Niall Green | ukwatch.net

Labour faces wipe-out after defeat in Glasgow East

Tim Holmes — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:57:08 +0000

Labour’s defeat by the Scottish National Party in the Glasgow East by-election is a devastating blow to the party and leaves Prime Minister Gordon Brown one of the walking dead.

Labour saw its vote collapse in what was previously its third safest seat in Britain, losing a majority of over 13,500 in the 2005 General Election. The SNP, which came in a distant second three years ago, gained 11,277 votes on Thursday, a narrow majority of 365 with a massive swing of 22.5 percent from Labour.

It is Labour’s third by-election defeat in nine weeks, not counting the recent Haltemprice and Howden vote in which the government would not even put up a candidate.

Up until the last hours of voting, most pundits speculated that Labour’s huge majority would be eroded or even halved. Labour, while acknowledging the possibility of a big swing against it, pointed out that it had campaigned extensively in the seat, with local activists and party workers from across Scotland visiting over 20,000 homes.

In the end voters expressed a level of hostility towards the government that far exceeded these expectations.

Turnout was relatively high for a by-election in an inner city area, particularly during the period when businesses in Glasgow have their holidays. At 42.2 percent, it was only slightly lower than the figure for the seat at the last General Election.

If the swing away from Labour in Glasgow East was replicated in the next general election, the party would retain just one of its current 41 seats in Scotland. Among those who would lose office would be Gordon Brown and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling.

Expressing the growing hostility of millions of workers across the UK to the party and the government, many traditional Labour voters either switched to the SNP or stayed at home. Journalists and candidates have reported the mood in the constituency—among the poorest in the UK with high levels of unemployment and ill-health—as one of disillusionment with and hostility toward Labour, which has dominated the city’s politics for generations. Many voters cited rocketing food and fuel prices as key factors in their opposition to Labour, as the government holds down or cuts public sector wages and welfare benefits.

In May 2007 the SNP won a plurality of seats in elections to the Scottish Parliament, overtaking Labour to become the main party in Scotland. The SNP campaigned heavily in the area, with party leader and First Minister of the devolved Scottish government Alex Salmond visiting the constituency 12 times. Commenting on the campaign, Salmond said that the election was a “test of strength between two governments.”

During the campaign the SNP deliberately tried to play down its key policy of independence for Scotland, focusing on local health problems and rising domestic prices. Despite the SNP’s claims that the vote represents a ringing endorsement of their policies at Holyrood, most commentators have put the vote for the SNP down to the collapse of Labour’s support.

The Conservative Party could only poll 1,639 votes in Glasgow East, only slightly higher than three years ago. It only came in third because the Liberal Democrat vote also collapsed to just 915 votes—suggesting that many of its supporters, along with traditional Labour voters, stayed at home or switched directly to the SNP to give the government a beating.

Conservative leader David Cameron responded to the result by calling for a general election. In response, Brown said lamely, “My task is getting on with the job. It’s exactly what people want me to do.” Looking like a condemned man, he commented on the loss of an area that Labour has held since the 1920s, “We’ve got to listen and hear people’s concerns and that’s exactly what we are doing.”

The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) and Solidarity also stood in the constituency. The parties split from each other in 2006 after founding member Tommy Sheridan left the party over a successful libel case against Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World, which the SSP refused to support. Both parties, which have identical programmes, campaigned largely on local issues. Francis Curran, the SSP candidate, received 555 votes, with 512 votes cast for Solidarity.

At just over four percent, the combined result for the two parties is slightly higher than the 3.5 percent of the vote garnered by the SSP alone in the constituency in 2005. It is lower, however, than the result for the SSP in the 2001 election, when it received 6.8 percent of the vote in the now defunct constituencies of Glasgow Baillieston and Glasgow Shettleston.

At the count in the early hours of Friday morning, Labour’s candidate Margaret Curran requested a partial recount, claiming that some of her votes may have been wrongly awarded to her rival from the SSP, Francis Curran. Following this recount, Labour actually lost 11 votes.

Brown may have rejected calls for his resignation, but pressure is mounting on the prime minister from within the party. Reflecting concerns among Labour MPs fearful of losing their seats at the next election, Graham Stringer, MP for Manchester Blackley, commented: “We need a new start and that can only come from a debate around the leadership. I hope those discussions take place.”

An unnamed Labour MP told the BBC that the party “could not simply ignore” such a bad defeat, and predicted that Brown would face senior figures “shooting from the hip” at the party conference in the autumn.

There is little wonder. The pro-Labour Guardian newspaper was moved to ask: “Does Labour face defeat at the next general election—or obliteration? The result from Glasgow East early this morning was more than simply terrible for Gordon Brown: it raises the spectre of a parliamentary wipe-out from which his party would struggle to recover.”

It added, “Perhaps the closest parallel is the 1990 Eastbourne by-election, which saw a 21% swing to the Liberal Democrats and triggered Margaret Thatcher’s ejection from office a month later. Some will speculate that the same could happen to Brown this autumn.”

Labour is a party on its last legs. Labour membership has rapidly declined since 1997, falling to fewer than 200,000 mostly inactive and elderly members. In 2007 Labour reported that it had 17,000 members in Scotland, a fall of almost 50 percent since 1997. In 14 Scottish constituencies the party has fewer than 200 members, of whom only a small fraction participate in local meetings and campaigns.

Electorally, Labour has lost the support of those sections of the middle class who jumped ship from the Tories in the mid-1990s to give it the victories in the 1997 and 2001 general elections. In May, Labour lost a by-election in the safe seat of Crewe and Nantwich, in which its majority of over 7,000 was turned into a 7,680 lead for the Conservatives.

More fundamentally, having alienated millions of working class voters with its right-wing policies, militarism and slavish subservience to big business, even the safest of Labour strongholds can no longer be counted on to return a Labour MP.

Glasgow East by-election

JamieSW — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:00:17 +0000

Social problems and poverty

A by-election is being held today in the constituency of Glasgow East following the resignation of sitting Labour Member of Parliament David Marshall. The seat, which Marshall held with a majority of 13,507 in the 2005 General Election, is a traditional Labour stronghold.

The Scottish National Party (SNP), which wrested control over the devolved Scottish parliament from Labour in 2007, hopes to take advantage of Labour’s woes and win the seat in which it came a distant second only three years ago.

The seat covers most of the east end of Glasgow, from the Parkhead area east of the city centre to the outlying Easterhouse estate. It includes some of Britain’s most impoverished neighbourhoods, and has become synonymous with urban decay and ill health.

The official unemployment rate in Glasgow East is more than twice the national average of 5.2 percent. But in total, around half of the working-age population of the constituency are without work, many of them in receipt of invalidity or disability benefit.

A survey by the Campaign to End Child Poverty (CECP) looked at the extent of childhood poverty across the UK, where children have nearly twice as much chance of living in a household with relatively low income than a generation ago. It found that Glasgow had the worst level of child poverty in Scotland, with a citywide rate of more than 50 percent. Around 60 percent of children living in the Glasgow east end, Bridgeton and Queenslie neighbourhoods were found to be living below the breadline.

No official figures are compiled on the rate of childhood poverty on the parliamentary constituency level. However, statistics from the CEPC on children living in families without someone in work and surviving on benefits provide an indication.

The Glasgow East constituency has the joint-fifteenth highest rate of children living in workless households in Britain, tied with the seats of Wythenshaw and Sale East in Greater Manchester and Knowsley North and Sefton East on Merseyside.

With 40 percent of children in the constituency living in households without work, the figure for Glasgow East is twice the UK average and five times the rate found in the nearby suburban area of East Dunbartonshire.

According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the city has Scotland’s highest rate of people on out-of-work benefits, the highest rate of people with limiting long-term illnesses and drug addiction, the worst problems with overcrowded housing, and the highest concentration of pensioners living below the poverty line.

Half of the adults in the area have no educational qualifications, and more than half of all households do not own a car.

Glasgow also has the lowest life expectancy in Britain. Data for 2004-2006 puts life expectancy in the city at birth at 73.7 years (70.5 years for men, 77 years for women), based on current life expectancy trends. The best indicators for the Glasgow East constituency point to a figure of 69.3 years for men and 76.2 year for women. This falls even further in the most impoverished neighbourhoods, such as Calton, with male life expectancy at a staggering 53.9 years.

A 2002 survey, conducted using the United Nations rating system for life expectancy, unemployment, incomes and rates of illiteracy, put the Shettleston area of the constituency as the most deprived in Britain. Nearby Baillieston, also in Glasgow East, was ranked seventh.

