgement of of everything that had happened.

And yeah, just, I think relief that it's finally come, come to an end. That's the investigation. But Sophie says the impact of her experience inside the Navy submarines doesn't go away. I was punched in the kidneys while I was on the Periscope. I had someone licked my ear while I was again on the Periscope. And then I had the same person also. Put their penis in my pocket whilst I was doing my job. Today the head of the Royal Navy issued an apology.

He said the investigation has confirmed misogyny, bullying and other unacceptable behaviours did occur during the investigation period. And this is intolerable. So for our audience, the incredible situation inside the British military that the man who made the apology to that young lady, as well he should for the obscene abuse she suffered, is the man who is also breaking the rules himself. This is complete breakdown of the military structure.

This is not accidental. This is orchestrated and the UK column will dig into this more in the future. Patrick, what's your expression as that apology came up on the screen? Truly unbelievable and. Incredible. I mean, this is the type of thing you try to avoid, right, in politics and institutions, not to have these situations where the head of the organisation has to be exposed to that. Agree. Do they do normally resign,

don't they? They do the honourable thing and quietly take their retirement, right? Yeah. We'll do more, we'll say more in extra time on this. But Mark, let's bring you back

on. Because people can't understand how politics on a global scale works. We've got to understand what this rules based international order is and what the component parts of that order is. And of course, the Trilateral Commission is a very powerful part of this. Oh, absolutely. The Trilateral Commission is often seen as sort of the first cousin, you might say, of the Bilderberg Group.

And I've typically reported in past years, especially over the past decade or so in the spring on the Trilateral Commission, because what they talk about and who shows up sometimes, we'll give you an inkling of what Bilderberg's going to talk about and what's on Bilderberg's mind. At any rate, as was the case in 2014, the Trilateral Commission held a major meeting in Washington, DC, on the shores of the Potomac. It was called an era of Revelation. Excuse me, an era of revolutions.

Maybe revelations would be better, right? At first it looked like it said an end of revolutions, but it's actually an era of revolutions. Kind of a weird script there and it shows the flowers that come out in DC in the springtime. A very pretty place to be this time of year. At any rate, a number of things were covered and this is a statement that was put out on the last day. This meeting was recent. It was April 4 through 6th in

DC, so it didn't just happen. But these things, of course, have long range implications. There was this statement put out that says the Trilateral Commission has for more than half a century, created in 1973, championed A commitment to the rule of law, what they call the rule of law, open economies and societies, which has a double meaning and democratic principles. As we meet in DC amid deep domestic and foreign divisions, the Trilateral Commission's

mission remains vital. Today we are we reaffirm these values. Founded in 73 by David Rockefeller, the major banker, also Bilderberg, the Trilateral Commission brings together senior policymakers, business leaders and top thinkers just like Bilderberg from across North America, Europe, and they have an Asian component in the Trilateral Commission that tends not to be there for Bilderberg.

The members discuss issues to that are common to democracies in those three regions, and we'll move on. There's a little more detail that they shared through their publications. The Trilateral Commission is notably more open about their meetings than Bilderberg, both beforehand and afterwards. I'll mention that too.

At our global meeting, the one that happened in early April, we bring together a wide range of stakeholders, including members of the Trump administration who were there, but I can only track down to by the way. And there were thinkers on the right and the left, former policymakers, and they want to

foster international operation. The founding statement of the Trilateral Commission, just to give a little more foundation to those who aren't familiar with it, says Japan, Western Europe and North America, in view of their great weight in the world economy, bear a special responsibility for developing effective international cooperation for themselves and

the rest of the world. And the major goal of the Trilateral Commission, no matter what the details are, is the renewal and maintenance of the rules based international system that's to be shouldered by all trilateral members. So also in early April, Joseph Nye, the noted soft power theorist and Harvard professor, he, in fact, he's a developer of soft power. He took part in the early April meeting. But about a month later, on the

6th of May, he passed away. And there's a letter here that viewers can look at in more detail, but it was written by Megan O'Sullivan, the chairman of the North American part of the Trilateral Commission. And it they just basically say

that now we say goodbye to him. Joe Joseph Nye, spelled Nye, had been an integral part of the Trilateral Commission since its earliest days, when it was formed by Sebigniew Brzezinski and David Rockefeller. Mr Nye was a founding member of the Trilateral Commission and a chair of the North American group for a decade following the departure at that time of House Speaker Tom Foley. So a speaker of the House of Representatives was actually a major leader in the Trilateral

Commission at one time, which is a pretty grave conflict of interest. Here's some of the key US and UK attendees. The two Trump administration people that the trilateral people referred to were Scott Besant, US Secretary of the Treasury and Sohan Das Group, Boy Dasgupta, an Indian guy, Assistant Secretary for Trade and Economic Security, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. And one of the major UK attendees is Anthony Beevor, B EE VORA, Visiting Professor, University of Kent.

