Alberta Courts Asian Capital for 1M bpd Pipeline to Break U.S. Dependence

By Alex Kimani - Mar 25, 2026

• Asian and Middle Eastern investors are willing to fund a major Alberta-to-Pacific pipeline to reduce Canada’s reliance on U.S. exports.
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• Indigenous opposition, tanker bans, and complex approvals threaten the project’s feasibility despite strong economic potential.
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• Middle East disruptions highlight Canada’s potential as a stable supplier, but limited infrastructure may prevent it from fully capitalizing.
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Asian and Middle Eastern capital is lining up behind Alberta’s latest export push. Premier Danielle Smith says investors, including sovereign wealth funds, are prepared to take 15% to 30% minority stakes in a proposed 1-million-barrel-per-day pipeline aimed at Asian markets.

The plan centers on moving oil sands crude to the northwest coast of British Columbia, with Prince Rupert now favored over Kitimat as the terminal site. The objective is straightforward: break Canada’s near-total dependence on the U.S., which still absorbs roughly 95% to 97% of Alberta’s crude exports.

For Edmonton, the pipeline is a direct response to chronic transport bottlenecks that have long capped production growth and discounted Canadian crude.

But the political barrier is just as clear. Indigenous leaders along B.C.’s coast remain firmly opposed to lifting the tanker ban, calling it non-negotiable, setting up a familiar standoff between market access and local consent.

The 2019 Oil Tanker Moratorium Act bans vessels carrying over 12,500 metric tons of crude or persistent oil from stopping, loading, or unloading at ports along British Columbia's northern coast, specifically protecting areas from Northern Vancouver Island to the Alaska border. The Act intends to protect fragile marine ecosystems and the Great Bear Rainforest. The project's feasibility also depends on ongoing negotiations regarding carbon pricing, with negotiations between Alberta and the federal government on an industrial carbon tax and the Pathways Alliance carbon capture project expected to miss an April 1 deadline.

A recent study by ATB Financial and Studio.Energy found that expanding Canadian oil pipeline capacity could boost export capacity by an additional 1.5 million barrels per day, add an average of $31.4 billion annually to Canada's real GDP between 2027 and 2035 (~1.1% of GDP) and support 112,000 extra Canadian jobs. The joint study by Studio.Energy and ATB Economics revealed that increased capacity to the West Coast allows for better access to Asian-Pacific markets, reducing reliance on U.S. routes and strengthening economic security. 

The proposed pipeline could do much of the heavy lifting for Canada’s oil export ambitions thanks to its massive capacity, comparable to the famous BTC pipeline, with a throughput capacity of 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd). The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline is a 1,768-kilometer (1,099-mile) crude oil pipeline that serves as a primary energy corridor linking the landlocked Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. It originates at the Sangachal Terminal near Baku, Azerbaijan, traverses Georgia via Tbilisi, and terminates at the Ceyhan Marine Terminal on Turkey's southeastern coast.

The Iran conflict has positioned Canada as a potentially reliable, low-risk oil and natural gas supplier for its allies, potentially boosting its energy exports. According to Eric Nuttall, senior portfolio manager at Toronto-based Ninepoint Partners, the Middle East conflict is a “massive opportunity” for Canada, which can position itself as a stable and secure supplier of oil.

Nuttall argues that Canada is uniquely positioned as a stable and secure energy supplier with decades of inventory in the oil sands and the Clearwater formation. The Clearwater Formation in Alberta, Canada, holds vast, high-viscosity heavy oil and bitumen reserves, with estimated in-place volumes exceeding 70 billion barrels in the Cold Lake area alone. Production is expected to grow, with estimates that it could hit nearly 400,000 bbl/d by 2031. The war has also accelerated calls to ramp up Canada’s LNG export capabilities, with companies like ARC Resources (OTCPK:AETUF) and TC Energy (NYSE:TRP) looking to benefit.

Unfortunately, limited pipeline capacity coupled with long regulatory approvals for infrastructure threaten to hinder Canada’s ability to fill the global supply gap. Major Canadian oil pipeline projects have historically faced significant political and regulatory hurdles, resulting in several high-profile cancellations and delays. U.S. President Joe Biden famously revoked the permit for the cross-border permit for TC Energy's Keystone XL project in 2021 on his first day in office. The project was designed to carry oil from Alberta to Texas, with a capacity of 830,000 barrels per day.

