ALL OUT IN LONDON / 17 MAY / 12 NOON

Starmer, Farage and Babenoch : all collaborators in the Israeli crimes of genocide against the Palestinian people. They all look away.

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In today’s THE LEFT LANE, the main piece is on Palestine, with shorter pieces on the Greens, the question of a new left party, and an announcment that we’re hiring an editorial assistant ( well, hiring for an unpaid job.)

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By Alan Story

A weekend column from Australian journalist Caitlin Johnson was headed “It Is Freakish And Insane How Our Society Averts Its Gaze From Gaza

She began: “It can make you feel like you’re going mad. How phony and superficial it all is. How we’re a year and a half into history’s first live-streamed genocide and our whole society is acting like everything’s peachy.

We’re murdering kids. We’re starving them. We’re dropping high tech military explosives on them. Blowing their limbs off. Ripping their guts out. Shooting them in the head. This isn’t just being done by “Israel”. It’s being done by the entire western empire which backs these atrocities.

And yet if you turn on a TV you’ll see famous people laughing and joking about nonsense, expressing political opinions of no more depth and significance than whether or not there should have been a female Ghostbusters movie….”

She continued on, mentioning the latest Trump inanity, how the news media is totally mis-reporting the Israeli atrocities, and the normality of picking up “your kid from soccer practice.”

Then wrote:

“… for the last year and a half I’ve mostly just been doing what I feel everyone on earth ought to be doing: pointing to the genocide and saying it needs to stop.

Johnson concluded her column:

“This is happening. We know it’s happening. It’s happening right in front of us and we’re acting like it’s not. It’s so maddening and frustrating, and it can make you feel so powerless.

But we keep pointing at Gaza, because what the hell else are we going to do? The alternative is to join the lunatics acting like it isn’t happening.

At the very least, it’s a way of preserving our sanity. Preserving our humanity. Even if they do succeed in purging Gaza of all Palestinian life, at the very least we will have prevented the bastards from warping and twisting us into psychopathic freaks like them. Even if we can’t stop them from destroying Gaza, we can at least stop them from destroying our hearts. “

The normalcy of broken hearts and pulverised Palestinians keeps on keeping on for another week. What to do? One thing you can do is to attend what is expected to be a monster national march in London on Saturday, 17 May at 12 noon. The theme is Nakba 77. Invite along family, friends, and work mates.

HERE on the website of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign where you can find more details of the route and a list of some of the cities and towns from which coaches to London are leaving.

There are lots of other ways you can protest. Here is a petition, which has now received 280,000 signatures, that calls for Israel to be kicked out of Eurovision 2025. It is titled: EUROVISION: NO STAGE FOR ISRAEL’S WAR CRIMES.

FROM NORWICH…

Photo by Paul Lievens

Photos (above and below) from Sunday’s banner drop and march through the city centre by activists from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Norwich. THE LEFT LANE interviewed several fellows who had recently arrived in Norwich from Palestine and they said that every show of solidarity was “most appreciated.”

Photo by Ann Nicholls As to the state of the Israel’s genocide this week, it is impossible to sum things up in a few hundred words and, in any event, I do not claim to be an expert.

Israel is now engaged in “FULL OCCUPATION PREPATION” (as the image below illustrates )

This recent set of pictures from a publication called “THE ELECTRONIC INTIFIDA” gives us clear view of what is happening to the people of Palestine.

Meanwhile, as reported by SKWAWKBOX (SW) “The US-Israel ‘aid plan’ that its supporters claim will end Israel’s deliberate starvation of Gaza – which has put 300,000 children on the brink of death – is a sick, cynical scam designed to accelerate Israel’s plan for the complete ethnic cleansing and annexation of Gaza, with the Palestinian population either dead or removed.”

One tendency we can note over the past week is the growing documentation that the UK government is increasingly complicit --- no, more like an active participant --- in the bloodbath occurring in Palestine.

This is but one example:

+ A headline from a recent issue of DROP SITE NEWS: “ Revealed: Britain’s Labour Government Sent 8,000 “Munitions of War” to Israel After Saying It Had Stopped.”

Jonathan Cook, an expert on Israel and Palestine, has written a substack piece about a recent excellent film on Israeli settlers titled: “ Theroux's film on Israel's violent settlers was a mirror. Resist the calls to look away.”

And what have the leaders of the three agenda-setting parties – Labour, Reform and the Tories - done over the past week?

They have looked away from Palestine. None of them have denounced the Israeli genocide. Instead, they’ve got into a slanging match over immigration.

It is beyond shameful.

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WE USED TO WORRY…

We used to worry that the artwork about Palestine done by US illustrator Mr Fish might be just TOO powerful. As Israel cranks up its brutality and inhumanity, we don't worry anymore.

Mr Fish does the artwork for The Chris Hedges Report Substack . The words by Chris are pretty special as well. I'm happy to be a paid subscriber.

Lord of the Flies - by Mr. Fish

Slaughterhouse - by Mr. Fish

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ABOUT THE PREVIOUS ISSUE OF THE LEFT LANE

We don't usually comment on past issues of THE LEFT LANE. But we are making an exception in the case of the last issue that focused on the Green Party and identity politics. A few points:

1) You can read the issue of 30 April HERE ; its artwork is above.

