Survey predicts wipeout of Rishi Sunak's party from power in UK

A recent survey predicts a significant electoral defeat for the Rishi Sunak-led Conservative Party in the upcoming British general election

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is is heading for a defeat, survey says.

Press Trust of India    

London,UPDATED: Apr 3, 2024 

Posted By: Ajmal Abbas

In Short

• Survey predicts Rishi Sunak's Conservative Party wipeout in UK elections
• Labour Party forecast to win 403 seats, Tories to crash to 155
• Elections expected in second half of the year

A major survey of over 18,000 people on Wednesday predicted a wipeout for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak-led governing Conservative Party, with the Opposition Labour Party forecast to win 403 seats – comfortably clear of the 326 required for a majority.

The new multi-level modelling and post-stratification (MRP) figures released by YouGov follow a similar mega poll over the weekend predicting a defeat for the Tories, with a gain of 201 for Keir Starmer-led Labour and Sunak-led Tories set to crash to just 155 seats – a loss of 210.

The findings indicate a worse defeat for the Tories than under former Tory prime minister John Major in 1997 when the Tony Blair-led Labour left them with just 165 MPs.

“These latest results push Keir Starmer closer toward repeating a Blair-level result for Labour, a full 27 years since Labour’s longest-serving prime minister first took office. In that election, Blair won 418 out of the available 659 House of Commons seats,” reads the YouGov analysis.

“By contrast, Rishi Sunak is now heading for a worse result than John Major’s 1997 total of 165 seats. The coming tidal wave projected by this model would sweep away several major Conservative figures,” it said.

The most prominent members of Parliament who could lose their House of Commons seat include Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, science minister Michelle Donelan and levelling up minister Michael Gove. Other senior Tories in the precarious zone with the electorate include Commons leader Penny Mordaunt and former minister Jacob Rees-Mogg.

The Liberal Democrats are up by one seat based on an earlier YouGov model, to 49, on the path to a “significant parliamentary comeback” without any significant changes to their national vote share. In Scotland, YouGov now projects Labour to comfortably be the largest party.

The headline results based on this MRP model would be Labour at 41 per cent of the vote, the Conservatives at 24 per cent, the Liberal Democrats at 12 per cent, the Greens at 7 per cent, far-right Reform UK at 12 per cent, and others at 1 per cent.

YouGov said it interviewed 18,761 British adults from March 7-27, marking the latest survey to predict a 1997-style outcome for the Conservatives when the nation goes to the polls, which Sunak has indicated will be held in the second half of the year.

“Constituency-level projections were estimated using the same statistical method which correctly predicted the 2017 and 2019 UK general elections – multi-level modelling and post-stratification (MRP),” it said.

The repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act in 2022 restored the ability of British prime ministers to set election dates. However, by law a general election has to take place at least every five years, making January 2025 the outermost deadline for Sunak to go to the ballot box.

YouGov MRP poll: Full list of 203 Labour

gains if general election held tomorrow

Tom Belger
3rd April, 2024,



The pollster YouGov has released a new MRP survey projecting Labour would win a Tony Blair-style landslide of more than 400 seats nationwide if a general election were held tomorrow.

The poll of more than 18,000 voters last month, using well-regarded multi-level regression and post-stratification (MRP) techniques, has been mapped out to predict constituency-level results if there were an immediate election.

More than 200 Labour gains are expected compared to the 2019 general election results (so not factoring in the by-elections since), including 176 from the Conservatives and 27 from the Scottish National Party – with a full list, sorted by region, published below. You can also see LabourList‘s tracker of Labour parliamentary candidates selected so far here.

Some 25 Labour gains are projected in the West Midlands, the highest of any region, followed by 24 in the North West, 23 in the South East, 22 in the East Midlands and 21 in the East of England.

The projected 154-seat majority, with 403 seats nationally, would leave Labour leader Keir Starmer close to Labour’s first election victory under Tony Blair’s leadership, the 418 seats won in 1997.

YouGov reports: “The most prominent casualty could be chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who is currently fractionally behind the Lib Dems in his Godalming and Ash seat. Science secretary Michelle Donelan is also currently trailing the Lib Dems in her Melksham and Devizes seat, and Michael Gove is just one point ahead in his Surrey Heath seat.”

It says that in Scotland Labour would “comfortably” be the largest party in terms of seats won north of the border, with 28 seats to the SNP’s 19 and five each for the Lib Dems and Tories.

Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: “Labour is taking nothing for granted and we will continue working tirelessly to earn voters’ trust. Change is possible and Labour is ready to deliver it, with our plan to make work pay, cut bills, renew public services and strengthen our economy.”

Reform UK’s vote share is expected to be highest in Barnsley North and Hartlepool, but they sit around 20 percentage points behind Labour as projected winners. They are also expected to do well in predicted Labour wins Doncaster North, Barnsley South, Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley, Normanton and Hemsworth, Ashfield, Rawmarsh and Conisbrough.

YouGov suggest the Greens would hold in Brighton Pavillion, but narrowly fall short of taking Bristol Central from Labour shadow cabinet minister Thangam Debbonaire.

FULL LIST OF RIDINGS

Conservatives set for heavy UK election defeat to opposition Labour, survey showsShare on Linked In

Rishi Sunak. Photo: IAN FORSYTH

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservative Party is set for a heavy defeat at a national election expected this year, according to a seat projection which showed the opposition Labour Party winning more than 400 seats.

The YouGov model, which predicts results in individual Parliamentary seats based on estimated vote share, projected that Sunak's Conservatives would win just 155 seats and Labour would win 403 seats. Britain's Parliament has 650 seats.

Polls have consistently given Labour a double-digit lead over the Conservatives, ahead of an election which Sunak has said he expects to call in the second half of the year.

The Conservatives have been in government, either in coalition or on their own, since 2010, but have had five different prime ministers in that time, as Britain's vote to leave the European Union and scandal over the handling of the Covid crisis led to continued political turmoil.

The poll indicated Sunak is still struggling to gain momentum after a tax-cutting budget last month and ahead of local elections in May. The model showed the Conservatives doing slightly worse - and Labour doing better - than when YouGov last published such a projection in January.

Labour party leader Sir Keir Starmer. Photo: AFP

YouGov now projects that the Conservatives would score fewer seats than they did in 1997, when they won just 165 seats in a landslide defeat to a Labour Party led by Tony Blair.

Among the prominent Conservative lawmakers who could lose their seats were finance minister Jeremy Hunt and former leadership candidate Penny Mordaunt, YouGov said.

The model projected Labour would fall short of the 418 seats won under Blair, with the projected 154 seat majority also less than the 179 majority it won in 1997.

YouGov interviewed 18,761 British adults interviewed from 7-27 March for the survey. The number is many times larger than regular opinion polling and YouGov said the method correctly predicted the previous two elections.

It said the headline election result based on the model would see Labour on 41 percent of the vote and Conservatives on 24 percent, though cautioned that the results could look different to regular polling due to its treatment of those that do not currently have a voting intention.

- This story was first published by Reuters

Conservatives face worse election defeat than John Major's 1997 loss with Labour primed for over 400 seats, poll says

3 April 2024, 

Conservatives face worse election defeat than John Major's 1997 loss with Labour primed for over 400 seats, poll says. Picture: Alamy 

By Christian Oliver

The Conservatives are facing a worse election defeat than in 1997 at the next general election, as Labour prepare for a landslide victory that could give them more than 400 seats, the latest election poll has revealed

YouGov's latest seat-by-seat poll will cause further headaches for Rishi Sunak, predicting even worse elections than an equivalent poll in January earlier this year.

