UK Column News - 29th October 2025

Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 29th of October just after 1:00. Welcome to UK Call News. I'm your host Mike Robinson and my Co host today is Charles Ballot. Welcome to the programme, Charles. Thank you, Mike.

And joining us via Live Link is journalist and peace campaigner Vanessa Bailey. And later in the programme, I'm going to be covering the latest on the regime change operation against Venezuela. Charles will be reporting on the new digital ID for veterans and also on the D prescription of the terrorist organisation currently occupying Syria. And Vanessa is going to have the latest from Lebanon. But we're going to begin with Gaza because, well, apparently,

surprise surprise, Israel has started bombing again. Vanessa. Yep, the so called ceasefire didn't really last very long, not that we honestly expected it to. And, and we need to remember this is not Trump's peace scam. This is only a ceasefire that we're monitoring at the moment. The Israeli forces have withdrawn to what is known as the Yellow Line, which is the first step of the withdrawal from Gaza. But of course, what are they doing?

If we have a look at the map of Gaza, you can see that they're still occupying something like 58% of the Gaza Strip. So that means that effectively around 2 million of the Palestinian population, although of course numbers of dead are rising rapidly and there are reports of around 500,000 having been killed to date. You will see that those people are being pushed into an ever decreasing area of land.

And when we talk about the staggered withdrawal, if we look at the next map, you can see that the yellow line is supposed to be the first withdrawal point. But you can also see that the red dots are the bases or the dig insurance that the Israeli forces have already started

putting in place there. And also worth pointing out that the extremist factions that are very much affiliated to ISIS, that are being backed by Israel and Netanyahu to lead attacks against Hamas inside Gaza are being sheltered within that section that is still under the control of the Israeli forces. And I have to say in I think around 9:00 PM last night, the reports of massive US Israeli bombing started coming in.

At the same time Trump is putting out statements such as this one on the basis of an Israeli report that the reason for the bombing is that there was an Israeli reservist soldier killed by Hamas in the yellow zone. So what is Trump saying? He's saying Hamas is a very small part of peace in the Middle East and they have to behave. Not that the Israelis have to behave. Of course. If they are good, they're going to be happy. If they're not good, they're going to be terminated.

Their lives will be terminated. So again, we see the usual reset position of the United States in support of anything that Israel does, even if it's basically continuing the genocide unimpeded. Rubio, Marco Rubio came out pretty much with the same thing a couple of days ago, Says that Israeli airstrike and Gaza is not a violation of the ceasefire. Of course, total hypocrisy here.

And then if we actually have a look at what has been happening since 9:00 PM last night, as I said, I noted it beginning around 9 PMI woke up multiple times during the night and it was still ongoing and it's still ongoing now. So this is from the 28th to the 29th of October, massive US, Israel strikes in Gaza, over 100 injured, 46 confirmed deaths. That's now up to around 100 with the ongoing bombing. Many children, I think up to 20 children have been killed in

these attacks. Entire families have been wiped out. Very important. This is always part of the Israeli genocidal tactic in Gaza. Targeted densely populated areas, tent camps sheltering internally displaced civilians and children. More apartment blocks were destroyed, killing anyone still inside. And strikes across central Gaza are still ongoing as I'm

speaking now. Now, among the victims, I'm not going to show many of the awful videos that are, as always, coming out of Gaza, but just to put some human face on the massacre that Israel is perpetrating still both in West Bank and in Gaza. These are the twins, Sham and Yahya, I mean Abu Dhal. And in fact, they're entire family were wiped out. Their parents and the rest of their family were wiped out in one strike. And yet again, another journalist was also murdered in

the latest strikes. This is journalist Mohammed al Manirawi who worked for Palestine News. He and his wife and members of his family were killed in one

strike. Now, very recently, Peter Oborn, who's a British journalist, who in my opinion was one of the few that did a decent job alongside Robert Fisk in in his Syria reporting during the regime change war that began in 2011, particularly when he went to Aleppo, when really Western media was running a criminal campaign to demonise President Assad and the Syrian Army. Peter Oborn went to Aleppo and came back and was heavily smeared actually for his

reporting on what was really happening in Aleppo. He's now published a book called Complicit. You will find the link to that in the show notes in which he accuses the British government of being complicit with genocide. And this is an interview on Channel 4 with the former ambassador to Yemen, although, as he points out, he was based in Saudi Arabia that was bombing Yemen. He wasn't actually in Yemen.

Edmund Fitton Brown, and this is Peter Oborn, basically taking the British government to task for their involvement in genocide both in Yemen and in Gaza. And please listen to Fit and Brown's response to it. And when you were ambassador, I dare say you were in Riyadh, no. I was in Jeddah. Jeddah. I saw a humanitarian catastrophe visited on Yemen by a gay British backed bombing. I saw the bombing of hospitals, I saw the slaughter of civilians.

There you are in Jeddah and I and I also because I'm in a part of an investigative journalist, I learned of the deep concern inside the Foreign Office then as now that the Britain was party to war crimes. What is your You have a record here of supporting the mass slaughter of Arabs and you did this in Yemen as British. I'm sorry, it's a very serious matter. It isn't something you should laugh about. No, it's a laugh of accusation.

