Ed Miliband – who is now heading to DC to meet with Rubio – found time yesterday to record a video showering a former Corbyn adviser who opposed the UK’s claim to the Chagos Islands with praise. Welcome to Ed’s Foreign Office…
Dapo Akande was put forward for election to the International Court of Justice as Britain’s representative by Starmer and Richard Hermer. Miliband has stressed his support with this praise:
“You know, we as a government are deeply committed to international law. When we look around the world, it is under threat in in so many different places and frankly, you are an ideal candidate because you bring experience as an academic and a practitioner…
You have knowledge of diverse legal traditions across the world. You’ve worked across the world. So I look forward to the election in November and and I know that if you are elected to the court, you will be a profound asset not just for Britain but for the world.”
Acting for Zambia in Mauritius’ 2019 case at the ICJ, Akande supported the motion calling for the UK to give away the Chagos Islands “as rapidly as possible.“ He argued the case was “about the international law obligations regarding decolonisation” and that it should not be seen as a “purely bilateral dispute”…
Akande, a legal scholar at Oxford, also advised the Corbyn Labour opposition in 2018 that the UK’s bombing of Syria did not comply with international law following the notorious Douma chemical attack.
He co-authored an article arguing that triggering the Trident deterrent “would not be acting lawfully” and would be “neither necessary nor proportional for either repelling an on-going attack or for stopping an imminent one.“ Oh, and he praised the “brilliant” work of Julian Assange’s lawyers to the Kremlin mouthpiece Sputnik. He’s Miliband’s man…
Burnham confirms he spoke to Trump last night about drilling in the North Sea:
“I indicated in the phone call that we had a week last Monday that I would take a pragmatic approach when it comes to the North Sea, and that is my intention as we go forward from here. There is a resource there. When people are struggling, we can’t ignore that. Hence, me indicating that to the president…”