Statistics from the National Health Service showed that the east end of Glasgow had the highest rate of alcohol-related hospital admissions in Scotland. At 1,505 per 100,000, the east end of Glasgow had a rate of admissions more than three times that of the neighbouring suburb of East Renfrewshire.

Comparable social devastation mars many inner cities across Britain. According to the Office of National Statistics, life expectancy in the north of England towns of Liverpool, Blackpool, Manchester and Hartlepool are very similar to those for Glasgow. Analogous phenomena can be observed in the most depressed areas of European and North American cities. In the US city of Detroit, which has been devastated by years of car plant and supplier closures, nearly half of all children live in poverty, with life expectancy rates in the city also likened to overall figures for some Third World countries.

The Gaza comparison

Such is the combined impact of these statistics that some extremely distorted comparisons have been made. Much attention has been paid in the media to comments by the SNP’s Westminster faction leader, Angus Robertson, claiming that the constituency has a lower life expectancy than the war-torn Gaza Strip.

This echoes comments frequently made by the middle class radical and pro-independence parties, Solidarity and the Scottish Socialist Party. These groups, which claim that Scottish separatism is progressive as it would free the country from “London rule,” have made comparisons between areas of Glasgow and Gaza or even Iraq under US-led military occupation.

At one level, these comments are preposterous. Nowhere in Glasgow can one find occupying troops, missile and helicopter assaults. The city is not walled-off, there are no floods of refugees fleeing for their lives. The sewerage system and electricity work fairly well. Glasgow is a wealthy, and in some areas pleasant city, in an advanced imperialist country.

The primary aim of such comparisons is to portray the international phenomenon of urban poverty amidst great wealth as the result of an oppressive relationship between England and Scotland. It is used an argument for Scottish independence. But an independent Scotland is increasingly viewed by sections of big business as a means of further demolishing social provision through slashing taxes, cutting welfare and enriching themselves from North Sea oil profits.

Betrayal of the Labour bureaucracies

The deep social problems of Glasgow, or any other major city, are a product of international economic processes within capitalism that have opened up a devastating assault on the social position of the working class. The poor social conditions in much of Glasgow are a direct result of more than three decades of continual attacks on the working class, and provide a damning indictment of the historic failure of Labour.

Under the watch of the trade unions and the Labour Party, which has controlled the local council for decades, virtually all of the city’s steelworks, shipyards and engineering plants, which once employed tens of thousands, have closed.

Between 1978 and 1993, the city lost two thirds of its 107,515 manufacturing jobs. These have never been fully replaced by jobs in the service sector. To the extent they have, many are part-time and temporary and offer poverty-level wages. Many of the low-wage call centres that have located in the city over the past 15 years have closed or are shedding jobs, moving to take advantage of even more exploited labour in Asia and eastern Europe.

Large areas of former industrial sites closed during the 1970s and 1980s remain undeveloped. This is especially so in the east end of Glasgow, which has benefited less from Britain’s decade-long property boom and its attendant building activity than other parts of the city.

Heavy industry was once especially dominant. A couple of large retail parks today provide the main concentrations of employment within the constituency. One of these is the Parkhead Forge shopping centre, named after the site of what was once one of the largest metal works in Britain. Production at the forge was wound down for more than a decade with the complicity of the trade unions and Labour governments, until the works closed in 1975.

Several small community and health centres have been built, and there are a large number of recently built flats and houses, many of which are rented out by housing associations. There is a new college and a huge new shopping mall beside Easterhouse.

The constituency will host several events at the 2014 Commonwealth Games being held in Glasgow. A national indoor sports arena and velodrome complex is planned for the Parkhead area of the constituency, as well as an athletes’ village with 1,500 houses and apartments. But despite the fortune that the city’s building firms and service industries hope to make, only 300 units are scheduled to be turned into social housing after the games.

The area is also part of a £1.6 billion redevelopment project called the Clyde Gateway. This publicly and privately funded initiative aims to build 10,000 new housing units and 400,000 square metres of commercial property over two decades.

However, the scheme was initiated under conditions of a speculative boom in domestic and commercial property development, which is now coming to an end, casting uncertainty over whether the plans will be carried out.

In any case, such schemes cannot overcome decades of urban decline and the generalised assault on working class living standards, a process that can only intensify as the full implications of the global credit crunch become evident.

Scottish human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar prosecuted

Tim Holmes — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:15:58 +0000

Scottish lawyer Aamer Anwar is due to appear before the High Court in Edinburgh in January 2008 on charges of contempt of court, relating to statements he made following the conviction of his client on terrorism charges in September.

If found guilty by a panel of judges, Anwar, a solicitor who has defended clients in a number of high-profile civil liberties cases, faces the loss of his licence to practice law and possibly a prison sentence.

The case against Anwar is based on a statement he read outside court soon after the conviction of his client, Mohammed Atif Siddique, who had just been found guilty of breaching several of the United Kingdom’s antidemocratic terrorism laws.

In that trial Siddique was convicted of possessing CDs and videos that gave “a reasonable suspicion that they were connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism,” of collecting “information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism,” and of spreading “terrorist propaganda” on web sites.

Standing next to Siddique’s family, Anwar read a statement to the press that his client had been convicted of doing “what millions of young people do every day, looking for answers on the Internet.”

The statement said the “verdict was a tragedy for justice and for freedom of speech.” Commenting on the political environment in which the trial was held, Anwar said, “Young Muslims today live in a climate of fear no different to that experienced by the Irish community in the last century.”

Siddique had not received a fair trial as, “The prosecution was driven by the State, with no limit to the money and resources used to secure a conviction in this case, carried out in an atmosphere of hostility after the Glasgow Airport attack and ending on the anniversary of 9/11.”

Siddique was later sentenced to eight years imprisonment.

Lord Carloway, the trial judge in the case against Siddique, issued a formal complaint about Anwar’s statement outside court, and subsequent media interviews. The judge asserted that Anwar’s comments were false and that the statement “impugned the verdict of the jury” and cast improper aspersions against the prosecution and witnesses.

Lord Carloway also complained that the statement was Anwar’s own opinion, rather than an expression of the views of his client. Commenting that Anwar’s client “was not a ‘high achiever’ at school,” the judge gave the opinion that “It would seem highly unlikely that he would have concocted the multi-facetted tirade contained in the press release.”

At the hearing on the alleged contempt of court, held before Lord Carloway on October 23, Anwar’s representative said that the content of the press release was “not intended to be a willful challenge to the Court’s authority and that, if any disrespect had been shown, then he [Anwar] tendered his apologies.”

Anwar’s representative submitted that the content of the statement in question “did not constitute a contempt of court because the statement, taken as a whole, did not challenge the authority of the court.” Anwar’s also insisted that “A contrary finding would amount to an infringement of the agent’s [Anwar’s] right to freedom of speech.”

The Crown, as the State prosecuting authorities are referred to in legal proceedings, opted to pursue the case against Anwar, setting into motion an unprecedented attack against a lawyer on freedom of speech.

Following the hearing, Anwar said, “I cherish the right to freedom of speech, which is one of the pillars of liberty and justice, but as matters are under judicial consideration it would be inappropriate for me to comment until proceedings are concluded.”

The case against Anwar rests on an antidemocratic aspect of Scottish law, which differs from law in England and Wales by permitting the prosecution of individuals and their legal representatives for contempt of court for statements made after the trial has ended and outside of court. This aspect of Scots law—which has been condemned by jurists from England and internationally—is, by precedent and convention, not applied to statements made by or on behalf of persons convicted by the court. The case against Anwar therefore rests on the assertion that the statement he read on the steps of the court did not represent the views of his client, but his own opinions, which fell foul of his “duties to the Court.”

Lord Carloway added in his complaint against Anwar that his statement was of a political character “unconnected to the case” and that it “seemed to be an attack on the terrorist laws themselves. Again, a private citizen may choose to make such criticisms or attacks on the Courts and the Law, but it is another thing for a law agent in a particular case to use his position in that case to do so.”

“There should be no attempt to silence lawyers”

In any democracy claiming the name, Anwar should have every right to make the statement that he did. The silencing of those who condemn what they regard as miscarriages of justice or unjust laws is associated with police states. Furthermore, Anwar was clearly expressing the views of his client and the Siddique family, not to mention the concerns of many others in the public at large.

After the trial Siddique’s father expressed broadly similar views in a television interview in which he stated, “The trial was unfair and there was no justice. My son is innocent. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Siddique’s father continued, “Any Muslim would be asking questions. They would try and find out why things are happening in the world. And that’s what he’s done. He’s gone on to the Internet to find some answers why this is happening. I’m just telling the public, my son is no terrorist.”

