UK Column News - 26th November 2025

Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 26th of November, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column NEWS. I'm your host Mike Robinson. Joining me via live link are Charles Mallett and Vanessa Bailey. Later in the program, we're going to be covering the fact that we're going to war unless it's stopped. We'll have news from Syria and UAE, and we'll have the latest on digital identity and also the Mhra's response to the recent CDC announcement on vaccines. But we'll begin today with the

budget and the security lockdown apparently that's surrounding that. Charles. Yeah. Good afternoon, Mike. Good afternoon, all. Yes, an evolving situation I think would be the way to put it. And there are obviously a lot of things that are going to fall out of today's budget. A lot are already known. But the issue that we're going to concentrate on is the inheritance tax issue and farmers.

Now I'd like to point out that the BBC, who've been running wall to wall coverage of this issue for some time today have not mentioned farmers at all. No great surprise there, but it does make it look like there is a political agenda at play in

more ways than one. I just to recap on the issue at hand, in last year's budget it was announced that the inheritance tax threshold would be amended in order that it would capture in effect a vast number of land owners and business owners who were previously unaffected and part

of the problem. This goes back to to the the initial change in 1992. The part of the problem is the lack of warning given and that this is due to kick in in April 2026, giving people very little time to plan around inheritance. The issues pertaining to inheritance tax, if they are to

in some way avoid it now. Farmers have been in discussion with the Metropolitan Police Service for a number of months about planning protests to coincide with the budget day today and yesterday evening on X, the Met Police put out a tweet suggesting that the situation was beginning to change. Now they've updated this further, but they're saying that there are suggestions that they've banned farmers protesting tomorrow and that

that's not correct. But they have nonetheless taken it upon themselves to move the goal posts, and they've put up a policing operation update or a statement in which they say that conditions have been put in place to prevent protesters from bringing vehicles, including tractors or other agricultural

vehicles, to the protest. Now there are several issues that run alongside this, not least the fact that farmers did congregate in Westminster a year ago without incident, or certainly without any significant incident. Just as an aside, it is interesting to note, of course, that neither the congestion charge nor the Euler's scheme are applicable to tractors or agricultural vehicles by being

specialist vehicles. But there has been this 11th hour change and indeed there's no from police a Section 14. It's Public Order Act 1986 being put into effect. Now the police are saying that the decision was taking due to the serious disruption they may cause to the local area, including businesses, emergency services and Londoners going

about their day. Now that would appear to be at a discrepancy or at odds with what has happened over the course of the last year since Rachel Reeves made this announcement last year. And obviously, as one can imagine, there is a certain amount of social media traffic coming out of the event now as to exactly what has been happening, whether there are arrests being made, which does

seem to be the case. But earlier this morning, John Lament, MP for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, was on the ground and he put this short video on Twitter. We have hundreds, if not thousands of farmers trying to come to Westminster to protest against Labour's family farm tax and shockingly, the police, the Metropolitan Police, have banned these farmers from making their voices heard. Whitehall is completely shut down. All these tractors are piling up in and around Westminster.

These farmers want to have their voices heard. They want to persuade the Labour government to think again now at a time when there's all sorts of demonstrations taking place across London each week. It is extraordinary the Metropolitan Police and the government have made this decision. They are shutting down the voices of farmers and they need to be heard. We could stand with our farmers and try and get this family farm

tax reversed. The point that Lamb brings out there, really all that that needs to be explored is the fact that this change was so last minute. So farmers have been committed to this, as well as a number of other supporters either with or without vehicles.

And the problem that the Metropolitan Police Service are creating is, is one of its own making in that they are suggesting that people can only gather on foot by Richmond Terrace, just opposite Downing St. And of course what they will actually do in effect is create exactly the problem that they seek to put to one side by preventing tractors, because of course tractors are coming into London anyway. Where are they actually going to

go? All of this is pointing very strongly towards the operational independence of police being seriously challenged, and that pertains to the very heart of protest itself. So by interesting coincidence, just last month the House of Commons put out a briefing paper on police powers, which we'll just bring up on screen now.

And in particular this deals with the legislation concerning control of this sort of event, the Public Order Act 1986, the Police Crime and Sentencing Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023. But it's today the, as I said earlier, the the Public Order Act 1986, Section 14. And in a in effect, it's as though a police officer has taken the decision that there could be a risk of serious public disorder, damage to property, serious disruption to life. Oh, sorry to the life of the

community. Now this is where we look ahead slightly to the Crime and Policing Bill, which of course we've talked about some some time many times in recent months. And in particular the offences that are coming concerning protests. When we consider that the the scope of digital identity is broadening all the time. And indeed the use of facial recognition, live facial recognition.

And of course this bill plans to bring in the offences of concealing identity and the cumulative impact of disruption very relevant to today. Because of course, if the issue persists, so indeed might the protests. But this could constitute A cumulative disruption because it's being carried out on more than one occasion.