Indeed, the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) stands as the only major recent expansion project to reach completion in Canada after becoming operational in May 2024. TMX was similarly plagued by legal challenges from First Nations and environmental groups, leading the federal government to purchase it from Kinder Morgan (NYSE:KMI) for $4.5 billion in 2018 to ensure its completion. Massive cost overruns also threatened to derail the project after final construction costs surged from an initial estimate of $5.4 billion to nearly $35 billion.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is working to streamline Canada’s byzantine energy regulatory hurdles, and has pledged to come up with an efficient approval process that will attract the private sector. Carney has proposed creating "energy corridors" to facilitate project development and has encouraged provinces to create agreements to allow regional assessments to substitute for federal reviews. The Carney government is focused on attracting private capital, and has doubled the Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program to $10 billion in a bid to support Indigenous ownership of major resource projects.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

 

The Architecture of Avoidance

How Canada Manages Reconciliation to Protect the Stolen Prize of the Land

by Amel-Ba’al / October 23rd, 2025

“Since my life as a prisoner has begun, I have heard of some white men who said they owned my land and my home. I don’t believe they do. I have never given any consent to such ownership. The land belongs to my people and to our children.”¹

“We were taught that God’s laws are about how we treat each other and the land. The white man doesn’t obey God’s laws. They take the land that belongs to us, the land that God gave us.”²

– Chief Geronimo.

“The Great Spirit gave this great island to his red children. He placed the whites on the other side of the big water. They were not contented with their own, but came to take ours from us. They have driven us from the sea to the lakes — we can go no farther.”³

– Chief Tecumseh.

“The white man has made many promises to us, and they have kept but one. They promised to take our land, and they have taken it.”⁴

– Chief Red Cloud.

“My lands are where my dead lie buried.”⁵

– Chief Crazy Horse.

To sit with Elder Ttesalaq—Tom Sampson—of the Tsartlip First Nation is to be granted an audience with living history. His words are not merely recollections; they are the continuous, unbroken thread of a nation’s memory, stretching back to a time before the word “Canada” was ever uttered on these shores. To understand his testimony is to undertake a fundamental re-examination of the story Canada tells about itself. It reveals a narrative not of benevolent nation-building, but of a guest who moved into the house, claimed the deed, and has been trying to evict the original owners ever since. This truth stands in stark contrast to the official discourse of “Truth and Reconciliation,” which across the vast apparatus of the Canadian state and its media echo chambers, reveals a sophisticated architecture of avoidance. This architecture is designed to manage the symptoms of settler-colonialism—the pain, the cultural loss—while carefully protecting its root cause: the systematic robbery of the land itself.

The Original Welcome: A Host Becomes a “Refugee” in His Own Land

Elder Ttesalaq begins not with accusation, but with a profound act of empathy. “We welcomed the first refugees that came here in 1492,” he states, framing a history of Indigenous generosity that provided food, medicine, and land. This was not a transaction but a foundational principle of his civilization.

The great, painful irony he identifies is that this act of welcome was perverted into a logic of dispossession. “We were put under the Ministry of Immigration in the early days,” he notes with a wry, painful clarity. “So we were considered immigrants in our own country.” This single, bureaucratic act encapsulates the entire colonial project: to render the host a stranger, the native an alien. The Canadian state, from its very inception in the Indian Act and the reserve system, has been an engine of identity reassignment, systematically working to erase the original political identities of the peoples it encountered.

The Douglas Treaty: A “Nation-to-Nation” Agreement Betrayed

At the core of Elder Ttesalaq’s testimony is the Douglas Treaty of 1852. For him, this is the legal and moral cornerstone that the Canadian state has spent over a century undermining. He is meticulous in his historical framing: this was not a treaty with Canada. Canada did not exist. It was a treaty between the Saanich Nations and the British Crown, represented by Governor James Douglas.

The treaty’s promise was simple and profound: the Saanich people would be allowed to hunt and fish “as formerly,” as if they were the “sole occupants of the land.” In return, they granted the Crown permission to settle. “We gave him the right to come here,” Elder Ttesalaq corrects the colonial narrative. “He didn’t give us any rights.” This distinction is critical. Sovereignty was not ceded; access was granted.

