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Diary of a (Maybe) Retired Pastor

Tag: UK government

  • Is The UK State Biased Against Palestine?

    mayberetiredpastor

    Is The UK State Biased Against Palestine?

    You shall not render an unjust judgement; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbour.

    Leviticus 19:15. Old Testament, The Bible

    The reactions of the Home Secretary (Yvette Cooper), the Prime Minister and the BBC Governors to the Gaza-related protests by Palestine Action and Bob Vylan give cause for concern. Palestine Action made the headlines by successfully breaking into an RAF Airbase and spray-painting  an Hercules aircraft engine. Yvette Cooper’s reaction was to immediately proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation (1). Shortly after, Bob Vylan, during his set at Glastonbury Festival, led the audience in chants denouncing the Israel Defence Force, an act that the Prime Minister then denounced publicly as “appalling hate speech” (2) and which led to furore in the BBC with the result that the video was removed from the BBC iPlayer and a number of senior staff suspended (3).

    As a protest group, Palestine Action appears to have conducted several high profile acts of vandalism against a number of companies and establishments whose activities they feel support the Israeli war in Gaza. Their purpose appears to be to push the UK government into reducing support of Israel’s military. They have apparently cost some companies large amounts of money to repair the damage done.   On this last occasion they have succeeded in seriously embarrassing the government and the RAF. But does this warrant their proscription as a terrorist organisation? Surely the criminal law is sufficient to address serious damage without proscribing it as terrorist activity? It does seem that their activities as a protest group have been just too effective for the government (and perhaps the targets) to stomach and so the Home Secretary has chosen to define them as a terrorist group to silence them.

    As many have pointed out (see e.g. 4), Bob Vylan’s words must be set alongside the actual deeds of the IDF  in Gaza where appalling acts, if not actual war crimes, have clearly been committed and continue to be committed on a daily basis and yet the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary remain questionably muted about the latter while full of righteous indignation concerning the former and Palestine Action. Where is the impartiality and balance?

    It is difficult to escape the suspicion that our government institutions are infected by an entrenched bias towards Israel and against Gaza and Palestine. One wishes, as many do I’m sure, for a more genuinely even-handed, and courageous government, unafraid of the power of others – whether great or small. The Prime Minister, self-confessedly is not a person of religious faith, but I assure him that he does and will stand before a Judge who will hold great and small to account.    

    1. https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-06-23/debates/25062337000014/PalestineActionProscription   acc. 13.7.25 14:18
    2. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c33514nryy1o   acc. 13.7.25 14:35
    3. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czjkmlj1348o   acc. 13.7.25 14:53
    4. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1BA75C8hAu/ 

  • Abolish the House of Commons and not the House of Lords!

    mayberetiredpastor

    Abolish the House of Commons and not the House of Lords!

    So, surprise, surprise, the Rwanda Bill has become law with none of the amendments proposed by the House of Lords having been incorporated. The amendments inserted by the Lords sought to ensure that our country respects international law and protect fundamental matters of individual justice. The Lords pushed the process to the limit of their powers. They were clearly unhappy with the shape of the bill as presented by the government. But the Rwanda Bill has become so much the lynch pin of the government’s immigration policy that no amendments by the House of the Lords which, in their view, will “weaken” (i.e make less unjust!) it could be accepted, and, inevitably, the government has forced it through the House of Commons and it is now law.

    Some people will think “what’s the point of the House of Lords then?” and then think that the Lords needs radical reform even abolition. Certainly, many think that the unelected Lords does not sit well within a democratic society. Such views are mistaken. Of all the institutions  of our democracy the House of the Lords is the one that actually works! In its present form, it is intended to review and revise proposed legislation by the House of Commons. It is appointed and not elected so that it can draw together individuals who have deep experience of the many areas of civic life and expertise in the many areas of our society. It runs an “expert” and “well-informed” eye over proposed legislation and proposes amendments to improve or safeguard important principles. This is exactly what the Lords did with the Rwanda Bill. Just because the Commons decided to reject the amendments by the Lords does not mean that it has failed of its purpose. And, precisely because the Lords is unelected, the Commons always has the last word.

    Contrary to what most people think, the least democratic and least effective institution in our democracy is the House of Commons. We think we are electing MP’s to represent our views. This is false. We are not electing representatives, we are electing voting fodder for the political parties. MPs do not vote on legislation because they think it is good or right, they vote because they are told to vote by their parties. Hence, we have seen that no amendments seriously reducing the arbitrary powers of the Rwanda Bill have passed in the Commons because the Tory MPs were told to vote for it by the government. The House of Commons is not a democratic institution. It is a machine designed to provide a democratic gloss for government legislation.