Now the farmer's position in effect is that if their demands are not met today, then they can cause big problems for the government by turning off the taps in effect with regard to the food supply. And it does look very much like the government has been planning around this eventuality. No food. Food security in the United Kingdom is probably around 50% at best in terms of self-sufficiency. So it seems like no coincidence that the UK and the EU have struck a deal recently, which

we'll just look at now. And that concerns effectively sort of greasing the skids with regards to trade going back and forth between the UK and the EU. And in effect, the same thing has happened in the United States, they say for for the EU, certainly. They say the aim of the agreement is to reduce the burden of trading agricultural products between the EU and the UK.

As far as the United States is concerned, it was called the Economic Prosperity Deal signed back in June and that deals in effect with many of the same issues now. Again, I think one point to make on the politicisation of this issue is that whilst it appears the operational independence of police has been challenged, it's interesting to note contrast between the outcry there was when Maccabee Tel Aviv fans were prohibited from coming to an Aston Villa football match.

Absolute outcry across not just the mainstream media but also government. Whereas now a legitimate section of British society is having its ability to protest seriously compromised. And yet not a single voice has come from either the mainstream media or the government to date to suggest that there's an issue here.

Now to find out more about the background to this and indeed how the public can take direct action by dealing with farmers in order to make those vital economic connections, I point you towards the UK Column website, UK Farming fighting for its Future. Of course there'll be links to this in the show notes and indeed to go to the farming section on the UK Column website where there is a host of information about all the various issues that beset

farmers and indeed will Coleshill is on the ground and we hope to be able to show a report from him during Extra. Thank you, Charles. I think out of that the the the bit that I find most hilarious is the Crime Policing Bill creates this offence of concealing identity, bearing in mind the requirement to do exactly that just a couple of years ago. Well, absolutely. And, and in fact, not just that, but it's already, it's a crime

anyway. The, the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 has exactly the same provision. So it is, it's absolutely absurd in so many levels. But I mean, of course, you're, you're completely right. And we just wait for the next the next health scare before that gets repealed or or sort of scaled back or changed in some way. Yes, indeed. OK, well look at the beginning of the program.

I suggested that we are going to war, and I'm going to explain why I'm saying that now. So here we have the Royal United Services Institute. They've just held their Long War Conference 2025 yesterday. Now Rusi's Military Sciences team is launching A flagship programme, Long War, they say, exploring how the UK and its allies can sustain conflict

beyond the first battle. With the prospect of peer conflict on the horizon, this initiative asks how forces could be mobilized, reconstituted and sustained across a protracted industrial scale war. So Charles, Vanessa, we'll get comments from you. Charles, first of all, I mean, we're now talking about a protracted industrial skill war. This is language, you know, invoking the first and Second World wars here. And and they are talking about this as if it's an inevitability.

They are absolutely. And I think this has been the way that the language has been shifting over well at least a decade if not more. And with the as far as the the British armed forces are concerned with the effectively the, the drop off of the operational commitments, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been on one side of it the sort of scratching about and wondering what exactly the jobs will be in future. But of course the other side of it is the the defence or the war

industry. And indeed, what's been written into the Strategic Defence Review this year, predicated on this idea that Russia presents, presents an existential threat and therefore we need to mobilise, but via spending an enormous amount of money on lethal equipment with which to take on the mantle of this eternal war. Well, we'll talk more about that in one second. Vanessa, just before I move on, have you got any, any thoughts

on on that point? No, I just, I find the language extremely disturbing and and sort of odd really, because we've throttled back or in the UK on our military capability. So how on earth do they believe that they're going to be able to run an industrial scale war? Unless of course just popped in my head. Unless, of course, that war is not against other countries, but against its own population. Well, let's see if we can answer one or two of these questions.

So if we just pop that back on screen again. Keynote speakers included General Sir Richard Barons, who was the commander of Joint Forces Command from April 2013 until his retirement in April 2016.

But he's much better known to UK column viewers and listeners as best buddy of Chris Donnelly, former NATO advisor who set up and ran the Integrity Initiative anti Russia propaganda machine on behalf of the Foreign Office. And the other keynote speaker was Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, Plymouth MP Luke Pollard. So let's just have a look at what Luke Pollard had to say here. So here he is. He said thank you Rusi for convening this very timely discussion about preparing to

fight a longer war. It goes right to the heart of security challenges that we face. And he went on to speak about needing to punch and needing to be impatient and people to be driving new behaviours and new ways of working into deliverance. Maybe he just wants some banjo music or something, I don't know. But anyway, he went on to say, speaking about the development, sorry. He went on to speak about the development of Britain's

military capability. He said it is a process that gets gets us to a new destination. Because if we want to deter Russian aggression, we have to be ready to defeat it because ultimately that is the way to create deterrence. This is the deterrence necessary to deliver peace. So this is the peace through the peace through strength mantra once again. Now, you know, you might ask, well, how about talking to people what happened to the Westphalian approach to

international relations? You know, the the idea that acting for the benefit of the other might be the way to do organized peace. But we've got to remember Tony Blair dealt with that. So that doesn't apply anymore. It's outdated, he went on to say.

If you think about even a year ago, there was no EUKEU defence partnership, there was no UK leadership of the UK Defence Contact Group, no historic transit house agreements with Germany, no lighthouse projects that came to the trade that came to that trading house agreement, no reboots of the Lancaster House Treaty with France. And he said to get to war fighting readiness, we need a whole of society approach. And so that's really what they're going for here.

