SAS soldiers resign over war crime ‘witch hunts’ - "Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers are resigning in significant numbers over fears they will be subjected to “witch hunts” by human rights lawyers. Several sources have claimed that soldiers from 22 SAS, the Army’s most elite fighting force, have applied for premature voluntary release... Insiders say the resignations have been driven by outrage over recent war crime investigations into Afghanistan and Syria, which have been described as “witch hunts”. The treatment of elderly Northern Ireland veterans who served in the SAS has also contributed, insiders say. They are viewed as having been hounded through the courts on vexatious claims, some of which have been described as “ludicrous” by a judge. Among those understood to have resigned are several senior warrant officers, who are the backbone of the special forces and among the most experienced troops in the regiment. A number are understood to have applied for release “on principle” just before Christmas. “Morale is s--- at the moment,” one insider with knowledge of the recent losses said, while another said there was “considerable disquiet” in the regiment as a result. Sir Keir Starmer is under immense pressure to boost the military after Donald Trump’s attack on Iran showed how ill-prepared Britain was for war. It took three weeks for HMS Dragon, a Type 45 destroyer, to arrive in the eastern Mediterranean after RAF Akrotiri, a British air base in Cyprus, was hit by a drone. Sir Keir has failed to say how the Government will meet its pledge to spend 3 per cent of GDP on defence, and his defence investment plan for military spending over the next decade – promised last autumn – has still not been published amid wrangling between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Treasury. The SAS resignations are a significant blow to the famed special forces unit, which is the tip of the spear in military operation and is deployed globally. Last month it was revealed that 242 special forces troops, including 120 serving troops, were being hounded by lawyers as part of £1m-a-month human rights inquiries... Secret operations across Afghanistan, Northern Ireland and Syria are being investigated by lawyers, with the troops involved facing legal sanctions if they fail to comply... George Simm, a former regimental sergeant major of 22 SAS, said troops were afraid they would “get a knock on the door” from lawyers and felt they had been betrayed. He said laws such as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) were being applied to war zones and that the right to life for “armed terrorists and murderers” now outweighed that of the special forces troops sent to stop them from committing atrocities. “If a soldier discharges their weapon, they are almost certainly going to get a knock at their door one day,” he told The Telegraph. “It feels like a betrayal and a break in the trust. “We now have to consider the lives of the terrorists because of the ECHR. These are the guys who are shooting at us. We have all killed mass murderers and these lawyers say you should have done this and should have done that. It’s a joke. “There is a dangerous dichotomy that has crept into the command and come all the way down the chain of command and now the lawyers are all over it.” Lt Col Richard Williams, a former commanding officer of 22 SAS, told The Telegraph: “The SAS, like all involved in UK defence today, is being hit with the Labour Party’s unique, toxic, double whammy of lawfare persecution and budget cuts. “It’s hardly surprising that professional and loyal soldiers, SAS or otherwise, choose to leave.” Labour’s Troubles bill, which seeks to remove immunity protections introduced by the Conservatives in their Northern Ireland Legacy Act, has provoked anger in military circles. Some of the UK’s most senior retired military chiefs warned before Christmas that legal reform was provoking an “exodus” from the special forces. In an unprecedented intervention, nine former military chiefs claimed that soldiers’ trust in the legal system had collapsed to such a point that it “risks everything”. In an open letter to Sir Keir, they said allowing historic cases against veterans to be reopened was playing into the hands of Britain’s enemies. The letter – which included Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, a former chief of the general staff, among its signatories – warned: “Today every British soldier deployed must consider not only the enemy in front of them but the lawyer behind them. “Make no mistake, our closest allies are watching uneasily, and our enemies will be rubbing their hands.” Writing for The Telegraph in December, seven former SAS commanders warned Britain’s most elite troops risked being used as scapegoats by politicians who were “doing the enemy’s work”. The writers included two former commanding officers of 22 SAS, Aldwin Wight and Lt Col Williams, as well as three former squadron commanders, a former regimental sergeant major and a former warrant officer first class. They said the threat of legal action could result in deaths as “commanders turn risk-averse” and “soldiers hesitate where boldness saves lives”. “Britain’s special forces are small, discreet, uniquely lethal... Their humiliation rewards Moscow, Tehran and Beijing,” they wrote. “Our handling of allegations is national security, not a sideshow. “Defend our defenders fairly, firmly, eyes open to war’s moral mess – or keep doing the enemy’s work, one leak, one inquiry, one broken soldier at a time. A democracy that won’t back its warriors won’t long endure.” The Army has shrunk from more than 100,000 around 2010 to just over 70,000 fully trained soldiers now, its smallest since before the Napoleonic War. The Navy, once the jewel of Britain’s military, is now at its smallest size in living memory, with only seven frigates and six destroyers in the fleet and two aircraft carriers. Of the six Astute-class nuclear attack submarines, only one is at sea. One of Britain’s Vanguard boats, armed with nuclear missiles, spent more than six months underwater, a far longer deployment than previously carried out by the nuclear deterrence force."