It is the slaughter of of Arabs in the Yemen and now the slaughter of Arabs in Gaza. These are these are two. You have defended British government policies in each case reduce of and I I find it very troubling and morally wrong and morally atrocious and deeply shaming for our country that we should support that, that that kind of hand, that kind of contact. I I highly recommend watching

the whole interview. I have to say that Fred and Brown represents the really unpleasant face of British orientalism and neo colonialism throughout the entire interview. But I just wanted to play one last excerpt from the interview where basically Fit and Brown as supporting the concept or the narrative that Iran is the next enemy for the UK. So let's just play this one. Second, as well, the Houthis are obstructing commerce in the Red Sea.

Iran has been a consistent enemy of the United Kingdom, has been conspiring to murder a British author over decades, and has been trying to kill people on the streets of the United Kingdom. The Israelis provide preventive intelligence that has enabled us to stop some of those plots from going. Ahead, I would simply say here, the Israelis also carried out a number of illegal assassinations. The attack on Iran, which they brought the United States in, was illegal.

There haven't been proper propagation from Iraq. I mean, this is just extraordinary. I mean, Iran threatening to kill people on British streets. Mike, wondering what your comment is on that? Well, yes, I think we'll talk about that more an extra. I just wanted to ask you one, one question, Vanessa, and that was, you know, you talked about US and Israel strikes, what is the United States role and what's happening today and yesterday? Well, I mean, they're supplying the bombs. Sorry.

I think really they're, they're, you know, they're, they're probably the most complicit in this. But of course the UK is providing the surveillance. So between them, they are leading this campaign against the Palestinians. Yeah, OK. Any comments? Well, I think, well I've saved for extra, but there's there is a lot to say about it Vanessa, I think. Yeah, Yeah. OK. OK.

Well, look, let's move on to Venezuela then.

And well, in recent weeks, the United States has been making clear that it intends to launch a new regime change operation in Venezuela. So if we just put the map on screen here, you'll just to make sure everybody knows where it is. Now I appreciate Vanessa covered some of this last week, but I think it's worth just having a look again at what's been going on over the last several weeks because earlier this month the United States began bombing

boats claimed to be involved in Venezuelan drug running. Now the sixth attack as was being reported in US and I News talks about drug smuggling semi submersible. And for the first time since these operations began, the US Navy said at that time that it had captured 2 survivors out of four people who were said to be on board that that Reuters claimed the exclusive here on the survivors story. And then subsequently one of the survivors was apparently released. We'll come onto that a little

bit later. Then the flights of B50 twos over the Caribbean began on Wednesday, October the 15th in what was clearly a big show intended to panic Venezuelans. The Pentagon released a bunch of photographs for propaganda purposes. And this opportunity was grasped by with both hands by the likes of armyrecognition.com that we

just saw a second ago on screen. And they said the Pentagon said AUS Air Force B52H Strata Fortress bomber, the side of the second Bomb wing integrates with two US Marine Corps F35B Lightning 2 aircraft in the US Southern Command area of responsibility on October the 15th, 2025. So that was one of the picture captions.

And then each of the picture captions included a statement saying bomber attack demonstrations contributed to the collective defence of the Western Hemisphere and demonstrated the US commitment to the safety and security of the region. So that should make everybody here in Britain and Europe and in the United States feel a lot

better. But here in Britain, we weren't immune from the propaganda for regime change as highlighted here in the Daily Mail. And you know, this was Trump deploys secretive night stalkers regiment as Venezuela mobilises millions of troops fearing raising fears of all out war was

was their propaganda take. And then Trump announced on his truth Social account 10 days ago that his interest isn't just Venezuela, it's also Colombia. Because of course, the narrative about this is that it's all about drugs and narco states. And this is really the reinsert the resurgence of the war on drugs narrative and so on as an excuse for regime change. Meanwhile, on the 17th of October, NPR here reporting that Senator Tim Kaine was planning to force a second vote.

There'd been an attempt to get a first vote in the Senate under the War Powers Act to block Trump from attacking Venezuela. The previous week, he and Adam Schiff had forced a Senate vote to limit Trump's war powers, and that vote failed by 48 votes to 51. And two Republicans took part in. That was mostly a Democrat thing, but two Republicans took part. That was Rand Paul and Senator Lisa Murkowski. So they were supporting that idea. For the second vote, Kane was joined by Rand Paul as Co

sponsor. And Rand Paul said the American people do not want to be dragged into endless war with Venezuela without public debate or vote. We ought to defend what the Constitution demands, deliberation before war. And then a few days later, Adam Smith, Representative Adam Smith, who's the top Democrat in the House Armed Services Committee, he called for hearings on the Trump regime's bombing of these so called drug trafficking boats off the coast of Venezuela. So the political imaginations

continue, quite ineffectually so far. military.com published an article on the 20th which says while the Venezuelan military couldn't match the United States military and firepower, it's still a major threat with 21 Russian made Sukhoi 30 at mark 2 jet fighters delivered in 2008 and 2009 and armed with KH31 anti ship missiles. And they also talk about the Venezuelan military having positioned older, older air

defence systems. But these could still present problems for low flying aircraft, especially helicopters. Now since then they've been further repeated overflights by the US bombers as the psychological war continues. So this is UK Defence Journal talking about this a few days ago. And Trump says, though, that he will not be going to Congress to seek authorization for his military campaign.

I don't think we're going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war, he said, according to the New York Times. Here. I think we're going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We're going to kill them. You know, they're going to be like, dead. Lovely, That's a very similar in style of narrative to to what Vanessa was reporting.