But what you're saying on screen now is exactly what he's talking about, this EUUK agreement, or at least the the basis of it, which are the, the various deals between Britain, France, Britain, Germany, France and Germany. So anyway, as I say, he went on to say we need a whole of society approach. We'll come on to this a little

bit in a second. But before we do that, just to reinforce what Pollard was saying, here's a clip from the First Sea Lord General Sir Gwen Jenkins, speaking a couple of days ago at yet another war conference. I genuinely believe war is a possibility. I really hope it doesn't come. It would be horrendous for all of us for a bunch of reasons. But our professional job is to be ready. We owe it to our people to be ready and we owe it to the nation to be ready.

And. Any excuse is not good enough. For doing our best to make sure that we're ready. Quite incredible language. And I speaking to Charles earlier before the news program, I was wondering if they're planning for, if they're, if they're planning for perpetual war, what kind of war they're planning for. And Pollard has made it clear they're talking about a protracted industrial skill war. And as I say, that's World War One or World War 2 sort of level stuff.

But the question is, are we really going to accept this strategic direction? Because if we are, it's not just Pollard and his colleagues who are clinically as insane, perhaps I would, I would argue. But look, let's, let's look at what we're dealing with here because a few days ago, NATO held the concept development and Wargaming in NATO 2025

conference. They held it in Verona in Italy and now the contraction of the name, by the way, is CD and WIN 2025. And they say that WIN has previously provided an opportunity for NATO senior leaders to gain hands on experience with wargaming techniques and it's use in NATO. Previous WIN events, they said, have successfully garnered support for the continued growth

and use of wargaming in NATO. This year, WIN is focused on practitioners of war gaming so we can continue to grow, refine and learn from one another, fostering improved war gaming in NATO. So let's just have a look at them playing with their toys from last year's conference. This week the War Gaming Initiative for NATO, or Win 24 takes place here in Hamburg at Helmut Schmidt University. Over 300 attendees across 26 partner and allied nations will be immersing themselves in 21 against.

At the tactical. Strategic and political levels. So this is Grand Ascent. It's a game that mimics how the North Atlantic Council makes decisions. If you play Ascent over time you will learn how to make consensus more quickly and with greater quality. This is a game that was created by Allied Command Transformation to support the NET headquarters. stability across the world.

Now, I appreciate that people at home can't see Charles and Vanessa wedding themselves as that was playing and you know, this is the client show that we're looking at Charles.

But it's serious on one hand, because although they're having fun playing Risk or something similar, they're they're also wanting to steal billions of pounds and dollars and EUR of taxpayers money to to fund the building of this military industrial complex with a view to go into war with Russia and China. I think there is a very serious side to it. I'm not quite sure how that naval chap kept a straight face while he was giving the

commentary there. But no, I think that the serious point is that actually this, you know, war gaming, the idea of war gaming of of asking the what if question is, is a very important one. And absolutely it is done at all stages of planning in a military context. That that is not new. However, to in effect infantilise it by playing actual board games, I think is a very deliberate step to remove the in association with the lives that will be lost as a result of these sorts of things.

In effect, it's down to the roll of a dice or something, you know, completely banal. So I do think there is a that there is absolutely a very serious sort of background to the sweeping away of the consequences of doing this. And, and that seems to shine through in that, as well as the incorporation of civilians in order to make sure the message transmits beyond, you know, the sort of the military environment. Yes, indeed.

And then finally, for this section we go to France, where Macron has announced their conscription programme, otherwise known as National Service, in preparation for the announcement. The French Army Chief of staff, General Fabian Mandel said this on Tuesday. We have the know how and we have the economic and demographic strength to dissuade the regime in Moscow.

I try not to laugh because this is where it gets serious because he went on to say what we're lacking and this is where you and he was speaking to mayors in France. This is where you have a role to play is the spirit. The spirit which accepts that we will have to suffer if we're to protect what we are. If our country waivers because it's not ready to lose it's children or suffer economically because the priority has to be military production, then we are

indeed at risk. You must speak of this in your towns and villages. And Vanessa, I would say that yes, people must speak about this in their towns and villages. There must be a blanket refusal to waste life on this insanity. And clearly there is a blanket refusal because to, to a certain degree at least, because Macron's announcement stated that the new framework was meant to address what he called the desire for service amongst the

youth. But you know, the the longer we go on, the more absolute insanity comes out of the mouths of these people. Yeah, and absolutely. And of course, when they say we must be prepared to lose, they're not talking about themselves and their own families. They're talking about the conscripts and and the poor military that are going to be poured out as cannon fodder as, of course they have been in Ukraine. Ukraine has set the example for this. Let's move on then to the

Ministry of Defence. And of course they've been travelling right the way around the world over the last little while and spending lots of money on that. What have they been up to? Well, yeah, I mean, it's good

afternoon everyone. I mean, The thing is it's quite extraordinary to watch them playing their games of battleship and so on. And as Charles said it, it's sort of distance and distances them just as we're seeing of course, that war anyway is evolving into push button mass murder rather than actual people on the ground that are going to suffer the consequences. But this was basically an article printed at Action Against Armed Violence.

