The other day I took part in a seminar organised by perhaps the world’s most famous human rights organisation.

The subject was UN efforts to end mass atrocities & the need to prevent countries blocking the UN doing so.

Something unexpected happened.

A 🧵/1. Much of the session focused on the use of international law, & on the role of the UN Security Council, particularly its veto-wielding five permanent members, China, France, Russia, the UK & the USA. /2.

A Study in Scarlet

The human suffering of 7 October & since renders any but sociopaths deeply distressed. We're all covered in blood. Perhaps you're now angry with me for "moral relativism" or another modern deadly sin. Reading on may not help. But I hope you will.

A long🧵/1. The most obvious reason for distress is the carnage. Then feelings of impotence & rage. Then, for the more honestly reflective, a recognition of complicity & guilt.

There is no "clean" way out. Nor has there ever been.

Don't be angry. Be determined. And realistic. /2.

The US and us

Current world events are both highly distressing in many respects, and highly clarifying.

Whether we're in the US, of it, or neither; interested in the US or not; supportive of the US or critical - the US is indispensable, and unavoidable.

A shortish thread. /1. When (or if ...) the US loses its leverage, anywhere significant, it spells deep trouble for us all.

If the US uses its leverage badly, we're also in deep trouble.

The UN, and the world, depend on the US using its leverage, and well. /2.

Israel-Palestine

You’re right, of course, @McFaul.

And you know this subject well. But many who are now, rightly, taking a close interest, don’t.

So, as a former policy-maker with relevant background, I offer some thoughts for social media users.

A 🧵/1.

https://twitter.com/mcfaul/status/1712702847136260411

The kinds of ultimate resolution under discussion require a few things.

I’ll start with acceptance by all of Israel’s right to exist within internationally recognised borders. (Presumably those would be, or would be no less than, the pre-1967 “six day war” borders). /2.

In the current situation much commentary appears to assume an understanding of the views of “Jews”, “Israelis” or “Israeli Jews” which … let’s just say, doesn’t obviously correspond to reality.

A few facts might help.

So here goes, from July 2023.

A 🧵/1. Unless otherwise stated, the results quoted are views of “Israeli Jews”, excluding don’t knows.

“What political strategy should the next govt adopt on the Palestinian issue?”

60% support peace, based on a two-state solution or a single state with full equal rights for all. /2.

It really - really - isn’t a coincidence.

Stand up and fight. Just in case you’re sceptical, of course one photo isn’t proof on its own.

So: look back over the Oswald Mosley archive. And Mussolini, whom he imitated. And Hitler. And the (brilliant) representations of them in popular culture - eg Roderick Spode in “Jeeves & Wooster”.

You know this, @RoryStewartUK, but …

… that’s why we have a system in which a permanent, unelected, executive government (“Civil Service”), over which ministers - drawn from the governing parliamentary party by a PM with a Commons majority - are from time to time placed. /1.

https://twitter.com/rorystewartuk/status/1700907268261269519

It is little understood in our national discourse (although it certainly is by you) that the entire system necessarily depends on the unelected, permanent government doing the vast bulk of all the actual governing - in the name of (& sometimes via) the Secretary of State … /2.

According to @YouGov immigration & asylum is *not* the most important issue voters think the country faces.

Not close.

This after a relentless, near hysterical government campaign demonising “illegals”, lawyers, “the left”, the ECHR …

What’s up?

A 🧵/1. According to @YouGov, asked to choose the top three issues facing the country 40% of all adults include immigration & asylum.

That’s a significant number.

But it’s nowhere near the highest.

45% do so for health.

And 60% for the economy. /2.

On 7 August 2008 Russia invaded Georgia, in a “peace enforcement operation”.

In London, I was called to the Foreign Office. I rushed to King Charles Street. A crisis unit needed to be led.

The Russia crisis never stopped.

It’s long past time to face the grim facts.

A 🧵/1. The initial frenetic, 24/7 crisis management - with a baby on the way, my wife paid the price of neglect to which many diplomats’ spouses over the years can attest - gave way to a strategic effort to recover from what was, though many didn’t see it, a geopolitical disaster. /2.

Update: Coutts resignation, high street bank shares falling, government still pushing

A 🧵:

The @CouttsandCo CEO, Peter Flavel, has resigned, saying:

“In the handling of Mr Farage’s case we have fallen below the bank’s high standards of personal service. /1. “As CEO of Coutts it is right that I bear ultimate responsibility for this, which is why I am stepping down”.

It seems inevitable that the @NatWestGroup Chair, Sir Howard Davies, will now either jump or wait to be pushed (heavy shoving from No 10 is already underway). /2.

If we’re to believe Twitter/𝕏, the @Nigel_Farage/@CouttsandCo story doesn’t matter.

Wrong.

It matters for two big reasons:

▫️the truth’s being shredded: that’s highly dangerous

▫️what underlies this farrago is more dangerous still

First the truth: take a moment or two ⬇️/1. That interview with @Frances_Coppola, broadcast live earlier today on @BBCNews & attached again here ⬇️ for convenience, summarises soberly, expertly, comprehensively & - above all - truthfully, what actually happened.