Reporting a couple of seconds ago now, Five days ago, then Secretary for War Pete Hegseth posted this to his ex account saying that overnight, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by a terrorist designated terrorist organisation trafficking narcotics in the Caribbean Sea. Six people were killed. But he went on to say this, which I thought was quite hilarious.

He said if you're a narco terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we'll treat you like al Qaeda. And Vanessa, I'd be interested in your thoughts on that comment because this is very interesting statement for Hexif to make since just like al Qaeda, the drug cartels have the full support of successful US regimes with the CIA being fully engaged in the drug running, using drug money to fund black operations.

And this is very similar to what's been going on with al Qaeda. They do, of course, over the last number of years. Fascinating from from three aspects, really. Because they're going to treat them like they treat Al Qaeda. Does that mean with kid gloves and a red carpet and take the bounty off their heads and welcome them back into the fold of the international community that is led by the United States?

If they're going to kill the people that are responsible for the drug smuggling, they better start back at home with the CIAAKA, the cartel of the sons that was run by the CIA and is now being sort of used to target Maduro.

But also funny how the Captagon trade in Syria has increased exponentially since Assad left, whereas previously, of course, Assad was described as the head of a narco state and a drug Lord. So, yeah, I mean, you know, this is, this is an ongoing tragic comedy that is produced entirely by the United States and the CIA. Absolutely. Now the war of words continues, with Congress apparently unable to do anything to stop events. So Rand Paul again, talking about extrajudicial killings.

But it's not really having much bite yet. So we'll see whether they can actually get any momentum behind this. And now the United States has sent an aircraft carrier to the region with threats to bomb alleged drug cartel targets within Venezuela itself, as

Vanessa just mentioned. Now, as a result of the USS Gravely docking at the Port of Spain in Trinidad, Venezuela has suspended energy agreements that it had with Trinidad and Tobago over what officials have described as hostile actions by Trinidad and Trinidad. Not terribly impressed with that situation. I see that they may feel that they're stuck between a rock and a hard place in the sense that they're probably equally concerned about what the United States is capable of at this point.

But anyway, that we can discuss later whether there's any excuse for that. But then late yesterday, the news broke via Associated Press that the Trump regime attempted to bribe Maderos as the Venezuelan president's pilot to fly Maduro to a suitable location for the United States to arrest him on drug trafficking charges. And just to quote the article here, it says the untold saga of how the agent tried to flip the pilot as all the elements of a

Cold War spy thriller. Luxury private jets, a secret meeting at an airport hangar, high stakes diplomacy and the delicate wing of a key Maduro Lieutenant. There was even a final act of intrigue aimed at rattling the Venezuelan president about the pilot's true loyalties. So the question is, why is this happening?

Well, Afshin Ratanzi offers a suggestion in this post on X. Now let's just have a look at a video he attached to this post on X. It's a comment from former U.S. ambassador James Story. This is a very bad actor, sitting on top of the world's largest known reserves of oil, plus the critical minerals that will fuel the 21st century economy, and he's in bed with our strategic competitors.

So that seems to be the position of the United States anyway, and perhaps we're getting a bit closer to the truth there. Now. Tomorrow at 1:00 PM, I'm going to be speaking to Jose Bimorgi. Bimorgi, sorry, who is the Venezuelan ambassador to Lebanon and Syria, and we're going to be talking about US actions against Venezuela. And he certainly has quite a bit more to say on why that particular action is being taken. But clearly regime change is what it's all about.

And perhaps Vanessa, just very briefly, perhaps oil, rare earths and other raw materials may be part of it, but perhaps the fact that Chavez and Maduro. Are not supporting the drugs trade in the way that previous Venezuelan governments did. It may be part of it as well. Yeah, and also Colombia's President Christophe Petro, who who has made a statement that he would support Venezuelan militarily if if the US does

invade or declare war. But also it's Venezuela's connection to the resistance axis, to Iran, to Hezbollah, formerly to Syria, as you mentioned, Yemen and Iraq. That's also another important reason for any kind of destabilisation of Venezuela. Yes, thank you, Charles. Yeah, well, I was just thinking, Hegseth. I mean, peace through strength seems to be sort of last week's news, doesn't it? Absolutely. Yeah. But yeah, let's move on to

digital ID for veterans. Inevitably, yes, veterans, of course, there are 2.2 million of them in the country. So we believe, and the Ministry of Defence has finally announced that they are going to make the veterans ID card a digital one which they've inevitably put out on X. And specifically the text says that veterans can now prove their status and access benefits at the touch of I'm sorry, I've let's get back one, prove their status and access benefits at

the touch of a button. A modern way to honour service and deliver real support. I mean, that is quite the stretch, but perhaps not so much of A stretch as using Yemen warders at the Tower of London to try and make it look exciting. It is perfectly extraordinary the way in which this is being marketed, but nonetheless, that's the way they've pushed on with it. Specific iron there, of course, because the Tower of London is known to the public at least for its ceremony of the keys with

the use of a physical key. But still they appear to be trying to appeal to the older generation, perhaps by using the Yemen warders or indeed tourists, but we'll see which

way this goes. Now the Office for Veterans Affairs has got in on the ACT and this is how they are plugging it. The Tower of London has 1000 years of history but today is about modernising government and bring it right up to date by the launch of the Digital Veterans Card. The purpose of the Veterans Card is selling veterans to access charitable services, government services, but also discounts that available to veterans and by digitising that they can prove they are a veteran, they

can prove who they are and they can access those services much more seamlessly and straightforward just from the smartphone. If you're permanently called for using a smartphone and you've got that physical card as well, then I would really urge people to get it downloaded for me. I've got banking through my phone, I've got my Veterans Rail

card is on my phone as well. And so this just really complements those, which is this fantastic step in the progress that we're making to modernise how veterans can access services. I'm looking forward to all the discounts that are going to be available to us. So I think that's a really good idea. The Tower of London, let's do a veterans discount. So that's a great way. You've got it in your phone, you can show you're eligible for that, so.