The UK MOD spent 110 million on travel in 170 countries in just one year, including to states beset by coups and repressive regimes. Of course we won't talk about who those repressive regimes are and, and in relation to who and also who's behind the various coups. But I, I was fascinated to see the countries that have actually been visited, bearing in mind we're supposedly heading for this industrial scale war. And yet the MOD seems to have forgotten that we're no longer an empire.

They're visiting the vestiges of the empire and as I said, spending taxpayers money to do so. So let's have a look at the 15 destinations. They do include the US, Australia, Kenya and Germany, but also Oman, Canada, Cyprus, Brunei, Nepal, Bahrain, Japan, Gibraltar, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Poland and Singapore. And you can freeze frame and look at the actual cost of those visits. But then what is interesting of course, guess what also happened is the MOD officials.

Something like 12 trips were made during the intensified genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. 299,000 lbs. Sorry, it's a little bit difficult to read now. It's gone small. We spent basically in travelling to Israel, working on intelligence and defence corporation since the beginning of the Gaza genocide. The cost of these journeys was not among the highest, but their timing is striking of course, because they were ongoing during a genocide against the Palestinian people.

That, of course, is still running even now despite the Trump peace scam that included 623 surveillance flights, which I'll talk about a little bit later in this section, providing intelligence to Israel that is believed to have enabled the targeting of Palestinians inside Gaza. And as I mentioned, 12 trips were carried out by MOD officials during the actual ongoing genocide.

Other countries visited. And I'd like to get Charles's and and Mike's comments at the end of this section if we have time. So including China, Iran and Russia are up there. So I, I couldn't actually find details on the Russia and the Iran troops, but China I did manage to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan.

Of course, that is undergoing also a genocide with British weapons by the Rapid Support Forces against civilians in Darfur, Sri Lanka, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, Russian speaking areas of course. And then this is from the Spectator in April 2025. This year, why did the British defence chief visit China? An interesting question. So Admiral Tony Radican, who went to Beijing, he gave a speech to students of the People's Liberation Army at the National Defence University in Beijing.

And as the Spectator says, take a moment to think about that. He also met with General Liu Jian Li, Chief of Staff of the Joint Staff of the Central Military Commission, the operational headquarters of the PLA.

The Ministry of National Defence reported that the two sides conducted in depth exchanges on China, UK relations and military into military relations, international and regional situations and issues of common concern and had communications on strengthening exchanges and and cooperation between the two militaries. Which is again quite interesting bearing in mind that we're supposed to be fearing Chinese surveillance and electric vehicles as Charles reported

last week. And then to finish off here, part of the the in relation to the MOD heading to Israel on 12 trips during the genocide. The Foreign Office also flouted its own rules designed to stop MOD spy plane intelligence actually harming Palestinian civilians. And Ian Overton at Action Against Armed Violence points out that there have been no HR, human rights assessments, ministerial approvals or internal guidance regarding the intelligence sharing with Israel.

And basically when there is a sharing of intelligence between the UK and another country, it should trigger the Overseas Security and Justice Assistance Framework, which has not apparently been triggered according to FOIS that AOA VA have put into the government. Mike, you'll be glad to know that they have received no response until very recently when they were told that that information is not available.

So of course the government has no accountability, The Ministry of Defence has 0 accountability for actually participating in the genocide in Gaza. But I, I, I would love your comments on the fact that we appear to be visiting the countries that we're claiming are about to murder people in the streets of our cities, which are Iran, Russia and China. Yeah. Well, before I comment on it, I'd like to hear Charles thoughts on this.

Because you know what? What acts are the normal activities Ministry of Defence are pursuing in these types of trips? It's a very good question. I mean, the, the sort of broader topic of defence engagement is, is kind of ongoing. And also don't don't forget that the one Ave. at least that would account for this to a certain extent, is the fact that every British High Commission or indeed British Embassy would have a defence section in it.

And therefore that section would be liaising with the host nation armed forces. And that they, they would therefore be acting as a, as a conduit of personnel to go to and fro. That doesn't explain the inconsistencies with regard to specifically Russia, China, Iran, and also Israel. And, and in fact, as a, it's not exactly an aside, but I think directly relevant.

I happen to know, because I spoke to the person in question, that astonishingly, even this summer a defence attache was appointed to Tel Aviv, a British defence attache. That appointment was not actually, in the end, taken up, but it is. It is quite staggering to think that even in the summer of 2025, exactly to Vanessa's point about what had happened, that appointment was still made.

I mean, how much of this type of travel is, is there to try to identify, particularly in countries that that Britain would like to see regime change would be there to identify, as we've talked about with BBC media action in Syria, for example, identify people that are opposing forces and, and, and help develop relations with those people? Yes, I'm not sure specifically that that kind of issue would be dealt would be entrusted with to to military personnel.

But of course that in in so far as obscuring the truth goes, let's say you know, travel that's made by members of the intelligence services, which would be in fact shadowed by military personnel who would no doubt be accompanying then that would that that I think would explain some of the destinations. I mean, otherwise there are, you know, very many engagements with a, you know, we've talked about already the, the apparent idea of the defence dividend.