It is entirely normal for solicitors in England and Wales to make similar forceful statements, including ones of a political character, condemning perceived injustices against their clients after a verdict.

A number of prominent jurists have voiced their support for Anwar, including civil rights lawyers Gareth Peirce, Michael Mansfield, Helena Kennedy and Imran Khan, who have all signed an open letter in protest at the prosecution of Anwar.

Gareth Peirce led the defence of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four—who were wrongly convicted of being Irish Republican Army (IRA) terrorists in the 1970s in the midst of an anti-Irish atmosphere of fearmongering by the government and the media.

Peirce has commented that the treatment of Anwar contradicts United Nations conventions guaranteeing the independence of lawyers. The English solicitor, who has recently represented Guantánamo Bay detainees, described Anwar as a “lawyer of great courage and principle who has consistently spoken out about injustice.”

Iran Khan, another prominent lawyer who deals with civil liberties and race-related cases, defended Anwar, saying, “There should be no attempt to silence lawyers. If lawyers can’t speak out then one of the bedrocks of justice—the right to highlight a miscarriage of justice—just goes. I could never anticipate such a thing happening in England. From across the border, this all seems bizarre. I hope common sense prevails.”

That Scottish courts are taking this action against Anwar is an expression of unease among the judiciary and the Crown prosecutors about a possible public backlash against the raft of antidemocratic legislation that is being used to convict people in cases that simply could not have been brought to court prior to 2000.

The trial that Anwar denounced as a “tragedy of justice” was brought under nebulously worded legislation that effectively establishes “thought crime” in law. Siddique was convicted and sentenced to a lengthy period in jail, despite having done nothing to plan, prepare or commit an act of terror. The case against Siddique was not based on common law, but on breaches of the Terrorism acts 2000 and 2006—legislation that has been roundly condemned by numerous lawyers and civil liberties groups an egregious attack on democratic norms.

Anwar is not only a leading criminal lawyer who has defended clients in cases involving Britain’s antidemocratic and politically driven “terror” laws, but is also a prominent critic of the Iraq war and occupation. His prosecution under an archaic and, until now, unused aspect of Scots law represents a new aspect of the growing threat to the democratic rights and civil liberties of all.

See Also:
Britain: Youth convicted under antidemocratic terrorism acts
[25 September 2007]

Voters “Treated as an Afterthought”

Tim Holmes — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:25:45 +0000

Elections to the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood in May saw more than 146,000 votes discounted—the largest number of rejected ballots in UK electoral history.

The rejected ballots included 85,644 votes for the first-past-the-post constituency elections and a further 56,247 votes for the regional lists (run on the Additional Member form of proportional representation).

In addition to this total—representing about 4 percent of all votes cast on the May 3 poll—more than 32,000 votes were discounted for elections to local councils held on the same day.

Seventeen seats in the 129-seat parliament were won by candidates whose majorities were lower than the number of spoiled ballots in their constituency. The Scottish National Party, which favours independence from the UK, won the election with 47 seats—just 1 more than Labour.

Then-Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander, the member of the UK government responsible for organising Scottish parliamentary elections, had initially stated that there would be a statutory review of the election by the Electoral Commission. However, public outrage at the debacle forced the Labour government to organise an inquiry by an independent international expert into why so many voters had been disenfranchised.

After a lengthy inquiry, the report by Ron Gould, a former senior Canadian election official, claimed that ministers in the Scottish Parliament and the UK had focused their decisions about the election on “partisan political interest,” with voters treated as an “afterthought.”

In 2006, government ministers, in consultation with opposition parties in Holyrood, initiated a major change to the layout of the parliamentary ballot paper. Previous elections to Holyrood in 1999 and 2003 used two separate ballot papers for the constituency and regional lists. The 2007 ballot, however, placed both forms of election to the parliament on the same ballot paper.

Alexander had been warned by civil servants and an independent marketing firm that this change to the parliamentary ballot forms would lead to confusion and a higher-than-average number of rejected votes. Despite this, the government continued to promote the new layout, claiming it would be more “popular.” When the proposals were published, the Scotland Office and the Electoral Commission played down their findings that indicated the single ballot paper favoured by the government was likely to be the most confusing option.

Gould’s report, criticising the Electoral Commission for being “very much remiss” for ignoring the study of the new ballot paper before the election, noted that it had found that 4 percent of voters were too confused to correctly use it—the same figure as the actual percentage of spoilt papers.

In addition, the government decided to hold local council elections on the same day as the parliamentary vote using another ballot paper with a different form of proportional representation—the Single Transferable Vote system. Although Gould found that this was not a major factor in the massive level of discarded votes in the election, it undoubtedly added in an extra layer of confusion for many voters.

Commenting on the attitude taken by the election’s organisers towards the vote, Gould’s report stated, “Changes were introduced with the expectation that they would simply fall into place.”

Gould concluded that the Scotland Office’s decision to combine the names of constituency and regional candidates on a single ballot paper was the “main reason” for the spoilt papers. The inquiry found that Douglas Alexander and other ministers took decisions on the running of the election based on party political calculations. “What is characteristic of 2007 was a notable level of party self interest evident in ministerial decision-making (especially in regard to the timing and method of counts and the design of ballot papers),” the report stated.

“We recommend that those involved in future elections consider voters’ interests above all considerations,” Gould added.

Squeezing smaller parties

What reason did Labour have to promote such a confusing form of ballot paper? What were the partisan considerations of the UK Labour government and the Labour-Liberal coalition government in Edinburgh, alluded to by the Gould report?

In the run-up to the 2007 elections to Holyrood, the Welsh Assembly and local councils in much of England, Labour was facing a crisis. The unpopular invasion of Iraq and the disastrous occupation of that country, a worsening military quagmire in Afghanistan, and the cash-for-honours scandal (in which then-Prime Minister Tony Blair was being interviewed by the police) were all threatening to precipitate an electoral humiliation for Labour.

Largely thanks to Labour’s unpopularity, the SNP was enjoying an upswing of support and looked set to beat Labour in Scotland for the first time. Under such circumstances, the government was willing to play fast and loose with the electoral system.

The 2003 Holyrood election had seen a number of Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) representing smaller parties elected through the regional list vote: seven Greens, six Scottish Socialist Party, one from the Senior Citizens Party and one independent. In what was likely to be a very closely fought election, the hundreds of thousands of votes garnered by these smaller parties became prime targets for Labour, the Liberals, the Scottish National Party and the Conservatives.

Gould’s report shies away from saying what the “party self interest” behind the decisions about the Scottish election was, and he has even stated that he believes that ministers and the main parties acted with “good intentions.” However, a single ballot paper would encourage people to vote for the parties fielding candidates for both the constituency and the region. The ballot paper’s design was predicted to squeeze smaller parties, such as the Greens, which tend not to stand candidates in the constituency seats. Additionally, the single ballot paper left less room for the multitude of parties and independent candidates standing on the regional lists.

In the event of any confusion about the new ballot layout—as the government’s own research had indicated could be the case—it was the smaller parties that would be disproportionately affected by spoiled ballots.

When the Scotland Office and the Electoral Commission presented the proposed new parliamentary ballot paper to Holyrood, Labour and the three other main parties argued for months about the ballot paper’s design, each hoping to engineer a ballot that was most advantageous to them. As a result of the protracted wrangling in Holyrood, the new form of ballot paper was not approved by Westminster until less than three months before the May 3 polling day, giving no time to test the efficacy of the new system.

The SNP is complicit in the election fiasco, having approved of the new design and then used the changes to its own electoral advantage. Party leader Alex Salmond was listed on the regional list (thus putting him at the top of the paper by alphabetical order) instead of the party name, adding to the confusion between regional and constituency votes.

After initially calling for a full judicial review of the election, Salmond, eager not to cast any more light on the role of the SNP and the Scottish parliament in sanctioning the new layout, has now stated that the Gould report has rendered this unnecessary. As part of its campaign to win more powers for Holyrood, the SNP has jumped on Gould’s recommendation that it be responsible for its own elections, instead of Westminster.

Labour’s efforts to improve its electoral chances through changes to the ballot paper did not prevent it from suffering its worst electoral result in Scotland for half a century. But they are an indication of the political desperation and the growing disregard of the government for the norms of parliamentary democracy.

The issue provoked a heated exchange in parliament, with calls for Alexander’s resignation by the SNP. Conservative Leader David Cameron’s accusations of Labour having placed its interests above those of voters prompted Prime Minister Gordon Brown to accuse him of misrepresenting the report’s findings, only to be warned by the speaker against using “intemperate language.” However, the fact that the Liberals, the SNP and the Tories had all agreed to the ballot’s design—and in the SNP’s case used its provisions to their advantage—rendered their attacks ineffective despite the huge numbers that were disenfranchised.