The betrayal began with Confederation in 1867. The Crown transferred its authority to the new federal government of Canada without the consent of the treaty signatories. “Our treaty’s been breached straight since 1867 right to the present day,” he states. The creation of Indian reserves was the first and most catastrophic breach. The Indian Act then became the primary tool of control, creating a system of “delegated authority” where Band Councils were transformed into “Crown corporations,” effectively making them administrators of their own oppression. “The colonizer is now our own people,” he laments. “We have become the colonizer.”

The Long War in the Courts: Rights Recognized but Never Respected

A significant portion of Elder Ttesalaq’s narrative is dedicated to the relentless legal battle his people have been forced to wage. He speaks not with the zeal of a victor, but with the weary frustration of a man who has won the argument a dozen times over, only to have his opponent pretend the debate never happened.

He recounts how the Supreme Court of Canada has consistently ruled in favour of Indigenous rights. He references Section 35 of the Constitution, which affirms existing Aboriginal and treaty rights, and which a federal minister once called a “full box.” He cites the 1997 Delgamuukw decision, where the Court acknowledged that Aboriginal title had never been extinguished. “They knew that as late as 1997, they knew that they never had extinguished Aboriginal title and Aboriginal rights. And yet they continue to pretend that they owned everything.”

The tragedy, in his view, is the intransigence of the bureaucracy. “The bureaucrats, British Columbia, Ottawa, the Department of Indian Affairs, they don’t seem to understand that the law has changed in this country and they don’t want to change it.” He describes a Canadian state that functions as a schizophrenic entity: its judicial branch affirming rights, while its executive and legislative branches spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to fight those same rights. It is a state at war with its own legal foundation.

The Bureaucratic Mask: Polishing the Machinery of Dispossession

This judicial truth is met with what Elder Ttesalaq identifies as a wall of bureaucratic resistance—a pattern that reveals itself with stark clarity across the state’s own institutions. The Department of National Defence (DND), in its “Towards Truth and Reconciliation” report, speaks of “harm” and “assimilation” but is utterly silent on the historical and ongoing use of military force to dispossess Indigenous peoples of their lands. For the DND to discuss reconciliation without confessing its role as the ultimate guarantor of the state’s territorial claims is the height of irony.

This sleight-of-hand finds its most sophisticated expression in the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC). Its “Reconciliation Framework” is a masterpiece of procedural liberalism: it outlines how to consult Indigenous peoples on new resource projects, but never once questions the underlying authority of the Canadian state to grant permission for the extraction of wealth from unceded land. The entire process is designed to make Indigenous communities stakeholders in their own dispossession, rather than sovereign nations with the power to grant or refuse consent.

The Symbolic Veil and the Complicit Echo

At the highest symbolic levels, the avoidance becomes a form of political theater. The Governor General, the representative of the very Crown that asserted sovereignty over Indigenous nations, frames reconciliation as a matter of “listening” and “dialogue.” This transforms a fundamental political struggle over jurisdiction and territory into a therapeutic process of interpersonal understanding.

The most telling performances come on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The Prime Minister’s statements and the accompanying Canadian Heritage pages are saturated with the language of “reflection,” “honour,” and “painful legacy.” They speak of “colonial policies” in the abstract but will not utter the words “settler colonialism.” They mourn the loss of “ways of life” but will not admit that the goal was to destroy the political and economic bases of those ways of life to clear the land for settlement and resource extraction. This is reconciliation as a public ritual of mourning for cultural loss, deliberately severed from the material reality of property and power.

This state-driven narrative is amplified by the complicit machinery of mainstream media. Outlets like the Globe and Mail often provide “explainer” journalism that focuses on the what and the when of reconciliation, while omitting the why. They personalize the story through powerful, heart-wrenching accounts like that of Phyllis Webstad’s orange shirt, yet in doing so, they often individualize a systemic crime, directing public empathy toward a single instance of a taken shirt, subtly diverting attention from the larger, more politically explosive story of taken continents.