Of course, part of the big sales pushes for European nations and indeed the British start spending more and more and more on defence. But actually a huge part of it is what we can flog to other countries, which is why this idea of defence engagement is so important, is what are we going to be able to sell, albeit as you say, predicated on the threat of such and such a thing happening. Yes, indeed. Well anyway, let's let's come to you then and continue this theme.

And I think we're going to begin with defence intelligence, if that's not an oxymoron. Well, it can be sometimes, and I think this is a very interesting case of sort of pot and cattle.

This was put out by the Ministry of Defence yesterday and begins with the usual refrain of referring to Russia's illegal full scale invasion of Ukraine. But the eye-catching bit was at the bottom of the update, which says since launching the illegal full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian state has increasingly sought to control, censor and constrict its domestic information environment. And that struck me as being outstandingly hypocritical.

The most obvious point of reference I would think is to look at Ofcom from 2022 and the action that they took against the Russia Today Network. And the way they put it was that RT is no longer broadcasting in the UK.

On the 18th of March 2022, Ofcom revoked RTS broadcast license on the basis that we did not consider RTS license fit and proper to hold it. Sorry, licensee ANOTV Novosti fit and proper to hold it it. Now the critical part in a way, as we've just been alluding to, to any war and indeed the build up to it is the information that passes to and fro.

And just to go further on this, there's a press release put out by the Ministry of Defence just today, I think it was saying that the UK has smashed a Russian cybercrime network responsible for attacks on UK businesses, effectively boasting about imposing sanctions on criminals. And if the Russian state architecture doesn't care about sanctions, I'm not sure I can really see that that Russian cyber criminals will pay much heed to it.

But nonetheless, the, the, the MOD persists in saying that the Foreign Secretary has announced a crackdown on on illicit cyber activity globally as cyber attacks cost the UK economy 14.7 billion. Well, we'll return to that I think later in the programme. The Ministry of Defence carry on. And again on this point of information and indeed this threat and, and the the idea of there being a, a long war, of course posting.

I know Mike has spoken about this in the past, but this, you know, the sort of Russian threat in the North Atlantic.

Now, the reason I'm referring to all of this is because it does fit in with what Soldier Magazine has been writing about this month, and that is a piece entitled Taking Aim at Unknown Drones. Now there's been some background to this, but effectively the article is suggesting that through a new armed forces bill, military personnel are going to be given powers to relate to the threat of drone strikes within the UK. They say the intrude the

intruders can only be shot down in so-called extreme circumstances such as where there is an obvious threat to life and in some other defined situations under current law. So it's all rather vague. It's been taken up by Unmanned Airspace Trade publication which says that John Healy's announced the new counter drone legislation and support for

allies. But the point of this is that the legislation that's being proposed in the as yet unseen Armed Forces Bill only relates to the apparent threat to the military and not to civilians. So whilst we're on the one hand supposed to engender a whole of society approach to war, not apparently if there's a civilian threat or at least a threat to civilians from drones seems to be extremely inconsistent.

And of course the other point which I have made several times before is to refer to the this idea of how on earth is 1 supposed to know what is a threat and what is not. We look at Darlington in the north of England, which has been selected by Amazon as the location for their drone fleet

for Prime Air drone delivery. And of course, the Civil Aviation Authority being completely inconsistent there on what may or may not be done with regard to drones, depending on whether you're an individual or a gigantic corporation. And let's just go back to Soldier Magazine to point out that notwithstanding all the activity surrounding Palestine action at the moment and what's going through the courts, Elbit Systems is still advertising in Soldier Magazine.

And of course, you can see unmanned aerial vehicles on the bottom right if you are watching the screen. And I just wind up by referring back to what Mike was speaking about last week, which was the seminar held by the IDF, which there was confusion as to whether British personnel had attended or not. Now I've been in touch with the IDF press office to try and ascertain whether or not they think that there were any Brits there. And they sent me through a packet of photographs which of

course I've scanned. I haven't seen any British looking combats. But if we just put that image back on screen now what you will see, and indeed, it's it's very public, but just I think worth noting that the Americans were represented in numbers at this seminar specifically based on what they're describing as lessons from the war.

And so just with that in mind, I'll just finish with a quote that I was sent from the commander ground forces, Major General Nadav Lotan, who says I was moved to see all of you come to learn from the IDF. This seminar allowed us not only to present what we have learned, but also to learn from you.

Now, the reason I to say that is not just to consider that in its own right and the attendance of the Americans and many other nations who the United Kingdom is supposedly allied with, but also to ask the question, where does that leave the UK? If, in effect, they didn't acknowledge the invitation, they didn't attend, but they are of course still aligned with all of the other nations that did go, but apparently not actually part of the process itself. Yes, thank you, Charles.

Thank you for that. OK, let's move on. If you like what the UK column does, we do need your ongoing

financial support. If you can possibly support us financially, please do have a look on the front page of the UK column website. You'll find a link that explains what you can do to help that. But very much, very appreciated. Now just to let you know that although the weekly banter went out yesterday and that's not on the UK column website, if the in fact we can't bring a germ warfare tonight because of technical issues, germs having problems in South Africa.