Youth Convicted Under Terrorism Acts

Tim Holmes — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 10:17:05 +0000

Mohammed Atif Siddique, a 21-year-old student from Scotland, was found guilty on September 18 of two charges under the Terrorism Act 2000 and one under the Terrorism Act 2006. The conviction demonstrates how far democratic rights have been eroded and legal norms abandoned, with Siddique convicted even though he has done nothing that breaches common law or endangered the lives of others.

The case is only the second successful prosecution under the Terrorism Act 2000 for possessing material useful for terrorism.

Siddique denies all charges and is planning to appeal.

After nine hours of deliberations the jury at the High Court in Glasgow found Siddique guilty on four charges. He was convicted of possessing CDs and videos that gave “a reasonable suspicion that they were connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism” and of collecting “information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.” He was also found guilty of setting up web sites that included links to other publications that contained information on how to use weapons and make bombs. Additionally, he was convicted on a lesser charge of breach of the peace by claiming to be member of Al Qaeda to his college friends.

All of the offenses related to the period between March 2003 and April 2006, when Siddique was a teenager. Two police Special Branch officers stopped Siddique at Glasgow airport in 2006, as he was about to fly with his uncle to Pakistan for a holiday. He was searched and questioned for five hours before being released. A week later Siddique was arrested on terrorism charges.

Though no evidence was presented in court, police and security services claimed after the trial that Siddique was going to Pakistan en route to Canada. Through unattributed leaks to the press, “sources close to the investigation” have suggested that he was going to participate in terrorist attacks against the Canadian parliament and prime minister.

Security services had been spying on Siddique for several months prior to his arrest in 2006. He had been held for 18 months prior to the commencement of his three-week-long trial.

Much has been made in the press of evidence given by former classmate Razia Hussain. Now an immigration officer, Hussain told the court that she had given Siddique the nicknames “suicide bomber” and “Al Qaeda,” and claimed that he was reluctant to talk about anything other than Islam. Hussain also told the court that Siddique regularly looked at what she called “suicide-bomb web sites.” “He said he was going to blow Glasgow up. As a joke, I said, ‘Please inform me so I can run,’” she said in her testimony. No evidence was presented in court that Siddique was in any way involved in a plot to carry out such an attack.

The court also heard from Brian Glancey, a communications lecturer at Siddique’s college. He claimed that on two occasions around September 2003, when Siddique was 17 years old, he found the accused looking at “inappropriate” material on the Internet.

“I think I saw a video of Osama bin Laden or someone like him. There was no sound—the person was speaking, but to whom I don’t know. I told Siddique to stop it and he switched it off,” Glancey stated.

Under cross-examined by the defence, Glancey admitted that he did not know which web sites Siddique had been accessing at the time.

An investigating team of up to 80 police officers, computer specialists and terrorism experts spent months looking at the hard drives of Siddique’s computers, CDs at his family home, and at various web sites he used. Siddique was found to have possessed a number of downloads and CDs containing Islamic fundamentalist and militarist content.

During the four-week trial, prosecutor Brian McConnachie labeled Siddique a “wannabe suicide bomber” who helped distribute material that amounted to “a call to arms for Muslims.”

“It’s clear from that material that the whole idea was to glorify martyrdom operations, which we call suicide bombings,” McConnachie said.

Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, commented on the case: “The successful conviction of the individual today in Glasgow is a reminder that the threat we face from terrorism is real and not isolated to any particular region. The government has invested heavily in counterterrorism over the last five years and will continue to provide those on the frontline with the resources they need to counter the threat we face.”

It was clear from the evidence presented in court that Siddique’s interest in Islamist fundamentalist publications never amounted to any actual plans to cause injury or a conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack. He did not possess any explosives or weapons, nor was any evidence presented that he attempted to procure them.

The case showed that anger at American and British actions in the Middle East, especially in Iraq, sparked Siddique’s interest in Islamic extremist web sites. Much of the material that Siddique was found to have accessed related to Islamist opposition to the United States in Iraq and Israel. He had spoken to classmates about the justification for suicide bombing against US forces in Iraq.

One video found on his computer showed the planes flying into the World Trade Centre on 9/11, as well as pictures of George Bush, Tony Blair and Osama bin Laden. Images of Muslim militants were accompanied by dialogue directed against American occupation forces in Iraq. Evidence was also presented that he had shown classmates a video on the Internet of a US serviceman in Iraq being beheaded by insurgents.

Documents found on his personal computer included theological tracts such as “The Islamic Rules On The Permissibility Of Self Sacrificial Operations” and accounts of young people from Palestine who had acted as suicide bombers. The court heard that one of the pseudonyms Siddique used on Internet chat rooms was Yahya Ayash, the name of a leading figure in the military wing of the Hamas movement.

Siddique’s lawyer said he would appeal, arguing the student’s actions amounted to doing “what millions of young people do every day—looking for answers on the Internet.”

“This verdict is a tragedy for justice and for freedom of speech and undermines the values that separate us from the terrorists. The prosecution was driven by the state, with no limit to the money and resources used to secure a conviction in this case, carried out in an atmosphere of hostility after the Glasgow Airport attack and ending on the anniversary of 9/11,” lawyer Aamer Anwar said outside the High Court in Glasgow.

“Atif Siddique states that he is not a terrorist and is innocent of the charges and it is not a crime to be a young Muslim angry at global injustice. In the end Atif Siddique did not receive a fair trial and we will be considering an appeal,” Anwar added.

Anwar, a leading Scottish human rights lawyer, added that young Muslims in the UK lived in “a climate of fear” and called some of the evidence against his client “farcical.” “When detained at Glasgow airport by Special Branch on April 6, 2006, his laptop was confiscated and he was released,” Anwar said. “At liberty for seven days he made no attempt to escape or to destroy his home computer, hardly the actions of Al Qaeda.”

Commenting on security service claims leaked to the press alleging that Siddique was planning to go to Canada to participate in terrorist attacks in Ontario, Anwar said, “This smacks of security services running around under the cloak of secrecy releasing tidbits of information to the press when not one scrap of evidence was ever produced in court to support this. They are trying to turn my client into someone he isn’t. He was a young boy who, at worst, had an unhealthy interest.”

Siddique’s biography is one of a young religious Muslim who attended mosque, played football with friends and attempted to get an education while working in various low-paid jobs. After leaving school aged 16, he went to a local college in central Scotland before moving to Glasgow to pursue his studies. There he became more interested in radical Islam after the invasion and occupation of Iraq by US and British forces in 2003.

Worried about their son, his parents and the head imam at Glasgow Central Mosque met with Siddique and persuaded him to delete the extremist files on his computer. His family maintains that his interest in fundamentalist ideology was a “phase” that he had grown out of.

“My son is no terrorist, just a stupid boy,” Mohammed Siddique senior told Scottish Television. “The trial was unfair and there was no justice. My son is innocent. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

The 2000 and 2006 Terrorism Acts are draconian measures that attack the right to freedom of expression and establish in law what amounts to “thought crime.” The most serious offence that Siddique was found guilty of is having breached the Terrorism Act 2000 by downloading material that might “give rise to a reasonable suspicion” of being “for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism.” The offence carries a maximum 10-year sentence.

The Terrorism Act 2006 covers another of Siddique’s offences—encouraging terrorism by distributing terrorist publications on web sites. Originally intended to outlaw the “glorification” of terrorism, it carries a maximum seven-year sentence.

The Kafka-esque charges relating to the Terrorism acts 2000 and 2006 under which Siddique has been convicted, as well as the preposterous “crime” of boasting to be in Al Qaeda, represent a threat to the democratic and civil rights of all workers and youth in the UK. Reflecting both the lack of support for basic democratic rights in the ruling elite and the heightened “anti-terror” atmosphere whipped up in the aftermath of the attempted terror bombings in London and Glasgow in June this year, there has been no opposition in the media to a conviction that is based on virtual police-state measures. Instead newspapers have echoed the inflammatory statement of the prosecution that Siddique was a “wannabe suicide bomber.”

Siddique is due to be sentenced on October 23.

'Celtic Coalition' Demands Corporate Tax Cut

eddie — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:13:35 +0000

Soon after his victory in the Scottish parliamentary election in May, Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), telephoned his counterpart in Northern Ireland to arrange a meeting.

The Northern Irish first minister, Ian Paisley, leads the right-wing Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), an organisation with a long history of anti-Catholic bigotry.