Even the state-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) finds itself structurally bound within this architecture of avoidance. For instance, a CBC article headlined “As 5th National Day for Truth and Reconciliation arrives, many say little has changed,” quotes Indigenous leaders who state plainly that the government’s “piecemeal approach” prioritizes “performance over progress” and fails to act on “land dispossession and resource sharing.” Yet, as a state-funded institution, the CBC’s mandate is inextricably linked to the very state it is critiquing. It can report on the government’s failure to live up to its own promises, but it cannot consistently and fundamentally question the legitimacy or foundational claims of the colonial state that provide its mandate and foundation. It is a “critic” from within the palace walls, its voice constrained by the very architecture it describes, ultimately reinforcing the boundaries of a conversation that must never challenge the state’s ultimate authority over the land.

The Unmasking: The RCMP and the Guardian of the Theft

The most potent example of this architectural avoidance is found in the so-called Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Their pages on “Indigenous Policing” and how they “Advance Reconciliation” are not merely omissions; they are active, breathtaking acts of historical whitewashing. The RCMP was not created to be a neutral police service. It was established as a paramilitary force with an explicit colonial mandate: to assert Canadian sovereignty over Indigenous lands and to suppress resistance.

For the RCMP to speak of “building trust” is the ultimate hypocrisy, because its historical role was to systematically break the will of Indigenous nations. This institution was the primary enforcement arm for the residential school system; RCMP agents were the ones who forcibly kidnapped children from their families at gunpoint. They also enforced the illegal pass system and suppressed the Métis Resistance. Today, their “reconciliation” framework focuses on “cultural competency.” This is a safe admission that allows them to acknowledge a flaw in their culture without confronting their foundational settler-colonial purpose. Their modern, militarized raids on Wet’suwet’en land to protect pipeline construction are not an aberration; they are the continuation of their original purpose: to protect the state’s claim to the stolen land and the resources beneath it.

Against this backdrop of state-sponsored ambiguity, the clarity of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) acts as a powerful unmasking of the state’s true motives. Its statement does what other bodies refuse to do, naming the residential school system as “a key component of a deliberate, settler-colonial policy of assimilation designed to eliminate First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples as distinct peoples and to gain access to their lands and resources.” By correctly identifying this as a “land-based project,” the CHRC lays the motive bare: the entire colonial endeavor was, and is, a project of land robbery.

This truth is not new. It is meticulously documented in the foundational work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC’s Calls to Action are a blueprint for dismantling the legal and philosophical underpinnings of the colonial state. Call to Action 46, which demands the repudiation of the “Doctrine of Discovery” and terra nullius, is a direct assault on the legal justification for centuries of land theft. The failure of the state to fully implement these calls is the evidence of its bad faith.

The Land and the Cost: Reconciliation Versus Reality

For Elder Ttesalaq, these abstract legal and bureaucratic battles manifest in the very concrete devastation of his people’s land and waters. The fight against the Kinder Morgan pipeline is the defence of a way of life guaranteed by treaty. “The issue is that it’s going through our territory, our land, and our resources are at risk.”

He speaks with the authority of a scientist who has inherited millennia of data. He recalls elders in 1947 noting the waters were warming and the fish were moving—early warnings of climate change that were ignored because the bearers lacked “a degree and diploma.” Now, the evidence is everywhere: the dying salmon, the vanished herring, the polluted air. “My world has already come to an end,” he says, a statement of devastating finality. “All my food, all our food from the ocean that we needed, all the birds that used to be in the sky are gone.”

This environmental cataclysm is inextricably linked to the unfinished business of the treaty. The Canadian state and its corporate partners see land as a “commercial commodity,” while for the Saanich, it is a relative, named and known, part of a family. True reconciliation, therefore, is impossible without reconciling with the land itself. “It’s not just reconciliation with Indigenous people; it’s reconciliation with the land and reconciliation with the ocean and reconciling the air that we once breathe.”

The Unfinished Struggle

Ultimately, Elder Ttesalaq presents a deeply sobering critique. For him, the truth is known and has been affirmed by the courts and its own commissions; the failure is in the reconciliation, which remains a hollow performance so long as the fundamental issues of land and sovereignty remain unaddressed. He points to the ongoing, visceral racism and police violence as proof of the state’s insincerity. How can there be reconciliation, he asks, when one side still holds the power of life and death over the other? When the state’s laws, like the Indian Act, continue to impose what he unequivocally names an “apartheid system”?

