UK Column News Podcast 25th April 2025

Good afternoon. It's Friday, the 25th of April 2025, just just after 1:00. And welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson. Joining me in the studio today is Patrick Annexon. Welcome to the program, Patrick. Great to be with you, Mike. And by video link, we have Mark Anderson. Now, later in the program, we're going to be covering Ukraine, Syria, international trade and censorship, but we are going to begin today with recruitment into the military here in the UK.

Now back in December, uh, the Telegraph carried an article, uh, saying that thousands of military personnel were and are leaving their jobs. Umm, hardly surprising under the circumstances and the drive for war. But uh, as we reported over the past year, the threat of conscription is ever present and although overt discussion of conscription has basically dropped off the news agenda now,

it's very much still a thing. So I just wanted to highlight communication that a long time UK columns supporter has had with their MP on the issue. So they wrote to their MP and said this. I heard the debate in the House about the increase in youth unemployment.

Mark Pritchard MP put it to Liz Kendall, the one way of attracting some people back into work is for her to have discussions with her colleagues in the Ministry of Defence and that getting more into the more young people into the armed forces would be a starting place. Uh, Liz Kendall our, uh, our members. UK called members said to her MP Liz Kendall then claimed I'll be having more conversations with colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to make sure we put this plan into action.

The question to you, that's to her MP, what plan and whose plan? Well, Mark himself wrote back and said this or sorry, David Smith is the MP here. The government recognises the armed forces as not only a vital institution for National Defence, but also as a potential career path that offers structure, skills and prospects

for young people. He went on to say the plan involves collaboration across different governmental departments, including the MOD, to facilitate recruitment processes and make military careers more accessible and appealing to the youth. So basically, you know, the idea of they're, they're there to sell the idea of death and destruction to young people by going into schools and propagandizing them. That's certainly what I would

suggest. David Smith went on to say discussions involving the MOD are part part of a broader strategy to diversify employment opportunities available to young Britons. So Smith is discussing a plan. It's absolutely clear that this issue of recruitment in the military is therefore being taken very seriously.

And why would it not be? Because certainly the regime has a a plan for what we are going to do internationally on the global stage with boots on the ground and so on, except we don't have any boots to put on the ground. So I don't see any outcome. Patrick, I don't know what your view is on this, but I don't see any outcome then some kind of forced entry into the military, whether you call that conscription or national service or whatever.

I don't see that that we're going to end up in any other destination. Well, some some countries have national service, many used to, but they rolled it back in recent years. I remember I was approached in high school by the US Marines and the Army and not the Navy, but you know, definitely Marines in the Army. And then they probe you. They look at your profile and they say, I was an art student and at the times we need artists in the military. We need people like you.

And they say, and you're an athlete. Oh my gosh, look at that. You're a regional swimmer and whatnot. We need, we need swimmers for, you know, frog men and Navy Seals and stuff like that. So they're really, they're really aggressively recruiting you in America from a very young age. They come on campus on to school and they have a little booth there. They'll even pick you up at lunchtime as you're sitting around with your mates, you know, so that it's it's very organized here.

I'm not as aggressive, obviously, because you've had a professional military for so many years. But but the the question everyone has on their mind in the age of social media and all the jet Gen. Zers have phones and are all kind of au fait with a lot of geopolitics. What wars are we fighting? Who are we going to be fighting against? Why are we fighting? Is there going to be a European war? Is it going to be against the Russians? Does that mean I'm going to end

up in a in Ukraine? Is that, is that my fate here? I mean, let's get serious. In the age of missiles, hypersonic missiles, why all the infantry? What's it all about? And that's a legit question. It certainly is. Well, look, Speaking of propaganda propagandizing children, the Starmer regime has announced that thousands of school children across the UK and Ukraine have applied to take part in a landmark 100 year partnership program between the two countries.

So more than 750 schools from across the UK and Ukraine applied to take part in this program. And they said that this is all about fostering classroom friendships, cultural understanding and inspiring future generations of world leaders, diplomats and business leaders. So children are going to they they said in their press release that the children will also mark the launch of a new commemorative stamp.

Isn't that great? So that's designed by both the UK and Ukrainian governments and it's going to be entered into circulation by the Ukrainian Post Post Office by the end of the month. And this is all being facilitated by EU KS premier soft power outlet, the British Council. The British Council is, is Britain's version of USAID in a way you could say there's been some other choice stamps that have been issued by the Postmaster General in Kiev, Mike, and some of them are not

very nice. Some venerating Nazi war criminals in World War 2 and Stefan Bandera and these types of people. That's the sort of country you're dealing with. So if I was going to sign 100 year pact with a country like Ukraine, I'd want them to kind of try to denotify a little bit. That'd be just for optics, you know. It's not, it's not a good look. And if you had kids in in school in the UK, would you be encouraging them to to run some kind of exchange program?

Maybe we could twin, you know, the hometown of Stefan Bandera with some village in England and have an nice cultural exchange. What's that going to be? What sort of paraphernalia is going to be exchanged there? Like, I mean, these are like legitimate questions because you've seen the indoctrination camps in Ukraine. They get them very young and they're doing Roman salutes and stuff like that.

It's not, it's not pleasant to look at, but that's a reality, especially in Western Ukraine. So let's be real about it. Have a genuine, real adult conversation about what's really going on there. The stuff that the BBC themselves reported in 2015, 2016. You can go look it up on YouTube. Nobody talks about the Nazi problem in Ukraine, but the BBC sure knew about it right around Maidan. But they seemed to have forgotten about it very

conveniently. Well, look, in the meantime, Mercy Levander Leyen has been back in town kissing Keir Starmer, not in this particular photograph, but in others. So welcome her to Downing St., Starmer said. We're working with our allies to make British people safer, more secure and more prosperous. And so the question is how well he's making us all more prosperous by signing us up to a €150 billion joint defence procurement program.