Time to train another battalion of human rights lawyers
Labour’s Troubles bill could risk breakup of the UK, former general warns - "Labour’s Troubles Bill risks making a united Ireland more likely, a former British Army general has warned. Writing exclusively in The Telegraph, Gen Sir Nick Parker accused the Government of introducing the legislation to score multiple short-term political points, such as winning favour with the EU. But he said the UK Government’s strategic objective behind the Troubles legislation was not clear. In contrast, Sinn Féin is laser-focused on its aim of Irish unity and the lengthy process to pass the bill threatens to undermine the Army and the Union, Sir Nick said... “Sinn Féin’s objective has been clear for decades. It seeks a united Ireland and now pursues that objective through legitimate democratic and political means “What exactly is the UK Government’s objective? Reconciliation? Closure? Justice? Political stability? Better relations with Dublin and progress on EU reset? Supporting those who acted on its behalf? Closure for victims? “The answer appears to be all of them. The fact that there is no clearly defined aim creates a fundamental imbalance. One side knows what success looks like. The other does not.” Sir Nick has previously urged Sir Keir Starmer to abandon the Troubles bill. Legislation passed under the Tories – the 2023 Legacy Act – granted veterans conditional immunity from prosecution for their actions during the Troubles and ended all new civil cases and inquests. But Labour has introduced plans that would allow veterans to be brought before the courts decades after serving on the Government’s behalf. Ministers want to use a legal process known as a remedial order to strip out the immunity protection, claiming it is “incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)” because it could stop human rights violations being properly investigated. But critics, including Sir Nick, argue that this could mean a series of fresh civil cases that could cost taxpayers millions of pounds. Sir Nick added: “For veterans and former police officers, the consequences are particularly stark. Many now face the prospect of repeated scrutiny more than half a century after the events in question. “The issue is no longer simply accountability. It is whether democratic societies can sustain an endless process without eventually undermining confidence in the very institutions that defend them.”... Veterans groups have warned that the bill leaves former soldiers vulnerable to vexatious legal claims that former terrorists do not face."
The human rights-industrial complex smells blood. If the left hates you, they will continually pursue you till they get the result they want
Khaled Hassan on X - "Every single thing that's happening in Britain today happened in Egypt in the 1950s. The destruction of the economy. The socialist-Islamic alliance. Palestinianism. Anti-Western sentiments and viewing the Chinese, Russians, and other authoritarian regimes as better alternatives to the US. It's 100% the same. Egyptians didn't fight back. The silent majority either welcomed this nonsense or did nothing about it. It's the same in Britain today. Britain as we know it is drawing its last breath. This is the end."
