So while the Knesset passes a Palestinian death penalty bill, another Knesset bill – one that the UK has much more directly enabled, and which will lead to many, many death penalties being handed out – is about to get its second reading.

Let me tell you about it 🧵 The Prosecution of Participants of the October 7 Massacre Events Bill does what it says on the tin: goes after "Hamas terrorists and their accomplices, who perpetrated hostile acts, murder, sexual offenses, kidnapping and looting" from 7-10 October and against hostages.

SCOOP: Earlier this month, Redbridge council – a Labour stronghold – told Rosa Gomez it had removed her from her seat for not attending meetings. But why hadn’t she? The answer will shock even the most jaded Labour observers 🧵 Redbridge Council’s answer to Novara Media was simple: it was simply following the rules. Under local govt law, a councillor who fails to attend council meetings for 6 months automatically forfeits their seat. That’s not the whole truth, however.

I wrote 4,000 words on the escalating attempts to portray the Green party as antisemitic, and why it's proving a struggle.

A thread on some of what I found 🧵 So “Green antisemitism” was more or less a non-story (below is a rare exception) until the party’s profile began to spike post-2019, in part due to Polanski’s cultivation of “eco-populism” as deputy leader.

Here at the High Court today for the first hearing of Raffi Berg's libel case against Owen Jones.

It's a preliminary hearing to set meaning of article, whether it's defamatory and respondent's defence, if any. The case revolves around this article by Jones, published by @DropSiteNews in December 2024 dropsitenews.com/p/bbc-civil-wa…

SCOOP: The UK gave £90,000 to an Israeli report claiming that Hamas used sexual violence as a “weapon of war”.

The Israeli government used the UK-funded report in a massive propaganda campaign, while Israeli officials called it a “significant public diplomacy tool”. In March 2024, UN special rep Pramila Patten found that there were “reasonable grounds” to say there were “instances of sexual violence” on 7 October in “multiple locations”. She did not conclude the violence was systematic, and added it didn’t justify further hostilities.

Last week, the media declared a “partial victory” for Sandie Peggie, who sued the NHS for letting a trans colleague use the women’s changing room. In fact, the case was a flop. The gender-critical movement might be persuading journalists, but it’s failing with judges 🧵


Though the judge found that NHS Fife had harassed Peggie, this was on procedural grounds: by taking too long to investigate a complaint against her, for example.

Today @declassifiedUK revealed that govt advisors told Yvette Cooper that proscribing Palestine Action would be “unprecedented” bc unlike the 81 others on the list PA mainly damaged property.

It was unprecedented. It was also foreseeable. A thread on UK counter-terror history 🧵 The UK first began legislating against terrorism in the British Empire, in response to armed uprisings in India and Ireland in the 1910s & 20s. The proscribed organisations list came in with the 1974 Prevention of Terrorism Act, and for many years included just 1 entry: the IRA.

.@Pal_action isn’t being proscribed because they are terrorists, but because they have been astonishingly effective at disrupting the work of Israel’s largest weapons company.

An inexhaustive, chronological thread of the group’s achievements to date 🧵 1. Shut down Oldham factory, January 2022

Elbit Systems announces it’s selling Ferranti P&C for £9m following 18 months of action from PA, including breaking into the factory, smashing windows and occupying the rooftop.

theoldhamtimes.co.uk/news/19840066.…

This reporting from the BBC's gender correspondent is both incorrect and, frankly, abusive.

First, Bettiza claims that Roxanne Tickle sued because she "identifies as a woman". No: she did so because she *is* a woman by law, something the Australian court has now confirmed.

https://twitter.com/SofiaBettiza/status/1826886956413829258

Second, Tickle makes clear above that the app CEO Sall Grover's persistent misgendering made her suicidal. Knowing this, Bettiza allows Grover to repeat her claim that Tickle is a man. This is a flagrant dereliction of journalistic standards and ethics.

The fact that a senior civil servant who specialised in assessing arms exports to Israel has ended his 18-year career because he thinks the Foreign Office "may be complicit in war crimes", and not a single national outlet has reported it, is frightening. We have a captive media.

https://twitter.com/HindHassanNews/status/1824509627796439188

In a healthy media ecosystem, this story would be ruinous for the Labour party, particularly one so keen to assert its reliance on experts (hence all the quangos) and to restore the credibility the civil service so relentlessly attacked by Cummings et al.

To anyone who thinks Labour will be the lesser of two evils on Palestine: we are weeks away from the head of We Believe In Israel potentially becoming a minister of state. A Starmer govt will be significantly more ideological about perpetuating the genocide than a Sunak one.

https://twitter.com/LabourNorth/status/1795903561076711692

It was Cameron who in 2010 described Gaza as a "prison camp". He's also described himself (to rightwing Jewish audiences) as a Zionist, but it clearly isn't as integral to his worldview. Keir Starmer is more like Joe Biden: deeply, irrationally sentimental about Israel.

Something incredibly dark about Diane Abbott being silenced on her abuse in the House of Commons while her bullies in the Labour party are permitted to politically capitalise on it

https://twitter.com/jrc1921/status/1767544799060758771

HAPPENING NOW: Hundreds of people are staging a sit-in at Charing Cross station in London, chanting "Ceasefire now!" Few police in the station right now, but dozens of vans parked outside the station and along the Strand.

Imagine they'll give the protesters a few mins before moving in to impose a section 14 (of the public order act 2023, which limits demos) & start making arrests.

Nothing could be better proof of Starmer's total indifference to anti-semitism than his use of it to oust his enemies. There are real-life Jews being shot up by real-life fascists in Halle, in Pittsburgh, and we're nothing to him but political tools. It's terrifying. Of course Starmer doesn't care that Driscoll shared a platform with Loach – he did the same himself – nor does he believe that this makes him a threat to Jews. To Starmer, anti-semitism is just an effective way to undermine people you don't like.

Let me get this straight: @Baddiel only apologised to Jason Lee, 25 years after he blacked up and impersonated him, so he could *film it for his new telly show*? A show about how *anti-semitism is the most under-recognised form of racism*? Lee's Mum died before she could hear Baddiel apologise – but as soon as he landed a book deal and a Channel 4 slot, it magically materialised.

At the @eiecampaign rally in King's X, London for @novaramedia. Some panto from Chris from @CWUnews to kick us off

NEW: @Keir_Starmer photographed at Labour conference with Asra Anjum, an associate of Apsana Begum's ex-husband who oversaw Begum's trigger ballot.

Starmer has not contacted Begum since she returned to work a week ago. Anjum, procedure secretary for Poplar & Limehouse CLP, previously emailed Begum while she was off sick leave to say that additional affiliates would be participating in the trigger ballot.

The party had previously assured Begum that she had seen the full affiliate list.

About to go on Radio 2 to speak to Jeremy Vine about Liz Truss's meltdown! Not sure how Liz couldn't get a national radio slot, it seems they'll give one to anyone these days

Mystery interviewer for Keir Starmer Q&A turns out to be Gary Neville. Starmer extremely excited and proceeded to kick over a bottle of water. Asked for his advice for the Labour leader, Neville tells Starmer to "play left of centre" and "do nice passes to the left wing because they're a bit noisy".