And he said that we'll discuss work on a strategic security and defence partnership agreement which might pave the way to joint procurement and UK participation in the SAFE program in, in, in the EU. Now procurement is a key part of the European Defence Union, which as we've been highlighted for years, it's something that Britain has been a key driver of alongside the French. In fact, Britain's involvement in EU defence union is a prerequisite of participation in

the in the joint procurement program, which UK based defence companies are obviously very keen to get involved with as efforts to reorient away from Trump's USA continue. So, you know, I don't know how real that reorientation is away from the United States, whether it's smoke and mirrors in order to try to build this this European infrastructure, but nonetheless, that's the excuses being used. Yeah. The, the other thing is, you know, the, the who's going to benefit from that?

There may be some jobs in the UK, Mike, but the industry's financialized. It's all based on share prices and stock market gains. It's completely financialized. So, you know, if you're in that industry and you're a private equity firm, you're in the defense industry or you're, you're invested in that, your portfolio and index funds, you're going to do great. But how's that going to help the average person? How's that going to help the baseline of the working class of the economy?

I don't think very much at all. And in fact, it is completely global. Mobilize the internal EU market between EU countries, separation, compartmentalization of industries, plus stuff that's being manufactured internationally to get the best price. Why? To get the best bottom line. Why? To make sure that you pay out the best dividends to your shareholders? Absolutely. That's what it's really all about. Ask Nigel Farage. He worked in the City of London. He certainly should.

Know he should know, yes. Now, this is important because the UK is filling the void left by the United States and providing logistical and intelligence support to Ukraine, as the Guardian was reporting a few months a couple of months ago. It's important though, to see this, I think, in the context of Britain's role in Ukraine over the last couple of years and that is to keep the meat grinder

going. And to illustrate that point, I want to highlight this article from The Grey Zone and Kit Clarenberg. It's headlined UK Intel behind Ukraine's disastrous Krinky. Is that how you pronounce it? Krinky invasion, leaked documents reveal. Now this is extremely interesting article and really this story should be top building in the mainstream press. But it isn't. And I wonder why. And I wonder that why, with a

sense of irony perhaps. But one reason is, is it Klarenberg is citing leaked documents. And of course, British media, mainstream media doesn't really want to go there. But Klarenberg writes that the leaked documents that he has seen detail a blueprint for Ukraine's failed effort to capture the village of Krinky.

He says the plan was pulled together by an organization called Project Alchemy, which he describes as a secret military intelligence cell created by the Ministry of Defence, Which, and this is a quote, they sought at all costs to keep Ukraine fighting. Now, we've known that the UK has been seeking at all costs to keep Ukraine fighting for, well, basically since Boris Johnson went to Zolensky and said do not

do the peace deal. Yeah, yeah, that's that's been that's been the raison d'etre the entire project from there. You know, this the the Krinsky the Krinky story Mike has been around for a couple of months. These latest revelations basically confirm Britain played the central role in basically egging on Ukrainian marine units to keep going into what was clearly a meat grinder, a total losing effort to retake part of

this territory. I believe it's by the along the diet mere river in this area and to know avail and thousands of Ukrainians perished for absolutely no reason to try to capture territory that just wasn't available to be captured. It turned out to be a massive trap. And not only that, there's also reports about Britains role in the Kursk region in Russia, sending Ukrainians into that cauldron, that infamous cauldron where I don't know how many

thousands died. What are the numbers up to 10,000, maybe more something ridiculous numbers. That was again, British trainers, British commanders. So it's already leaked, Mike, from the, from the USA revelations in recent weeks that NATO has played an integral role in all command and control of all operations for Ukraine. So that's US and Britain ostensibly. And now the US has pulled back, Britain has moved into logistical driving seat for Ukraine.

So any operations you're going to see from here forward, it's probably most likely going to be Britain going to be running it, calling the shots for Ukraine. And it it's not a, it's not a winning gambit, certainly not for the Ukrainians, Maybe for the vanity of NATO or the vanity of former imperial powers. It might be, you know, worth doing to keep the military industrial complex buoyant. But how much good is it doing for the people of Ukraine, especially the ones that get

conscripted off the street? They're literally grabbing them off the streets of Ukraine. There's hundreds, thousands of videos circulating online of this. OK, they don't want to fight. Polling suggests that the majority of Ukrainians no longer want to fight a war with Russia. They would like to see some kind of peaceful resolution. But that's not what European leaders want. That's not what British leaders want, and certainly not what the military industrial complex wants.

Absolutely. So as you've said, the allegations that Britain was responsible for these mass, mass casualties are cranky originated with this report in Ukraine's Ukraine. Skip Pravda. Now, this is a publication which has recently alleged huge pressure from the office of the President of Ukraine to be somewhat more partisan than it's reporting that it wants to be. It's by no means pro Russian, certainly a lot less pro Russian than it was a few years ago, sorry, a lot less pro Ukrainian

than it was a few years ago. But it's it's certainly not pro Russian, but it's and it's certainly not pro Zelenski enough for the Ukraine government at the moment. And they stated that the UK, perhaps Ukraine's most active and determined ally, had been pressuring Kiev to use marines for waterborne operations and deceptive maneuvers since the proxy conflict began. The Ukraine military was skeptical about this and they were pushing back, but they

caved under the pressure. And the result is you've just said Patrick was complete disaster. And I absolutely recommend reading this article.