Elder Ttesalaq’s testimony is not a plea, but a declaration. It is a map of a parallel Canada, one where the Douglas Treaty is the supreme law and where the original relationship of host and guest has yet to be restored. The path forward is not one of assimilation, but of recognition. “We’re not going to be French, we’re not going to be English,” he asserts. The goal is an “equal right,” where Indigenous nations can exercise their inherent sovereignty.

The Canadian state stands at a crossroads. It can continue to spend billions fighting a truth it has already lost, perpetuating a conflict that poisons the land and its people. Or, it can finally “come to terms” with the original nation-to-settlers agreement and dismantle the apartheid system it built. Until it has the courage to face this truth and relinquish its grip on the stolen prize, the promise of reconciliation will remain, like the treaty itself, an unkept promise, and the unfinished struggle of this land will continue to demand a reckoning.

ENDNOTES:

¹ Chief Geronimo: In the Days of Victorio: Recollections of a Warm Springs Apache by Eve Ball, as told to her by James Kaywaykla.

² Chief Geronimo: His Own Story, as told to S.M. Barrett.

³ Chief Tecumseh: The Life of Tecumseh and His Brother the Prophet by Benjamin Drake.

⁴ “Chief Red Cloud: A speech given at a council at Fort Laramie,” as recorded in the New York Times, May 7, 1870.

⁵ “Chief Crazy Horse: A statement made to Lieutenant William Philo Clark,” as recorded by He Dog.

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Amel-Ba’al, a symbolic name in keeping with a Palestinian tradition, is a Palestinian refugee located on the unceded land known as British Columbia. Read other articles by Amel-Ba’al, or visit Amel-Ba’al's website.

 UK

“Sixth-Form Politics”

The Propaganda Blitz Awaiting Green Party Leader Zack Polanski

by Media Lens / September 26th, 2025

On 2 September, Zack Polanski, a former Liberal Democrat who joined the Green Party in 2017, was elected leader of the party in a landslide, with 85% of the vote share. Polanski defeated Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, winning 20,411 votes against their 3,705 in a ballot of party members.

From May to July 2025, when Polanski launched his leadership bid, the Green Party saw its membership rise by at least 8%, described as the ‘Polanski surge’. The Green Party now has 79,000 members. The previous peak in 2015 was 67,000.

Polanski has described his politics as ‘eco-populist’, asking bluntly:

‘Why is everything so shit? Our wages are shit, our rivers are swimming in shit, and most politicians, they are full of it too.’

He cites prime minister Keir Starmer as a prime example:

‘This is a man who stands for nothing. He has no morals, no values, no principles, and he will defend Peter Mandelson up until the point he thinks he needs to for his own career. And I think that’s the only thing he cares about at this point.’

Polanski has added:

‘We’re not a threat to Starmer.

‘We’re the replacement.

‘People aren’t leaving Labour – Labour left them.

‘And they’re finding a new home with the Green Party.’

He commented to the Telegraph:

‘I’m really frustrated with this Government on the genocide in Gaza, the complete destruction of our public services, the continuation of austerity and the pushing of public money to private wealth. I’m running for leader because when I travel the country, I see constantly that people are looking for a party to champion them. The Green Party has not been as effective as I want us to be in communicating our message. If we had been doing that more effectively, we wouldn’t be seeing the rise of new parties.’

He has also commented on the surge in support for right-wing Reform Party leader Nigel Farage:

‘Far too often we have been on the sidelines and Farage has been in the centre of the conversation. We need to challenge Farage and his charlatan MPs as the climate deniers and the billionaire protectors that they are. I despise Nigel Farage’s politics, but it’s undeniable that he has been one of the most effective political operators that we’ve seen.’

Polanski has said he would be willing to work alongside Jeremy Corbyn, who congratulated Polanski in a post on X, saying:

‘Your campaign took on the rich and powerful, stood up for the dignity of all marginalised communities, and gave people hope!

‘Real change is coming. I look forward to working with you to create a fairer, kinder world.’

Gracious comments indeed, given that Polanski had supported the manufactured anti-semitism smear campaign against Corbyn. In July, the Times of Israel reported:

‘Polanski had previously criticized the rise in antisemitism in the Labour Party on Corbyn’s watch, saying in 2018 that he was “a pro-European Jew,” calling that “two reasons I couldn’t vote for Labour under Jeremy Corbyn.”’