Sir Keir Starmer's Labour will be handed a majority of 154 after winning 403 seats in the House of Commons, according to the poll.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, will have just 155 seats - losing 210 seats from the last general election in 2019 - according to the prediction which uses multi-level regression and poststratification (MRP) method of polling

Tony Blair and the Labour Party after the 1997 general election. Picture: Alamy

Read More: Sunak 'appalled' by killing of British aid workers and 'demands' investigation in phone call with Netanyahu

Read More: Starmer faces backlash from Labour MPs over ‘dominant’ use of union flag in electoral campaign

Several prominent Tory MPs are also predicted to have their own 'Portillo Moment' and could lose their seat.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt, former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, and leading Brexiteer Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg would be on course to lose their seats.

According to the pollsters, Rishi Sunak is heading for a worse result than John Major's 1997 defeat, when the then-Tory leader won a total of 165 seats.

The poll for Starmer, however, could put him on course to win a victory on par with that of Tony Blair in his first term of office. In 1997. The party's longest-serving prime minister won 418 of the available 659 Commons seats.

Other big Tory figures at risk of losing their seats include Cabinet members Michelle Donelan, the Science Secretary, and Welsh Secretary David TC Davies.

The model is based on vote intention data collected and analysed by YouGov from 18,761 British adults interviewed from March 7-27.

The Green Party would continue to hold Brighton Pavilion according to the polling, the seat currently held by Caroline Lucas - who is standing down at the election.

The party is also a close second to Labour in the newly created Bristol Central seat.

Michael Portillo, whom the 'Portillo Moment' is named after, was a cabinet minister when he lost his seat of Enfield Southgate to Labour's Stephen Twigg in 1997. Picture: Alamy

Read More: Free 15 hours of childcare expands to two-year-olds as Rishi Sunak insists he is delivering on pledge

Read More: Failure to ‘level up’ Britain would be ‘catastrophic’, Wes Streeting admits, as Starmer vows to resurrect Johnson policy

The Reform Party, led by Richard Tice, was found to have a growing share of the voting intention by YouGov. It is not predicted to win any seats, however. While it places second in 36 constituencies, it is not close to winning them.

The Lib Dems are meanwhile on course to grow their parliamentary comeback, with a projected win of 49 seats.

North of the border, YouGov estimates that Labour will be the largest party in Scotland. They are projected to win 28 Scottish seats, followed by the SNP with 19.

The Lib Dems and Conservatives would win five each under the modelling.

In Wales, Plaid Cymru is expected to win a total of four seats, including the proposed Caerfyrddin constituency.

Steerpike

Poll predicts Labour could become Scotland’s largest party

3 April 2024, 

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar hugs UK Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer

 (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)


As Scotland’s embattled First Minister continues to face backlash over his Hate Crime Act, his party has been hit with yet more bad news. New polling from YouGov suggests that Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party will become the largest party in Scotland, taking 28 seats and pushing the SNP into second place. The Nats are predicted to lose almost 25 of their Westminster seats, retaining just 19, the next time the electorate head to the ballot box.

The MRP poll suggests that Labour will sweep up across Scotland’s central belt – widely regarded within the Scottish party as being ‘the first red wall to fall’ – and is even predicted to take some Glasgow constituencies. Na h-Eileanan an Iar is also predicted to elect its Labour candidate, former Daily Record journalist Torcuil Crichton, following the expulsion of the constituency’s current MP Angus MacNeil from the SNP last year.

But it’s not just the Nats that will find the new survey hard to stomach. Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross told The Spectator in October that he thought his party ‘could have a really good general election’. Well, he might have to think again. Instead of making gains, the poll predicts that the Conservatives will lose two of their seven seats north of the border. Scotland has previously been thought to be the one part of the UK in which the Tories could make gains at the next election, but this new poll suggests Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will face a worse defeat than John Major in 1997. More than that, 11 cabinet ministers are at risk of losing their seats, with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt and Science Secretary Michelle Donelan among them.

The long and short of it? While the Tories fear electoral wipeout, the SNP’s fortunes aren’t looking particularly promising either. The First Minister told his party conference in October that independence preparations would begin again if they won a ‘majority’ – 29 – of Scotland’s Westminster seats. If the Nats only hold on to 19 after the country goes to the polls, not only will they have lost over half of their Westminster MPs, they’ll have lost anything resembling an independence mandate too.



WRITTEN BY
Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpikeComments

Vaughan Gething accused of being ‘Starmer’s man in Wales’

03 Apr 2024 

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (right) and new Welsh First Minister

 Vaughan Gething during a visit to the Port of Holyhead. 

Photo Peter Byrne/PA Wire

Martin Shipton

Welsh Labour critics of Vaughan Gething believe his failure to hold a Cabinet meeting in the two weeks since he was elected First Minister is an early indication that he is Keir Starmer’s man in Wales rather than a “Father of the Nation”, like his predecessors.

Mr Gething became First Minister on March 20 after winning a narrow victory over his rival Jeremy Miles following a fraught campaign in which he was strongly criticised for accepting donations totalling £200k from the company of a businessman who had received two suspended jail sentences for polluting the protected landscape of the Gwent Levels.

It also emerged that Mr Gething had lobbied the regulator Natural Resources Wales to go easy on the group concerned, and that it had submitted an application for a giant solar plant whose fate will be decided by the Welsh Government.

Dismay

Now some Welsh Labour insiders have been expressing dismay over Mr Gething’s priorities since he took over from Mark Drakeford.

A senior party source told us: “There’s been not exactly surprise, but quite a bit of eye-rolling over the fact that Vaughan hasn’t held a Cabinet meeting since his election on March 20.

“It’s the normal thing in any new government, or following a reshuffle, that the new head of government holds a Cabinet meeting at which he or she sets out their priorities and gives some indication as to the priorities the Cabinet Secretaries should focus on. That hasn’t happened at all.

“Instead, immediately after taking charge, Vaughan went to London where he was greeted by Keir Starmer and invited to a Shadow Cabinet meeting in Westminster.

“Mark Drakeford never attended a Shadow Cabinet meeting in Westminster. Colleagues say he’s told them he then went for a break to Spain over Easter.

“It seems clear that in the run-up to the general election, Vaughan will be used as part of UK Labour’s senior team during the campaign. On one level that’s fine, but on another it confirms that he’s more interested in being a party figure than a national leader.

“For him, unlike his three predecessors – Mark Drakeford, Carwyn Jones and Rhodri Morgan – it’s more important to be the leader of Welsh Labour than the First Minister.

“To various degrees, Mark, Carwyn and Rhodri behaved as “Fathers of the Nation” – that’s not something Vaughan is interested in. As some expected, he’s becoming Keir Starmer’s man in Wales. Taking it further, one could say that he’s the First Minister Alun Michael would have become if he’s had the opportunity to do so.”

Tainted

Mr Michael defeated Rhodri Morgan for the Welsh Labour leadership in the run-up to the first devolved election in 1999. His victory was tainted with allegations of a stitch-up. While Mr Morgan won majority support among party members, Mr Michael benefitted from trade union block votes awarded to him by small groups of union leaders, as well as support from MPs.

In the election, Labour did worse than expected, winning only 28 of the 60 seats in the then National Assembly. Nine months after being elected as First Secretary – as the leader of the Assembly was initially known – Mr Michael, who was seen by many as Tony Blair’s man in Wales rather than as a genuine national leader, was ousted by opposition politicians because of his failure to secure extra funding from the UK Government to match the European aid money granted to Wales because of its relative poverty.