Nigel Farage witch hunt has proved that British public are behind Reform UK - "The fact is for weeks all those parties have been screeching that Farage wasn’t fit to be Clacton’s MPs because of questions over his financial affairs, in particular a £5million gift from a crypto billionaire. So, Farage did exactly what those parties had been demanding, he resigned his seat telling the people of Clacton he’d stand again and they could vote for him if they wanted to – or not. But that wasn’t good enough for all the party leaders who promptly threw their toys out of the pram saying they wouldn’t stand against him. And we all know why not. It’s because they’re terrified they’ll get slaughtered if they go up against Farage. Even Kemi Badenoch, who I’d begun to respect, ran away and called it a “fake election”. No, it’s a very real one which she doesn’t have the guts to stand in because Farage got 45% of the vote in the last by-election and smashed the Tories majority of 26,000. This time round, she knows they’d lose even more votes as would all the others. So, they pretend that running scared of the fight is about not playing the game of a man they despise. Trouble is, no-one’s buying it. The British people aren’t stupid. They know our political establishment is TERRIFIED of Farage, in particular Lib Dem leader Ed Davey, who tweets and rants about him daily and who this week went into red faced overdrive screaming that what Farage had done was just one big stunt. Seriously? This from the cringemaking king of stupid stunts. At least Farage hasn’t had to stoop to bungee jumping or falling off paddleboards to get voters’ attention. There’s not a single Labour, Tory or Lib Dem MP who has the guts or the conviction to do what Farage just did in Clacton because they know they’d all be kicked out. Yes, there are genuine questions to be asked about his finances and they’re being investigated. Farage has always said that the £5million donation was a gift to fund his security because he’s been attacked more than most other MP’s and for years has to pay for his own protection. He and his family are constantly under threat and he lives in fear of having acid thrown in his face – something which comic Jo Brand joked about. “Why bother throwing a milkshake when you can get some battery acid,” said this vile woman. This week Farage understandably lost the plot when Sky News pitched up outside his daughter’s front door. Now why the hell do that when she’s got absolutely nothing to do with his political life? It was harassment, pure and simple, and any parent would be spitting nails... guess what, while they tell us Farage is finished, membership of Reform has surged yet again – which tells me the British people don’t like witch hunts and they don’t like politicians ganging up against someone who wants what they do."
Of all the strains of Farage Derangement Syndrome, this one is the silliest - "Farage has money and nice things, say these people with money and nice things, so how can he be anti-establishment? It’s underpinned by such an archaic vision of “the establishment”. These people seem to think that being establishment means wearing red braces and chewing fat cigars, as if it were 1984 and Thatcher was still in Downing St and Duran Duran still at No1. Perhaps they think the ruling classes also wear bowler hats and yell “You boy!” at every urchin they meet on the streets. They have no understanding of how power has shifted in this country, how it has been shifted from men’s clubs on Pall Mall to the cultural hangouts of the lanyard classes. The movers and shakers of the new establishment are less likely to ping their braces and say: “Sell, sell, sell!” than they are to tighten their keffiyehs and say: “Trans women are women.” Power wears geeky glasses these days. It wraps itself in the Pride flag. Its stomping ground is HR departments and smokeless local-council offices. Its mission is to manage the masses, especially our crude, unorthodox speech. If you see a posh bloke in a tweed blazer, that’s not “the establishment” – it’s a young fogey on his way to a wine bar. If, however, a lady with Su Pollard specs and a badge declaring her pronouns makes a beeline for you at work, it’s highly likely you’re about to be reprimanded for wrongthink. That’s “the establishment” to most people these days. There’s also an extreme defensiveness in these cries of “Farage is the establishment!”. There’s a reason you only ever hear this guff from people with cushy jobs in the media, law or, indeed, politics. It’s because these people can’t face the truth: that they’re the establishment now. They point a finger at Britain’s best-known Dulwich old boy to distract attention from their own cultural power that they doll up as rebelliousness. From those Remoaners who beat the streets to try to overturn Brexit to the keffiyeh classes who rattle their jewellery in effusive agreement with every literary darling who attacks Israel. That’s cultural clout in the 21st century. At some level, these people know Farage is more tuned in to the concerns of working-class communities than they will ever be. Where they look down at the Brexit-voting oiks as “gammon” whose brains have been turned to mush by too much tabloid-reading, Farage can hold a conversation with the everyday Briton. Indeed, a few months ago a poll found that a majority of Britons think Farage would be the most “fun” politician to have a pint with – and that Keir Starmer would be the politician most likely to skip his round. It’s simple: they hate it when Farage attacks “the establishment” because they know he’s talking about them."