So there'll be no germ tonight. But do if you haven't seen the weekly banter from last night, please do have a look at that. Carlsad tonight is going to be talking to Arnold Bertrand about Europe's strategic failures. And tomorrow at 1:00 PM, Sandy Adams is speaking about escaping the matrix and I guess not supporting the British government in its war plans at the moment. So join us at 1:00 PM for that.

Quick reminder that on Saturday this week at Beeches Green in Stroud, Ben Rubin and Sandy Adams will be speaking alongside Doctor Mike Eden. Details on screen also in the show notes. So do get along to that if you possibly can. It's cash on the door only, however, So, so please, please do go if you if you're in the area. Now let's move on because the

BBC and others are reporting the existence of an internal government briefing produced by the Ministry of Justice. So here's the article here. Justice Secretary wants jury trials scrapped except in most serious cases. So this briefing note has apparently gone to all other

Whitehall departments. And the BBC reports that it confirms plans to create a new tier of jury less courts in England and Wales. And they say that the document proposes only guaranteeing juries for defendants facing rape, murder, manslaughter or other cases passing a public

interest test. Now the BBC says that David Lammy wants to ask Parliament to end jury trials for defendants who would be jailed for up to five years and that these proposals are an attempt to end unprecedented delays and backlogs in the courts and do not apply to Northern Ireland or Scotland. Well, that's because Northern Ireland already has no jury trials because of historic issues with the so-called Troubles.

So, but nonetheless, here what we're saying is problem, reaction, solution, because this problem was created by successive governments and the idea of removing juries has been one that's been proposed by successive governments. So if you want shorter waiting lists for trials and perhaps reduce the number of the people in the country or build infrastructure necessary to support the increased population. But this is not about the inefficiencies, the alleged inefficiencies in the process or

with juries. Juries have been a target because of their power to overturn bad law. And we're seeing so much bad law being created by the British regime. I suspect that they see juries as a major threat. But in the longer term, another potential reason is that in the not too distant future we'll see an increase in the use of AI in the so-called justice system. We need to make room for that. And to be clear, this is purely

academic at the moment. There's a clear drive to use AI for scheduling and a host of admin tasks like document processing. But the idea of AI making judicial decisions is being discussed. But as usual. I suspect we're at the top of a slippery slope. Charles, what are your thoughts on this? Well, I think it would be an absolute disaster in every respect, but the problem is that everybody seems very willing to go for it, albeit a totally

untried, untested mechanism. It's already being used by the police, it's already being used by the prison service, the probation service and the government been writing about using it in In Justice. And indeed, one has heard reports from judges themselves saying that they've already used AI in in helping them with their summing up.

So the, you know, it is a huge danger, not just because it pushes us away from journalist trials, which is of course terrifically significant, but also because there seems to be a complete misunderstanding or or at least a total lack of information or knowledge about the the biases that are inherent within AI. So I mean, it's a huge number of problems associated with going down this this route, but this is exactly what is being pushed by Leveson with his, you know,

review of earlier in the year and all the rest of it. But like everything else that's explained very well, you know, we're just short of time. It's the most convenient thing to do. And, you know, we should not understate the importance of juries and jury nullification and the idea that a jury can overturn bad law. This is this is something that juries are almost never told about, but it is a key role. It is, it's absolutely a key

role. I mean, you know, with that we have to be mindful of the fact that it absolutely works both ways in, in effect, in that sometimes we will look at the way in which a jury has taken that action and think that that is a, a sort of a right and proper outcome. And sometimes possibly not. And there have been a very a number of high profile incidents relating to sort of climate and slavery associated issues where the jury did exactly exercise

that power. And of course there was outcry afterwards because it was, you know, deemed by many people that that was that was the wrong outcome. But nonetheless, giving the jury the chance to deliberate it should should be absolutely sacrosanct. Yes, OK. Thank you for that. Let's move to the Middle East again then.

And Vanessa, Syria and protests beginning on the streets. Are we starting to see 2011 again? No, I think we're starting to see a push back against the atrocities committed by the West collective W imposed Takfiri

regime. And I just wanted to remind everyone because we've basically been predicting these protests for some time in the articles that are being published at Syria Centric, which is the section not only on Syria, but regional analysis going as far as the Sudan with a recent article by Marwa Osman. And we are basically trying to bring on board authors from the region.

And I did just want to point out because someone mentioned I think on the YouTube channel that all the articles appear to be written by me. They are written by me, but in collaboration with Syria and still inside Syria, whose names obviously can't be revealed for security reasons. So this is a just a very, just a few seconds of a video of the protests in the coastal region in Syria yesterday.

So if we just play that. And then on social media, a number of very well known Syrian or Syrian sympathetic accounts went on record basically saying that what is unfolding in Syria is a reaction against what has been going on since December last year. It's almost a year since the fall of Damascus on December the 8th, 2024.

Five people were killed Once the General Security as it's called, the militia that are working with the Jolani regime waded in and basically started injuring and using live ammunition, ammunition against the protesters. SO5 dead and a number of injuries, but the protests have continued. 42 protests across basically the coastal area in central Syria. They haven't arrived at Damascus yet, but this is another account that I would recommend everyone

follow. Syria Justice Archive that basically runs an archive of all of the atrocities being committed by Jolani's forces. And again they talk about the protests among the Alawite Christians and Ishmaelis. Now it's interesting that the Ishmaelis, another minority sect in Syria, have joined the protest because until now they have been relatively left alone by Jolani.