It'll be in the show notes under the program on the UK column Outside. But just briefly getting back to the Gray zone, Clare Kleinberg highlights a document published in June 2022 entitled Building a Ukrainian Maritime Rating Capability in which the project Alchemy Planners proposed quotes a new maritime rating forced to be trained specifically in the operational area of the South Coast region of Ukraine to the Kersh Strait. And he talks.

He talks about Britain putting pressure on Ukraine to relax its policy that no fighting age men should leave the country so that some could be brought to Britain for training. And they were trained in a variety of sites, mostly in Scotland. And then beginning in October 2023, these poorly trained and I'll equipped Ukrainian marines began to be ferried en masse, as Kleinberg says to Krenke. And they were lamps to the slaughter. So, you know, it is it is disgusting.

It is our tax dollars that has gone into this and that needs to change. It is, it's it's very sad. You know, when you the trainers in the British military, I wonder if they think about where they're dispatching these young Ukrainian men back to what sort of environment to fight in and do they really care? Or is it just a case of, hey, my orders are I need to teach these guys how to kill Russians.

So that's the end of that. That's just not, this is not good for Ukraine. And in the long run, I think they'll resent some of these NATO countries for for for this sordid chapter in in European history.

OK. But you've got more in Ukraine then? Well, yes, And we'll start off with the commander in chief in the United States. Here he is. And he has been tweeting up a storm on Truth Social. This is a true a truth. I think they call them truths now. Calls them truths, not tweets. Says I'm happy with. I'm happy with Russias. No, I'm not. I'm not happy with Russians strikes on Kiev. Not not necessary and very bad timing. Vladimir stop 5000 soldiers a week are dying.

Let's get the peace deal done. I mean, this is such an embarrassment to have the president tweeting out stuff like this. It's really, it humiliates the country. It's not good for him and he's sabotaging his own peace negotiations. Plus, Chinese are looking at this, Moscow's looking at this. And by the way, the Iranians are also looking at this. And let me tell you, they're not impressed. Forget about the Europeans. That's a different story here.

But on the point you were saying, Mike, while there's all this hawkish talk coming from Europe, from Britain, about the coalition of the willing, this is the reality here. We are the UK. This is in the Times, This is just yesterday. In fact, the UK could scrap plans to send thousands of troops to Ukraine, British sources said. That was deemed too risky, too risky to send ground forces because the risk of a wider conflict and ceasefire deal with Russia breaks down.

And it looks like it is. And so let's look at this for a moment here. There they are, Mike. That is the Coalition of the Willing. It's great that they borrowed that title because it certainly doesn't have any bad connotations from the past. There it is. But it unfortunately, it's disintegrating. And as every day and every week goes by, they they, they put on a big brave front. Didn't they remember last month? Real tough talk, especially from Mehdi Fredrickson and the Euro Coven there.

There's a few members. I won't put Georgia Maloney in that category because she seems to be a lot more reasonable. But Ursula certainly is lurking in the background whispering into Keir Starmer and Macro shoulder here. But as they disintegrate and there they are. That is effectively this is the new coalition of the Willing. You're looking at it right there, the three of them. That's it. But this is what the Times also

reported. Sir Keir Starmer and President Macron have offered to deploy troops to Ukraine to keep to keep the peace as part of the coalition of the willing. During talks in London, sources told the Times there appeared to be a softening. Of the commitment, so the rowing back is beginning. Isn't that interesting? Because who have they got the sand? Well, this is another thing, you know, what sort of battalions could Britain or France really deploy and where would they send

them? And they would actually be definitely legitimate targets. And again, that's the reminder here. Russia's warned that it will consider such a true presence as a NATO deployment. Underline that point, please. And under the guise of peacekeeping or otherwise it will treat it as a quote, valid military target. So that's not us saying that. That's what the Russian Federation's saying.

So it's it'll behoove you to listen to what they're saying, especially if you're sending your boys into a hostile environment where maybe diplomacy might be a better option. That's just me. I'm old fashioned. I believe in diplomacy. But meanwhile the propaganda rolls on and talk about Orwellian. Look at this, The Telegraph is spending its money wisely, buying up bad space in the UK. Mike here, and this is what they're saying. There's a bit of fear mongering here.

Ever heard of Riga, Talon or Vilnius? If we abandoned Kiev, you will, says the Telegraph. Wow, that's that sheer propaganda. That's not journalism. What what? What are they playing at? This is this is Orwellian. But this is like more. This is beyond Orwellian, Mike. This is Starship Troopers. Level propaganda here unbelievable from the Telegraph. So they you know what their stance is. They want to see this war go. It's been good for their business, I guess.

But let's let's look at why is this rowing back happening Mike. Why maybe has something to do with this? Ukraine fails to reach a deal with quote, investors, I'm going to say receivers, but we'll say investors to restructure 2.6 billion of debt. Kiev is due to make an estimated 600 million payment on GDP warrants next month. So financing the debt, interest payments are due. This is the big question though here, Mike, who is going to pick up the dinner bill? Do you see anybody lining up

wanting to pay for this or what? Is this going to have to be bundled into some sort of new debt package? So that's the opera, the operative question, ladies and gentlemen, who's going to pick up the dinner bill? And I can tell you right now, it's definitely not going to be these guys. German authorities slash economic growth forecast for 2025 to a whopping 0 percent. That is the supposed industrial powerhouse, the engine of the EU, the thing that makes the ECB run Germany. 0% growth.