Here’s the real reason why Labour’s never had a female leader – but no one wants to admit it - "The reason Labour has never had a female leader, I now humbly accept, is nothing to do with hypocrisy or sexism. It’s actually because the party has never had a woman who’s anywhere near good enough. Of course, given that Labour has been led by such titans as Sir Keir Starmer, Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, I will inevitably now be accused of sexism myself. But in response, all I can do is ask: who should Labour’s first female leader have been? Should it have been, say, Diane Abbott (who stood in the leadership contest of 2010)? Would she have steered Labour to electoral triumph, with her effortless popular appeal? Or how about Rebecca Long-Bailey (who stood in 2020)? Would she have wowed the public with her dazzling charisma? Alternatively, perhaps Harriet Harman, who was the party’s caretaker leader on two occasions (2010 and 2015), while members debated which man should be given the job full-time. Could she have won back the working class, with her celebrated common touch? On the whole, I tend to suspect not. Anyway, the reason I raise this awkward subject is that, almost three weeks after Sir Keir announced his resignation, not a single Labour woman has put her name forward to be his successor. Why? Have the nasty sexist Labour men hidden the application forms? I suppose we shouldn’t rule it out. There is, however, a simpler explanation. Which is that Labour’s current crop of 186 female MPs know that none of them would have a cat’s hope in hell of beating Andy Burnham. And if so, they’re not wrong. After all, which of them would you pick? Maybe Rachel Reeves, the most unpopular Chancellor in history. Or Angela Rayner, who was forced to resign as deputy prime minister over her tax affairs (always an unfortunate look for a socialist). Or Bridget Phillipson, who this week argued that the taxpayer should bankroll free childcare for parents who are unemployed. Or Lucy Powell, who once suggested that mentioning the rape-gangs scandal was a “dog whistle”. Or Lisa Nandy, who once argued that male criminals should be placed in women’s prisons if they say they’re women, too. Or Dawn Butler, who once claimed that babies are born without a biological sex. Kemi Badenoch – the Tories’ fourth female leader – reckons she knows why Labour has no women capable of winning a leadership contest. “Every woman who is a Conservative MP has had to fight to get where she is,” she wrote last month. “We do not have all-women shortlists or quotas. We are made of tougher stuff.” This theory certainly sounds more convincing than the one put forward by Lucy Powell, Sir Keir’s deputy. She recently suggested that Labour has never had a female leader because of “our political discourse in this country”...
Taxpayers will be forced to fund the Clacton by-election, after the Government indignantly rejected Nigel Farage’s offer to pay for it out of his own pocket (or at least, out of Reform’s). A spokesman for the MHCLG (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government) explained: “To maintain the independence and impartiality of the electoral process, the law is clear that the cost of running elections must be met from public funds, and not by candidates or political parties.” That may be so. But could that law be about to change? I ask because back in 2008, during the days of the last Labour government, the Tory MP David Davis did much the same thing as Mr Farage, by resigning to fight a snap by-election in his own seat. And one cabinet minister was so disgusted by this needless extravagance, he declared that Mr Davis should be made to foot the £80,000 bill himself. “I think there’s a bloody good case to be made for it,” thundered the then culture secretary, in an interview with the Left-wing magazine Progress. “Why should the resources at local level and national level be devoted to this? Why?” In case you’ve forgotten who the culture secretary was at that time, it was none other than Mr Andy Burnham. When he takes over as prime minister, therefore, will he reverse the Government’s decision, and accept Mr Farage’s offer? You never know. After all, the recent Makerfield by-election, and resultant mayoral election in Greater Manchester, could reportedly end up costing the public a combined £5m – which is a remarkable £4.92m more than Mr Davis’s by-election. So I’m sure Mr Burnham will be anxious to avoid incurring any more unnecessary expense."