Rhodri Morgan then took over as First Minister.

‘Fed up’

The senior Labour source told us: “Clearly Vaughan has decided to operate in a very different way from his predecessors. People are not impressed, and in fact fed up. I have spoken to one Minister who wasn’t at all impressed by the failure to hold a Cabinet meeting, and about Vaughan’s apparent sense of priorities.

“It’s clear that there is not a great deal of goodwill towards Vaughan in the Labour Senedd group, most of whom supported Jeremy Miles.

“Among those Ministers who supported Jeremy, there’s not much of an incentive to be loyal, because it’s been suggested that in a year or so he intends to have a reshuffle in which some of them would be expected to make way for MSs like Hefin David, Vikki Howells and Jack Sargeant who supported Vaughan and were disappointed not to get Ministerial roles.”

A Welsh Government spokesman said: “The FM was sworn in on March 20t and then appointed his Cabinet on Thursday evening.

“He had meetings with colleagues on Friday and then a number of engagements over Easter week, during the recess, including further meetings with Cabinet colleagues and external organisations etc up until Thursday.

“I am assuming he would have had a few days off over the Easter weekend.”

Sunak Signals Ditching European Convention Of Human Rights If Rwanda Flights Blocked

Controlling illegal migration is more important than “membership of a foreign court”, PM said.


By Graeme Demianyk
03/04/2024


Rishi Sunak told The Sun illegal migration offends a British "notion of fairness".

Rishi Sunak has given his strongest signal yet that he is willing to remove the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights amid the stalemate over his Rwanda deportation plan.

The PM told The Sun’s Never Mind The Ballots programme that controlling immigration is more important than “membership of a foreign court”.

Critics have said the UK would be an international outlier along with Russia and Belarus if it left the convention, which is overseen by a court sitting in Strasbourg. The court’s president suggested in January the plan would breach international law.

Sunak, who said illegal migration offends a British “notion of fairness”, told the newspaper: “I believe that all plans are compliant with all of our international obligations including the ECHR, but I do believe that border security and making sure that we can control illegal migration is more important than membership of a foreign court because it’s fundamental to our sovereignty as a country.”



The comments are likely please the right-wing of the Tory party, but may alarm moderates in his cabinet.

Britain and Rwanda signed a deal almost two years ago that would see migrants who cross the English Channel in small boats sent to the East African country, where they would remain permanently. So far, no migrant has been sent to Rwanda under the agreement.


The plan is key to Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats” bringing unauthorised migrants to the UK. He argues that deporting asylum seekers will deter people from making risky journeys and break the business model of people-smuggling gangs.


Legislation to help get flights off the ground is currently stuck in a game of parliamentary “ping-pong” as the House of Lords votes against the plan.

UN Security Council Fails To Condemn Strike On Iran Embassy

UN Security Council in session on April 2, 2024

Iran International Newsroom

The United States, Britain and France on Wednesday opposed a Russian-drafted UN Security Council statement that would have condemned an attack on Iran's embassy in Syria, which Tehran has blamed on Israel.

Press statements by the 15-member council have to be agreed by consensus. Diplomats said the US, backed by France and Britain, told council colleagues that many of the facts of what happened on Monday in Damascus remained unclear and there was no consensus among council members during a meeting on Tuesday.

"This serves as a clear illustration of the double standards employed by the Western 'troika' and their actual, rather than declarative, approach to legality and order in the international context," Russia's deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said in a post on X.

In the previous Security Council meeting on Tuesday, the US representative condemned the activities of Iran’s armed proxy groups in the region, as well as warned Tehran not to target US forces in retaliation for the attack on its Damascus embassy.

The UN Security Council has issued statements in the past condemning attacks on diplomatic premises. The European Union on Wednesday condemned the strike - saying the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises and personnel must be respected - and called on countries to show restraint.

The US says it has not confirmed the status of the building struck in Damascus, but that it would be concerned if it was a diplomatic facility.

Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, which destroyed a consular building adjacent to the main embassy complex, killing seven members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

Iran has accused Israel of violating the founding UN Charter, international law, and also cited several conventions. However the Islamic Republic has violated the immunity of foreign embassies several times in the past 45 years, with allowing its supporters to occupy the US embassy for 444 days as well as attack and damage the British and Saudi embassies.

The 1961 Vienna Convention governing diplomatic relations and 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations define premises as buildings, parts of buildings and land - regardless of ownership - used for the purposes of the diplomatic or consular mission, including the head of the diplomatic mission.

Those conventions state that the diplomatic or consular premises "shall be inviolable." But they also say the premises should "not be used in any manner incompatible" with the diplomatic and consular functions.

Iran also cited the 1973 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons, including Diplomatic Agents - suggesting those killed were covered by these rules.

With reporting by Reuters

What is the genocide convention and how might it apply to the UK and Israel?

Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent
Wed, 3 April 2024 

The ICJ ordered Israel to ‘take all measures within its power to prevent’ the killing of Palestinians, prevent and punish incitement to commit genocide and enable provision of humanitarian assistance.

In a letter to the British prime minister, hundreds of legal figures, including some who have held some of the land’s most senior judicial roles, have said the government is breaching its obligations under international law, including the genocide convention, when it comes to Israel’s war in Gaza. Here the Guardian explains what the genocide convention is, the responsibilities it confers on signatories and its relevance.

What is the genocide convention?

The convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide – otherwise known as the genocide convention – was approved in 1948 and came into effect in 1951 after the second world war and the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany killed more than 6 million Jews. The concept of “genocide” was created by Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish law professor,and the convention created the first international legal definition of the term.
How does it define genocide?

The convention, which has been ratified by 153 countries including the UK (in 1970) and Israel, defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

The acts include killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, destroying their living conditions so as to bring about their destruction, preventing them from giving birth and forcibly transferring their children to other groups.

It is considered to be the most serious war crime.

What is punishable under the convention?

Naturally, genocide itself is an offence but there are other linked offences too, including complicity in genocide. Under article 1 of the convention, each state party is required to undertake to prevent and punish genocide. It is on this basis that South Africa, which has already brought a genocide case against Israel at the international court of justice (ICJ), has reportedly been preparing a lawsuit to file at the ICJ against the UK and US – which both supply arms to Israel – alleging complicity in genocide.

The letter/legal opinion sent to the prime minister by legal figures states: “Serious action is … needed to avoid UK complicity in grave breaches of international law, including potential violations of the genocide convention.”

One example it gives is: “The ICJ’s conclusion that there exists a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza has placed your government on notice that weapons might be used in its commission and that the suspension of their provision is thus a “means likely to deter” and/or “a measure to prevent” genocide.

Has Israel been found to have committed genocide?

No. Following the case filed by South Africa against Israel and representations made by each side on consecutive days, the ICJ issued an interim judgment in which it said it was “plausible” that Israel was committing breaches of the genocide convention against Palestinians in Gaza. This was not a definitive ruling – genocide cases can take years to resolve – but the letter to the prime minister says: “The UK cannot wait until the court decides the case on the merits; it must act now in accordance with its obligation to prevent genocide.”

The UN’s top court was asked by South Africa to issue a provisional order because of the deemed urgency of the situation. In response, the ICJ ordered Israel, among other things, to “take all measures within its power to prevent” the killing of Palestinians, prevent and punish incitement to commit genocide and enable provision of humanitarian assistance. Last week, the court issued additional provisional measures including for Israel to allow unimpeded access of food aid into Gaza, as it said “famine is setting in”.