Polanski recanted in June 2025, saying: ‘it was not helpful for me to assume that the Labour Party was rife with antisemitism when we now know that blatantly was not true’. In fact, we also knew that was not true in 2018.

Guardian columnist Owen Jones commented:

‘When the independent MP and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the former Labour MP Zarah Sultana announced the birth of a new leftwing party, the surge of interest shocked even its founders. More than 750,000 people signed up in support of an unchristened, nonexistent party. Polling suggested nearly a third of Britons would vote for an alliance with the Greens; among under-35s, support rose to 52%.’

The Your Party project has recently been derailed by a major disagreement, with Sultana going dramatically public about her feeling that she had been sidelined by Corbyn and his male allies, accusing them of sexism. Jones, however, reports that ‘a miscalculated game of chicken appears to have drawn to a close, and plans to launch a new party have resumed’. There is once again, therefore, hope of real change ahead.

‘Student’ Politics – Getting Rid of the Arguments

The response of Western governments to both Israel’s genocide in Gaza and accelerating climate collapse – supplying the bombs, planes, diplomatic protection and rising carbon emissions fuelling both crimes – has been a eureka moment for even the least discerning consumers of Guardian and BBC-style propaganda. ‘Western democracy’ is clearly not merely an illusion, but an illusion carefully curated to ensure that voters – who are, by and large, neither genocidal nor biocidal – do not realise that beneath the statesman-like pomp and ceremony, ‘democracy’ is a charade protecting the ruthless greed, racism and violence of a tiny elite.

From the extraordinary lengths governments and corporations go to bolster the illusion of democracy, we know that deceiving the public is a key requirement. People like Polanski who rip the veil aside must be targeted for concerted attack by state-corporate media, which are not primarily a media system at all, but a system evolved and designed for the purpose of social control.

The prime mechanism of propaganda control is to direct a ceaseless tsunami of smears at the people exposing the ‘necessary illusions’ in hopes of undermining their credibility. Noam Chomsky explained:

‘Somehow, they [journalists] have to get rid of the stuff. You can’t deal with the arguments, that’s plain – for one thing you have to know something, and most of these people don’t know anything. Secondly, you wouldn’t be able to answer the arguments because they’re correct. Therefore, what you have to do is somehow dismiss it. So that’s one technique, “It’s just emotional, it’s irresponsible, it’s angry.”’ (Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian, Chronicles of Dissent, AK Press, 1992, p.79)

The irony being, of course, that the system is itself built on childishly irrational beliefs. Chomsky again:

‘A properly functioning system of indoctrination has a variety of tasks, some rather delicate. One of its targets is the stupid and ignorant masses. They must be kept that way, diverted with emotionally potent oversimplifications, marginalised and isolated.’ (Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy, Hill and Wang, 1992, p.369)

In a recent, televised discussion with former Conservative politician Penny Mordaunt, who now works for British American Tobacco, Polanski asked about the impending visit of Donald Trump:

‘Are you comfortable with the world’s most powerful man banning books, militarising the police, damaging women’s reproductive rights?’

Patronising freely, Mordaunt replied:

‘I disagree with a lot of things that Donald Trump does… The thing is, Zack, you’re now the leader of a political party; you’re not the president of a student union. And you have to take responsibility for things. And you have to take responsibility for trying to have a positive impact on the world around you… I hope it makes you feel good; you can go home tonight and feel great about it.’

Thus, Polanski’s truth-telling – and these are simple but important truths obvious to any thinking person – is dismissed as childish, immature, naïve; as if profit-driven, genocidal ‘realpolitik’ was ‘mature’.

In a separate discussion involving Polanski, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, worked hard to avoid describing Israel’s ethnic cleansing as a genocide (he has since accepted that it is a genocide) and did not agree that Israeli President Isaac Herzog should be arrested when he visited London. Instead, Khan responded:

‘Well, I think what we’re seeing is an example of the Greens trying to use the forum of Mayor’s question time to raise really important issues in a trivial way.’

In fact, Polanski was raising really important issues in a really honest way. Khan, on the other hand, was answering the questions with really trivial evasions. Polanski replied:

‘Six minutes of words and the Mayor won’t acknowledge it’s a genocide.’

Echoing Mordaunt, Khan replied:

‘That was the soundbite, that’s what was been after [sic] in the last six minutes. That’s, you know, sixth-form politics in Mayor’s question time.’