Politics UK on X - "🚨 NEW: Andy Burnham has appointed Louise Haigh the rare role of First Secretary of State It was last held in 2021 and has seniority over all Secretaries of State. She has also been appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office"
Leo Kearse - see me on tour! Links in bio on X - "LEARN THE WORKPLACE RULES! Convicted of fraud and donate to Reform? That's bad. Convicted of fraud and appointed Secretary of State? That's good."
Convicted fraudster Louise Haigh stripped of oversight of fraud office
How the NGO-industrial complex corrupts UK politics - spiked - "The report recommends that all lobbying of government ministers, aides and middle-ranking mandarins – from WhatsApp chats to meetings at party conferences – is publicly declared on an easy-to-read database. Even those who don’t lobby the state for money would have to sign up to a register. That also goes for charities and pressure groups seeking to influence policy. The proposed new rules would hit Labour and progressive parties far more than the Conservatives, who have long been legally obliged to declare their contacts with advocates for the corporate world. Labour ministers and their departments constantly have their ears bent by the kinds of NGOs, pressure groups and the big campaigning charities that aren’t currently caught in the net, but they would be under the commission’s recommendations. If Amnesty International, the New Economics Foundation and the like want to continue setting up discreet workshops with Sir Humphrey’s top officials – or whispering in ministers’ ears about the beauty of open borders, wealth taxes or transgender activism – they would have to be open about it and have their meetings recorded for our benefit. This would come as a shock to the current progressive establishment, whose members have long acted as if the lobbying threat comes solely from billionaires and shills for multinational conglomerates. But this is both misleading and outdated. Today’s super-rich are more likely to fund a think-tank, or an international institute campaigning for a particular worldview, than to nobble ministers over an expensive lunch. When it comes to lever-pulling, these organisations excel most in covert influence. It is the charity-industrial complex – comprising many NGOs that are now sophisticated multimillion-pound transnational operations – that lobbies hardest... The boundaries between government and private-sector activity are now more fluid than ever. Many charities and non-profits are only nominally independent. In reality, they receive a large proportion of their income from the government itself, officially to help deliver a particular policy, but often to direct and apply it, too. Many such charities have a distinctly activist bias. There is not much difference between such organisations and lobbyists as regards their potential for influence on ministerial policy – they push for the policies they want and get rewarded financially... And what about public-sector bodies set up supposedly at arm’s length to advise ministers? The Ethics and Integrity Commission has airily dismissed any suggestion that they should be caught in the lobbying net. ‘Providing impartial, expert advice to government in the public interest is an integral part of their role and their governance’, the commission states. If only. The idea that, say, Natural England or English Heritage are just groups of well-meaning boffins offering the government impartial advice is absurd. Both organisations see it as their function to put pressure on the government to promote a particular interest, and have no hesitation in doing so. And that’s before you get to bodies like the Equality and Human Rights Commission or the office of the Children’s Commissioner for England, which have no compunction in putting pressure on government in matters often at odds with voters’ wishes – such as in strengthening the power of the human-rights lobby or banning the smacking of children. These may or may not be good policies, but we have just as much of a right to transparency from such bodies as we have from any other group set up to promote a particular point of view."
PeterSweden on X - "What a surprise. The new incoming British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has hired a former director at the far-left organization Hope Not Hate to be his Director of Political Strategy. Can you guess who has funded Hope Not Hate. None other than George Soros. This Hope Not Hate is known to not only work closely with, but even have antifa operatives write for them."