Former supreme court judges say UK arming Israel breaches international law


Haroon Siddique, Eleni Courea and Patrick Wintour
Wed, 3 April 2024 
The Guardian

The letter adds further pressure on the UK government after three British citizens were killed in an Israeli strike on Monday

.Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPA

Three former supreme court justices, including the court’s former president Lady Hale, are among more than 600 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges warning that the UK government is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel.

In a letter to the prime minister, the signatories, who also include former court of appeal judges and more than 60 KCs, say that the present situation in Gaza is “catastrophic” and that given the international court of justice (ICJ) finding that there is a plausible risk of genocide being committed, the UK is legally obliged to act to prevent it.

The 17-page letter, which also amounts to a legal opinion, was sent on Wednesday evening and says: “While we welcome the increasingly robust calls by your government for a cessation of fighting and the unobstructed entry to Gaza of humanitarian assistance, simultaneously to continue (to take two striking examples) the sale of weapons and weapons systems to Israel and to maintain threats of suspending UK aid to Unwra falls significantly short of your government’s obligations under international law.”

Related: UK’s arms export procedures give Israel benefit of the doubt

It comes as Conservative MPs piled pressure on Rishi Sunak to act after seven international aid workers, including three British citizens, were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Monday. Party sources believe that the foreign secretary, David Cameron, has been pushing for the government to harden its approach to Israel but has been met with resistance from Downing Street.

Three Tory backbenchers and one former minister now in the Lords said that the UK should stop exporting arms to Israel after the airstrike, while the findings of a YouGov poll, conducted before the strike, suggested that the government and Labour are out of step with public sentiment, with a majority of voters – by 56% to 17% – in favour of an arms ban.

The letter calls for the government to work towards a permanent ceasefire and to impose sanctions “upon individuals and entities who have made statements inciting genocide against Palestinians”. It says that restoring funding to Unrwa – which was withdrawn after Israel’s yet-to-be-substantiated allegations that 12 staff at the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees were involved in the 7 October attacks – is necessary for “effective entry and distribution of the means of existence to Palestinians in Gaza, and by extension the prevention of genocide”.

On arming Israel, it says: “The ICJ’s conclusion that there exists a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza has placed your government on notice that weapons might be used in its commission and that the suspension of their provision is thus a ‘means likely to deter’ and/or ‘a measure to prevent’ genocide.”

The Conservative MPs David Jones, Paul Bristow and Flick Drummond, and the Tory peer Hugo Swire, all called for the suspension of arms exports to Israel after Peter Ricketts, who was a government national security adviser during David Cameron’s premiership and now sits in the Lords, expressed similar sentiments.

Drummond, the MP for Meon Valley, said: “This has been concerning me for some time. What worries me is the prospect of UK arms being used in Israel’s actions in Gaza, which I believe have broken international law.”

Lord Ricketts told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think there’s abundant evidence now that Israel hasn’t been taking enough care to fulfil its obligations on the safety of civilians. And a country that gets arms from the UK has to comply with international humanitarian law. That’s a condition of the arms export licence.”

The Scottish first minister, Humza Yousaf, warned that by refusing to stop arms sales to Israel, “the UK is in danger of being complicit in the killing of innocent civilians”.

The letter’s significance lies not just in the number of signatories but the fact that it has been signed by senior retired judges, who normally shy away from commenting publicly on issues that are politically sensitive.

Prominent signatories include the former supreme court justices Lord Sumption and Lord Wilson, the former Lord Justices of Appeal Sir Stephen Sedley, Sir Alan Moses, Sir Anthony Hooper and Sir Richard Aikens, and the former chair of the Bar of England and Wales, Matthias Kelly KC.

They say in the letter: “The UK must take immediate measures to bring to an end through lawful means acts giving rise to a serious risk of genocide. Failure to comply with its own obligations under the genocide convention to take ‘all measures to prevent genocide which were within its power’ would incur UK state responsibility for the commission of an international wrong, for which full reparation must be made.”Interactive

The letter goes further – and has a more eminent list of signatories – than a previous one sent to Sunak in October, concerning the government’s obligations to avert and avoid complicity in serious breaches of international humanitarian law.

It says there have since been “significant developments” in relation to the situation in Gaza. These include the interim orders issued by the ICJ and the worsening situation in Gaza, with at least 32,623 Palestinians killed by the Israeli offensive, “imminent famine”, caused by Israel’s blocking of aid, the destruction of health facilities, killings of healthcare and humanitarian workers, and reports of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.

One of the signatories, Phillippa Kaufmann KC, said: “That so many senior members of the UK legal profession are speaking with such force to urge the government to act upon its legal obligations, demonstrates the depth of our concern about the clear evidence of gross violations of international law in Gaza.”

The letter also calls on the government to continue to “use all endeavours” to secure the release of the Israeli hostages seized in the 7 October attacks in which Hamas and other militant groups killed approximately 1,200 people in Israel.

The UK government has refused to publish its own legal advice on the matter but a leaked recording suggests its own lawyers have advised that Israel has breached international humanitarian law in Gaza.

Sunak told the Sun on Wednesday night that arms licences were kept under “careful” review according to “regulations and procedures that we’ll always follow”.

Guardian Newsroom: Crisis in the Middle East

Liberal Democrats leader calls on UK gov't to suspend arms sales to Israel

'For years Liberal Democrats called for far tougher control of arms exports, so that British arms are not being used in conflicts such as devastating one in Gaza,' says Ed Davey

Burak Bir |03.04.2024 

Israeli military camp as Israel continues to deploy soldiers, tanks and armored vehicles near the Gaza border in Kibbutz Bar'am, Israel on October 14, 2023.

LONDON

The head of the Liberal Democrats party in the UK urged the government on Wednesday to end arms exports to Israel.

"For years Liberal Democrats have called for far tougher control of arms exports, so that British arms are not being used in conflicts such as the devastating one in Gaza," Ed Davey wrote on X.

His remarks came after seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed in an Israeli strike Monday in the Gaza Strip. They were nationals of Australia, Poland, the UK, Palestine, as well as a US-Canada dual citizen.

"The UK Government must take swift action to suspend arms exports to Israel," added Davey.

After the targeted attack, WCK said it was pausing operations in the region.

The attack has sounded international alarm bells, with many condemning the strike on aid workers and demanding a thorough investigation.

Britain summoned the Israeli ambassador to the Foreign Office on Tuesday for the strike because three of the victims were UK nationals.

Israel has waged a military offensive on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack by the Palestinian group, Hamas, which killed around 1,200 people.

Nearly 33,000 Palestinians have since been killed besides causing mass destruction and displacement.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which last week asked Tel Aviv to do more to prevent famine in Gaza. “Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine ... but that famine is setting in,” said the ICJ.

Plaid Cymru calls for recall of UK Parliament to stop sale of weapons to Israel

03 Apr 2024

IDF soldiers operating in Gaza. Photo by Israel Defence Forces is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Plaid Cymru has called for an immediate recall of the UK parliament following Israeli air strikes on Gaza aid workers which killed seven people.

On Monday, three UK citizens, an Australian, a Polish national, an American-Canadian dual citizen and a Palestinian died when an aid convoy was hit as it was leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse.

They were all working for World Central Kitchen, a not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation that provides meals in the wake of natural disasters.

Plaid has also urged the UK Government to stop selling arms to Israel, saying that by continuing to do so it was “aiding in the killing of civilians”.

UK defence exports to Israel amounted to £42 million in 2022. Since 2008, the UK has licenced arms worth over £574 million to Israel, according to analysis of Government export data by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), a UK based pressure group that seeks an end to the global arms trade.