For the first time in modern history, German's economy is set to stagnate and for three consecutive years, a scenario unseen even during World War 2. The the humiliation of self hating Germany continues even within the EU. Mercedes-Benz has also announced plans to cut jobs in Germany and relocate them to Hungary. So Orban is laughing all the way to the election polls next election. So look at this. Hungary by the way, did not reject Russian fuel making production therefore more cost

effective. That's Mats Nilsson from Sweden, great geopolitical analyst. So nobody is really gagging to take up the slack on Ukraine here. Back to kit Clarence, Mike. So high level Ukraine, peace talks in London scratched after the US pull out. So the US is threatening to pull out. And So what happened? They cancelled it. Where is this coalition of the willing? Where are they? Are they anywhere without the

United States? Are they really willing to go toe to toe with Russia or has this all been a big front? That's the question. But the cracks don't stop there. Mike, look at this. It gets worse. Donald Trump's move on the Russia occupied Crimea forces Europe to choose sides. US has offered to recognize the annexation of Crimea. Wow. And this has created huge problems.

A senior European diplomat told the Financial Times that it would be, quote, impossible to accept the US proposal to recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea. Other EU officials claim that Crimea and future NATO membership aspirations are red lines. For us, that's a non starter. So there's where? Where? Can you go from here? This is basically status quo. We're reverting status quo. The proxy war continues, but without the United States. How much mileage does Europe actually have in this?

This is the legit question. NATO membership? I highly doubt it now. NBC sent a reporter to Crimea. This is fairly recent. Watch this clip. These are people in in Crimea. We went around and did vox pops and this was the answer. Is Crimea Russian or Ukrainian? Crimea is Russian of course. Russian 73 year old Prack Soviet tells me Zelensky will not get Crimea back because we have our commander in chief. Putin.

Every one of them told us that they are Russian and that if President Zelensky thinks Ukrainian forces can come here, they will fight them. President Zelensky has said that the Ukraine war started here and it will end here, but no one was able to tell us how it will end and how much more blood will be spilt. And we're told that NBC reporter got put on a Ukraine hit list after he issued this report, which broadcast on USTV. So that's not going to help US

support for Ukraine either. It's probably a USAID funded hit list, by the way. But Mike, the recognition of Crimea is really important because that's what sanctions are tied to. A lot of US and EU sanctions are tied to Crimea. And if the US recognizes Crimea as part of Russia, that's going to nullify a lot of U.S. sanctions, but it's also going to put pressure on Europe to re evaluate. Are they going to go against the United States on the recognition of Crimea?

I mean, this could be a massive international problem in terms of international relations here. But it doesn't end there. And we'll we'll continue here. Oops, sorry, I jumped ahead. The ICC International Criminal Court arrest warrant is invalid in Italy. There was a filing error, it turns out. So as it stands right now, Vladimir Putin could go to Italy and not be arrested under this ICC case. And by the way, back to, you know, the Gray zone on that ICC case here.

This is a fantastic piece of journalism that a lot of people missed. This was in March 31st, 2023. The IC CS Putin arrest warrant is based on a State Department funded document that has been totally debunked.

They issued this arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for the for Children's Rights, Maria Lova Bilova, accusing them of, quote, unlawful deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children to a network of camps inside Russia. It turns out that the warrant the case that the IC was based on a shoddy report by Nathaniel Raymond at the Yale University Human Rights Center and it's funded by the US State Department.

A completely bogus report. I have looked into this myself and it's pretty shocking how bad it is. Yale based all of their research on satellite data, Telegram postings, and rush Russian media reports, relying on Google Translate to interpret them, and they say they admit their work does not conduct any ground level investigation and therefore did not request access to any of these quote camps.

Jeremy Lafredo, the journalist who did this with Max Blumenthal. Turns out these were places where families would send their kids to get them out of the war zone. And of course, in the Donbass regions, there'll be more Russian residents, Russian speaking. So this is a, this is the basis of the ICC case, Mike. I mean, make up your own mind. I encourage people to go to the grey zone and look at the reports for yourself. And the links will be in the

show notes. Mark, let me welcome you to the

program then. And, well, sticking with the United States for a little while, what's the latest on the tariffs and trade? Well, actually, gentlemen, I've been looking a little bit beyond tariffs in a way. There's been so much on that. And I had listened to recent testimony of the US Trade Representative of the House of Ways committees, House Ways and Means Committee, you might recall. And I looked at what the USTR is

up to in the broader sense. And this stuck out the USTR Section 3 O1 action on China's targeting of the maritime logistics and shipbuilding sectors for dominance, alleging Chinese dominance in these areas. And there is some truth to that. 17 April, Washington U.S. trade Representative took targeted actions to restore American shipbuilding and address China's, what they're calling unreasonable policies and practices to dominate maritime logistics, shipbuilding, etcetera.

Emphasis here. These responsive actions come after what's being described as a year long Section 3 O1 investigation, which included the US trade Rep convening A2 day public hearing and receiving, they say, nearly 600 public comments. And we'll move on from there. I wrote a news brief here. I'm just going to cite this a little bit. The topic of tariffs has dominated trade and financial news in recent weeks.

But trade officials are claiming in the US that while they're sustaining their efforts via applicable tariffs toward achieving what they call fair and balanced trade goals and more industrial self-sufficiency, China's maritime policies, particularly shipbuilding, are prompting the Section 3 O1 actions under the Trade Act of 1974. So this is based on a 50 + a year old law.