He was among a few different UK personalities who were there. At any rate, we see in this next slide, we see Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary meeting with CFR Board Chairman David Rubenstein. He's the Council on Foreign Relations Board Chairman. He's also with the Carlisle Group. And they simply said that Mister Besant's topic was a special conversation with that CFR Board Chairman, Chairman, Mr Rubenstein. So those those are some of the highlights.

They covered a whole bunch of things regarding AI, regarding tariffs, regarding international relations, that there was very little, if anything about the Israeli matter with regards to Gaza or any of that. But they'll be much more guys on this. We do have a couple short video clips. If I had to pick one, I'd go with the second one. But why don't we show one of those this? This is Edward Luce that's showing him there. He's with the Financial Times.

He wrote a book on the Trilateral Commission, Co founders of Big New Burzynski. The book is simply called The Big Brzezinski, of course, was a major US strategist. He died in 2017, as did David Rockefeller that same year. Here's a little bit of what Mr Luce had to say, talking with Ian Burzynski, Zubigna Burzynski's son. And this gives you a little more flavour of our Trilateral

Commission related matters. As of late, Obama was able to call on, you know, the the Democrats, the most hawkish Democrat, at least in memory. Who had been known as Darth Vader by the left in the 1970s. He was the Darth Vader. For Obama to be able to get your daddy's endorsement was. And I had talked a lot to the Obama people. It was a punch the air moment for them because this neutralised Hillary Clintons and Zbig offered to introduce Obama

and it was a whole big deal. And to to remind, going back to Jimmy Carter, he Carter credited him really with teaching him foreign policy. Carter. Read huge amounts of material in the there's you, you describe how the Trilateral Commission was formed and Carter was the first governor, Democratic governor to be asked to be a member and and so forth. And and so he really, I mean, it's, he's had an extraordinary impact. To summarise very briefly, guys, I know time is tight.

Jane Harman, the host herself is a member of the Trilateral Commission, a former California congresswoman. And so she has a special interest in this. But that they, they did a very in depth interview with Mr Luce on his book and it talked, it exposed a lot of the Trilateral Commission's machinations through Zerving and Burzynski. And one of them was schooling Jimmy Carter to make him into a better globalist than he might have been otherwise.

So they'll be more on this as Bilderberg approaches in Stockholm. And they'll be some of this will be brought into it from the trilateral meeting, but we'll leave it there for now. Mark, thank. Thank you very much for that. And as I said earlier on, some really fascinating statistics there of how opinion, at least in America at least, is beginning to change.

And hopefully as people get access to more direct media, less of the political bias, they are going to be out of frame, much more sensible opinions as to what's going on in the world. Now we're a little bit over for time, but I have to say that UK column does pay attention when people pick us up and say that what we've reported hasn't been accurate. But to bring a little bit of black humour into this end of today's news, the subject was, but it's black.

Sorry, it's back. A black love song with Zelensky. And I just pointed out that the Italian Prime Minister switched black when she met Zelensky in black, and they made a lovely couple, Zelensky looking very happy at his conquest. So we put this back. It's become controversy apparently, and I was challenged and we had a very interesting exchange about this because we mentioned Amy Winehouse, which

is which is back to black. But our viewers said surely you're thinking of ACDC, which is back in black. So we just want to end saying we do pay attention to what you say, but sometimes we do get it right. And it's great to see that at least the subject of music has brought something a little bit lighter to the to the fore. Which do you prefer, Brian Amy Winehouse or ACDC? Well, I've got to say that a while back I started to look at a little bit of information about Amy Winehouse and her

career and her background. And I do like some of her music. I think I prefer more than ACDC, but I'm the age I am, so maybe that's unfair criticism. We must end there. Huge thank you to everybody who's joined us today for today's news. We will have auk column extra in a few minutes. And of course, if you're a member of UK column, you can join in that. We're having a much more relaxed discussion on major events in the world and other things today.

We also have a guest with us and that is Mark plain from Not on the Beeb. So he is another journalist and Mark has been doing some really good work. He's produced a book where he's challenging AI. We'll be talking about that, but he's also going to be telling us about his experiences in Spain when the power went off. So if you're a member, come and join us for UK Column Extra. If you're not a member, think about signing up with us because your support will help us do more of these things.

We must end there. We're a bit over time. Thank you very much for joining us. Bye bye.