Barbaric

Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader, Liz Saville Roberts MP, said: “The barbaric killing of aid workers in Gaza, three of whom were British nationals, is the latest atrocity in Gaza where over 30,000 civilians have died in the last six months.

“We must now see an immediate recall of Parliament to scrutinise the continued support of this war and of the sale of arms by the UK Government and the Labour opposition. All political parties represented in Westminster should be in the Chamber to hold to account the government’s reluctant response to the growing evidence of Israel state enabled targeted killings of innocent people.”

“The UK Government must stop the sale of weapons to Gaza immediately and stop aiding in the killing of so many innocent lives.”

Careful

Defending arms sales to Israel, amid calls for a ban, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the Sun Newspaper’s Never Mind the Ballots show: “I think we’ve always had a very careful export licensing regime that we adhere to.

“There are a set of rules, regulations and procedures that we’ll always follow, and I have been consistently clear with Prime Minister Netanyahu since the start of this conflict that while of course we defend Israel’s right to defend itself and its people against attacks from Hamas, they have to do that in accordance with international humanitarian law, protect civilian lives and, sadly, too many civilians have already lost their lives.

“Get more aid into Gaza. That’s what we’ve consistently called for and what we want to see actually is an immediate humanitarian pause to allow more aid in, and crucially the hostages to be released, and that’s what we’ll continue to push for.”

Lord Peter Ricketts, a former senior diplomat who chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee during the Blair government, had earlier said Israeli forces’ killing of the aid workers has sparked “global outrage” as he called for an “immediate ceasefire”.

The crossbench peer, who served as national security adviser between 2010 and 2012, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think there is abundant evidence now that Israel hasn’t been taking enough care to fulfil its obligations on the safety of civilians, and a country that gets arms from the UK has to comply with international humanitarian law, that is a condition of the arms export licensing policy.

“I think the time has come to send that signal.”

Outrage in UK at Israel over killing of 'hero' aid workers in Gaza

A former national security adviser has said that the UK should stop arming Israel following the killing of World Central Kitchen workers.

The New Arab Staff
03 April, 2024

The UK has been facing growing calls to end its arms sales to Israel [GETTY]


The UK government is facing calls to halt arms exports to Israel, as nationwide anger erupts over the killing of three British aid workers in Gaza by Israeli strikes on Monday.

John Chapman, 57, James Henderson, 33, and James Kirby, 47 - reportedly former UK servicemen - were working in Gaza for the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity when their vehicle was struck by an Israeli missile, ending the lives of all seven aid workers onboard.

The killing of the three British men - dubbed "heroes" by some media outlets - has prompted huge anger in the UK at the Israeli government and reignited calls for an arms embargo on Israel.

Conservative peer Peter Ricketts, a former national security advisor and a former permanent secretary at the UK Foreign Office, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think there's abundant evidence now that Israel hasn't been taking enough care to fulfil its obligations on the safety of civilians.

"A company that gets arms from the UK has to comply with international humanitarian law. That's a condition of the arms export licence. So honestly, I think the time has come to send that signal."

He said this might send a "powerful" political message to Israel and "stimulate" the US to consider doing the same.

The tragedy has drawn widespread backlash against Israel, with right-wing media outlets - typically sympathetic to Israel - outraged by the killings.


The Daily Mail's leading headlines covering the story included the words "Anger" and "Fury", while MailOnline detailed how the assault happened in devastating detail.

The Sun - dubbing the three former servicemen as "heroes" - claimed a "rogue" Israeli unit was responsible for the strike on the clearly-marked humanitarian convoy and Israeli military sources said they were "out of control".

Yet they are just three of scores of aid workers killed in Gaza. At least 196 humanitarians have been killed in the occupied Palestinian Territory since Israel's brutal assault began in October, with healthcare facilities and aid distribution points the scenes of horrifying massacres committed by Israeli forces.

The targeting of humanitarian facilities and aid workers has led to accusations that Israel is deliberately orchestrating a man-made famine in Gaza.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described the three British men as "brave men" and their deaths as an "awful, awful tragedy", indirectly warning Israel of the "increasingly intolerable" situation in Gaza.

He called for an urgent investigation into the killings and demanded an explanation from Israel.

Opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said the tragedy "outrageous and unacceptable" and demanded humanitarian law be protected.

Both have been slammed by the public for their "pathetic" response to the "murder" of three former British servicemen with calls for a harsher response by London to Israel, including cutting arms supplies.

RELATED
What is World Central Kitchen targeted by Israel in Gaza?

These calls will likely increase if it is proven that the engine in the Hermes 450 drone responsible for their deaths was UK-made, as has been suggested by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP).

ICJP Public Affairs and Communications Officer Liam Doherty said in a statement: "By refusing to implement the very checks meant to prevent misuse of UK weaponry, the UK government has given carte blanche to any atrocities committed with them.

"The illegality of arms sales to Israel is clear. The question, now, is how far government officials are willing to take it: in the knowledge that they may risk criminal liability for complicity in the atrocities which Israel has committed – and which it will continue to commit, unless its genocide is stopped."

The UK government has summoned the Israeli ambassador over the killings and demanded an explanation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Since Israel's devastating war on Gaza began in October - killing around 33,000 Palestinians - there have been wider calls in the UK for a suspension of arms sales to Israel.

The UK government has licensed weapons exports to Israel worth over £574 million to Israel, according to government export data analysed by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) with fears that UK-made weaponry could be responsible for many of those killed in the Israeli onslaught.

‘He will be remembered as a hero': Family of UK aid worker killed by Israel

‘He died trying to help people and was subject to an inhumane act,' says family of another worker

Burak Bir |03.04.2024 - 

Passports of the officials working at the US-based international volunteer aid organization World Central Kitchen (WCK), who are killed, are seen after an Israeli attack on a vehicle belonging to WCK in Deir Al-Balah of Gaza on April 02, 2024.


LONDON

Families of three British aid workers killed by Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip said they are "devastated" Wednesday for their losses.

Seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed in an Israeli strike Monday in the Gaza Strip. They were nationals of Australia, Poland, the UK, Palestine, as well as a US-Canada dual citizen.

It was later confirmed that three were British citizens -- James Kirby, James Henderson and John Chapman.

Kirby's family said they are "utterly heartbroken by the loss of our beloved James."

"Alongside the other six individuals who tragically lost their lives, he will be remembered as a hero," according to a statement that said Kirby understood the dangers of venturing into Gaza, drawing from his experiences in the British Armed Forces.

The family said Kirby was always willing to lend a helping hand to anyone, even in the face of senseless violence.

After the targeted attack, WCK said it was pausing operations in the region.

Sky News reported that Chapman’s family is "devastated.”

"He died trying to help people and was subject to an inhumane act. He was an incredible father, husband, son and brother," it said, citing a statement from the family.

A childhood friend of Henderson. a former Royal Marine from Cornwall, told British television station, ITV, that it had not "sunk in yet" that he had died.

"Being around Jim, you felt that nothing could go wrong. He always had complete control over everything,” he said.

Britain summoned the Israeli ambassador to the Foreign Office for the killing of the aid workers.

Israel has waged a military offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian group, Hamas. which killed less than 1,200 people.