And that law is designed, is designed to address unfair foreign practices that quote, burden or restrict US commerce and provides a domestic procedure through which interested persons, even members of the public, can write in on this and petition the US Trade Rep to investigate foreign government action and take appropriate action to counter

that and to proceed from there. We have a quote from Jameson Greer, the US Trade Rep Ships and shipping, he says, are vital to American economic security and the free flow of commerce. The Trump administration will begin to reverse Chinese dominance, he says, address threats to the US supply chain and send a demand signal for US built ships. And there's of course a lot of talk about helping US workers in

this, the working class. Other things it describes here, Section 3O1 enforcement actions for the 1st 180 days. For example, any applicable fees will be set at 0. Then in the first phase, these are these penalties against China. After 180 days, fees on vessel owners and operators out of China will be charged based on net tonnage per US voyage. Such fees will increase

incrementally. Then the building of US car carrier vessels will be incentivized along with charging fees on similar foreign built vessels based on their capacity. And there's a second phase, there'll be a three-year wait on this intended to incentivize US built liquefied natural gas vessels. Interesting, along with enacting limited restrictions on transporting American liquefied national gas via foreign vessels. But these restrictions will increase incrementally, get

this, over 22 years. So they're looking long range on this. All of that is under the rubric of restoring America's maritime dominance. That's a that's a presidential action that was launched April 9th. And then there's sort of an associated thing going on that was released more recently, another presidential action. And there are so many presidential actions I'm I'm really working hard to keep up on even the most important ones. Unleashing America's offshore

critical minerals and resources. This is another initiative that's related more US effort to mine the seabeds and be more independent in terms of rare minerals and things that are considered strategic at any rate. At any rate, the presidential declaration mentions this, that recent data show the US constructs less than 1% of commercial ships worldwide, while China produces

approximately half. And rectifying these issues, the president says, and the USTR will include securing consistent, predictable and durable federal funding, making US flagged and US built ships, commercially competitive and international commerce, rebuilding America's maritime manufacturing capabilities, and expanding and strengthening the

relevant workforce. That would be the workforce to build the ships and probably also the longshoremen who have often complained of getting a raw deal in the US. But I, I talked to some different people about different aspects of this and I thought to myself, well, what about the monetary system? How does that relate to trade and tariffs and anything to do with what I'm talking about

today? And I asked the question here based on a little bit based on an article I wrote recently for UK column called Guernsey, the tiny island that beat the big bankers for 20 years of monetary freedom. Now, that was a couple 100 years ago, but Guernsey showed that you can extricate yourself from the banksters if if you work at it. Of course, it would be a lot harder today than back then. May maybe.

But I asked the question, will the monetary system be an impediment to these changes that the Trump administration wants to make in terms of tariffs and related matters? And I talked to Oliver Haydor and a noted monetary reform expert. He's quoted in that Guernsey story that I have posted at UKC. And he said this, among other things, the rebalancing of trade may sound good, is being done on the basis of the existing defective financial monetary system controlled by the neoliberal elite.

And he had one additional quote, also very interesting. And he said if each nation's financial system is not sovereign and such systems are left to the international elite, then you'll have to adopt trade and other related policies to keep the elite happy. Neoliberalism probably made economic nationalism at least seemingly irretrievable and on

purpose, Mr. Haydorn had to say. Now there was also talk a few weeks ago on UKC about is there a plan amongst all this seeming chaos by the Trump administration? Is there a method to the madness? I'm not going to say there is real firmly or that there isn't. I looked around a lot and made some calls of this. Money and macro site is pretty objective. He's not totally sold on what Trump is doing. He's trying to look at it as unbiasedly as he can.

The host of this, we have a video clip called he actually has a plan and it has to do with the mega master plan to replace the neoliberal order and things like that. So let's watch a little bit of this. It gives you some idea of what could be a plan, but the jury's still out maybe in some respects. I always say tariffs is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary. This is a direct attack.

Donald Trump, who changes his mind between, you know, breakfast elevens his lunch and supper time. What the heck is going on? Why is Trump hitting his closest allies with tariffs? Why does he no longer care about crashing the stock market? Does this guy actually have a plan? Yes. Believe it or not, I'm here to tell you that yes, as Trump's new Treasury Secretary, Scott Basson recently put it.

President Trump's tariff policies have begun the process of reoriented, reorienting our for international economic relations. That's right, he says tariffs have begun the process. In other words, his tariff chaos is just the start of a much bigger plan, a plan that aims to upend the entire world trading system that the US itself

created. This has really only happened twice before, once in 1944, marking the start of the Brettwood system, and then in the early 80s with Reagan and Thatcher marking the beginnings of the neoliberal world order. So here we are today, 2025. Is this the start of a completely new global order, a new US centered order that will emerge right after the current chaos in which countries are divided in three groups? Or as Scott Bassett calls it.

I think we should make it very clear that there is a green, a yellow and a red bucket and we let everyone know where they are. In these buckets, it will become very clear that some countries get low tariffs, military protection and maybe even some preferred U.S. dollar access, while others are left to fend for themselves. So there you have it. People can make up their own mind. We can provide the the link to

that rather long video. The whole thing is rather long in the show notes, so again it makes a decent case, but even the narrator in the end concedes that it's not altogether clear if that's exactly how things are going. But it is one plausible thesis behind it, and I I had one other slide in there. We can put also another link to the show notes, the roots of modern free trade.