This government very much values of veterans and wants to make sure that we can access those services much easier and that's what digitising the veterans card is all about. What is the psychological effect of talking about digital ID, which is a very modern thing, and playing music from the 1500s in the background? Not quite sure. I mean, it does belong in a sort of comedy sketch from the 1990s,

but apparently it is true. The the Office for Veterans Affairs have continued on X. They've, they've of course tweeted out about it. They have said specifically that they're, well, that sorry, I'm sharing on screen now an image of how the card will look so dramatically different from the thing on the smart screen, the smartphone screen, which is going to be the digital identity. But the text that they've drawn out the same line, again, it's

going to be secure and quick. Now, I'd say both of those things are highly questionable. And to what extent do veterans, Yemen waters in particular, struggle to actually get an ID card out if they want to show 1? I mean, they've literally spent their entire career producing the Mod 90, the military ID

card, with no trouble at all. But in the context of the recent government government announcements about the wider plan for digital Idi, think it's worth listening back to what Johnny Mercer, who was running the Office for Veterans Affairs, what he said about it a year or so ago? Well. But the majority of the work goes into digitising Vets UK, which should have been done 30 or 40 years ago to make sure that we understood where our veterans are and looked after them properly.

So is it value for money? Absolutely. Has it been extraordinarily difficult to get it over the line because of all the working parts? Yes. And if if it was, if it was easy, it would have been done by now. If there were some who who may not want a veterans ID card. They're not mandatory. But for the vast majority of people, I think it's going to be a really useful addition to their lives, not mandatory, where we heard that before.

There we go. Given what Keir Starmer has said recently, although he seemed to have backtracked on that, but the the, this idea that a, that an ID card, even at that point a physical ID card could be mandatory. Now, why would he have said such thing all the way back then?

Indeed, as part of a Conservative administration, and I've spoken about the development of this initiative on a number of occasions, But one thing I did do back in 2022 was to put in a Freedom of Information request to the Ministry of Defence to make a number of enquiries, but specifically what a physical card might turn into.

And the Med replied that none of the information was in scope, as though the things I was asking about had never actually been considered, such as linking health and financial information to the card. However, on the specific questions about the digital context, they said that under Section 16 of the FOIA advice, you may find it helpful to note that the areas presented in these questions are not covered

in the scope of the ID project. There is no intention to link the creation of a physical or digital card. So we can just pop that back on screen that shows the text there. And then they go on to say, regarding your question six, there is no intention to share any personal identifiable information with other government, department or corporate bodies. Now this obviously three years on would appear to be an out and out lie and I will go on to explain the context of that lie.

But but before we do say, we'll just have a look at where this has come from at least in recent recent years. And I'm showing now the 2018 strategy for our veterans in which they say that data is essential to understand veteran community, contributing to a robust evidence base which can inform policy making, enable planning and support service delivery more effectively and deliver good evaluations. So they talk about requiring data for the prediction of

needs. They don't specify whose needs, which seems to be quite an important part of this. And we go on just pull out another criterion, which are which is veterans and the law. And really one would take from this the implicit acknowledgement.

The government appreciates that there is a challenge potentially presented by the 2.2 million veterans that could be considered to be motivated, capable and organised and therefore present a serious problem to government if they chose to do so. Now they go on to say that there's a specific challenge concerning legacy investigations. Of course, Mike was speaking only on Friday about those very investigations which are of course being pushed forward by the government itself.

So this is very disingenuous in the way that the language is being manipulated. Now also just to go forward a little bit into the Veteran Strategy Action Plan 2022 to 2024, they insist again that they veterans have this sort of specific problem identifying themselves. They say it also needs to be easier for veterans to verify their status in order to access government services.

Now my question is why? And very briefly on a personal note, I am a veteran and I don't see that it needs to be any easier for me than it does for anybody else to verify my status in order to access government services, if I even wanted to access government services in the 1st place. But that might be considered slightly by the by this obsession that veterans having a special problem with it seems to

be somewhat bizarre. Now also the the other issue going back to the Freedom of Information request is that in that strategy paper they said that they were going to carry out a scoping study to design a service which will offer the digital verification of veteran status. Now this was published in January 2022, therefore some months before my Freedom of Information request went in.

So they would have known at that time that there absolutely was to be a link with the digital, digital version of the identity card. Now obliquely, but I think very relevant, there's been a lot in in the news at the moment about the company's house requirement for directors to identify themselves by the 18th of November. You need to prove who you are to set up, run, own or control a

company in the UK, they say. Now there are many issues with this, but according to the information put out by company size and Government one login, there is no requirement for biometrics nor to use photograph ID. And the choice remains of course for you because they do still request information which they cannot possibly guarantee the security of. But this has been wilfully misrepresented in some quarters. So I think it is worth looking at what the what Companies House does actually say.