Burnham’s plan to ‘rewire’ politics will blow the fuse, warns Lord Speaker - "Andy Burnham’s plan to reform the House of Lords risks blowing a “constitutional fuse”, the Lord Speaker has warned. Lord Forsyth of Drumlean will warn the incoming prime minister against proposals to create a second elected chamber, thus “rewiring” Britain’s constitutional processes. Mr Burnham said last month that he wanted an “early change” in the House of Lords, and described an unelected second chamber as “quite scandalous”. He has backed plans to replace it with a “senate of the nations and regions”, a proposal first put forward in 2022, made up of elected representatives from across the country. In a rare intervention in a speech on Thursday evening, the Lord Speaker will question whether scrutinising UK-wide legislation should be done by regional delegates who face pressure from their own areas... Lord Forsyth will warn that having another elected chamber could result in a US Congress-style “gridlock”, where the upper chamber would “feel free to attempt to block or kill legislation”. He will add that local or regional representatives might feel pressure to “prioritise the needs of their own areas”, or have constituency work to deal with, unlike peers. Sir Keir Starmer finally succeeded in Labour’s decades-long attempt to abolish hereditary peers, but his successor has said he believes there are multiple stages on the road to reform."
Sadiq Khan is a terrible mayor – no wonder Starmer has given him a peerage - "One of the 26 is former MP Kitty Ussher, who in 2009 had to resign as a Treasury minister after being exposed as having dodged (albeit legally) £17,000 in capital gains tax by temporarily redesignating her main home for one month. Still, now she has a permanent role lording it over the rest of us. Ain’t life grand? While Ms Ussher is a relatively obscure figure, her fellow Lords nominee Sir Sadiq Khan is anything but. As a thrice-elected Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq is a familiar national presence – indeed an all-too-familiar presence for those of us who live in the capital and are not his biggest fans. The fact he has been re-elected twice might imply that he has been a successful mayor. He has not. All it shows is that London is a strongly Labour-leaning city. Although the Tories can win, they have to have an exceptional candidate to do so. That has not been the case since Boris Johnson in 2008 and 2012. Sir Sadiq’s record is the very opposite of successful. Take housing, an issue of immediate and pressing need. Khan began with a target of between 23,900-27,200 affordable home starts. When it became clear he was miles away from this, he simply cut the target by 22 per cent to 17,800-19,000 starts. Just last week, City Hall figures showed he had missed that too, with only 14,335 starts. But even that figure flatters him. In 2024-25 just 8,184 homes were actually completed in London, against an assessed need of 45,500 a year. More than 43,000 homes counted as “started” are unfinished. Then turn to crime. Knife crime in London rose by nearly 72 per cent between 2015-16 and June 2025. Khan boasts that it is now falling – down 7 per cent in the year to August 2025. Well, yes. But when you have presided over a 72 per cent rise, it takes a large degree of political chutzpah to boast that the latest figure is down by seven per cent. Shoplifting has more than doubled in over a third of London’s 32 boroughs since 2016. Over the whole of London, it has risen by more than 50 per cent in the last five years. And “theft from the person”, such as pickpocketing, has almost tripled since 2016. And we Londoners pay through the nose for this. The mayor’s share of the council tax bill was £276 for a Band D household when Khan took office in 2016. It is now £510.51: a rise of 85 per cent. Not once has Khan condemned the hate marches that now regularly bring much of central London to a halt and leave many Jews feeling that they are no-go areas. He has suggested that those who chant “from the river to the sea” are not anti-Semitic and has attacked the use of the label “hate marches”. And after the Chief Rabbi criticised the mayor’s call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza while Hamas was still in control, Khan went after him, suggesting the Chief Rabbi was motivated by anti-Muslim prejudice. Khan did later apologise, but only after a huge backlash. This kind of language is something of a theme for Khan. When some Londoners protested against his plan to expand the ultra-low-emission zone, he suggested they were “joining hands” with “the far-Right”. In most walks of life such a record of failure and incendiary remarks would be damning, even career ending. But in London politics, it means Khan is deemed as qualified to be handed a lifetime role as a legislator in the Lords."