This is just a historical note. A lot of the current trade regime and the current trade practices started in 1962 under JFK, under the Trade Expansion Act. And that's just a quick historical footnote a people can look that up to get an idea of where this all came from in the modern sense. So back to you guys. Thank you Mark, thank you. OK, if you like what the UK

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yesterday. It's on the website if you'd like to look at that on demand. A reminder of the standard of the light event taking place in Cumbria. The May bank holiday, 23rd to the 26th of May 2025. Details on screen that'll be in the show notes as well. And finally, dissidents meet up in Southwest Region on the 27th of April that Andy was talking about on Wednesday. The details on screen at the moment, if you can get along to that. Now let's move on then to this

information and the censorship regime, because that has been celebrated this week at the Cambridge at Cambridge University with the Cambridge Disinformation Summit, which they say is, quote, designed to convene global thought leaders to discuss research regarding the efficacy of potential interventions to mitigate the harms of disinformation. So try not to laugh. The summit had three core

themes. New research on the harm disinformation causes, how legislators can regulate this information, and how information scientists and policymakers can improve threat awareness and resilience in today's geopolitical environment. These are their words, of course, but also on the agenda where high crypto currencies support exploitative actors. Uh talks about uh disinformation as an instrument, as an instrument for author

authoritarianism. Sorry uh and quotes personal experience from within a conspiracy community. Now, the only person I know who is talking about personal experience from within a conspiracy conspiratorial community is someone that people may be familiar with. That works for the BBC. But anyway, we'll, we'll, we'll talk about that in a second. Quite a number of the sessions were held under Chatham House rules.

OK, so we will never find out exactly what was discussed there, but let's look at this disinformation client Shaw. If we just put this back on screen here and here is the circus, this infos circus. You've heard of Zip Circus Mike that rolls into your local town or village, but this is Disinfos Circus here. Here come the experts. Here come the experts. Here they are. They will come there, but there they are. And look who's in the top right hand corner there.

Well, that's Mariana Spring, isn't it? And flanked by Nina Jankovitz in the middle. Elliott Higgins. And I forgot this chap from. Well, let's just trust and save through. So we have Elliot Higgins, the CEO of Bellingcat. Bellingcat doesn't seem to be doing very much these days, but anyway. I like the beard, he makes them look a lot more serious and a lot actually more masculine. OK, whatever you say. Mariana.

Spring, of course, is the disinformation and social media correspondent at the BBC, Y'all Roth. That's the one. Vice president of trust and safety at Match Group. But what was he part of that? He worked under Jack Dorsey at the diabolical train wreck that was Twitter, and when the Twitter Files came out and Elon bought the company, y'all fled, unfortunately running an absolute censorship farm there. Really really dark, dark moment and in American tech free speech history.

Yes, Nina Jack, which is to say CEO of the American Sunlight Project, whatever that is. Worked on the Zelensky campaign. Absolutely. And former executive directory for the Disinformation Governance Board at the US Department for Homeland Security. For what, about two weeks? She was even rivaling rivaling less trust for being in position. She the lettuce the the the rotten lettuce, head of lettuce. She actually got done by her own TikTok videos, right?

Which was interesting. And Alexander Vindman. That's Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman to you, Mike. There he is, Mr. Russiagate himself. OK. So these are all like kind of Ukraine linked propagandists, quite a few of them.

So the conference is organized by Alan Jagger Lindser, a professor of financial accounting at Cambridge Judge Business School. And he said this disinformation research has been effectively defunded by the United States and now has to be conducted part time and underground. This is one reason why our work is so important and we've adopted A tagline that we, the Global Summit community, are keeping the pilot light lit for evidence based learning and

inference, whatever that means. Now he claims the disinformation drives geopolitical shifts and undermines democratic institutional stability, increasing the risks of terrorism and increasing the ability to marginalized targeted communities, supporting forced human migration and integrate, increasing the likelihood of violent and global conflict. So there you go. Can I translate very quickly

what he just said? I'll put this in English, Mike, he's talking about threats to the narrative, and he's talking about resilience against threats to the narrative, resilience against the truth, resilience against facts. This is complete or inverted Orwellian news. Speak here. Right.

Well, in the meantime, Ofcom has rolled out the next set of rules for its censorship regime, following the illegal Online Harms Framework a couple of weeks ago, which saw the shutdown of many small forums online. The latest codes of practice claim to protect children and in designing them. Ofcom says that it has heard from over 27,000 children and 13,000 parents, alongside A consultation involving industry, civil society, charities and

child safety experts. And they say that they're demanding a safety first approach to how tech firms design and operate their services in the UK, including safer feeds, safer data feeds, safer sorry, effective age checks, fast action to review, assess and tackle harmful content, undefined, more choice and support for children and easier reporting of complaints, strong governance and so on. And if companies fail to comply with their new duties, Ofcom has

the power to impose fines. And in serious cases, they say, apply for a court order to prevent the site or app from being available in the UK. And of course, that latter sanction demonstrates the dangers inherent in, you know, having a lack of diversity and competition for app stores on Android and Apple platforms where you've only got one App Store effectively in each of those. It's very easy to to create a sort of great firewall with

respect to some of these apps. And of course, strong age checks means identity checking and so on, most likely digitally and so on. So which brings me back to to

you, Mark. And of course, on Wednesday, we were talking about Real ID in the United States. You've got some more on that. What it might be the official announcement here, Mike, that's the most important thing. What we're showing here is the Transportation Security Administration. Of course, it's one of the major agencies created in the wake of 911. The DHS itself was another one, and most of those other entities

are under that. And of course, we had the Patriot Act back then and a number of unpleasant memories in the wake of 9/11, and we thought that this dragon had been slain. I remember working on it in O Six O 7 and writing about it. But I'll cite this TSA announcement because this is the most important part of my presentation today. Starting the 7th of May, it's right around the corner.