But just quickly as we finish off, we'll just go back to the military and conflicting notions surrounding the readiness for war. Of course, thinking back to what Pete Hagseth was just talking about a moment ago, we've got Sean Raymond in the Daily Mail yet again story about women in the Royal Marines and indeed what the Commandant of the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines actually said about it. We'll just have a quick listen to him.

Most men can't complete this training and therefore the women that might be able to do it are are extremely high performing. They are out there. I wonder if they're out there, though, already gainfully employed in the sorts of elite sports that might otherwise, you know, be more appealing to them than necessarily coming down to be a real Marine commando.

But I'm rocket clear there is, there are women out there that could come and do this training if they were motivated enough to do it. And we have had some women recently who have come close. Unfortunately, they haven't met all of the standards, but we absolutely want you. The two questions Commandos always used to ask in World War 2. Are you here to help? Are you any good? Well, the third question we need to add is, and we want you if you're different.

We want you if you're different because the cognitive edge is going to be a game changer for us going forward. So it's hard to know exactly what he means by that, and if anyone can be rocket clear on what rocket clear means and do right in. But the other thing to set this alongside is what's happened with the selectional recruitment

into the Reserve SAS. And the most recent edition of Soldier magazine has this piece in it on the Special Forces and indeed talks about being able to go into the selection process on resettlement. But also interestingly, they've got 2 little bits here saying applications are accepted from men and women across all three services. And you can join reserve SAS up till the age of 43 and 364 days.

So relevant to this is the most recent episode of Military Matters, in which Brian and I spoke specifically about the issues surrounding recruitment and how this is at odds with all the various defence literature that's being put out, but especially the commitment to what's being described as a push for 30% of the armed forces to be made up of women. Thank you, Charles. OK, let's let's move on then. If you like what the UK column does, if you'd like to support

us, please go to the front page of the UK column website. There's a big box there that takes you to a page which gives you all the various options. We do need ongoing financial support, so if you can possibly join us as a member or make a donation, that would be fantastic. Thank you to everybody that has and does. But if you can't do that, please do share material you find on the website or anywhere else related to UK column because that is key for us to defeat the censorship regime.

Now it's 7:00 tonight. Jerem is speaking to Shannon Joy on everything being a reality show. I think the way things are going at the moment, it increasingly looks like reality TV. It is nuts. And then at 9:00 PM tonight is Karl Zaz speaking to Pepe Escobar. Join him for that. Then yesterday you were speaking to Shahz Khan at 1:00.

Absolutely. Well, she's written an excellent book called The Ultimate Vaccine Timeline, and she has the benefit of not being involved in any way in the medical profession and therefore she looks at things very objectively. Her father died, she believes, as a result of a flu jab. And she's gone back into the history of particularly the safety around vaccinations and had a whole load of documents released that never been seen

before. So it's a fascinating interview and I really would encourage you to have a listen. Another quick reminder that 1:00 PM tomorrow, I'm speaking to Ambassador Jose Bio Morji, Venezuelan Ambassador to Lebanon and Syria. Join me at 1:00 for that. And then a reminder that on Sunday evening, the latest 1000 Words podcast went out featuring James Delanpole.

Yeah, it did indeed. So that's the first first part, and then the second part will be going out for members this Sunday at 7:00 PM. So getting into Delano's sort of transition from a Telegraph journalist into where he's got to now in terms of his journey down various, it holds. And finally, Charles a digital another digital idea event.

Yes indeed, this one up in Edinburgh and this is this Saturday at the Mound just off Prince's Street, so if you are able to get along up there then please do so. Fantastic. Now let's move on to assisted

dying Charles. Yeah, indeed, now it's going back a little bit. The second reading in the House of Lords on assisted dying was on the 12th of September 2025 and there were many speaking in opposition for a whole host of reasons. I think a notable comment to pull out comes from Theresa May, Baroness May, now the former Prime Minister, say, who said I do not believe that the safeguards in the bill will prevent people being pressurised to end their lives, sometimes for the benefit of others.

They worry that, as we have seen in countries where there is such law, people will feel that they must end their lives simply because they feel that they are a burden on others. Now I bring this up because Will Coleshill has a report that he's put out from the Battle of Ideas, which he attended recently, and he caught up with Lord Moylan.

I'm Daniel Moylan. I was speaking this morning at an event and I've got another one to speak out this afternoon and I've been coming to the battle of ideas as a speaker for a number of years now and I think it's a great event. And what about the battle of ideas makes it special?

Well, the fact that it's so many of the events there are people with an alternative take on on a different perspective on public events, but also the fact that the audience is normally very lively and intellectually critical. May I enquire as to the topics on which you've been speaking?

The one this morning was about the process by which Parliament has been making law on the assisted suicide legislation and the one this afternoon, which I'm doing, it's slightly short notice without very much preparation, is about the steel industry and the railway industry and what the future is for them. Do you want to talk a little bit more about the assisted dying and then maybe the steel industry? Yeah, well, I'm opposed to this.

It's a dying bill. But the question this morning really was whether the legislative process we've got is fit for purpose. And I do agree with people that I think that the the way the the Commons has gone about this bill has sort of tested the system very hard at the boundaries. And this is partly because the government isn't honest or Claire Starmer isn't honest about the fact that it's really

his bill. And these are a lot of glove puppets really, that he's trying to move around without accepting the responsibility for the bill. Don't say it's a government bill because a lot of people in the government don't want it. Or if they even if they do want it, they don't think it's a priority, which should be distracting the government from its core business, which is what it increasingly is doing, I think. But Starmer does want it and

he's making that commitment. And, and the way in which the parliamentary system has been used is really stretching it to its limits. Comes to the Lords now and we'll see you know how much scrutiny it can get there. What is the mood like in the Lords around the assisted dying? Do you think it could be rejected in the Lords?