2) At more than 4000 words, it was a longer than usual issue. It attempted to provide a pretty full dossier on how the Green Party has dealt with identity politics, and particularly the so-called divisive “trans issue” over the past few years. Over the past eleven months, I have written more than six in-depth investigation stories on the internal dynamics of the Green Party which I have found to be increasingly undemocratic and authoritarian in a number of ways. Despite repeated requests for interviews with Green Party officials in the past year, no one is ever available.

3) The 30 April piece also broke the story that Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer would not be re-offering and that Zack Polanski, currently the Green’s deputy leader, was very eager to step up and take over.

4) The piece followed a Supreme Court judgement which concluded “sex is biological.”

5) We were fully expecting that some subscribers (which essentially means free subscribers) would cancel. The argument in the piece was that an individualist, “what about me?” & “my identity”-style of politics is divisive and a dead end. That is not a popular position in some progressive circles. But in the end, only eight people cancelled, though none gave any reasons. In the past week, however, the number of TLL subscribers increased and, over the weekend, we passed over the seven hundred subscriber threshold.

6) While the 30 April issue was NOT the most read of the 75 issues we've published since January 2024, it did attract the biggest readership of any issue during the past four or five months.

7) I emailed this TLL issue to the news desk of The Guardian on 1 May; a “Polanski running for leader” piece appeared 5 May. I talked to the same reporter later in the week and, the next day, a Denyer “is not re-offering” story appeared also under the tagline “Exclusive” in that newspaper. No comment. The mainstream media pretends we don’t exist.

COULD BE A BRUISING BATTLE

( As an aside, co-leader Adriam Ramsey and another Green MP, Ellie Chowns, have announced they will be running as a co-leader team against Polanski in this summer’s party leadership race. The contest could become quite bruising and THE LEFT LANE expects to do a piece. On the one hand, it may become a battle for the “proverbial soul” of the Greens. On the other hand, major changes in the governance of the Greens are needed, as is a re-focusing on campaigning for climate justice. Outside of electioneering, it does next to none. More later on this.)

8) When I worked as a professional journalist some decades ago in Canada, I was an investigative reporter at the largest newspaper in that country. The stories in THE LEFT LANE over recent months on the Greens and the Workers’ Party of Britain are the type of articles I intend to write more of in the months ahead. Mind you, they do take a lot of time! We will also publish articles that are not necessarily popular with some people and, as a recent, some people may cancel their subs. Politics is all about debate and THE LEFT LANE seeks to encourage it.

9) Speaking of subscribers: TLL still has very few paid subscribers. I did not set up TLL to make money. But TLL does have a range of editorial expenses, such as travel costs, which means that TLL is still a money-losing operation. I am not a poor person, but my only income comes from several pensions. It would really be appreciated if TLL could gain ten or more additional PAID subscribers this month. You can click HERE to become a paid subscriber at £5.00 per month. Thanks in advance.

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RUMOURS, YET MORE RUMOURS, OF A NEW LEFT PARTY

In the last 72 hours, at least three reports have emerged suggesting the impending launch of a new left party in the UK.

But definitive information about this proposed party -- the what? how? who? why? and when? of it all -- is very scarce.

Lots of us have been arguing that, in the current political climate, a mass socialist party is urgently needed. But it has to be done right as, god help us, the last thing we need is another misfire on the left.

Setting up a so-called “left party” is actually quite easy. Setting up a good and lasting party is, however, far from easy.

Consider the record of George Galloway's Workers’ Party of Britain (WPB) which has existed for more than five years. How did it do in the recent Runcorn and Helsby by-election won by Reform? With its deputy leader – a retired diplomat no less - standing as its candidate, the WPB received the paltry total of 164 votes. An embarrassment.

Or examine Collective, one of the groups reportedly behind the new party effort which has just surfaced. THE LEFT LANE has done more than six pieces on its pitiful and secretive trajectory; two from several months back can be read HERE and HERE.

In the days ahead, I will be rooting around, interviewing people, and trying to uncover confirmed and definitive information about what this new left party is all about. Can you help? If you have any information or tips, please pass them on as soon as possible to: theleftlanepolitics@gmail.com

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WE NEED AN EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

12 May 2025

THE LEFT LANE is seeking an enthusiastic editorial assistant to support the editor with various editorial tasks related to our substack newsletter. Start ASAP. You pick the hours in the week to work. Location: Anywhere in the UK. (It could be slightly easier if you lived in Norwich, but only slightly.)

REQUIREMENTS: a) left-of-Labour politics (especially current Labour); b) some experience in writing and researching; c) digitally savvy; d) proficiency in navigating social media; e) a “muck in” kind of person.

This “job” will be unpaid initially. That could change if we get more paid subscribers.

If you are interested, write: theleftlanepolitics@gmail.com Put “Assistant” in the subject line, tell us a bit about yourself, and give your contact details. Deadline for applications: 16 May at 5:00 p.m.

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Edited by Alan Story, THE LEFT LANE is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber: http://theleftlane2024.substack.com/subscribe

You can reach us at: theleftlanepolitics@gmail.com

Read all previous columns of THE LEFT LANE ( 75 in total) here

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