John Booth

Journalist, questioner, cricketer, cyclist, photographer, musician and activist

[Afshin Rattansi @afshinrattansi]

Former US🇺🇸 Treasury Official: 9/11 was the US’ new ‘Pearl Harbour’ moment to fight wars in the Middle East to establish GREATER ISRAEL over the last 25 years.’

‘It was during the George W. Bush administration, that we were hearing about the need to destroy seven countries in the Middle East in five years.

9/11 became the new Pearl Harbour for launching the American intervention in the Middle East on behalf of Greater Israel.

American troops and American money was used to destroy Libya, Iraq, Syria and turn them into dysfunctional countries. There’s no functioning state there.

We now see that Israel has the United States at work on Iran and Israel has again renewed its attacks on Lebanon. So the agenda is very much real, it’s very much in operation.

Washington has been fighting the Greater Israel cause for Netanyahu, for the first quarter of the 21st century. We’ve been at war for 25 years.’

-Prof. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Treasury Secretary for Economic Policy, speaking to us on Going Underground

[Palestina En Español 🎒 @PalestinaVence]

⚽️¡Así se denuncia la corrupción de la FIFA!

Simon Brodkin volvió a hacerlo: lanzó billetes de dinero falso sobre Gianni Infantino y los directivos de la FIFA durante una conferencia de prensa.

Mientras venden entradas a 10.000 dólares para el Mundial 2026 y convierten “el deporte del pueblo” en un negocio exclusivo para millonarios, este activista les recordó en la cara su codicia y corrupción.

FIFA ya no disimula: es un club de élites que se enriquece a costa de los aficionados.

[sarah @sahouraxo]

Israel just executed Ali in South Lebanon.

He wasn’t a fighter.

He was a paramedic.

Israel killed him while he was on the frontlines saving lives.

Israel has now murdered over 135 medics in Lebanon in just 3 months.

And not a peep from the complicit international community.

[The Fraud @StarmertheFraud]

CALL FOR EVIDENCE: THE LABOUR TOGETHER PARLIAMENT

Please share widely and help us expose the hyper-factional remaking of the Parliamentary Labour Party by the Labour Together/Morgan McSweeney project.

Submissions to be made to [email protected]

Shadow World Investigations (SWI) and Paul Holden - author of The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney and the Crisis of British Democracy – are today announcing a new investigative project about the transformation of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) under the Labour Together Project.

This long-germinating project is soliciting evidence about how Labour Party processes were used (and abused) to manipulate the selection of Labour MP candidates who now make up the majority of the PLP.

Sir Keir Starmer was the frontman for a scandalous political project that spent the best part of a decade remaking the Labour Party along rigidly factional and exclusionary lines.

The most consequential transformation was of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Two thirds of the Labour MPs currently sitting in the House of Commons were selected through a process tightly controlled by Morgan McSweeney and his allies, allegedly with direct (albeit informal) input from Peter Mandelson. Labour Together, and its key donors, then spent over £2 million on getting this intake of MPs elected.

The selection process that McSweeney oversaw was beset by allegations of misconduct and irregularities so widespread that veteran journalist Michael Crick warned of potential ‘corruption’. One MP selection has resulted in criminal charges being filed against Labour officials.

These are the MPs that not just determine the future of the country but will play a key role in either making or breaking the political fortunes of whoever next succeeds Starmer.

In a follow up to The Fraud, SWI, Paul Holden and Jessica Murray will be embarking upon ‘The Labour Together Parliament’ project to examine the legitimacy of the process that resulted in the current Parliament, upon which any Labour government will rest.

What we need as a first step is information.

We would like evidence of any wrongdoing or stitch-ups during the selection process. We would like to build a collection of evidence about the ways in which bureaucrats forced through or manipulated the selection process, including in the finalisation of longlists and shortlists, and, where it happened, the decision being removed from local democratic decision making altogether.

We are particularly interested in the vote tallies from every Labour candidate selection between 2022 and 2024. These have not been routinely published.

We are particularly interested in tallies that distinguish between postal/online/and in-person votes. These different vote tallies would have been provided to losing candidates. Sometimes they were only read out in selection meetings. We are not only looking for results that seem ‘dodgy’ – but all vote tallies, including those that are not in the least suspicious. This will allow us to build a holistic database and rigorously test different hypotheses.

We would also like tallies from candidate selections in seats that weren’t Labour targets and didn’t result in any MP. Ideally, it would be great if we could be provided with contemporaneous evidence of these vote tallies – such as a screenshot of a message or email relaying the result.

We would also be interested in narrowing down which CLPs used Anonyvoter for MP selection, even if the vote tallies are not available.

Please send any information you think is relevant to the selection of the current PLP [email protected].

And please share this call for evidence widely!

[Euro-Med Monitor @EuroMedHR]

“I am a paediatrician who provides medical care to patients, the wounded, and the most vulnerable in the Strip. I carried out my work in accordance with international law and humanitarian standards. My detention is unjust and arbitrary.”

