UK politics

Here’s a link to, and description of my most recent radio interview – about Boris Johnson’s lamentable victory in the UK’s recent General Election, and also about Guantánamo – with Chris Cook on his Gorilla Radio show in Victoria, Canada. Chris has been interviewing me on and off for ten years, mostly about Guantánamo, but occasionally about other topics, and I was delighted to have the opportunity to talk about the dangerous state of British politics in the wake of Johnson’s victory.

My post-mortem on Thursday’s depressing General Election, which delivered a majority for the Tories under Boris Johnson, largely because of Johnson’s simplistic hammering home of a false promise to ‘Get Brexit Done’ at every opportunity. The slow and agonising reality of getting Brexit ‘done’ may, however – if there is any justice – eventually derail his shallow and deeply mendacious premiership.

My call to arms for tomorrow’s General Election, urging people to vote tactically to get the Tories out, and also calling for urgent reform of our profoundly unfair and unrepresentative first past the post voting system.

A cross-post, with my own brief introduction, of a powerful open letter to the British home secretary Priti Patel by over 70 medical professionals from around the world, warning of their fears that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, held in Belmarsh maximum-security prison, and facing extradition to the US, may die in prison, and needs “urgent expert medical assessment of both his physical and psychological state of health.”

My condemnation of Priti Patel’s disgraceful attack on Britain’s Gypsy and traveller community, in which she is calling for new powers for the police to be able to immediately confiscate the vehicle of “anyone whom they suspect to be trespassing on land with the purpose of residing on it” – a policy change that the police themselves don’t even want, as they recognise that the main problem is the lack of site provision, a requirement that was repealed by the Tories in 1994. I urge all decent people to rise up against this foul government, and also to be aware of where a far-right drift in government can lead.

My report on the welcome news last week that the High Court ruled that a decision by the Metropolitan Police to impose a blanket ban on Extinction Rebellion in London last month was unlawful – and my warning that we need to be vigilant, and to ensure that no draconian new law is introduced, as happened in the 1980s and 1990s, after the Battle of the Beanfield and Castlemorton, with the Public Order Act and the Criminal Justice Act.

Twenty-four photos I took during the two-month occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, from August 28 to October 28, 2018, which I was part of, before we were violently evicted on October 29. Also included: a re-cap of the reasons for the occupation, and the shameful behaviour of Lewisham Council and Peabody, and the thugs they hired to show their power.

Today I’m marking 900 days since I first began posting a photo a day on the Facebook page, ‘The State of London’, on the fifth anniversary of when I first began cycling around London on a daily basis, taking photos in all 120 of its postcodes. Thanks to everyone taking an interest in this project!

The latest news regarding Julian Assange, held at Belmarsh maximum-security prison since April, pending his proposed extradition to the US, to face trumped-up espionage charges regarding WikiLeaks’ work as a publisher, making available classified US documents – including the Guantánamo files, which I worked on with WikiLeaks as a media partner – for which there is a compelling case that the public should be informed. Assange’s role was as a publisher, and his proposed extradition is a chilling assault on press freedoms, and freedom of speech. The UK government shouldn’t be going along with it, but in fact they seem to be working very closely with US officials, and at Assange’s latest case management hearing his conditions of confinement seemed to be taking their toll, as he was frail and often appeared confused.

A link to – and discussion of – my new article for Novara Media, about fundamental problems with a ballot taking place in New Cross for residents of the Achilles Street estate regarding a proposal by Lewisham Council to demolish their homes as part of a new housing development. The main problems are that demolition is environmentally ruinous, and, instead, the estate should be refurbished, but, shamefully, no money is being made available for it by either central government or the GLA. Also included: an analysis of the six ballots that have already taken place in London.