Brit Beats: The UK's constant complicity in Gaza and dissent, the neverending hostile environment /Italian Mambo: Meloni, MAGA's battering ram
The UK continues its complicity with Israel's genocide in Gaza, the hostile environment remains. Meloni remains Trump's battering ram, as she talks to the FT.
The UK’s constant complicity in the genocide in Gaza
The UK Government is an ally to atrocities, MAP
Since Israel’s decision to break the ceasefire with Hamas on Monday the 18th of March, the UK government’s reaction seems to be along the lines of “Keep calm and carry on, as usual”.
Unfortunately, the usual here corresponds in supporting Israel’s atrocities in three ways: diplomatic support for Tel Aviv, going from weak to non-existent criticism of Israel to the unwillingness of recognising the Palestinian state, continuous weapon sales and intelligence support.
Israel had already decided to block electricity and aid from operating and entering in Gaza (the latter equates to a war crime, as aid agencies have warned), fully knowing the impact that this would have on its population and therefore continuing the ongoing genocide by other means.
On Wednesday, March 19, Medical Aid for Palestinians, Christian Aid, and Save the Children launched a joint campaign on this front, denouncing the UK government’s role. The campaign is called Ally to Atrocities and its call is specifically aimed at PM Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy to “suspend arms transfers to Israel, including parts for F-35 fighter jets…. hold the Israeli Government accountable and end its impunity…take all steps to bring an end to Israel’s unlawful occupation.”
The three NGOs also purchased an ad page in the print version of the Observer on Sunday March 30th.
Based on the government responses, this seems unlikely. N.10 was quick to respond and silence criticism after David Lammy said that Israel had breached international law. This was once again confirmed after it was revealed that a British national, operating as a bomb disposal expert was wounded in an Israeli attack on a UN facility in Gaza on March 20. The fact that this development seemed to be barely discussed by the document echoes the killings of the World Central Kitchen last year, on April 1st, 2024. Different government, same trend. If the choice is between criticising and challenging Israel or saying almost nothing, even when British citizens’ lives are on the line or have been taken, the UK government will opt for the former.
On the Palestinian solidarity front, there also seems to be a growing attempt at putting pressure on the movement and by extension, to freedom of speech as a whole. Four prominent figures in the solidarity movement for Palestine have been questioned or called for questioning by the police following a demonstration in January: independent MP Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP John McDonnell, British-Egyptian actor Khalid Abdalla and artist, retired architect and Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos.
The questioning of Kapos by the Metropolitan police has been called out by forty Holocaust survivors and their descendants in a letter and a demonstration was called to support Kapos on Friday the 21st of March outside Charing Cross police station.
Kapos wrote an op-ed for Al Jazeera on how he has been questioned by the police and the misrepresentation of the solidarity movement for Palestine, with a telling closing paragraph “Most importantly, this whole campaign is an intentional distraction from the main issue, which is to stop the Gaza genocide now. As Israel resumes its indiscriminate bombing – murdering hundreds more civilians in Gaza – it’s vital for all of us in Britain to speak out now against our own government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.”
In line with the repression of dissent, Novara Media reported that on March 27, the Metropolitan Police raided a Quaker meeting house into Westminster Meeting House in central London, arresting six women attending a meeting in an hired room where climate change and the genocide in Gaza were being discussed.
As journalist and author Matt Kennard explained in an interview with Novara Media, the responsibility of the UK in the Gaza genocide stands alongside the ones of the US and Israel. Kennard highlights that this is a “tripartite genocide with the United States providing the majority of the arms, 80%, the majority of the intelligence coming from the British and Israel getting it done”. Once again, the British responsibilities for the brutalisation of the Palestinian people are never ending, dating back to the beginning of the Mandate for Palestine.
This scenario and this history make more and more necessary for the British public to take the streets, join and create initiatives against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the British government’s complicity.
The constant hostile environment
PM Keir Starmer shared his remarks at the Organised Immigration Crime Summit at Lancaster House, in London on Monday, with representatives from 40 countries.
Starmer has highlighted the view point of Labour’s strategy on migration with a strong border control rhetoric and a focus on tackling criminal gangs of people smugglers, without much concern for migrants, refugees or asylum seekers themselves, despite a narrative that seems to suggest the contrary.
Starmer’s speech had some telling lines like this one “I’ve put smashing the gangs on the agenda of international summits. Showing that the UK now means business. Working together with our allies. We’ve struck new agreements and plans with so many of the countries represented in the room here today.”
Starmer also pointed out that Labour will focus on pragmatic solutions, celebrating the fact that since coming to power, his government has deported 24.000 people “who had no right to be here", while also hitting out at the Tories, suggesting that it would have taken 80 years for the Rwanda scheme to deport that many people.
The PM also underlined his anger at the situation regarding migration. This speech serves different purposes: on an international level it shows a central role that the UK wants to play, while on a domestic level it aims to shows to the Reform potential electorate that the Labour government can deliver on making deportations and strong borders a reality.
It may be worth remembering that, in addition and besides the cruelty element, an approach to migration based only on security and repression does not and cannot really work. It is literally what the Tories have done for 14 years. When it comes to Reform, the last person who tried to compete with Farage by showing that he could deliver what he could not, ended up losing his premiership. His name is David Cameron.
Migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, disabled people, people on benefits: the list of those who are being hit by Labour policies is disturbing and shows how the party is far from being even barely progressive. Whatever the future holds for migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in the UK can be expected to be as bad as the last 14 years of Tories governments, a never ending hostile environment.
Meloni: MAGA’s battering ram
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Giorgia Meloni was interviewed by the Financial Times journalists Roula Khalaf, Amy Kazmin and Ben Hall, making the front page of the FT Weekend. In the interview Meloni highlighted the respect for the first ally, Washington, the importance of Western unity, while she called the idea of choosing between Trump and Europe “childish”.
Of course, Meloni, while she was able to show balance and had a positive relationship with Biden, finds herself more comfortable around Trump, she has been a regular CPAC panelist and guest and has been the only Global North guest at his inauguration in January. Her aim is to be Trump’s battering ram in Europe.
In addition to this, Meloni’s stance is in line with the history of her party’s “grandfather”, the Italian Social Movement, the neofascist party led by Giorgio Almirante. The Atlantic alignment of the Italian Social Movement has always been at the centre of its policies in an anti-communist fashion, and after 1989 still remained, in its descendant parties, National Alliance first and then Brothers of Italy.
Meloni has not so far managed to be the main of contact of Trump with Europe, something that Starmer has been more successful in doing, given his aim of leading a “coalition of the willing” in Ukraine (a more unfortunate name was not possible). At the moment, the unofficial competition between Meloni and Starmer to see who is Trump’s favourite colonial leader continues.
The big test will be seen on the so-called Liberation Day launched by Trump for April 2, in which he will announce global tariffs, and then we will see if flattery and the decision to choose Washington over Europe will pay off, or if, more likely, Meloni would simply alienate her and Italy further from the other European countries (tariffs would also be a great problem for Starmer). When it comes to European democratic recession, Meloni is leading the way with Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia and Romania in undermining the rule of law, according to a report by the Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties).
That’s all for now; the newsletter will be back on Thursday, stay tuned.