A message from the Palestinian doctor detained in Israeli prisons, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, conveyed through his lawyer during today’s latest court session.

[Andrew Feinstein @andrewfeinstein]

Join me in writing to the Home Secretary to demand she takes action to stop the Great Israeli Real Estate Event 2026 from going ahead in London. This disgraceful event will involve the brazen sale of land stolen from Palestinians. https://t.co/QXRUgEybSP

[Middle East Eye @MiddleEastEye]

A campaign of ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Bedouins in the occupied West Bank is being driven not by rogue extremists, but by the Israeli state, according to a major new report.

Amnesty International published the new 150-page report on Wednesday.
It found that Israeli authorities were committing the crime against humanity of forcible transfer, through a “state-driven campaign of ethnic cleansing targeting Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities in Area C of the occupied West Bank”.

[GGEC @ggectee]

Abducted, incarcerated, tortured. The horrific detention of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is a graphic reminder of this regime’s capacity for evil.

As here on the streets of Glasgow, we must keep our attention on Dr Hussam and all the other illegally held and brutalised detainees.

[Middle East Eye @MiddleEastEye]

"The pronouncements of a man who advocates for the interests of billionaire backers, such as the Zionist Larry Ellison, and who takes money to launder the reputations of dictators, are treated in the UK like Moses bringing the commandments down from Mount Sinai"

✍️ Opinion by Barry Malone
https://t.co/0p8Fqr9HZG

[Declassified UK @declassifiedUK]

The pro-Israel media is in meltdown over our campaign to hold to account Britons who have served for Israel.

Watch
👉 https://t.co/AtFnzj90oF

[LPC @landpalestine]

There are two kinds of people susan sarandon pays the price and was fired from Hollywood for saying stop killing children in Palestine

And the other gwyneth paltrow gets paid to market cities built upon the blood of children and the rubble of what was once their homeland

[Jonathan Cook @Jonathan_K_Cook]

Judge Johnson’s rogue manoeuvrings in the rigged trials of the Palestine Action activists have so incensed the legal profession that thousands signed a petition demanding that he take the chance last Monday to recuse himself from the sentencing hearing.

He, of course, refused to do so.

They call his behaviour during the trial “biased” and “discriminatory conduct” and have referred him to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office.

Here is David Whyte, professor of law at Queen Mary’s University of London, who handed the petition to the JCIO, explaining another reason why so many legal professionals are outraged by Judge Johnson’s actions:

He has shown exceptional “cruelty and vindictiveness” in holding the activists in remand for more than three times the normal maximums, even when the prosecution was not asking for them to be remanded, and for refusing them bail between their convictions and sentencing.

The Court of Appeal is due to issue a ruling on the government’s appeal against an earlier High Court decision declaring Palestine Action’s proscription unlawful this coming Monday, days after Judge Johnson’s sentencing of the Filton activists.

If this is all starting to look like theatre, that it because it is. In dictatorships, these are called show trials. Everyone understands that the outcome is predetermined. Everyone understands that justice is non-existent. The verdict is entirely political. It is a faux-legal rationalisation of what the security state wants.

Judge Johnson is the perfect judge to play that part.

The courts will do exactly what is expected of them unless they are worried that public revulsion will discredit their decision. Now is the time to raise our voices.

This is an extract from my latest article Legal profession revolt against the UK judge whose job is to protect Israel's genocide. Find a link to the rest in the reply post ⬇️

[Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth]

Asked about Belfast Mark Rowley talks about people overseas whipping up division to create disorder & he specifically mentions Russian & Iranian state actors

Its not Russia & Iran orchestrating the far right violence we're seeing, but Rowley has a job to do & he's doing it

[Cat Hobbs @CatHobbs]

The brilliant @Feargal_Sharkey sums it up

"The whole industry’s got to go. Absolutely, without exception"

Time to end the privatisation rip off diverting 1/3 OF YOUR WATER BILL into shareholder dividends and debt

Are you listening @DefraGovUK ?

https://t.co/s4lIJWp8O1

[Middle East Eye @MiddleEastEye]

"The truth is, though, that Blair is living out perhaps the most nefarious post-premiership in British history - and it is past time that his 'interventions' are ignored as the thoughts of a man who has been proven catastrophically wrong time and time again"

✍️ Opinion by Barry Malone
https://t.co/57hL4Hhic6

[Jonathan Cook @Jonathan_K_Cook]

A popular backlash cornered the High Court into declaring the proscription of Palestine Action unlawful – a decision the government is appealing.

That has led to another unprecedented situation: police are still arresting people for holding placards in support of the group, despite the courts ruling that the basis for such arrests is unlawful.

The law has never looked more of an ass.

Which is why Starmer’s government is pinning its hopes on the judge in the so-called Filton trial riding to the rescue – making an example of four activists who targeted an Israeli factory in the UK making killer drones for use in Gaza.

This coming Friday, Judge Jeremy Johnson will pass sentence on the activists, who were convicted by a jury of the relatively minor offence of criminal damage in the second of two trials the judge so carefully rigged.