Nearly 33,000 Palestinians have since been killed and caused mass destruction and displacement.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

World Central Kitchen staff slaughtered by Israel were ex-military working for a private UK government-backed security contractor

We've been here before

 by Steve Topple

THE CANARY UK
3 April 2024
in Analysis


The three British World Central Kitchen staff Israel slaughtered were all ex-Royal Marines or Special Forces who also worked for a private, UK-government approved security firm. The news poses more questions than it gives answers – as the NGO was a US-backed, Israel-supported operation in Gaza whose ‘celebrity chef’ head has close ties to government, while the UK has also been flying reconnaissance missions over the strip, where Israel has killed over 33,000 people in its ongoing genocide.

World Central Kitchen: Israel slaughtering staff

As the Canary’s James Wright previously reported, on Monday 1 April:

NGO World Central Kitchen aid workers were coordinating their journey with Israel and in clearly marked vehicles when the Israeli military murdered them with repeated drone strikes.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) killed seven people working with the NGO after the aid workers dropped off 100 tonnes of food at a warehouse in central Gazan city Deir al Balah. Those killed include people from Britain, Poland, Australia, and Palestine.

World Central Kitchen is an international food aid organisation that chef Jose Andres started and is on the ground in Gaza as well as other places like Ukraine.

Since the incident, more details have come to light:

Israeli forces carried out a triple tap on World Central Kitchen’s convoy – appearing like they targeted it.
They claimed it was because Hamas operative were in the trucks.
Israel’s leadership has distanced themselves from the attack – saying it was carried out by IDF soldiers who had essentially gone rogue.

Israel often uses the above excuses to try and play down what is clear targeting of aid workers or medical staff. However, on this occasion is has not washed internationally – with rounded condemnation of the massacre.

However, this is not the full story.

Just who is the NGO?

As the Sun reported, the three British World Central Kitchen staff were all ex-military. Moreover, they all worked for Solace Global. It is a private security, cyber security, and intelligence/risk company whose cyber arm is approved by the UK government’s National Cyber Security Centre. However, as Charlie Herbert noted on X it is routine for NGOs to use ex-military in what he called “high-risk areas”.

Meanwhile, World Central Kitchen’s founder José Andrés has previously been written about. As the Grayzone described, he is:

State Department-linked Spanish celebrity chef José Andrés has emerged as the US government’s preferred conduit for aid to enter Gaza, following the Biden administration’s decision to suspend funding to the enclave’s main supplier of food, aid and education, the UNRWA.

It noted that he works for the US State Department and his NGO has also operated in Ukraine. The Grayzone went on to say that:

Andrés’ organization, World Central Kitchen, has already finished constructing its own jetty, which was made from the rubble heaps in Gaza

The NGO since delivered aid to Gaza via boat. As the Grayzone noted, it:

is only able to operate in Gaza with the explicit permission of the Israeli military. The New York Times… [noted] “the Israeli military helped World Central Kitchen’s operation, providing security and coordination” and that “every step was carried out with permission from the Israeli military.”

Moreover, in the aftermath of Hamas’s 7 October attacks, World Central Kitchen was actually providing meals to the IDF.

After Israel killed the seven World Central Kitchen workers, Biden phoned Andrés personally to offer his condolences. Meanwhile, the Israeli state called the NGO’s work in Gaza “critical”.

Finally, founder of Declassified UK Matt Kennard said on social media that flight logs showed that on 1 April the British military flew what he called a “six hour spy mission” over Gaza.

So, what does all this mean?
Israel removing UNRWA and replacing it with World Central Kitchen?

Director of Electronic Intifada Ali Abunimah said on X that he believes one possibility is:

There’s reason why Israel provided so much support to World Central Kitchen, while it blocks UNRWA convoys and Joe Biden defunds UNRWA. And none of it has to do with the welfare or survival of Palestinians in Gaza. They want to destroy UNRWA and replace it with PR.

He also noted that World Central Kitchen issued a statement on 29 March, addressing speculation about it’s close working with the Israeli state and rumours about it replacing UNRWA. Since then, Israel’s killing of World Central Kitchen staff has actually led to it and other NGOs pausing or ceasing operations in Gaza.

Moreover, since 7 October Israel has killed nearly 200 aid workers – yet none of these murders prompted a response like World Central Kitchen’s staff’s killings have. However, Israel’s slaughter of World Central Kitchen’s staff seems at odds with its work with it. Abunimah mused that it might be ‘retaliative’.

All this is unconfirmed or speculative. However, the idea that governments use NGOs as cover for their own agendas and operations is hardly new. As author and journalist Naomi Klein was documenting in the 2000s, so-called “disaster capitalism” has form on this.

Before releasing her seminal work The Shock Doctrine, Klein wrote for the Nation in 2005 that:


In Afghanistan, where the World Bank… administers the country’s aid through a trust fund, it has already managed to privatize healthcare by refusing to give funds to the Ministry of Health to build hospitals. Instead it funnels money directly to NGOs, which are running their own private health clinics on three-year contracts.

It has also mandated “an increased role for the private sector” in the water system, telecommunications, oil, gas and mining and directed the government to “withdraw” from the electricity sector and leave it to “foreign private investors.”
Neo-colonialism and disaster capitalism happening in Israel

Overall, Klein broadly noted on her website that:

“We used to have vulgar colonialism,” says Shalmali Guttal, a Bangalore-based researcher with Focus on the Global South. “Now we have sophisticated colonialism, and they call it ‘reconstruction.’”

It certainly seems that ever-larger portions of the globe are under active reconstruction; being rebuilt by a parallel government made up of a familiar cast of for-profit consulting firms, engineering companies, mega-NGOs, government and UN aid agencies and international financial institutions.

And from the people living in these reconstruction sites—Iraq to Aceh, Afghanistan to Haiti—a similar chorus of c omplaints can be heard.

The work is far too slow, if it is happening at all. Foreign consultants live high on cost-plus expense accounts and thousand-dollar-a-day salaries, while locals are shut out of much-needed jobs, training and decision making.

Expert “democracy builders” lecture governments on the importance of transparency and “good governance” yet most contractors and NGOs refuse to open their books to those same governments, let alone give them control over how their aid money is spent.

Could this be what we are beginning to witness in Gaza – with World Central Kitchen being one of the proxies? It is early days and the evidence is so far unclear – and there is currently no indication any of the NGO staff that Israel murdered were in Gaza for any other reason than to support relief efforts and to try to save lives.

However, questions do need to be asked of World Central Kitchen’s role in Israel’s ongoing genocide – as do questions over how the IDF has once again slaughtered aid workers without recourse.

Featured image via POLITICO – YouTube

Israeli drone used in Gaza aid strike powered by British-made engine, activists claim

Bel Trew,Kim Sengupta and Archie Mitchell
Wed, 3 April 2024 

The remains of the vehicle in which employees from World Central Kitchen, including foreigners, were killed in Monday’s Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip (Reuters)

Britain is accused of being complicit in Israel’s killing of seven aid workers in Gaza amid claims that weapons used in the attack were powered by UK-made engines.

Israel struck a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy carrying charity workers, including three Britons, with a Hermes 450 drone, according to Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). It said the weapon – known as a “Zik” drone in Israel – could have been powered by a British component.

The three British citizens killed were named yesterday as John Chapman, 57, James “Jim” Henderson, 33, and James Kirby, 47. They were part of the security team.


The deaths, described by Benjamin Netanyahu as “unintended”, prompted an outpouring of anger as pressure grows on the British government to suspend arms transfers to Israel.

Senior Tory Sir Alan Duncan, a former foreign minister, was among those to speak out against the attack, describing it in The Independent as “a tipping point in Israel’s collapsing reputation” and asking whether Britain should reconsider Israel as an ally.

