The Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) has published a new report, A Shameful Relationship: UK Complicity in Saudi State Violence by David Wearing. It exposes how the UK’s supply of weapons to Saudi Arabia for its devastating bombing of Yemen systematically violates international law. UK-made aircraft, bombs and missiles have been used in the bombing and […]
How ‘liberal’ should Labour be?
Apr 18th, 2016 by Mike Phipps.“It is simply no longer possible to be disabled and a Tory, says angry activist,” was the Guardian’s headline about Graeme Ellis, who ran the Conservative Disability Group website until March’s budget, when he closed it down and denounced Osborne’s cuts to disability benefits. He has now applied to join the Labour Party. Over the […]
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Mosul – did the US deliberately bomb civilians?
Mar 25th, 2016 by Mike Phipps.“Mosul and Kirkuk bombed by US,” reported the Daily Mail on 24 March. The United States has been targeting Mosul and Kirkuk in recent days as Washington slowly moves troops into the region to open a new front in its ground war on Iraq, which has been waged mainly from the south via Kuwait.” So […]
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Iraq – the killing continues
Feb 8th, 2016 by Mike Phipps.Mike Phipps finds no grounds for optimism in recent developments 2016 began badly for human rights in Iraq. Here are some headlines from the first few weeks of the year, focusing on the crimes of ISIS. ISIS executes 80 people by firing squad in central Nineveh – Iraqi News (9 January). ISIS executes 12 people […]
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Let’s hear it from (and for) for the real Andrew Fisher
Nov 23rd, 2015 by Mike Phipps.Mike Phipps has been re-reading the thoughts of Andrew Fisher Although Labour’s NEC has not closed the case, Labour’s new leader has made it clear he is standing by his policy aide Andrew Fisher whose pre-Corbyn era tweets have attracted some attention in the media. Some of the new leader’s serial detractors have found it […]
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Western policy in Syria is bankrupt. But that doesn’t stop the aerial attacks
Oct 11th, 2015 by Mike Phipps.The US has been bombing Syria for over a year. Russia began this September, as did France. Turkey has strafed targeted ISIS positions in the country and Israel has also conducted air strikes on Syrian military installations. Canada has been bombing Syria since April and Australia since September. Jordan began a year ago as did […]
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Intervention in Iraq is futile – we should not join it
Jul 27th, 2015 by Mike Phipps.Two years after MPs voted not to take part in the bombardment of Syria, British forces have been doing precisely that. A cross-party group of MPs and peers will investigate the air strikes, the Government’s authorisation of which shows complete contempt for parliamentary democracy. As Michael Meacher pointed out, “The excuse given by the Prime […]
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In Spain, election results are good news
May 27th, 2015 by Mike Phipps.Spains indignados made the move from city squares to the halls of power on Sunday in municipal and regional elections that saw an anti-poverty activist elected as mayor of Barcelona and the ruling Peoples Party (PP) battered at the ballot box, reports the Guardian. Elections in thirteen regions and more than 8,000 municipalities saw sweeping […]
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Labour will not win until it rejects the politics of austerity
May 10th, 2015 by Mike Phipps.Irrespective of who succeeds Ed Miliband as leader of the Labour Party, there needs to be a thorough-going discussion about its future strategy. On one side, there will be a new offensive from the remnants of New Labour, claiming it was the radicalism of the 2015 Manifesto that was the cause of Labour’s dire showing. […]
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Genocide in Iraq: when will it end?
Mar 18th, 2015 by Mike Phipps.Twelve years on from the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there is no let-up in the misery being inflicted on the Iraqi people. The UN mission to Iraq says violence in the country claimed the lives of at least 1,100 Iraqis in February, including more than 600 civilians. The war crimes of Isis are well-documented: summary […]