Commenting on his phone conversation with Salmond, Paisley said, “There are things Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have in common that if we go to the British Government in harness, we will get more out of them.”

What Paisley and Salmond principally had in mind became clear when the latter flew to Northern Ireland on June 18, where he met Paisley as well as Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister in the power-sharing executive.

The Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland devolved administrations should work together to make the case for a dramatic reduction in corporation tax, Salmond told the press after addressing Northern Ireland Assembly members at Stormont on his first official engagement outside Scotland as first minister.

Salmond backed the call by most Northern Irish politicians, including the DUP/Sinn Fein coalition, to cut corporation tax from 28 percent to 12.5 percent—the rate paid by businesses in the Irish Republic. Commenting on this prospect, Salmond said he was “enthusiastic about the principle behind the push for a 12.5 percent corporation tax,” which would be “hugely important for Scotland and for Wales.”

The Scottish First Minister called for a united front of the three devolved governments—dubbed the “celtic coalition” in some newspapers—in pushing the British government to back the cut: “Whether we will be successful in persuading the Treasury of the importance of that I have got no idea. But one thing is for sure, we would be more successful if we were pressing together than we would be if we were pressing separately. We take the view that three hands on the tiller steering in the same direction would be more effective than one.”

The devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have limited powers, with most responsibility for taxation and overall public spending levels controlled by the United Kingdom government.

Northern Irish politicians are lobbying the new government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown for the massive tax cut for business in the province. During the May election, the SNP made the demand for corporation tax to be slashed by 7 percent (from 28 percent) in order to compete with the Irish Republic. It aims to cut local business taxes within Scotland, which falls within Holyrood’s remit.

The joint offensive by Salmond, Paisley and McGuinness goes far beyond the SNP’s initial demands and, like the low tax threshold in the Irish Republic, represents a massive redistribution of wealth away from working people to big business.

Over the last decade or so, foreign investment has flooded into the Irish Republic to exploit low taxes and cheap wages. Whilst Ireland was ranked last year as the second-richest country per capita in the world, the position of working people has worsened significantly. Low tax rates have starved the welfare system and public services of funds despite the booming economy, leaving the country one of the most socially unequal in Europe. Between 1987 and 2003, the share of income going to the poorest half of Irish society fell from 25.25 percent to 23.62 percent. Additionally, growth rates in the Irish Republic are falling as international investment shifts to new lower-wage and even lower-tax locations in central and eastern Europe.

All the devolved regions have relatively high levels of funding granted to them under the Barnett Formula, a system of distributing monies from the UK Treasury to the constituent nations of Britain and the province of Northern Ireland. This formula ensures that Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales receive higher levels of public spending per person than England, giving the devolved governments an additional fiscal cushion that they plan to use for big-business handouts.

With regard to the sympathies of the Labour government at Westminster for cutting business taxes in general, Salmond and Paisley are kicking at an open door. During his 10 years as chancellor, Brown oversaw significant cuts in corporation tax and the maintenance of tax loopholes that permit many corporations and many of the richest people in Britain to avoid paying virtually any tax.

One of the principal reasons behind the introduction of devolved government in the late 1990s was the fostering of national divisions in the UK in order to create more favorable business conditions, with the different regions competing against each other to attract business investment.

There is increasing pressure on the UK government to accede to Stormont’s request to “harmonise” its tax rate with the Republic’s. Such a tax break, combined with a large increase in public spending allocated to Stormont this year, is likely to be part of the pay-off for the DUP and Sinn Fein putting a lid on their long-time enmity and agreeing to form an executive. The prospect of corporate tax cuts and control of public spending—the so-called “peace dividend”—has long been a lure to the negotiating table for the business interests behind both the Republican and Unionist camps in the province. But London has insisted that the North must reduce its dependence on central government funds, which currently make up 60 percent of its income.

Scotland is another matter. Whilst Salmond and the SNP hope to utilise any concessions to Northern Ireland to press their own nationalist agenda, the Labour government is reluctant to be seen to be bankrolling cuts in corporate taxes in Scotland at the expense of English taxpayers.

Speaking in Belfast, Salmond said, “It is not a question of ganging up, it is a question of formulating ideas in a constructive way. And on many of these issues it will also be, in my opinion, in the interests of the Westminster government.”

He is also due to have talks in Dublin.

Bertie Ahern, the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister), invited Salmond to Dublin within days of his election. Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr on May 20, Salmond stated that he hoped to cut corporation tax in order to “establish a competitive advantage in Scotland to increase economic growth, increase jobs, increase prosperity and actually increase government revenue as well, very much based on the hugely successful model in the Irish Republic.”

This month, Salmond is due to visit Norway, a country often cited by the SNP as an example of a small independent country that, like Scotland, has large oil and gas deposits. After that, he will visit Brussels, the centre of the European Union.

Though the SNP is a minority government in the Scottish Parliament, it can count on support from one or more of the opposition parties, including Labour and the Conservatives, for cuts in business taxes.

A further expression of the big-business-dominated agenda of the SNP was its appointment of a council of economic advisers to guide economic policy. The 11-member council will be chaired by Sir George Mathewson, former chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland and a prominent backer of the SNP during the election campaign. Salmond said that the council was “the most formidable intellectual firepower ever to have tackled Scottish economic underperformance.”

Severe Child Poverty

eddie — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 17:42:53 +0000

The relentless drive by successive Labour and Conservative governments in Britain to cut welfare programs has condemned the poorest families to destitution.

In line with the demands of British and international big business, corporate taxes have been slashed, billionaires live tax-free, the welfare state is being dismantled and privatised, and low paid and temporary work has become increasingly normalised. The result has been exposed in a report published earlier his month by the charity Save the Children. Based on extensive research and scientific methodology, the report uncovers Dickensian levels of poverty.

The charity’s research has found there are 1.3 million children in the United Kingdom living in “severe poverty”—over 10 percent of the total population 0-19 years of age. A further 21.3 percent of all children were categorised as suffering from “non-severe poverty.”

Severe Child Poverty in the UK, written by Monica Magadi and Sue Middleton, classifies children as being in severe poverty if they satisfy two separate measures: One, they live in households with an income of below half the median household income after housing costs are deducted, and two, they suffer various forms of material deprivation according to household surveys. Children from families with less than 70 percent of median income and who satisfy a less severe degree of material deprivation are classified as being non-severely poor.

A household was classified as being in severe poverty if, combined with low income, it lacked at least two items considered to be “necessities”. Nineteen items were established by Save the Children, in line with other academic research into indicators of poverty. These included: two pairs of all-weather shoes for each adult in the house, enough money to keep the house in decent decorative order, children under six years of age able to attend a playgroup or nursery at least once a week, leisure equipment such as a bicycle and the ability for children to socialise with friends in their home, and similar indicators.

London was found to be the region of the UK with the highest levels of severe poverty. Seventeen percent of all children in the city are classified as severely impoverished, a level over double that in nearby southeast England. It is worth noting that, according to Forbes magazine, there are 19 billionaires living in London, including Labour Party donor Lakshmi Mittal, who has a personal fortune of over £14 billion.

Of families living in severe poverty, nine out of ten could not afford a holiday away from home once a year. A quarter of children in such families and nearly half of adults did not have a hobby or leisure activity. Seventy-four percent of impoverished households could not afford to replace worn out furniture, and 62 percent could not replace or repair electrical goods.

Six out of ten severely poor households had no home contents insurance, and a staggering 84 percent could not afford regular savings of £10 per month or more.

Low benefits and the working poor

Sixty-two percent of severely poor children lived in households without a parent in work. However, reflecting the growth of low wage jobs in Britain, over one fifth of severely poor households had at least one parent in full-time work. A further quarter of the poorest families had at least one parent in part-time work or who was self employed.

Reflecting the stagnation or decline in the real value of welfare payments, about two-thirds of severely poor families receive one or more benefits. These include Income Support, Incapacity or Disability Benefit, Jobseekers Allowance or Housing Benefit. The report describes the level of payment from these means-tested benefits as “appallingly low.”

In its effort to force the unemployed and disabled into low-wage jobs, the Labour government has promoted tax credits where poor workers with children receive an addition to wages through the tax system. These credits, which function as a subsidy to employers paying poverty-wages, have had a very limited impact on the working poor. This is indicated in the Save the Children report’s statistics, which show that almost 14 percent of the poorest families received the Working Tax Credit and four in ten received the Children’s Tax Credit.

The report speculated that many families in severe poverty did not claim the benefits and tax credits they were entitled to, largely due to the system’s complexity. With thousands of front-line civil service jobs at employment and social security offices being axed or privatised under the Labour government’s efforts to achieve “efficiency savings”, the main sources of advice on benefits entitlement will become even more under-staffed and ineffective.