Victims: (clockwise, from top left) Lalzawmi ‘Zomi’ Frankcom, Damian Sobol, James Kirby, Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, Jacob Flickinger, John Chapman and James ‘Jim’ Henderson (WCK/AFP/Getty)

Citing figures from the Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry, he said: “As the death toll in Gaza has risen from 1,000 to 10,000 to 30,000, Israel’s justification for this excess feels ever less convincing ... Through its deceit and callousness, Israel has now lost the support of the world. Nobody any longer believes its statements.”

Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy joined the calls for the arms trade to cease, accusing his ministerial counterpart David Cameron of “going silent” on the question of whether or not Israel is complying with international humanitarian law in relation to the sales. “The law is clear,” he said. “British arms licences cannot be granted if there is a clear risk.”

Meanwhile:

It emerged that more than 200 aid workers have been killed since 7 October, when Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 people


Nearly 33,000 Palestinians have died, according to Hamas-run authorities in Gaza, in the retaliatory bombing campaign by the Israeli military


The UN’s largest agency operating in Gaza, UNRWA, told The Independent that 176 of its staff have been killed since the war began, some of them while delivering vital aid


Rishi Sunak warned Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel’s war in Gaza is growing “increasingly intolerable”


Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said the attack on aid workers was “absolutely unacceptable” and called for “full accountability”


US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US wants the investigation into the attack wrapped up as soon as possible

As more details emerged about the bombing and its victims, CAAT accused the UK of being “complicit in the murder of UK aid workers” and said it must halt arms sales to Israel. The Independent has approached the Department of Business and Trade for comment.

“This government has had every opportunity to impose an arms embargo and has refused to do so. While our thoughts are with the families and friends of the aid workers killed, they are also with the families and friends of the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed by Israel,” said spokesperson Emily Apple.

She cited claims that the Foreign Office is hiding legal advice that Israel is breaching international humanitarian law, according to foreign affairs committee chair Alicia Kearns.

Since 2015, the UK has licensed £487m worth of weapons to Israel, although this does not include equipment exported via open licences.

Jose Andres, the celebrity chef who founded WCK, has described how the Israel strikes targeted his team ‘systematically, car by car’ (AP)

According to its own export licensing criteria, the UK must halt arms sales when there is a clear risk they could be used in humanitarian violations.

Israel has admitted launching the deadly strike on the convoy, saying it was unintended and “tragic”. The military promised that an independent inquiry would be held.

Military sources told Israel’s left-leaning Haaretz newspaper that the attack had involved Hermes 450 drones, and that the convoy had been pounded even though the vehicles were travelling in a deconfliction zone and the charity had coordinated its movements with the military.

Military experts in Israel told The Independent they also believed that Hermes 450 drones had been used. The Independent has approached the IDF for comment.

Jose Andres, the celebrity chef who founded WCK, said the strike had targeted his team “systematically, car by car”. The aid convoy was hit as it was leaving a warehouse in central Gaza after unloading more than 100 tonnes of food aid brought by sea.

Mr Andres said WCK had established clear communication with the Israeli military, which knew his aid workers’ movements. “This was not just a bad luck situation where ‘Oops, we dropped the bomb in the wrong place,’” he continued. “Even if we were not in coordination with the IDF, no democratic country and no military can be targeting civilians and humanitarians.”

The three Britons died alongside American-Canadian dual citizen Jacob Flickinger, 33, Australian national Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, 43, who was the leader of the relief team, Polish national Damian Sobol, 35, and Palestinian Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, 25.

The family of Mr Chapman, a former marine and a father of two from Dorset, said he “will forever be a hero”: “He died trying to help people and was subject to an inhumane act. He was an incredible father, husband, son and brother.”

The family of Mr Kirby, a military veteran believed to be a former member of Britain’s special forces, added that he was a “genuine gentleman” who was “always willing to lend a helping hand to anyone”.

Labour MP Clive Betts said Israel was behaving “completely irresponsibly and disproportionately in Gaza” and that the UK should not facilitate this by providing any weapons that are killing women, children and now aid workers as well.

“You can’t justify providing the arms that have been targeted at aid workers, and clearly, they are. It is bad enough what has happened in the last few months, but it is just getting worse every day.

“At some point, there have to be consequences for them doing things we have told them not to do.”

The Green Party renewed calls for a halt on arms exports to Israel, saying the deadly strike on the convoy showed again that the Israeli government is violating the terms of the licences under which arms are exported.

Carne Ross, a former Middle East diplomat and the party’s global solidarity spokesperson, said the claim that parts of the drone could have been produced in Britain “only strengthens the case for an immediate embargo”.

He added: “It is hugely disappointing, but sadly predictable, to hear calls to end arms exports coming only after Western lives have been lost. It comes too late for the thousands of Palestinian children slaughtered by Western-supplied bombs and bullets.”

Amnesty International spokesperson Oliver Feeley-Sprague said: “The provenance of the engines in this drone is yet another question that ministers must urgently answer.”

Rishi Sunak has so far resisted calls to end arms sales to Israel. Speaking to a weekly politics show run by The Sun, he said: “I think we’ve always had a very careful export licensing regime that we adhere to.

“There are a set of rules, regulations and procedures that we’ll always follow, and I have been consistently clear with Prime Minister Netanyahu since the start of this conflict that while, of course, we defend Israel’s right to defend itself and its people against attacks from Hamas, they have to do that in accordance with international humanitarian law, protect civilian lives and, sadly, too many civilians have already lost their lives.”

Israel has repeatedly denied breaking humanitarian law.

A Downing Street spokesperson said: “The UK operates one of the most robust and transparent export control regimes in the world. We continue to monitor the situation in Gaza. We welcome Israel’s commitment to a full, urgent and transparent inquiry into Monday’s attack and we want to see that happen very quickly.”

DEMILITARIZE, DISARM, DEFUND
Dark Money Is Paying for the Police’s High-Tech Weapons

Corporate donors are funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into police foundations without public oversight, allowing for the police to buy specialized surveillance technology and high-tech weapons that they might otherwise struggle to justify.

By Katya Schwenk

March 30, 2024

Source: Jacobin



Private donors including big-box stores, fossil fuel companies, and tech giants are secretly giving hundreds of millions of dollars annually to law enforcement agencies and related foundations, allowing police to buy specialized weapons and technology with little public oversight.

Experts say this huge deluge of police “dark money” funding, detailed in a new University of Chicago working paper and in an additional analysis shared exclusively with the Lever, leaves law enforcement beholden to the companies and powerful donors bankrolling them, rather than the communities that officers are sworn to serve.

“The big-picture finding is that the world of private donations to police is a lot bigger and more complex than previously estimated,” said Robert Vargas, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago and a coauthor of the study.

The study, which analyzed a database of nonprofit tax returns, found that from 2014 to 2019, more than six hundred private donors and organizations collectively funneled $461 million to police and to other nonprofits supporting police — a figure that, Vargas said, was “without a doubt an undercount,” as it was based on organizations’ own disclosures about their giving.

The private money comes in part from big retailers like Target and Walmart; oil companies like Chevron and Shell; and Microsoft and other Big Tech players — companies that have touted their support of law enforcement for years.

The new research exposes how easily private donors can secretly funnel money to police. Anonymous donors use asset managers like Fidelity Investments to fund the litany of police foundations and other opaque nonprofit organizations that support police work, the researchers found. The clandestine funds have made Fidelity’s charitable arm one of the largest private donors to police in the country.

In many jurisdictions, private funding for police comes with virtually no oversight and can be used to buy surveillance technology, high-tech weapons, and other items that agencies might otherwise struggle to justify.