I think there's a very, there's a huge amount of deep concern in the Lords, even amongst people who support the bill or are sympathetic to the principle about how badly drafted it is, how many holes it has. It's a sort of skeleton legislation with all the important stuff to be filled in later, which people don't like at all, especially on something as sensitive as this and for the stuff that they're talking about to be filled in by ministers without proper parliamentary

scrutiny. And that's, that's what the bill contemplates. So yes, I do think there's a lot of concern about it even amongst people who might be sympathetic in principle. Very, very unusual for the House of Lords to vote down a piece of legislation, vote it down a piece of legislation that has passed the Commons. But I think it's likely to be heavily amended in the Lords and then it would be up to the Commons to see if they can agree

to the amendments or not. So you're talking about the legislative process, No. Do you think that we've abrogated too much power away from the Commons and away from the Lords to the ministers themselves? And essentially, it's ruled by executive Fiat.

Well, it's it's certainly true that there are powers now in many bills that give the government the right even to rewrite other acts of Parliament without coming back to Parliament. This is what we mean when we talk about Henry the Eighth clauses, Henry the Eighth powers, and there are too many bills with Henry the Eighth powers. And I think we are in danger of going that way. But it's partly a function of simply having too much legislation.

We, we pass too much legislation, we try to legislate for too many things. And I think and governments trying to do too many things. And I think we would really think about the scope of government and what it should be doing because the state is the apparatus of the state is falling over under the pressure of all the things it's being asked to do. So is it time for a great repeal

bill? Well, we've tried something like that before, but yes, there's an awful lot of legislation that's specifically about the legislation passed by the Blair government which totally distorted and changed our constitution. They talked it, they called it modernising it wasn't it? It's made large parts of it democratically unworkable. And I think a lot of that does have to go, yes. So you're looking forward to a

big change in 2029? I certainly think there will not be a Labour government in 2029 and I rather welcome that. Yes. Well, thank you. Very much. Thank you very much. Very nice and pleasure. Thank. You. Dangers of modernising Thanks to Will Colthill there no to Theresa May to go back. She also suggested that it could be used as a cover up for mistakes made in hospital or for hospital acquired infections.

And she said cited a friend of hers who calls it the licence to kill Bill, say as Lord Moylan says there, she says it's not an assisted dying bill but an assisted suicide bill and will follow the next stage which will be the committee stage starting on 14th of November. Thank you, Charles. Now we talked mentioned earlier on in the programme the group

that is currently occupying Syria and of course many people will know it by the name of HTS. It has been a prescribed organisation for obvious reasons. Is it still? It is not, no. And Vanessa did actually mention this in Extra last week. It was, It was sort of unfolding at the time. And sure enough, the government has now announced its intent to D prescribe HTS and so we'll just show you the notice from the Home Office and the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office.

And here it is in English, which says UK removes Hayat tarea al Sham from terrorist organisation list. Now in this extraordinary news story they have said that the government or for the government it will mean closer engagement with the new Syrian government and support UK foreign and domestic priorities from counterterrorism to migration and chemical weapons destruction.

Now one might think that it would be cause for concern that a terrorist organisation needs to be de prescribed in order for any of those things to actually happen. The statement, it also goes on to say something which I'd like to hear Vanessa's comment on and it is this which is Daesh remains a significant threat in Syria.

The D prescription of HTS will support this government's engagement on the counter Daesh mission in Syria, in turn reducing the threat to UK. Vanessa, how does that work? And it doesn't work because HDS, which of course is simply a rebranding of al Qaeda or or Jabat al Nusra, which was founded by Jolani, now President Ahmad al Sharad in Syria. But the HDS military are actually effectively reliant upon ISIS to support them in their ethnic cleansing massacres

of Syrian minorities. So I'm really not quite sure how that works at all. I think we we conclude that it absolutely doesn't work much like most of the language that's contained not just within that statement, but also that the statement came from Dan Jarvis, the security minister in the House of Commons on the 2020 second of October, which is really a master class of euphemism.

He said after capital consideration and following extensive consultation across government and with operational partners, he says this decision reflects our unwavering support for British interests and commitment to the security of the United Kingdom. Now, as it happens, the Home Office list of prescribed groups has not been updated. And so this is what it's said since 2017 just to you in the

picture. So it comes under the AL Qaeda banner and specifically it refers to Hayat Talia Al Sham should should be treated as alternative names. Obviously they've listed a few others should be treated as alternative names for the organisation, which is already prescribed under the name al Qaeda. Now, of course, this links back to what we've just heard in the news about Venezuela and and all the rest of it and indeed relates to Hamas. I mean, there's so many things

that are tied into this. And of course, with that in mind, it is absolutely relevant that this was the exact same process was gone through in the United States back in July of this year. We'll just have a look at that on screen. So this happened in July in the States. I'd just like to draw your attention to the banner running across the top of the page which says federal government shutdown. Due to the Democrat LED shutdown, website updates will be limited until full operations resume.

