THE UK STRATEGIC DEFENCE REVIEW WILL ONLY DELIVER SECURITY FOR ARMS COMANIES—NOT ANYONE USING A FOOD BANK ~ Tablitha Troughton ~ Sometimes you do have to love people in Britain. Consider the almost universal reaction to the current prime minister announcing that we’re all now on a war footing: Fuck off. These are the people who voted for Boaty McBoatface. These are the people who sent Rage Against the Machine to the top of the Christmas charts. Last month they marched again, in vast, mainly unreported numbers, half a million, in London for Palestine; this week they surrounded Parliament with a Red Line. They are increasingly taking direct action against the war machine; they have, nationwide, from the start, overwhelmingly backed an immediate ceasefire; they support, moreover, a full arms embargo on Israel, and sanctions. But in front of them parade a little troop of war enthusiasts. Their faces are stern, their phrases heavy clunks of measured doom. “We are being directly targeted by states with advanced military forces” the voice of Starmer intoned, on a now-deleted promo video, as AI strings in the background played ascending horror-movie scales. It was replaced by this Labour war promo video, where the music producer has instead typed “give me a 1980’s DJ on ketamine getting excited about 12 new attack submarines. Start with drums”. “It seems mad”, begins veteran BBC commentator Andrew Marr, now on LBC, briefly raising hope. “But of course, it’s not mad”, Marr continued, with the air of a man who’s said this to his own reflection several times that morning. “Britain’s defence review has grand ambition. Now it needs the money”, the BBC agreed. “The UK must raise defence spending” agitated the Telegraph. Who is the enemy? Who are these “states”? Russia, of course. And China. Russia and China? What will they do to us, precisely? No-one is asking, which is presumably why the Russian embassy sent out a little tweet confiding that Russia had no desire to attack the UK. “We are not interested in doing so, nor do we need to” it explained, as if to a two year old. And yet, here we are, forced to contemplate perpetual blackmail and extortion (£15 billion a year? £30 billion?) to pay arms corporations to create more abominable weapons, for no given reason, other than soundbites. “The first duty of government is to keep the British people safe and secure at home”, we are told, which will come as a surprise to the millions using food banks, but on the other hand sounds like a perfect description of a prison population. The “world has changed”. More weapons will give us “peace through strength”; we will be “secure at home and strong abroad”. Despite studies showing that spending public money on just about anything other than military industries produces more jobs and more general economic benefit, there will be, we are assured, “a defence dividend”. Because the ambition does not stop there. Labour are also going to “create a British Army which is 10x more lethal”, to “deter from the land”. Ten times more lethal? And deter whom, you may ask. Whatever, the British public is being lined up to pay for this “more lethal” army, and to live with its “land drone swarms”—and, subsequently, with its amputees and corpses. Perhaps this is all, or at least partly, a con; a desperate attempt by a flailing prime minister to sound important; a recycling of existing commitments with a huge dose of flannel. Cynics will point to the UK’s recent track record in just about everything, so that visions of glorious defiance fade away, and we’re left looking at a half-built sub, and a couple of crumbling arms factories re-purposed as pig sheds. Still, taking the Labour administration at its word (and really, it has been quite solid on the authoritarian, death-dealing side of things), the UK is heading enthusiastically towards a militaristic state, with hundreds of thousands of school children in cadet forces, youth unemployment ‘solved’ by army recruitment, and an economy increasingly based on increasing subsidies for the multinational arms industry. Meanwhile it will ensure that nuclear weapons continue to proliferate, while the inherent apocalyptic threat, once recognised and addressed, will continue unquestioned. Whether this vision will be fulfilled during this administration’s gig, or is handed over to the next, equally disposable, administration, is open to question. Meanwhile, the leader of the world’s most dangerous country is acting out, in public, an impression of unbridled, virulent instability, even as his Security Council veto is used against a resolution demanding an Israeli ceasefire. Since the UK is, and plans to remain, dependent on US weapon delivery systems, it must at least appear to placate him. As Trump and Starmer continue, in their separate ways, to demonstrate exactly why having leaders is an appalling idea, we appear to be faced with no choice. We are being treated like powerless fools, or credulous cowards. It may be useful to start asking exactly what this small island gets out of doubling as a US military base, and to remember that we are neither. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Image: Number 10 on Flickr The post Starmer’s Big Idea: A militarised, impoverished Britain appeared first on Freedom News.

ANDY MEINKE JOINS US FOR THE WEEKLY WAFFLE, LOOKING THIS WEEK AT LABOUR’S THRASHING ABOUT AS IT TRIES TO SIMULTANEOUSLY BACKTRACK ON WILDLY UNPOPULAR CUTS, PUFF UP ITS CAPITAL AND DEFENCE SPENDING CREDENTIALS, AND MAINTAIN AN AIR OF PARSIMONIOUS PENNY PINCHING. As billions are set to be put aside for yet more BAE subsidies, the question arises as to whether the anti-war campaigning on Palestine will energise broader peace activism, while at a lower level the newly-installed Reform councils are bracing for inspections of their coffers. Is that going anywhere? Probably not. The post Anarchist News Review: Budgets, Palestine organising and Reform Doge’ing repsonsibility appeared first on Freedom News.