A lack of education or training is a hallmark of many parents of severely poor children, with 45 percent of mothers having no formal qualifications. Additionally, there was a strong link between disability and poverty. One third of families in severe poverty were found to have a disabled parent, while 15 percent had a disabled child.

The report found a strong association between ethnic background and severe childhood poverty. Particularly affected are families of Asian decent, which comprised 7.9 percent of all non-severely poor children and 14.5 percent of severely poor children. Only 6 percent of all children in the UK are of Asian decent.

The number of children living in severe poverty has not significantly changed since Labour came to power in 1997, and the report indicates that the government has no plans to monitor, let alone address, the issue.

While there is evidence that the number of children living in non-severe poverty has fallen over the past decade, this can largely be accounted for by the current relatively high levels of employment. With the devaluation of many welfare benefits, millions of families have lost a vital social safety net. Any significant increase in the level of unemployment brought on by a recession will therefore lead to many more families plunged into destitution.

Iraq Murder Trial

Alex Doherty — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 10:39:55 +0000

The court-martial of seven British soldiers accused of murdering an 18-year-old Iraqi man has collapsed. The trial judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence for proceedings to continue.

So unserious was the British militarys treatment of the alleged murder that the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Judge Advocate General Jeff Blackett, presiding at the trial, criticised the Royal Military Police Special Investigation Branch (SIB), which was in charge of investigating the incident, for making serious omissions in their investigation.

Blackett stated that the Military Police had failed to search for hospital records related to the case and had not established whether there was a register in which the deceaseds burial may be recorded. The SIB negligence included delays in interviewing witnesses and defendants. The British army investigators also failed to take crucial DNA samples or take possession of the deceaseds clothes before evidence on them became tainted.

So inadequate was the SIB investigation that the medical cause of death could not be established to the satisfaction of the court. There was no exhumation, there was no post-mortem and the death certificate was issued by an Iraqi doctor who never saw the body himself, one of the defence lawyers told the BBC after the trial.

The seven soldiers, all privates and non-commissioned officers from the Third Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, were accused of beating to death Nadhem Abdullah in the village of al-Ferkah, 60 miles north of Basra, southern Iraq, in May 2003. The killing of Abdullah, a civilian, took place three weeks after the official cessation of the major combat activities.

The hearing was held at the units base in Colchester, Essex. Army prosecutors accused the seven of using their hands, feet, helmets and rifle butts to beat several Iraqi civilians during a roadside inspection of a taxi.

Prosecuting, Martin Heslop QC told the court that the soldiers entered the area during a patrol and brutally assaulted a number of unarmed Iraqi civilians, causing serious injuries from which one died.

It was, I am afraid to say, nothing more than gratuitous violence meted out on a number of innocent and unarmed Iraqi civilians. These assaults were unjustified and wholly unprovoked, said Heslop.

With very little forensic or documentary evidence provided by the SIB, Heslop was forced to concede from the outset that the case against the seven soldiers would have to rely on evidence given by poor, illiterate Iraqi witnesses. In this evidence there would inevitably be contradictions and inconsistencies in the accounts of what happened.

The main forensic evidence that was provided to the prosecution was that blood matching Abdullahs was found on the rifle of one of the defendants, Private Samuel May. However, this evidence was deemed to be useless due to the failure by the British military police to take DNA swabs from Abdullahs relatives and thus rule them out as the source. The question of why the blood of any member of the family should be on Private Mays weapon was deemed not to be germane to the case.

Several Iraqi witnesses gave evidence, including the driver of the taxi in which Abdullah was travelling. He described how soldiers had started to beat him after they discovered he could not speak English. I fell on the floor from the blows and they continued hitting me and then I passed out. They hit me on my elbow, my head, my back, all over my body, he said.

The driver described how Abdullah was severely beaten by several soldiers, whom he could not positively identify.

Another witness, Sougheir Khalaf, the cousin of the deceased victim, stated that he was also beaten during the search: They made me lie on the ground and they asked me to put my hands behind my head and they started to beat me.

He said that he was rendered unconscious by the attack and the blows to his side had resulted in renal problems. However, Khalaf was also unable to identify the accused as his attackers and said he thought the soldiers were American.

Under cross-examination Khalaf was accused of lying to the court in order to get compensation. Rex Tedd QC, representing one of the accused, Corporal Scott Evans, put it to Khalaf that he had exaggerated the events of the incident. What you have done is to pretend you have suffered injuries when thats not true so you can claim compensation for it, said Tedd.

The accusation of fabricating claims for financial gain was also made against Samira Rishek, a woman who had also said she was beaten by soldiers during the incident but who retracted the accusation in court. During the course of the trial two other Iraqi women also rescinded claims they were assaulted.

The soldiers defence made much play of the fact that the Iraqi witnesses received $100 a day from the court while giving evidence, claiming that this was an inducement for poor Iraqis to perjure themselves.

In his testimony, the soldiers platoon commander, Captain Andrew Blackmore, said threats from insurgents or anti-coalition forces could result in a need to use lethal force. He said that his men, who were in radio contact with him at the time of the alleged murder, were still on a war footing as, There was no clear designated date when my men turned off one switch from war fighting to counter insurgency and peace support.

Blackmore recalled that following the soldiers return to base he had a conversation about a slight issue with some of the people encountered in the course of a roadside search. He also stated that the accused appeared slightly excited when questioned about the days events.

Blackmore also said that various other units, both British and American, were moving through the area north of Basra at the time of the alleged murder.

A political ruse, not a bona fide trial

Almost two months after the court-martial commenced, Judge Advocate General Jeff Blackett brought proceedings to a close.

Blackett directed the military panel hearing the court-martial to return a not-guilty verdict after the prosecution concluded its case. Accepting that the Iraqi witnesses had been induced to give evidence by the $100 daily stipends, he claimed that individuals giving evidence had done so as a product of corporate recollection discussed by the family or tribe.

Nadhem Abdullahs family have protested against the outcome as an injustice and an example the British occupations indifference to the daily brutalities faced by ordinary Iraqis. Fadil al-Saqer, a cousin of the dead man, said: We did not even know that the trial had stopped. We had members of the family and neighbours go to England because we were told that there will be justice. But this is not justice. Who can you trust? This is very sad. We do not know what to do now. Are they saying Nadhem was not killed?

Democratic rights groups Amnesty International and Liberty criticised the trial and investigation. Amnesty said courts-martial should not be used to try crimes under international law. Its UK director, Kate Allen, said the group had longstanding concerns about the treatment of allegations of abuse by members of the British Army.

International law requires a prompt, impartial, thorough, effective and independent investigation into alleged abuses. A decision over whether to bring charges should be taken independently of the commanding officer and other military bodies, she said.

The criticism of the militarys Special Investigation Branch has exposed the inability of the occupying powers to conduct a serious and credible investigation of abuses against the Iraqi people by the occupying forces. Last month the SIBs leading investigator in British controlled Basra, Captain Ken Masters, was found hung in his military accommodation.

He had examined almost every major case of alleged abuse by the British military of Iraqi civilians, including the fusiliers convicted of abusing prisoners at Camp Breadbasket near Basra. Masters was also actively involved in an ongoing investigation into the events of September 19, when the arrest of two British undercover Special Air Service (SAS) officers in Basra by Iraqi police had resulted in major confrontations between the British Army and local demonstrators and police.

Masters death was attributed to suicide resulting from stress, although no evidence has been presented to back this up and no suicide note was found.

Despite the patently unserious character of the SIB investigation, military commanders have criticised the armys prosecuting authority and the government attorney general for even bringing to trial this and other allegations against British soldiers in Iraq. Army brass are reported to deeply resent the decision of Attorney General Lord Goldsmith to allow soldiers to be prosecuted for war crimes using the International Criminal Court Act, to which Britain is a signatory. They insist that the threat of such action against British armed personnel undermines morale.

The Guardian newspaper reported in October that leaked official correspondence showed the attorney general had claimed senior military officers made a concerted attempt to block an investigation into the death of a British soldier in Iraq. The military police was also accused of being insufficiently qualified or experienced to handle investigations into the abuse of Iraqis.

The Daily Telegraph editorialised that the army prosecution, was influenced by political as well as judicial considerations in bringing the case to trial on the evidence produced by the [military police]. In other words, it thought it better, given the volatile conditions in which British forces operate in Iraq and opposition to the war at home, to air the case in court rather than to decide not to proceed. Such a course of action is understandable, but it is very hard on the defendants, and costly to the taxpayer.