So blaming it on the Democrats, I mean, is this really how the leaders of the free world are supposed to conduct themselves, one might ask? Prior to this, even back in December 2024, Middle East, I illustrated how the process is very, very obviously simply geopolitical and has absolutely nothing to do with the spectre or otherwise of terrorism. And they also make a very good point about the process of the

prescription. Now this is government governed by the Statutory Instrument number 2299 from 2006 attached to the Terrorism Act 2000, which states an application under Section 4 of the ACT must be made in writing and must state the name of the organisation to which the application relates, whether the application is being made by the organisation or by a person affected by the organisation prescription and the grounds on which the application is made.

Now in neither Dan Jarvis's statement in the House of Commons or the news story, as I've articulated, is there any reference to how this has actually come about. So I I called the Home Office to ask who had put the application into the Home Secretary and how was this process followed?

Of course the media office had absolutely no idea what I was talking about but did say they would respond to my email to ask the question so that they could formally look into it and get back to me. There has been no response. I called again immediately before the news programme and asked that the press release would be sent to me immediately. That did not come either. So it looks at the moment very much like government to have written absolutely roughshod

over the due process. And just before asking Mike and Vanessa for comment on this and with the appeal for the deprescription of Palestine action in mind, I refer to one of only four examples of the prescription happening.

And we look at a Guardian article from 2017 making the connection between the supposed bomber, Salman Abadi of the Manchester Arena incident and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Now the Guardian article there says the 22 year old was influenced in part by the people who formed the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a little known al Qaeda affiliate outlawed in 2004.

So al Qaeda again, but lo and behold, the same government which described the events in Manchester as being among the worst terrorist incidents we have ever experienced, de prescribed the LIFG just two years later. So there's an awful lot here that that needs to be made sense of. But I think, as Vanessa suggested for earlier, that that's quite because I'm challenged to make any sense of it.

What are we to think about this? Well, I mean, the question is, one question I would ask is why was Al Qaeda ever really prescribed in the 1st place? Because, you know, this was an organisation which Britain, the United States created in the 1st place. It has served our purposes for

foreign policy ever since. We've been funding it, we've been arming it. And so it, it seemed that like the prescription of that organisation was virtue signalling or it was an attempt on a domestic platform to present a different situation that was happening internationally. And of course they were able to use the excuse that al Qaeda had carried out 9/11 and atrocities in the UK and so on to justify certain things going on here.

So, but you know, the, the thing that really I think is striking about this is that we here, we have HTS, which let's be accurate about this, are head choppers. They've been cutting off the heads of people that have been assassinating people, murdering people. These are people that have actually taken people's lives. On the other hand, we have Palestine action. And no matter what you think about Palestine action and what they've been doing, they have not actually committed any crime

against a physical body. They've committed criminal damage at worst in certain circumstances, and how these two things are considered parity, I have no idea. Yeah, Vanessa, specifically on that, on that conflict there between what Palestine action have done in the form of criminal damage and what HTS have been doing.

Well, in fact, I think the first case for the film 24, the first three that were actually put before a judge, their sentence was reduced from criminal damage to to I think just, I can't remember what it was reduced to. And yet this group is prescribed terrorists. But I also want to make the point that Hamas and Hezbollah are prescribed terrorist groups in the UK. They are not a threat to UK national security. They're a threat to Israeli

national security. You've now de prescribed Al Qaeda effectively HTS that is conducting genocidal ethnic cleansing in Syria of minorities, including Christians, that is backed by Israel and has a very high probability of being a threat to the UK population when particularly British jihadists belonging to Al Qaeda returned to the UK. So yet again, Israeli national security is being prioritised over British national security. Let's come back to you and what's the latest in Lebanon?

Well, I mean, in Lebanon, we're seeing a ramping up of Trump's administration bully boy tactics. I don't know any other way to describe how Trump enacts his foreign policy globally recently. Well, in fact, yesterday and today, yesterday it was one of the US envoys arrived in Lebanon.

And today Tom Barrack, Trump's economic hitman, as I describe him, is going to be in Lebanon and he basically put out a statement, I think it was yesterday, US envoy warns Lebanon that they have one last chance to disarm Hezbollah and of course the Lebanese resistance, which doesn't only consist of Hezbollah. His full statement. So basically he said, I will inform the president, the Prime Minister and the speaker of parliament that they have one

last chance. He then went on in his basically, what is a a threat to the Lebanese people. Either they learn their lesson and decide to enter into direct negotiations with Israel under US auspices to establish a timetable and mechanism for disarming Hezbollah, or Lebanon will be left to its fate and will remain so for a long time with no one to care about it, neither in America nor in the

region. And no one will be able to pressure Israel to prevent it from doing whatever it deems appropriate to undertake disarmament by force. This is quite an extraordinary statement. He's not mentioned the fact that Israel is still occupying Lebanese territory and is increasing its occupation of Lebanese territory. Today an attack by the Israeli forces inside Lebanon was carried out on a on a Lebanese

army vehicle. Not not a Hezbollah resistance vehicle, but actually the official Lebanese army bombing and and suicide drone attacks have, sorry, drone attacks have been increasing in the last week and none of this is mentioned by Barrick. In fact, what he actually does is abrogate responsibility for Israel's action and basically withdraws the US from the negotiations and Saudi Arabia from the financing of the essential reconstruction of

civilian infrastructure destroyed by Israel in the last war, and basically leaves the field open for Israel to do whatever it wants. So in other words, just as the British withdrew actually from the the occupied territories of Palestine and left it to Israel to ethnically cleanse Palestinians in 1948 with the UN support, right now the US is doing exactly the same thing and saying to Israel, go ahead, disarm Hezbollah and bomb the South.