Exactly as Chomsky said, ‘It’s just emotional, it’s irresponsible’, and should therefore be dismissed. In fact, it is the dismissal that can be dismissed.

When Jeremy Corbyn stood for election as leader of the Labour Party in July 2015, Jonathan Freedland opined in the Guardian:

‘Tony Blair and others tried to sit the kids down and say: “Look, you’ve had your fun. But take it from us, even if Corbyn is right – which he isn’t – he is never, ever going to get elected. This crusade is doomed. Come back home”.’

Freedland added:

‘The unkind reading of this is to suggest that support for Corbynism, especially among the young, is a form of narcissism.’

In the Observer, Andrew Rawnsley mocked the ‘fantasy’ of ‘Corbynmania’, with ‘younger audiences’ deluded by ‘the Pied Piper of Islington’, suffering from his ‘terrible delusion’.

‘Sixth-form politics’, in other words.

We all learned from the extraordinary propaganda blitz directed at Corbyn that the state-corporate Medium – led, in that instance, by the Guardian – will use literally any conceivable smear in a scattergun effort to turn as many voters as possible against an establishment threat.

If we could not be persuaded to dislike Corbyn because of his footwear (The Guardian asked thoughtfully: ‘is the world ready for his sandals and socks?’), then there was his ‘Chairman Mao-style bicycle’, his flat cap (allegedly photoshopped by BBC Newsnight to look like a treacherous Russian fur ushanka), the kind of anorak he wore (‘Critics of the Labour politician were angered by his choice of jacket, with some saying he looked “scruffy”’, noted the Daily Mail), how he bowed at the cenotaph (there were claims ‘Corbyn had deliberately bowed less dramatically than Cameron’), how he ‘mispronounced’ the name Jeffrey Epstein (former Independent editor, Simon Kelner, who is Jewish, shrank in fear at Corbyn’s pronunciation: ‘a Jewish person does know when there is something that sounds wrong, or pejorative, or even threatening’), that he had an allotment, that he had been romantically involved with Labour politician Diane Abbott, that he ‘feigned’ having to stand on a ‘supposedly’ crowded train, that he was race-blind to an allegedly anti-semitic mural that, in fact, depicted a number of recognisable, historic Jewish and non-Jewish financiers (with the biggest nose drawn belonging to the Christian Episcopalian, J.P. Morgan).

On one occasion, Corbyn’s failure to sing the national anthem generated a storm of criticism:

‘“Corbyn snubs Queen and country” (Daily Telegraph); “Veterans open fire after Corbyn snubs anthem” (The Times); “Corb snubs the Queen” (The Sun); “Not Save the Queen” (Metro); “Shameful: Corbyn refuses to sing national anthem” (Daily Express); “Fury as Corbyn refuses to sing national anthem at Battle of Britain memorial” (Daily Mail); “Corby a zero: Leftie refuses to sing national anthem” (Daily Star).’

Roy Greenslade was all but alone in noting that, as a principled republican for many years, Corbyn would have been accused of rank hypocrisy if he had mouthed the words of an anthem that strongly celebrated the monarch, rather than the nation.

If we had space, we could, of course, supply reams of similarly crazed examples relating to Julian Assange, and many other dissident voices, ourselves included.

Polanski is currently not sufficiently threatening to merit Corbyn-level abuse. But an opening propaganda salvo in the Daily Mail gave an idea of what might be in store: ‘His jagged, gapped teeth had shades of Hannibal Lecter. Better watch out’

If we don’t mind jagged teeth with gaps, there are other issues that might persuade us to reject a politician campaigning to stop genocide, systemic injustice and climate collapse against UK leaders blocking all resistance. Quentin Letts wrote:

‘Designer-stubbled Mr Polanski spoke for quarter of an hour without notes. You don’t become a Harley Street cleavage quack without the gift of the gab.’

In 2013, a newspaper reporter requested a hypnotherapy session to increase her breast size and self-confidence for an article in the Sun newspaper. Polanski, then working as a hypnotherapist, did the session without charge and featured in the published article. He said the article did not accurately reflect what happened but subsequently apologised for his involvement. The story has been made a major issue across the media.

After his election victory had been announced, Letts commented:

‘Soon he was locked in an embrace with his boyfriend. It was some time before they could be separated.’