A state issued driver's license or ID that's not Real ID compliant in the US will no longer be accepted as valid ID at airports and certain federal buildings. Passengers traveling after this enforcement deadline should either travel with an acceptable ID like a passport, or enroll for a state issued REAL ID. Passengers that lack these things or some other acceptable form can expect delays, additional harassment, screening, possibly not being allowed into security checkpoints.

And this, this even includes, get this, the pre-check passengers of TSA, people that fly frequently, whose backgrounds are well known and they're usually given the, the, the express entry to get on the plane. So they don't have to wait as much, even they're going to be bogged down if they don't have the right papers in order and so on and so forth. So if, if your identity can't be confirmed, you can't enter the checkpoint and you may be

subject to even more screening. So this is something that we thought was going to die on the vine, and it didn't. But anyway, Chuck Baldwin, the noted Christian pastor, activist and columnist, he's notorious for keeping a close eye on these things. He said this.

The real reason the REAL ID hadn't gone into effect after the GOP Congress moronically passed this super surveillance atrocity until now is because conservatives and libertarians rose up en masse in opposition to it, forcing George W Bush to back down. And since then, neither Obama nor Biden wanted to awaken the American people, the sleeping

giant on this issue. And Chuck Baldwin, a constitutional Christian conservative, is quite critical of Donald Trump in many areas and especially in this area. Even Fox News, according to Baldwin, is is got kind of a furrow brow on this, thinking that the Donald wouldn't let this through. Fox News noted conservatives are speaking out against Trump administration's plans to finally enact the long shelved Real ID laws in a quote to crack

down an illegal immigration. This is one of the reported reasons for this. There's also been talk that maybe this has something to do with identity at the voting polls, neither of which are really relevant. It's not altogether clear why they're letting this become law. But Thomas Massie, the retrograde back backbencher in Congress, he, he makes a number of important counter arguments in Congress. He said this. If you think real ideas about election integrity, you're going

to be sorely disappointed. Someone has lied to you and you're engaged in wishful thinking. Please don't shoot the messenger. And Sarah Palin, too long thought to be a Trump supporter is scratching her head saying evidently existing ID requirements for American citizens just aren't adequate now. So big brother's forcing us through more hoops for the right to travel within our own country. And Palin continued other administration's delayed this newfangled there are some real

ID requirement. Are you curious why it's implementation is so imperative now? And the this stems from 911 which I'll be talking about later today, I presume. But at any rate, it's a troubling development after 20 plus years to see this thing not only survive, but it's apparently going to be passed. So back to you guys. Thank you, Mark. Thanks. We'll talk about that in Extra. No doubt we'll be talking quite a number of things in Extra today. But Patrick, let's move back to

international affairs in Syria. Well, disturbing news, but big news nonetheless. Let's have a look at this up on screen if we can. The UK lifts sanctions on Syrian ministries and intelligence agencies. There is Muhammad Al Jalani AKA Ahmed al Sharar, the Saudi born self-proclaimed president, quote UN quote, of Syria. And so basically the president there has urged Western countries to relieve his country of sanctions and allow it to rebuild after 14 years of war, war that he himself is

responsible for fomenting. So the UK is taking this bold step here. What has brought this on? But not to be outdone, this is Corey Mills, part of Trump's inner circle. He's been meeting with the al Qaeda and former ISIS deputy who is head of the military junta in Damascus, a terrorist on the FBI, I think a bounty on the FBI's most wonderless, if I'm not mistaken there. He's spoken with him and they're open to the Abraham Accords normalization with the state of Israel.

That's really what this is all about. And This is why there was sanctions before on Syria. And so let's look at this and to, to to top this off, Al Jilani has obeyed US, Israeli orders and arrested Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials, PIJ officials. So this is a major step here. So this is clearly at the behest of Israel and the US. This was a precondition. If you note, that was last week. So this was a precondition for

this next step. So I think this is also part of where Britain evaluation of their statuses as well here. And according to a former British diplomat, Craig Murray, the terrorist leader, self appointed president was privately assured that the UK that Syria will normalize ties with Israel, thus formal recognizing the illegal occupation state and even exchanging ambassadors by the end of 2026. So my question is and let's go to the to the UK Gov website here.

This is how they're announcing it. UK bolsters support for the quote, Syrian people by amending Syrian sanctions. So they're lifting sanctions on Syria. OK Previously it was because of quote, Assad. We're going to ask a legit question, Mike here. Is the UK formally recognizing al Qaeda HTS terrorists when took government in Damascus, a government, a self-proclaimed government that said there will

be no elections in the country. So this is a terrorist group, A terrorist leader, Al Baghdadi's deputy, ISIS, the founder of al Qaeda in Syria and you're now formally recognizing this government that took force and is currently running pogroms in the coastal regions of Syria against religious minorities and ethnic minorities. I mean, everything I'm saying is absolutely ironclad fact. The question is, is this a formal recognition of a terrorist?