The Telegraph openly admits that the trial was pursued as a ruse to present British imperialism as maintaining its obligations to prosecute war crimes, while ensuring that nothing would come of the case. But even this is viewed as an impermissible concession that prevents the army from acting with the necessary mixture of brutality and impunity. Coming from this source, it is a view that should be taken as echoing that of the army high command.

Pre-War Bombings

Alex Doherty — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 11:00:50 +0000

A leaked document from lawyers at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office warning of the illegality of a pre-war bombing campaign against military targets in southern and northern Iraq has cast further light on the criminal preparations by London and Washington in the months leading up to the Iraq war.

The Foreign Office document, dealing with the legal issues surrounding a possible war against Iraq, was written in March 2002 and circulated to senior cabinet members. It was appended as Annex A to the Cabinet Office briefing paper on Iraq of July 21, 2002. The latter document was a top secret account of the ongoing preparations for war against Iraq that stated:

The US Governments military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace…

When the prime minister discussed Iraq with President Bush at Crawford in April he said that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change, provided that certain conditions were met.

The July 21 briefing paper informed discussions at a high-level meeting two days later between Prime Minister Tony Blair, the foreign and defence secretaries, the attorney general, senior military and intelligence personnel and government spin-doctors. The minutes of this meetingthe now infamous Downing Street Memowere leaked to the Sunday Times prior to the UK general election in May 2005.

In the Downing Street Memo, Blair is recorded as saying, If the political context were right, [that is, if the governments false justifications for the war were accepted], people would support regime change. This was despite the fact that at the same meeting the governments chief legal officer, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, stated that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action.

Also recorded in the memo was Defence Secretary Geoff Hoons comment that the US had already begun spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime.

The leaked Foreign Office advice warned of the legal dubiety of any declaration of war without a United Nations Security Council mandate. The advice stated that Washington was attempting to use supposed breaches by Iraq of United Nations resolutions 687 (1991) and 678 (1990) as justifications for a full military assault on Iraq. The document was highly dismissive of the legitimacy of the US claim that it could decide this unilaterally, pointing out, We are not aware of any other state which supports this view, and that only the UN Security Council could authorise military action on the basis of any breaches of its own resolutions.

Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the Foreign Office lawyer who co-wrote the report, resigned in March 2003 in protest at the decision to go to war without a UN resolution specifically authorising military force.

With regard to Hoons statement in the Downing Street Memo about spikes of activity against Iraq, the Foreign Office advice bears particular scrutiny, as it warned against US Air Force and British Royal Air Force (RAF) patrols over the no-fly zones (NFZs) in northern and southern Iraq being used to attack Iraqi military installations or put pressure on the Hussein regime.

Initially established on the pretext of monitoring the humanitarian situation in the mainly Kurdish and Shiite regions of the country following the first Gulf War, the NFZs had been in operation for 14 years. Although the patrols were not permitted to launch any offensive attacks in Iraq but only to act in self defence, the NFZs were used to launch a concerted campaign to weaken Iraqs military infrastructure throughout this time. However, recognising that plans for a new war against Iraq were well under way, the 2002 advice from the Foreign Office reiterated that any aggressive military action over the NFZs had no legal basis. It stated:

The US [has] on occasion claimed that the purpose of the NFZs is to enforce Iraqi compliance with resolutions 687 or 688. This view is not consistent with resolution 687, which does not deal with the repression of the Iraqi civilian population, or with resolution 688, which was not adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and does not contain any provision for enforcement.

The 2002 memo continued: In our view, the purpose of the NFZs is to monitor Iraqi compliance with the provisions of resolution 688. UK and US aircraft patrolling the NFZs are entitled to use force in self-defence where such a use of force is a necessary and proportionate response to actual or imminent attack from Iraqi ground systems.

Despite this legal advice against the use of the NFZs as cover for a campaign against Iraqs defences, there was a substantive ongoing campaign of aggressive military strikes by US and British aircraft in the year leading up to the war. Written parliamentary answers to Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell from Defence Minister Adam Ingram show the spikes of activity referred to by Hoon in the memo.

From May 2002 to January 2003, despite there being no appreciable increase in the number of Iraqi violations of UN resolutions within the NFZs, US and UK aircraft recorded a massive jump in the number of threats they claim to have encountered from Iraqi defence systems. In response to these unlikely threats from Iraqs antiquated anti-aircraft guns, the USAF and RAF launched scores of attacks, dropping hundreds of tons of ordnance.

From March and April 2002, coalition aeroplanes recorded just one threat from Iraqi defences and responded by dropping a total of 0.3 tons of explosives. The USAF and RAF then mounted a large increase in bombing raids over the summer. In September, 54.6 tons of ordnance was deployed in 10 self-defence attacks.

Following this peak, US and British attacks fell back in October to six raids dropping 17.7 tons of explosives. However, in November and December 2002 the bombing resumed in intensity.

The amount of ordnance dropped on Iraq increased back up to 33.6 tons in November and 53.2 tons in Decembera vital time to soften up Iraqi defences prior to the beginning of 2003, which US military planners had originally hoped to be the starting date of the war.

In total, twice as many bombs were dropped on Iraq in the latter half of 2002 as in the whole of 2001, with a de facto air war ongoing from August 2002 until the March 2003 invasion.

Commenting on the leaked Foreign Office document, Lord Goodhart, vice president of the International Commission of Jurists and a parliamentary spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said: [If] the purpose [of the air strikes over the no-fly zones] was to soften up Iraq for a future invasion or even to intimidate Iraq, the coalition forces were acting without lawful authority.

He continued, Putting pressure on Iraq is not something that would be a lawful activity, as UN resolution 688, used by the allies to justify patrols over the NFZs, was not adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, concerning all matters authorising military force.

That the US and Britain were illegally using their air power over much of Iraq to soften up the country in 2002 was brazenly acknowledged by retired General Tommy Franks, allied commander during the invasion of Iraq, in his autobiography American Soldier. In it he recalls a meeting in August 2002 with Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, in which he refused to cut the bombing patrols inside the NFZs because he was using them to degrade Iraqs defences to make them as weak as possible.

In this effort the RAF played a leading role, dropping the majority of bombs over southern Iraq in October 2002, in direct contradiction to the only clear legal advice given to the government on the matter.

In the run-up to the British general election, when Blair was asked by BBC journalist Jeremy Paxman if he had seen the Foreign Offices legal advice, the prime minister replied that he had not, but had only received advice from the attorney general. As the Foreign Office advice was circulated to senior Cabinet members on two separate occasions in March and July 2002, Blair was either lying to Paxman and the UK electorate or he was so negligent regarding his governments obligations under international law that he did not bother to read the legal opinion that was supposed to inform government decisions regarding Iraq.

Whatever Happened to "New" Europe?

Alex Doherty — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:38:02 +0000

The collapse of the June 16-17 European Union budgetary summit in Brussels was accompanied by the dismal scene of Europes newest and poorest members pleading for a last-minute compromise that would allow some of the aid due to them to be paid. Reliant on the EU for billions of euros in funds, the ex-Stalinist eastern European countries offered to forgo part of their portion of the 2007-2013 budget in order to facilitate some agreement between the main powers France, Germany and Britain.

The crisis erupted following the demand from then-EU President and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, that Britain forfeit at least part of its 5.1-billion-euro annual rebate from the EU budget for 2007-2013 in order to finance the integration of the 10 states that joined the EU last year. British Prime Minister Tony Blair responded to this with an attack on the EUs Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and its main beneficiary, France. Blair took the opportunity to launch a more general assault on old Europe and what he considers the unacceptable slowness of France, Germany and the EU in general to force through the most aggressive free market reforms.

In his conflict with French President Jacques Chirac, Blair found himself at odds with the elites of the eastern EU states that on many other matters are his natural allies. Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka implored his British counterpart, If you prevent a compromise, you will no longer be our star.

Blair, who has positioned himself as the free-marketer-in-chief of Europe, was apparently taken aback when the right-wing, anti-tax, anti-welfare elites of eastern Europe attacked him for his spoiling tactics at the summit.

That new Europe, as it was dubbed by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, has not proved to be such a reliable base of support for Blairs efforts on behalf of Washington to weaken the Franco-German core of Europe is not surprising. In the first place, the significance of new Europe to Washington was not its political cohesiveness, but that the poor east European states could be easily bought and manipulated.

For this same reason, however, the ex-Stalinist countries were never going to agree to Blairs wrecking the EU budget and attacks on agricultural spending, because this would seriously endanger the EU financial assistance, primarily drawn from German contributions, on which their weak economies depend.