They were among the 1st 2:00 surrender as the Takfiri forces were advancing towards Damascus. The fact that they're now joining the protests is for me a sign that there is a general unrest that is now bubbling to the surface, or rather boiling to the surface. Now of course the threat will be federalism and whether Western nations that were involved in the regime change war, not necessarily.

Western Israel, Turkey, Russia will exploit the protests to basically take control and partition Syria into sectarian statelets, which of course was the project of Israel with the Clean Break Doctrine published in 1996. But just a quick look at the map to see where the protests are actually taking place. So people can sort of geolocate

it a little bit. So Latakia, Tortus, Hama, Homs, which is in in central Syria, you can see they're close to the border with Idlib and and Hama. So serious protests going on and something, as I said, that we've been predicting for some time in the articles that have been published up at UK columns. So not a huge surprise, but we have to wait and see where they go now. Will Damascus join in the

protest? Personally, I think there's a very strong possibility because there has been an ethnic cleansing campaign being run by the tech fury forces. If we can just have a look at the post on acts by Syria Justice Archive showing that the takfiris are now building a sectarian apartheid style wall in one of the areas in Damascus.

In Al Samaria area, which has been under attack in the last few weeks with families being persecuted and basically pushed out of their homes and takfiri elements being resettled into those homes. But now effectively what they appear to be doing is to be building a wall around the area to be able to fully besiege the Alawite communities within that area. So I think pretty soon we are going to see unification of those protests.

But I also wanted to draw people's attention to a 2012 e-mail among the Hillary Clinton emails released by WikiLeaks, which actually stated so. This was 2012. At the same time, the fall of the House of Assad could well ignite A sectarian war between the Shiites and the majority of the Sunnis of the region, drawing in Iran, which, in the view of the Israeli commanders, would not be a bad thing for

Israel and its Western allies. In the opinion of this individual, such a scenario would distract and might obstruct Iran from its nuclear activities for a good deal of

time. In addition, certain senior Israeli diligence analysts believe that this turn of events may even prove to be a factor in the eventual fall of the current government of Iran. So, as I said, while these protests seem to be organic, at the moment, one doesn't know how they might be infiltrated and exploited in favour, of course, of the Zionist block in the region. OK. Thank you, Vanessa. Charles, let's come back to you then.

And well as company directors, many people have had to register their identification with Companies House recently. What's the latest on this? Well, the latest really is the pushing of a false narrative, I would say by Companies House, which of course goes back to the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023. The effectively the suggestion that Companies House is being used as a front for what they're

calling bogus directors. So they're saying that the these changes in order that they avoid these sort of bogus circumstances. And again, this is something that's been pushed very much on social media over the last couple of years with much reporting on how Companies House is kind of complicit in an awful lot of fraud and other crime.

But but they have put out a mechanism by which one is supposed to confirm or verify one's identity, if indeed you are a company director or a person with significant control of an organization. Now a lot of this has been confusingly reported, let's say or, or, or wilfully misreported. There's been a lot of information out there about the requirement for biometrics and all that kind of thing. Now that's not necessarily the case.

Whilst there is, it is possible to go that particular route and on screen now is a video that's been put out by Companies House as to how you might verify your identity and of course the security and convenience of doing so. It's it is really about pushing people towards a centralized government run digital identity. And when I say government run, they might control it in so far as the purchasing and design organization goes. But of course, this is all held

by third parties now. I've been in touch with the company's house press office to get an update on exactly what has been going on and to to ask questions about their sort of reporting on the way they see it. Now, they say that they're phasing in the identity verification over 12 months from the 18th of November to make things easier for existing directors.

Now anybody who has acted as a company director will have to scratch their heads now and think of all those difficulties that have been put before them because Companies House apparently didn't know who they were. Anyway, they went on to say they've designed our identity identity verification processes to be simple, secure and robust. Well, we'll come back to that in a minute. They say that more than 1.7 million individuals have successfully verified their identity.

This is going back to the deadline or what they were very much suggesting was a deadline of the 18th of November and that there are still 6 or 7 million people who are still required to do so. They then said, and I would like Mike's comment on this, that the verification and filing services were unaffected by the Cloudflare issues as reported on the 18th of November. Mike, what's your take on that? I would be highly skeptical of that.

We can talk much more about this, this an extra, but I have absolute reason to believe that the company's house was affected by the Cloudflare outage. And well, we, as I say, we'll talk about that an extra. Yeah, it is. It's absolutely an interesting talking point nonetheless. They went on and have been moving the goal posts on their website about verifying your identity. The first thing they said was just the day before what they'd absolutely suggested was a deadline.

They put out an update saying this date is not a deadline, but it marks the start of a 12 month transition period. In effect giving themselves wiggle room for the number of people that do not appear to have actually complied and signed up. And then somewhat ironically, they then have a fraud warning saying do not let others use

your identity. And to my point about the government not actually controlling this, of course, this is all entirely contingent upon the management of your data by Experian who again, further irony have on their website a data breach resolution service. Now if you're wondering why that's ironic, we'll go back to 2015 and look at the Twin Gate report. Massive UK data breach that Experian were responsible for or indeed suffered largely due to sorry, involving mobile telephone operators.