It looks like. A terrorist regime, that's what it looks like. Why is that? We don't know, but just just remind people this is on the cradle. This is actually just this week. Serious stolen daughters. The HTS Jolani campaign to enslave Alawite women. Whole list of women have been abducted, killed, abused, missing, missing. There's a whole list of them. And that's what's happening

here. And I'll go to Joshua Landis here and he is at with the Quincy Institute in the United States, University of Oklahoma. And this is a evangelical Islamic festival. They're calling for Syrians to sacrifice their blood and lives for Islam. And they'll deliver a heavy blow of the sword will fall soon against religious minorities and what they call enemies of Islam. That's 60% of people living in Latakia who are Christian. And Alawi, OK, That's what's going on in plain sight.

So why is the US government in Syria not doing anything to stop these programs? Or do they actually care? That's the question. Here's another disturbing video, again, posted by Joshua Landis. Go ahead and look at this. I love my little Hamdi Arab. It's only it's only 20 seconds

long, but we saw enough there. It's it's, it's beyond the pale and there's not a word of condemnation from any of our political leaders about the slaughter of Alawites and Christians by the AL Sharar AKA al Jilani HTS al Qaeda junta. By definition, it's a junta in Syria. Why is that? Why is this? This is not eligible for any condemnation or comment. This wasn't happening under the quote Assad regime. This wasn't happening. It was a pluralistic society.

Everybody received equal protection. Because we've been funding them and training them and supporting them for since 2011 effectively. So we're not going to criticize our own proxies. So and in Israel obviously wants to normalize of course, because Syria, this new regime has given away a large percentage of its territory voluntarily to Israel. So like a donation to the state of Israel. Anyway, Speaking of Israel here, look at this.

Senior Israeli officers leaked classified data including preparations for an attack on Iran. This shows you that all is not well in Tel Aviv, Mike, and more to come. There are the brew the beginnings of what a lot of people are calling the potential civil war within Israeli society. So just that descent of leaking Iran attack plans shows you that there is major upheavals going on within the defense establishment and between Netanyahu and other opposition

figures there. So more on that later. OK. Thank you, Patrick. Mark, let's come back to you then to finish off. And is there going to be a new hearing on 9/11?

It's difficult to stay, gentlemen, just how far this will go. Of course, people have been stumping for this and promoting this and asking for this, demanding it for a very long time. There's a independent journalist named Benny Johnson, one of the few that picked this up and gave it any semblance of fairness.

This headline a bombshell. Senator Ron Johnson signals the intention to hold a hearing on 9/11 with emphasis on Building 7. This was actually published by the International Center for 911 Justice, which gave Benny Johnson a fair shake here. And in the interest of time, we might want to go right to the video clip. Mike, I could talk about, you know, what this is focusing on, but I think it might be best just to hear the clip. They deserve the truth. It's been hidden from them way

too long. But again, that's just in one area. I think it's interesting. I've been following you. You're starting to open up the aperture on 9/11 World Trade Center #7 you know what the firefighters are telling us. I mean, that's something that

needs to be explored as well. Now I know you and I are both be considered conspiracy theorists, but that's exactly how they keep this stuff covered up is they accuse those of us to want to expose the truth that we're just a bunch of conspiracy theorists. Well, members of Congress are now coming forward on Tucker's show and saying, hey, they've completely attacked my family and destroyed my career because I questioned the official story of September 11th. And none of it makes sense.

And so the only way to find the truth is to ask the right questions. And this is the, this is the single most consequential moment in America. America changed forever, not for the better after September 11th. And it's worth understanding what truly happened, just like on January 6th to try and find the truth. You have to ask, you have to be able to ask the right question.

You go back to the, the firefighters, every firefighter inside of those buildings was saying, including Donald Trump was saying that this, this, this official narrative cannot be true. And so, you know, we, we hope that there's some disclosures there as as well. One final thing. And it, you brought it up and it was chilling. You said that they've destroyed the documents and you're just talking about COVID documents. So do we have any hope of ever getting like a proper Epstein

document dump? Is there, is there like actual hope here of getting any true documents that are related to events of September 11th or JFK? Or have have those things been so black boxed and so decimated that we'll never know the real truth? Well, again, just like we have thousands of recordings versus 1 Zapruder film, it's not just the sender that has a record of emailed. So that gives you some flavor of what's going on so far.

Now, Ron Johnson made a lot of big promises recently that he would make sure that the pandemic agreement was labeled and defined as a treaty and the Senate constitutionally would act authority. But those stories are in a rearview mirror a couple of years old and he doesn't seem to be pressing that matter right now. So we can hope Mr. Johnson has the intestinal fortitude to move

forward on 9/11. Lastly, the other media, besides people like ourselves, Benny Johnson and very few others, the other media are treating this in the very expected way. This is a typical specimen. Wisconsin senator wants 911 probe sites, conspiracy theories. New York leaders react by some local paper, the Rockland Watch Rockland, Westchester Journal News.

At any rate, all these stories are the same whether it's CNN, you name it, they simply present what Johnson is saying and they simply criticize them, they shoot them down, they bring in no supportive speakers or anything that would give any credence to what Senator Johnson is proposing. So it's all the same character assassination in the mainstream legacy media cartel guys. So it's going to be a very uphill battle and we can hope there's a lot of reality to this

and it's not just rhetoric. So this is something to follow obviously along with Real ID long term. OK, Mark, thank you. Thank you for that. Well, we're going to have to leave it there for today. We've got lots to talk about in UK Column News Extra and if you're AUK column member, stay on the live stream for that. If you're not AUK column member, then please do consider supporting us financially. That will give you access to the UK column News Extra and other content on the websites.

We do need your support and that is gratefully received, but in the meantime, if you're not joining us for extra, have a great weekend. We'll be back at 1:00 PM as usual on Monday and we'll see you then. Bye bye.