Instead, Britain found backing at the summit from Holland, Sweden and Finland, all large per-head net contributors to the EU budget that are reluctant to pay more into the European pot as they endeavour to cut their own domestic public spending.

Also in Blairs corner over the budget was Spain, currently the largest beneficiary of EU money, receiving 8.7 billion euros annually.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero, who has reoriented Spain back towards the Franco-German core of the EU and somewhat away from his conservative predecessor Jose Maria Aznars alliance with America and Britain, feared that a budget designed to facilitate the EUs eastward expansion threatens both Spains receipt of EU monies and its position as Europes main cheap-labour platform.

The new EU members were enraged with Blairs intransigent position of insisting on a cut in EU farm subsidies as the price for removing part of its annual rebate from the European budget. Referring to Britain, Belka criticised national egoism on display at the summit, parroting Chirac who had earlier said the egoism of two or three rich countries was responsible for the breakdown.

Czech Finance Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said that the EU newcomers should not be held responsible for the summits failure, but rather the immoral and ungrounded British rebate.

Following the summit, there has been a flurry of activity as the continents leaders attempt to find some way out of the impasse. On June 27, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and his French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy met in Warsaw with Polish Foreign Minister Adam Rotfeld. There were reports that UK minister of state for Europe, Douglas Alexander, had been invited to join the meeting, but that the British had shown little interest in attending.

To break the current deadlock, Polish Commissioner Danuta Huebner proposed calling an extraordinary EU summit, again echoing a proposal by Chirac. I hope there would be a compromise if there was an additional summit organised by Luxembourg, Huebner told the Berliner Zeitung. The Polish government has insisted that, if there is no compromise over the 2007-2013 EU budget, Poland could not agree to a makeshift budget. We would lose at least half of the structural funds, said EU Affairs Minister Jaroslaw Pietras.

The impoverishment of the east

The differences the eastern member states now have with their star are not over Blairs demands that the EU destroy the last vestiges of the post-war social gains of the working classthe ex-Stalinist bureaucrats in Warsaw, Prague, Tallinn, etc., have seen to this task themselves. The differences have come about because the British leader is destabilising the macroeconomic policies of the expanded EU.

Britains Observer newspaper, on June 19, warned that while the stalled budget would have relatively little impact on the rich countries, the entrant states of the east would suffer acutely. A delay in implementing the budget even until next year would hit the likes of Poland and Slovakia because they would not be able to draw up spending plans for vital projects such as transport infrastructure.

Since the accession of Ireland in 1973, and throughout the 1980s and 1990s after Spain, Portugal and Greece joined the then-European Economic Community, the main European powers have paid for expansion with large sums of regional development aid. The purpose of these funds was to create adequate infrastructure in impoverished areas to allow big business to locate there and exploit low-wage labour. These inflows of cash also served to ameliorate class tensions across Europe, stabilising the basis of European capitalism.

The 10 relatively poor countries that entered the EU last year were expecting a broadly similar deal. Poland expects 60 billion euros in the 2007-2013 budget. The five poorest regions in the EU, which also have the highest rates of unemployment, are in the east of the country. These areas, which are largely agricultural and have suffered a collapse in their heavy industry, have attracted almost no inward investment but were to receive an additional 900 million euros in aid over the lifetime of the contested budget. The situation is similar for the other new members, with the Czech Republic expecting around 17 billion euros and neighbouring Slovakia in line for over 8.5 billion euros in subsidies.

Without an agreement on the 2007-2013 budget, the new EU states will be left with current funding arrangements that are worth a fraction of what was on the table at the Brussels summit. Such is the impoverishment of public finances in these countries, after 15 years of brutal economic shock therapyoverseen by the European development bank and the International Monetary Fundthat no significant infrastructure projects could even be contemplated without EU money. The deadlocked state of EU finances means that money that has already been allocated for major projects in the East is now frozen, threatening to throw the plans of the regions governments into disarray.

Polands Economy Minister Krystyna Gurbiel told the Guardian, on June 23: It is a serious delay and it means that we shall have less time to implement the projects…. I am afraid that if the decisions are not taken shortly, by 2007 we will not be able to continue support for enterprises very much needed in Poland.

Etele Baráth, Hungarys Europe minister, told the newspaper that it was not just a question of money. For us it is very important to know how much, for what goal, when and what way we can use the money. It is important we are well prepared for 2007-13. It is a bit of a shock. We have lost a lot of time.

Also problematic to the east European states is the British governments attack on the CAP. While France is, and would remain, the main beneficiary of the CAP, the new members also stood to gain. Agriculture still accounts for a very large number of jobs in the region, but is inefficient compared to agribusiness-dominated Western farming.

The farming areas of Poland, the Baltic states and Slovakia are some of the poorest and most economically vulnerable in the EU, and the increased competition from the richer members will greatly exacerbate this. In Hungary, there have been large and angry protests by farmers, whose livelihoods are becoming extremely precarious. Minister of Agriculture Imre Nemeth was recently forced to resign.

While the limited CAP money due to be allocated for eastern Europe for 2007-2013 would be largely swallowed up by the wealthiest farmers, it would have also subsidised a layer of the rural petty bourgeoisie. This in turn would help solidify a base of social support for the regions governments as they continue their attacks on the working class.

Krystyna Gurbiel, again in the Guardian, commented, For us the CAP is very important. Our farmers are getting much lower subsidies than the farmers in the older EU member states. So we cannot agree to a solution that will hit our farmers. That is a very difficult issue for Poland.

Hungarys Etele Baráth added, It will be difficult [to reach a budget agreement during the British presidency]. Between France and Britain there is a big gulf over CAP.

There have been some warmer opinions expressed regarding Blairs agenda for Europe. The foreign minister of the Czech Republic, Cyril Sovbod, has suggested that many of the reforms proposed by Britain were valid, a view shared in theory by most of the elites of the ex-Stalinist countries but only to the extent that this doesnt interfere with the flow of EU cash into their coffers. The British stance cannot but threaten the existence of the EU as it currently stands, and therefore damage the fundamental economic interests of the accession countries.

The crisis of the EU and the eastward expansion

The crisis over the European constitution, rejected by the French and Dutch voters, has combined with the impasse over the budget to weaken public confidence in the EU in the East. A poll in the Czech Republic published by the Stem agency on June 17 showed 52 percent against the constitution to 48 percent for. The Czech government has dropped plans for a referendum, as have Estonia and Poland. Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka stated that he was worried that the coincidence of the lack of a budget compromise and the referendum results, plus the slowdown in the ratification process, will create an atmosphere of doom and gloom in the European Union.

Doom and gloom, indeed. Five decades after France, Germany, the Benelux countries and Italy formed the European Coal and Steel Community, the forerunner of the EU, the new entrants have found themselves in a union that is in danger of unravelling.

EU plans to incorporate Romania and Bulgaria in 2007, as well as to begin preparations for the possible membership of Croatia, Turkey and the Ukraine, have also been dealt a serious blow. Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, who will take over the EU presidency in January following Blairs term in office, said that he is convinced that the European Commission will postpone Bulgaria and Romanias accession by one year.

The prospect of admitting Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Turkey and Croatiaall far poorer than the current crop of new entrants and with a combined population of more than 150 millionis increasingly remote. German Christian Democrat MEP and the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament, Elmar Brok, put it bluntly: We will choke if we let Ukraine in.

Even the countries furthest along the road to membership, Romania and Bulgaria, are extremely poor and would require huge sums in aid to bring their economies and infrastructure just up to the standard of the Czech Republic.

Suggesting an alternative route for aspirants to the EU, Europes commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, former Spanish Socialist leader Joaquin Almunia, recently suggested that the EU might reach an agreement with Ukraine on associated membership in 2008. He stated that implementation of an EU-Ukraine bilateral plan should not depend on the negative results in the referendums on the draft EU constitution in France and the Netherlands.

This cheaper and less politically unifying form of European associationlittle more than a free trade agreementis just what London and Washington envisage, not just for the lands to the EUs East but for the EU itself.

The post-war European unification project was predicated on the ability of the continents powersunder conditions where they faced a common enemy in the form of the USSR, combined with the revolutionary threat from an organised and militant working classto ameliorate national divisions in order to stabilise European capitalism. While the European project was largely successful in allowing the continents bourgeoisies to regroup and expand their global positions following the wars and depression of the first half of the twentieth century, the liquidation of the Soviet Union and the subsequent turn by America to militarism and an aggressive assertion of its interests in Europe and internationally has set the stage for a return to old antagonisms.

Whatever the outcome of the current budget crisis, the divisions it has exposed presage future inter-imperialist conflicts in Europein which alliances will be made and broken according to the temporary needs of increasingly divergent national elites.