Why the emphasis on duration in the text and in the caption to a picture showing the embrace? Having reviled Polanski’s teeth, stubble and quackery, were we being invited to feel uncomfortable with the idea of him hugging his boyfriend?

Patrick Kidd wrote in the Telegraph:

‘The tribe’s underwhelming participation did not stop Polanski from speaking bullishly, or whatever the vegan option is (quornily?), about enthusing the wider public. “I promise you, nothing will make you feel more inspired than joining the Green Party,” he said, though perhaps he meant to say “insipid”.’

Kidd also noted Polanski’s teeth and stubble:

‘There is something of the modern BBC executive about Polanski’s appearance, though his dentistry is old-fashioned gappy English. With his wide-open collar, close-cropped hair, designer stubble and fixed smile, he has the look of someone with one of those job titles like director of cohesion or head of future, who spews out visions about “the lake of content” and “the bubble of opportunity”.

In 2016, John Moternan observed of Corbyn in the New Statesman:

‘His air was similar to the one he displays at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) — the bewildered geography supply teacher look.’

In 2015, an entire Guardian article was focused on Corbyn’s dress sense under the title:

‘Get the Jeremy Corbyn look: “retired postman” is the big fashion trend at Labour conference’

As was initially also the case with Corbyn, the Guardian has not gone straight over to the attack on Polanski. The initial focus has been to view him primarily as a warning to be heeded by a Labour leader the Guardian worked so assiduously to bring to power. The paper had a dedicated, movingly optimistic series of articles titled, ‘Starmer’s path to power’. On 2 September, the standfast introducing a Guardian leader, read:

‘A mass politics of anti-austerity, identity and climate is emerging from the left’s margins. Keir Starmer cannot afford to ignore it’

The piece concluded:

‘Labour’s defence of an old order that is crumbling away has only helped Mr Polanski. Unless Sir Keir reclaims the narrative terrain and offers transformative policies – and fast – British politics will not see only realignment but rupture.’

Readers actually donating to this corporate newspaper – thus supporting editor Kath Viner, struggling to get by on £527,695 (as of April 1, 2023) – might ask themselves why the Guardian’s chief concern is to ensure that a man who ‘has no morals, no values, no principles’ ‘reclaims the narrative’.

Another Guardian effort to save Starmer was titled: ‘Is there anything Labour can do to save itself from disaster? Our panel responds’

The key focus:

‘Over a year into power, Starmer’s government is floundering – but it still has time on its side. In the second of a two-part series, our panelists suggest ways of reversing the slide’

The Guardian’s true values, shared by Starmer, were hinted at in a piece by senior political correspondent Peter Walker, titled: ‘Greens take step into unknown with election of Zack Polanski as leader’

What is this anxiety-inducing ‘unknown’?

‘… Polanski will be under pressure to show he has not just the patter but also the judgment, with some eyebrows raised by his call in May for the UK to consider leaving Nato, which was not in the manifesto’.

A profile in the Observer noted that Polanski had previously worked as an actor and hypnotherapist:

‘He may well need all his theatrical and hypnotic powers to transform some of his convictions into popular policy. The Greens have long supported unilateral nuclear disarmament, but, even with eastern Europe under threat from an increasingly bellicose Russia, Polanski also wants to see the UK withdraw from Nato and an alternative arrangement of “peace and diplomacy”.’

As key cogs in the Perpetual War Machine, firm supporters of the West’s wars of aggression – even when they claimed to be in opposition to the Iraq war, for example – leaving Nato is something the Guardian and Observer will not countenance. Such talk should be reserved for the ‘student union’ and ‘sixth-form politics’.

As with Corbyn in 2015, the fevered ranting from the extreme right-wing press will be accompanied by initially muted criticism from the extreme centre, at the far end of the truncated media ‘spectrum’. Also as we saw with Corbyn, to the extent that Polanski offers genuine hope of change, the response from the Guardian, Observer, BBC, Independent and others will rise in pitch until the threat to ‘adult’ genocidal and biocidal politics is removed.

Media Lens is a UK-based media watchdog group headed by David Edwards and David Cromwell. The most recent Media Lens book, Propaganda Blitz by David Edwards and David Cromwell, was published in 2018 by Pluto Press. Read other articles by Media Lens, or visit Media Lens's website.