And in fact, that is very much what has been happening. This is just a very short video from an area known as Balbek where you have some of the most historic heritage Roman ruins in the region. And just to show on the map itself where that is, because it's not in the South, it's actually very much in the eastern sector on the border with Syria. Sorry, the cats getting in on

the ACT. And so basically Israel is increasing the field of its attacks in Lebanon, just as, of course Barrack has given them green light to do so. In the last few days there has been a strike on a number of cars travelling in the South and these strikes are on a daily, if not two or three times daily basis. In the image, you can see basically what happens when

these drone strikes occur. They they just basically take out the car, anyone close to the car, anyone travelling next to the car and all the people in the car of course simply obliterated. And on the left is a young man who was killed in this way in the last couple of days, Issa Karbala, who was basically assassinated by an Israeli drone, of course violating the ceasefire, which has been violated around now I think 6000 times by its by Israel.

And I think a very important factor in this and something that I was reflecting on, having had a discussion with journalist Madwa Osman, who of course is Lebanese, last night, over how these policies are really affecting the human beings in this region. And it's very difficult to convey the psychological warfare that is being waged against these people on an almost daily basis. This is something that she posted this morning following our long and detailed conversation last night.

And, and the whole post is in the show notes, but she basically says there are days when grief feels heavier than the sky, when silence echoes louder than any bomb and you start to wonder if the heart can actually break twice in the same place. People here are absolutely torn apart by what is happening. Everyone has lost people, family members, friends, relatives in this war.

And very much they they are, they are being ignored very much by Western media, by Western regimes that are complicit in the ongoing aggression by Israel against this region. But one point that she made at the end, and I think this is where you get the connection across all borders from the West to the East to West Asia, that we're all fighting the same

enemy. So she says if you still ache at injustice, if you still feel love burning under the ashes when you're not defeated, you are alive. And that in itself is resistance. And I think it's a powerful message that even those that are suffering really the most in in West Asia, from Yemen to to Gaza, are still able to understand the concept of

resistance. And I think in the West we have a lot to learn from this, that all the sacrifices that have to be made to actually defeat the enemy ultimately are worth it when you can feel that you have upheld your human values and what it means to be human today. And that, of course, is what is being attempted to be eroded by those that are enabling what is

happening in this region. Yeah. And I suppose the other thing that we could say about that, Vanessa, is if we're looking for inspiration for resistance, it's the, the longevity and the, the, the, the determination over an extended period of time to resist. It's not something that is that they can solve in six months or a year. It's something that takes years. And and they're not, they're not running away from the fight.

No, and it doesn't mean that there aren't moments of of defeatism or or a drop in morale or or even depression, psychological trauma that exists. But ultimately, at the core is this refusal to be dehumanised, to be othered, to be wiped out or exterminated. Yeah. All right, so I think it's a very, very good point and and it should be considered in the face of all of the various things that we talk about.

I mean, even though there is obviously a scale of how much sort of trauma people are actually subjected to, but but, but absolutely Vanessa, I think humanity is the main thing to consider at all times. And in a way that sort of leads into the final piece for the programme today, which is that

one might think that being autumn, it's the time of year that you should be absolutely terrified of bird flu. But thanks to the Purbright Institute, we can give at least a little bit of our fear to mosquitoes. Purbright Institute, which of course is largely funded by Bill Gates and more or less has a direct connection with the Animal and Plant Health Agency and therefore Defra.

But the Purbright researchers have said that they've helped to uncover the origins of the London Underground mosquito. Quite why this has assumed such significance at the moment, I will leave for you to decide. But you might make your mind up and I show you the next piece of information. But basically there had been the supposition that a mosquito had evolved in underground chambers and in the tunnels of the London Underground over the last 200 years.

And apparently, per Bright scientists, presumably great expense, have decided that in actual fact, it's come from somewhere else. So now we know. And the next thing is that this is coincident. This month, surprise, surprise, with a grant of nearly $17 million from the Gates Foundation to Oxitec, who are going to conduct field trials to measure the impact of a biocontrol approach on mosquito populations and malaria

transmission. Now, this is specific to America and Africa, but of course, talk about mosquitoes in the United Kingdom means that we get to consider malaria and chikungunya and always sorts of things that frankly, if you really haven't the time to think about bird flu can occupy that space for you. So this is where it looks like it's going with the the fear narrative, and we will of course keep an eye on it. But I think to Vanessa's point about humanity, all of this does

in fact come down to that. And the relationship between so called sort of zoonotic diseases and public scaremongering is something that should be taken very seriously. And we've seen how it's been inflicted upon the human population in the last five years. And now, of course, the great push to make the natural world seem frightening and something that we should be wary of.

So I think that's something very much that we should in mind as we finished the programme and I'm sure we'll talk about it more in extra. We, we will indeed. So we will be back in a few minutes for UK column news Extra if you're a UK column member. If you're not a member, maybe you'd consider joining and then you could join us for that. And for every UK called News Extra that's coming up in the

not too distant future. Don't forget Jerem and Carl tonight and the interview with Jose and myself tomorrow. Join us for that as well. But we'll see you on Friday at 1:00 PM as usual. See you then. Bye, bye, bye.