And what was that? … /2.

Thursday was 20 July.

I thought about whether there was something I could helpfully add about the in many respects heroic effort on that date 79 years ago to assassinate Hitler.

In the process, I read something which hit me so hard I felt I had to share it.

A 🧵/1. The July plotters weren’t trying to remove Hitler because of what you’re about to read, even if his vile inhumanity disgusted many of them.

For us, though, it couldn’t be more relevant.

First, over to the historian Ian Kershaw and his book “Hitler” (Allen Lane, 2008). /2.

I urge every UK civil servant, diplomat, MP, minster & others, to read this UN @Refugees statement.

If the Bill becomes law, those who implement it will be acting illegally.

That will be premeditated.

And exceptionally dangerous for us all.

A 🧵 /1.

unhcr.org/news/press-rel… The moral case for the 1951 UN Refugee Convention & its 1967 Protocol should go without saying.

In any case, I don’t intend to rehearse it here.

I’ll merely note that, for excellent reasons, which still apply, the UK entered into the legally binding commitments they entail. /2.

Debt panic is back, as are terrible policy ideas driven by it.

Debt truth: a 🧵

UK government debt - wealth beyond imagination

💰in the 150 years to 1880 UK government debt rose over 10x, beyond $120B (it peaked around $150B from around 1830 to 1850)

[in constant 2011 $)] /1. 💰in the next 50 or so years, to the 1930s, it multiplied a further 5x to around $600B, (although it was around $100B in the first couple of decades of the 20th century)

💰it was still at a similar, $500B plus, level in the late 1960s, but with a peak of over $1,300B in 1947 /2.

Freedom of Movement, Immigration, Brexit & Public Opinion

Freedom of movement wasn’t the reason “Remain” lost in 2016.

It was hardly even *a* reason.

That isn’t the impression Brexit analyses tend to give.

Odd, that.

A long 🧵.

Get yourself a mug of strong tea. /1. The hills are alive with the sound of ugly anti-immigrant sentiment, Brexitist BS & lazy stereotyping.

One of the more interesting recent developments has been the call by @Tobias_Ellwood to rejoin the EU single market. Excellent (in my view). /2.

That it’s possible to claim, without sounding like a total crank, that the Cabinet Secretary, in hock to the interests of the party of the former PM who personally appointed him for political reasons, has issued a false, politicised accusation against an ex civil servant … /1. … (Sue Gray, in the “report” issued this morning on her job hunting activities), is unprecedented.

It profoundly undermines the Civil Service and - as a consequence - our constitution.

It contains the seeds of a disastrous breakdown of UK governance. /2.

Why did they let it happen?

It won’t take you long - especially following the recent @C4Dispatches about Johnson, the Lebedevs and the Putin regime - browsing through social media, to find such cries.

A long 🧵.

Get a good mug of tea, and perhaps a bottle of vodka, ready. /1. “It” refers to what looks to many like subversion of the United Kingdom’s government by Putin’s agents. “They” to the security services.

The answer couldn’t be more straightforward.

There are five such services. They all answer to government ministers. /2.

The Descent into Stupid

The UK government’s handling of the country’s vital trade relations, in the news again, is just one aspect of a multi-generational failure of leadership in Britain.

A wider Descent into Stupid is endangering the world.

A 🧵/1. The UK-specific failure spectacularly erupted in 1956 (Suez) and several times before and since. The most recent, most dangerous, perhaps fatal, example has been Brexit. /2.

Brits & non-Brits alike struggle to understand what’s going on in GB & NI. Not a new phenomenon. But acutely important. Brexit & other slow punctures endangering the UK Transit-Van-of-State look likely to result in a catastrophic blow-out.

The Conservative Party is key.

A 🧵/1. The Conservative Party is a near mythical beast, a shape-shifter & hugely successful political project. As Anthony Seldon puts it, they’ve been the party of protectionism & free trade; of Empire & decolonisation; of laisser-faire & the welfare state; of “Europe” & Brexit. /2.

“Labour will reconnect with Europe while remaining outside the EU, the Single Market & the Customs Union. We will fix the Brexit deal, …”.

Trouble is, @RachelReevesMP, this is fantasy. Unless the EU gives the UK a free ride. Which it won’t.

And so, the rest of your plan falls.

https://twitter.com/rachelreevesmp/status/1661391144192733190

P.S. Technically not being in the EU Single Market & Customs Union but being in substantially identical arrangements (assuming negotiable with EU, which it could be) would be a realistic potential way forward. But your refusal to countenance freedom of movement for people … /PS1

“During one of many episodes of derangement in Downing Street, Johnson is to be found raving: ‘I am meant to be in control. I am the führer. I’m the king who takes the decisions’”.

It gets worse. Much, much worse.

A brief 🧵/1. theguardian.com/books/2023/apr… “Calls with Emmanuel Macron would regularly feature the French president saying: ‘Boris, you’re just not being serious’”.

“Johnson deliberately stuffed his cabinets with mediocrities who knew they were expected to be ‘nodding dogs’ and whom he disdained as ‘the stooges’”. /2.