For instance, the Baltimore Police Department for years used private money to fund a secret aerial surveillance program that could track the locations of people throughout the city in real time. Billionaire philanthropists in Texas provided money for the program, but routed the funds through a nonprofit in Baltimore, which allowed the program to stay, for a time, out of the public eye. When news of the program became public, it caused an outcry, and was eventually ruled unconstitutional in court.

In Los Angeles, the city’s police department used money from Target — also routed through a local police foundation — to purchase software from Palantir, venture capitalist Peter Thiel’s data analytics company, that provides police massive amounts of sensitive data and purports to identify crime “hot spots.”

In Philadelphia, privately funded police nonprofits have purchased ballistic helmets, drones, motorcycles, and even horses for the city’s police department.

Such surveillance technology and military gear is deployed disproportionately in black communities and low-income neighborhoods. The heightened surveillance intensifies local policing, which research has shown can harm community health and well-being.

Private funding represents a tiny fraction of the money that states and cities spend on police, which by some estimates amounts to more than $100 billion annually.

“In comparison to their municipal budgets, it seems like a drop in the bucket,” said Gin Armstrong, the executive director of LittleSis, a group that researches corporate power and influence.

But the money has an outsized impact, Armstrong argued.

“It’s really important to look at how this [private] money is being spent,” she said. “Most of the money in municipal budgets is going to salaries and benefits. This is going to equipment and experimental technology, and it’s all outside of public discussion, and often even outside of public reporting.” It was, Armstrong continued, a “huge slush fund that is completely unaccountable.”

“Now we have a sense of just how big that slush fund is,” she said.

“A Kind of Shell Corporation”

One of the most common ways that private donations, whether from oil companies, billionaires, or big-box retailers, make their way to law enforcement is through police foundations, nonprofits established to support law enforcement in a particular city, such as the New York City Police Foundation and the Los Angeles Police Foundation.

According to public data from the city of New York, the New York City Police Department reported $30 million in private donations from 2019 to 2022, of which $26.8 million — nearly 90 percent — came from the New York City Police Foundation.

Police foundations position themselves as charities, soliciting donations and then providing that money to local law enforcement. Their supporters say that the work can improve officer morale and that the additional funding can supplement strained public budgets — although municipal police tend to be flush with public resources.

“I refer to [police foundations] as a kind of shell corporation,” said Kevin Walby, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Winnipeg who studies police foundations in the United States and Canada. “They can move money around in ways that public bodies can’t. They don’t really have robust reporting or disclosure mechanisms.” The term “dark money,” he said, was an appropriate way to describe their support.

Police foundations, like most charities, do not have to publicly report their donors. Until an exposé from the Intercept, for instance, the New York City Police Foundation did not disclose that it received a $1 million donation from the United Arab Emirates in 2012, even when that money was passed directly along to the police to support “criminal investigations” in the city.

There are some two hundred fifty police foundations in the United States, of which nearly 80 percent say that they fund technology and equipment for police, as well as programming for officers and public relations campaigns. While such organizations have been around for decades, Walby said they have grown steadily since the 1990s, particularly in response to calls to limit the ever-increasing public funding for police, which has nearly tripled over the last several decades. Research has documented increasing revenues for police foundations year after year.

“A big period of growth happened after 2020,” Walby said, adding that it was in “direct response” to the protests over the murder of George Floyd in May of that year. “They were using corporate money as a kind of backstop to buttress themselves against the defund [the police] movement.”

The corporate bankrollers of police foundations often appear to get a good return on their investments. Target, for instance, has long funded surveillance and anti-crime programs in cities across the country, successfully promoting crackdowns on retail theft and petty crime in disinvested neighborhoods over other, arguably more pressing, community concerns.

In St Louis, the city’s police chief receives $100,000 a year directly from the local police foundation in addition to his salary, an arrangement that critics say has ensured that the department is beholden to local business interests.

“No Paper Trail”

Previous research has shown that police foundations receive tens of millions of dollars annually from private donors. But the new research by Vargas and his coauthors shows that such local foundations are in fact part of a far broader network of nonprofits and funds dedicated to funneling private money and in-kind gifts to police — one that involves hundreds of millions of dollars.

The new study identified hundreds of dark-money organizations that finance police departments — sometimes donating directly to law enforcement, and sometimes donating to other police nonprofits, creating a tangled web of donors and intermediaries.

Collectively, those organizations gave more than $826 million in donations over a six-year period, and reported revenues of more than $16 billion, according to additional analysis that the researchers shared with the Lever.

The organizations include associations of sheriffs and police chiefs, national nonprofits like the police charity 100 Club, and private foundations like that of wealthy police advocate Howard Buffett, the son of billionaire Warren Buffett. Furthermore, the researchers found, some police foundations — like those in New York City, St Louis, and San Diego — donated not only to the police agency in their own city, but to other law enforcement agencies around the country.

“This is an important set of findings because it reveals in real terms the amount of capital that is flowing, and it reveals the number of corporate nodes in the network,” Walby said.

Financial services companies like Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab also appear in the data as some of the biggest donors to police dark-money groups. Both companies allow wealthy individuals to funnel money to nonprofits through “donor-advised funds,” charitable investment accounts that are an increasingly popular way to anonymize donations and get a tax break at the same time. Various police foundations have begun advertising this funding arrangement as one way to donate.

“The truth is that if somebody wanted to donate a lot of money and hide their tracks, all they would do is make a donation to a police nonprofit from a donor-advised fund, and then there’s essentially no paper trail,” Vargas said.

While critics have pushed for additional transparency and regulation around donor-advised funds, describing them as an unaccountable form of billionaire philanthropy, federal regulators have appeared hesitant to launch a major crackdown. Last November, the Internal Revenue Service proposed some modest limitations on their use to rein in spending on lobbying and other noncharitable causes — and police charities are among the entities that have opposed the new rules.

Police foundations and other private donors have also found ways to limit disclosure about the gifts they provide to police, the researchers found. When the researchers looked at Chicago as a case study, they found that 90 percent of private donations to police went unreported, revealing, they wrote, “police finance organizations’ interest in keeping their funding of police secret.”

A Push for Accountability

For the most part, the millions in dark-money funding that police agencies receive each year is perfectly legal — presenting a challenge for those who want to see greater transparency.

“There are largely no laws or policies governing foundation donations to the police,” said Evan Feeney, the deputy senior campaign director at Color of Change, an advocacy group that has opposed corporate backing of police.

The foundations have thus created a kind of loophole, one that “legally allows officers and departments to take gifts from vendors, sidestepping conflict of interest and donor disclosure rules,” Feeney said. Palantir, for instance, has donated to police foundations that subsequently funded law enforcement purchases of Palantir’s own data analytics technology.

Even in places that require official city approval of gifts from foundations, like Los Angeles, such a process has often appeared to be a formality, with gifts being rubber-stamped by local officials over the opposition of local communities and activists.

“Cities must end these untraceable donations and require that any equipment, device, technology, or software that is purchased or donated through a police foundation is subject to disclosure, oversight, and accountability laws,” Feeney said.

There has been some movement on the issue. In January, New York City enacted a law, with the grudging support of the local police, that will require the police department to provide an annual report on how it spends the millions in private donations that it receives, both from the foundation and other sources. Unlike its use of public dollars, the department has not previously been required to disclose how it uses private funding.

The law also requires the New York Police Department to provide information on its private donors. But because many of these donations are routed through the New York City Police Foundation, the donors will likely still remain anonymous.