Then another in South Africa in 2020, affecting 24 million people in South Africa. And more recently, the Dutch DPA have fined Experience, sorry, Experience, Experian 2.7 million for breaches of GDPR. So I think it would be something of a stretch to suggest that that data is in safe hands. And if you're not a company director or you have nothing to do with Companies House, then may I suggest that this is the

thin end of the wedge. And if at first they came for the company directors, they will absolutely eventually come to you. Of course, the way to subvert, thwart and bogged down this system is via Freedom of Information requests and in particular subject access requests in order to find out the information that they do have on you in order to be able to get that information removed.

I would just finish off by encouraging you to go to the UK column website and type in a search for digital identity. It's a little bit small on screen, but there's there is absolute trove of information about this, about where it's going, where it's come from and how it will affect you.

And just to add to this, I just want to put a smile on everyone's face because here is Richard Dearlove, who is extremely concerned all of a sudden that when you aggregate data into one massive base, a database, it means, of course it may. It immediately becomes a target for the country's enemies. You therefore must be sure that the Citadel is impregnable. He's talking about the Citadel that is the the massive database.

Well, it's interesting that he focuses on the country's enemies and when in fact, most of these data breaches are related to criminals, criminal gangs. But anyway, we'll talk about more about that and extra as well. But Vanessa, let's come back to you and back to the Middle East

again. And what are the UAE and Israel up to? Yeah, and also quite amusing that of course most of the data is being stored on Israeli cloud systems. But anyway, minor detail.

So, yeah, I mean, basically we have a situation, of course, in Gaza, unsurprisingly, even with the UN Security Council Trump resolution, of course, it's basically frozen with Israel still occupying 58% of Gaza territory and still bombing and starving and basically ethnically cleansing the Palestinians that remain in in a much reduced territorial area of Gaza. At the same time, we've talked about this often that where are we heading towards?

And and as you always say, Mike, follow the direction of travel. Don't look at the distractions on the way. And this is very much what the UAE has been quietly up to. Why the genocide has been ongoing in Gaza. UAE and Israel quietly advanced this so-called peace railway amid the Gaza genocide. Now what is this? Of course the UAE. This is a tweet, or rather a post. I still can't call them posts.

Back in 2024 when the UAE and Saudi Arabia were effectively providing a land bridge to allow the supply to basic supplies to break the Yemeni Red Sea blockade, of course, to try and bring an end to the genocide in Gaza. And how does this tie in with the long term plans and campaign by Israel and of course by Trump and the UK? The entire alliance, including Tony Blair?

Of course, if we have a look at this, it's the India Middle East, European Economic Corridor, the blessings and curse map that Netanyahu showed at the UNGA. And you can see quite clearly they're going from India through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, using Palestinian territory, Palestinian gas of course, to create the free trade zone in Gaza, linking into Greece, bypassing Cyprus there. But of course Israel is stealth occupying Cyprus with the help

of the Greek Cypriot government. So basically what we're looking at and what we have to keep an eye on is this end term plan by the collective worst, the GCC, the Gulf state countries that of course are captured by the Zionist bloc, Tony Blair and Jared Kushner and so on. And and see everything that is occurring in the region as being very much part of this. Thank you, Vanessa. Thank you. We're going to end today with a little bit of vaccine news.

So six days ago, the Centre for Disease Control in the United States published this page on the website. And the first key point states that that the claim vaccines do not cause autism is not an evidence based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism. And they go on to say that HSSHHS has launched A comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including investigations on plausible biologic mechanisms and potential causal risks.

And they said that the web page should be updated with gold standard science results from the HHS comprehensive assessment from the causes of autism as required by the Data Quality Act. Well, that posting has garnered quite a response from the MHRA here in the UK. They're clearly very upset about it. Here's Doctor Alison Cave, the MHRA safety officer.

She says multiple large, well conducted studies involving millions of children worldwide have consistently demonstrated that there's no evidence that vaccines cause autism in children. She went on to say vaccination remains one of the most effective and safest ways there you have it to protect against serious and potentially life threatening diseases supported by decades of scientific evidence in the UK and internationally. But don't worry because patient safety is her top priority.

The MHRA encourages anyone to report suspected side effects to them via the MHRA yellow card scheme. Charles how well did that work during the COVID ocracy? I can't really imagine it going any worse frankly. And I mean, even now, I think five years on, the number of people that actually are aware that there was a yellow card scheme, I think is still absolutely minuscule.

Yes, but clearly they're very upset with what Robert Kennedy's doing and well, we'll keep everybody posted on how that develops, but we've got to leave it there for today. So I'm going to say thank you very much, Charles and Vanessa for joining me. Thank you all for watching. If you're a UK column member, please do stick around on the live stream and we'll be back for some UK column news extra in a few minutes. Otherwise, don't forget Carl

tonight and interview tomorrow. Sandy's interview tomorrow at 1:00. We'll be back on Friday at 1:00 PM as usual for another news programme. See you then. Bye bye.