Interesting news from the British Indian Ocean Territory Supreme Court this morning that it rejected permission for a full judicial review on the grounds of the rights of Chagossians to be consulted about Starmer’s deal. It was never the main legal action or the key grounds, it was merely a warm-up…
There will now be a separate hearing this Friday where the substantive issues will be addressed. Given the developing war in Iran which has seen the US actively use the Diego Garcia base, the facts are developing rapidly. The Chagossians who are on the archipelago remain in place and their mission is thriving…
Regardless of the legal battles, the political arena is where the fight is really taking place. Trump-Starmer relations and the US-UK partnership is at an all time low, so right now the Starmer plan remains dead…
Starmer spoke to Nick Robinson for the Today Programme on Polanski’s criticism of the Golders Green police officers:
“I want everybody just to imagine what it might be like. You’re trying to arrest someone who has already attacked two people and has no regard for life. We know that tasers were fired. I know from my own experience with the police, that there are only two shots in a taser, and once you’ve shot them, there’s nothing left. There’s a guy on the ground, he’s got a rucksack on. And I don’t know what was going through the mind of those officers, but if I was there, I’d be thinking, he’s going to detonate something. He’s going to blow me up and everybody around here. In those circumstances, I think you can quite see why what could have gone through their mind is, we need to do whatever we can to disable this guy…
Now, when I then see Zack Polanski come out and retweet or support a criticism of that, I think it’s disgraceful… He’s not fit to lead any political party.”