Judge Johnson has not been shy about showing where his loyalties lie. Not to the law, but to the British security state.

Which should hardly come as a surprise, given his background.

Judge Johnson made it to the bench after years serving as the most favoured barrister of the “secret state”, representing the intelligence services, the ministry of defence and the police. His working environment of choice as a lawyer was behind-closed-doors prosecutions held out of view of the public or proper legal scrutiny.

There were many extraordinary, anomalous moments in the two trials. But perhaps the most glaring was Judge Johnson’s efforts to get the main defence barrister in the first trial, Rajiv Menon KC, jailed for contempt of court simply for noting to the jury in his summing up speech that they had a hundreds-of-years-old right in law to acquit.

Judge Johnson’s behaviour was so unprecedented and certain to have a chilling effect on the ability of defence barristers to represent their clients – the Filton defendants dismissed their barristers from summing up in their second trial to avoid their lawyers facing prison for doing their job and defending them – that the Court of Appeal had no choice but to overrule Judge Johnson’s contempt proceedings against Menon.

Former British ambassador Craig Murray has rightly observed: “Many people will surely conclude, it is Judge Johnson who should be in jail."

But even with the convictions for criminal damage secured under these rigged conditions, Judge Johnson is still in a position to cause more harm to the rule of law in Friday’s sentencing hearing.

He has reserved to himself the right to sentence the four anti-genocide activists not just for the criminal damage charge they were convicted of after his rigged trial, but – once again in an unprecedented move – to treat those criminal convictions as if they were for terrorism offences.

That means he can impose a longer sentence, more draconian prison conditions and more onerous, life-long parole conditions after their release.

The jury knew none of this when they were considering whether to convict. Judge Johnson placed a gagging order on his decision during the trial which meant the information was withheld from the jury and could not be reported until after the verdict. The gag was broken only by foreign media and Zarah Sultana, who used her parliamentary privilege to reveal Judge Johnson’s government-friendly, anti-justice machinations.

In yet another unprecedented feature to the trial, this will be the first time in British history that someone accused of criminal damage is sentenced as a terrorist. Judges were only given these extraordinary powers in a highly controversial amendment in 2021 to counter-terrorism legislation.

Judge Johnson’s logic for taking advantage of his extra powers in this case is quite extraordinary too. He argues that, in destroying Elbit’s killer drones, the activists were seeking to “influence” the Israeli government to change its policy in Gaza – that is, to stop committing a genocide.

Putting pressure on governments is what terrorists try to do, he argues, so this must mean the anti-genocide activists are terrorists.

Opposition to the genocide, in Judge Johnson’s view, has to be treated as an aggravating factor, not a mitigating one.

It is all the more astounding that Judge Johnson is using this argument when he refused to allow the jury to hear any evidence of the activists’ larger political motivations: that they wanted to stop British complicity in Israel’s genocide by targeting a factory that made the drones for use in that genocide.

Remember, all this is happening as Starmer’s government makes unprecedented moves to end many jury trials in Britain, leaving us to the mercy of judges like Jeremy Johnson.

As Defend Our Juries notes, the government is looking to create “an extraordinary and deeply authoritarian precedent, allowing countless more protesters to be tried for an ordinary offence, but secretly sentenced as terrorists, without juries knowing this when they convict”.

This is an extract from my latest article Legal profession revolt against the UK judge whose job is to protect Israel's genocide. Find a link to the rest in the reply post ⬇️

[Clare Hinchcliffe @Subversivite]

This is the clearest explanation & analysis of what is happening in my daughter's (Filton 25) case I have ever read. Thank you @Jonathan_K_Cook

PLEASE read this to understand the tidal wave of injustice these young prisoners of conscience are facing

[Mosab Abu Toha @MosabAbuToha]

Just in: A video from inside a court in occupied Jerusalem shows Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya appearing via video link and attempting to speak with his attorney before Israeli court security blocked the screen and terminated the call, preventing journalists from filming the exchange or the video appearance.

I listened carefully to what the attorney was saying to Dr. Abu Safiya. It appeared that Dr. Abu Safiya could not hear him. The attorney repeatedly stated that he could neither see nor hear Dr. Abu Safiya after his “captors turned off the camera.” He also informed him that some people were present in the courtroom to show their support and that they were waiting for the judge to arrive so that he could be brought back on screen before the court addressed the appeal.

This is Israel’s democracy. Dr. Abu Safiya has been subjected to starvation, abuse, and cruel torture, and this latest development only adds to concerns about the conditions he has endured and the lack of public scrutiny surrounding his case.

[كأس العالم™ @TrendEPL]

🚨🚨🚨🚨جوزيف بلاتر (رئيس الفيفا سابقًا) :

لا يوجد أحد أكثر رسمية من الحكم، وإذا رفضت دولة دخول حكم لا ينبغي إقامة كأس العالم في مثل هذا البلد.

[Omar Artan @OmarArtand1]

I am deeply grateful for the overwhelming support, encouragement, and kind messages I have received from people around the world. Your solidarity has reminded me that football unites us beyond borders. Thank you to everyone.