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Barry Gilheany ✍Call it the hand of history. A transformative moment. 

A once in a multi-generational shift in British foreign policy (since 1946 if one seeks more precision). But something profoundly changed when Ed Miliband took to the despatch box in the House of Commons on Tuesday 8th September 2026 to announce to MPs a ban on imports from illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank; designated the settlers as “terrorists”; their activities as “ethnic cleansing” and formally adopted on behalf of the UK government the International Court of Justice (ICJ) 2024 judgement that the entirety of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is illegal. 

In so doing, he offered the strongest ever condemnation of an Israeli government by a British government with words and actions motivated by the one to midnight situation of the two-state solution created by Israel’s plan to construct the E1 settlement block which would cut the West Bank and so deal the terminal blow to any hopes of a contiguous Palestinian state as well as the egregious violence of the settlers. 

To show that Britain meant business over these measures, Miliband announced that it had forged a coalition of ten Western nations led by France and Canada to implement the sanctions. His speech and Andy Burnham’s mea culpa for the slowness of Labour to react under Starmer to the humanitarian catastrophe of Gaza and his acknowledgment in a Guardian article that UK governments had been reluctant for far too long to back words with actions, ‘fearful of being accused of being anti-Israel’[1] (or, worse still, of being antisemitic). Labour ministers, MPs and supporters will hope that the decisive shift signalled last week will lance the boil within the Labour movement over Palestine that has existed since Keir Starmer’s response to an interviewer on LBC in the days after the October 7 attacks in which he suggested that Israel had the right to cut off water and electricity to Gaza which led to a haemorrhaging of Labour votes and seats to the Green Party and “pro Gaza” Independent Muslim candidates in certain inner city constituencies and local authority areas. (Starmer did move to clarify his words but to little avail; the damage could not be undone). Pointedly Miliband told MPs: 

I’ll say this very bluntly we should have acted earlier. And it has taken the new prime minister to come in and recognise the gravity of the situation.[2]

As Ed Miliband commenced his address, his hands were notably shaking as he began with his declaration of support “as a proud Jew” for the existence of that State of Israel as the sanctuary, life-raft nation that gave refuge to his grandmother who had lost forty-five relatives in the Holocaust. But he also referenced his mother Marion Kozak who had grown up in Israel and who had a life-long dedication to  the Palestinian cause. It is a reminder of the inter-generational trauma that is a legacy of the Shoah/Holocaust and of the scabs that relativisation of it or inappropriate comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany can open. His excoriation of the scourge of antisemitism was the perfect rejoinder to the despicable accusation by Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel and settler champion, that Labour is gripped by ‘Jew hatred’ and he identified as a “category error”, the lazy equation of Israel with the current Likud-led government, as many on the right and the far-left do by default, arguing : “Holding Jewish people responsible for the actions of the Israeli government is antisemitism, plain and simple.”[3] 

His assertion that Palestinian self-determination is the only viable route to lasting security for Israel and explicit rejection of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign lays out ideological and ethical territory for those of us who are neither Israel First or Palestine First; who reject the weaponisation of antisemitism and philosemitism in support of one or the other; whose support for Palestinian rights and justice is based on universalist and humanist principles and is not predicated on antizionist and anti-Western “ campist” positions. 

The BDS position on including actors such as Standing Together, a joint Israeli-Palestinian anti-occupation and peace group, which help Palestinian farmers to harvest their olive groves in the West Bank in the face of settler intimidation and who campaign against the Gaza war, within its scope on the basis that it recognises the legitimacy of the State of Israel, is antithetical to genuine peace and a two state solution. Likewise boycotting the Israeli film industry which has produced such brave documentary makers as Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szar whose documentary NAZA which shows the methodology behind the mass killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza by the IDF and which won the Special Jury Prize at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival last week and who had previously worked with Palestinian film makers on the film No Other Land in 2024 showing the terrorism of the West Bank settlers is similarly self-destructive and counter-productive.

His stopping short of using the G-word, of describing Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide preferring to wait until the final deliberations of the ICJ will have disappointed many in the pro-Palestinian movement but he recognised the “gravity of saying that there is “ethnic cleansing, forced displacement of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists” and that “too often the Israeli government has turned a blind eye” to them with “even some members of it” making statements and taken actions in support of these crimes. It was truly a step change in British foreign policy and diplomacy.


The UK government is committed to enacting:

  • An import ban on goods from illegal settlements from illegal settlements.
  • A sanctions regime against providing services such as construction or financing for Israeli settlements and a ban on advertising them in the UK.
  • Personal sanctions against key individuals accused of promoting settler violence.
  • A new ban for arms licenses and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation."[4]

The presence of only ten Tory MPs for the statement probably contributed to the consensus across the benches in the Commons but an indication of how much opinion has swung towards real action on the West Bank was sounded by the veteran Tory MP and Father of the House Sir Edward Leigh who in backing the sanctions declared that:

I am proud to say as the longest surviving member of the Conservative Friends of Israel that I absolutely and fully support what he (Miliband) is doing today because it is about standing up for freedom, for morality and justice for all people in the world.[5]

A statement of universalist principles for humanity could scarcely be more impeccably made.

Taking a polar opposite position was Sir Edward’s party leader Kemi Badenoch who wrote in the Jewish Chronicle that the government was desperate to win back Islamists and that Jews would no longer feel safe in Britain.[6] This was of a par of Benjamin Netanyahu’s absurd and populist grandstanding forecast of an Islamic Republic of Great Britian armed with nuclear weapons. The UK’s chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who comes from the Orthodox tradition in Judaism, condemned the sanctions as “a dark day for British Jews”, accusing the government of ignoring the Jewish community’s concerns and warning that the sanctions could fuel antisemitism and increase violence against British Jews.[7] Taking a similar sanctions = antisemitism default stance, the Israeli government announced the closure of the British Consulate in East Jerusalem; removed British representatives from the International Gaza Support Centre in southern Israel and denied twelve mainly left wing, pro-Palestinian “awkward squad” MPs entry into Israel. The view from Shiloh, a religious settlement north of Jerusalem home to around 6,000 of the West Bank’s more than 700,000 settlers is that “the British are fed lies and don’t’ know what is going on here” and that Britain’s stance is symptomatic of a surge in antisemitism in Europe: 

We are going back to the time of the Holocaust, we’re in the 1930s. We cannot travel to Europe any more because of the antisemitism. At the same time we are treated like kings in Dubai.

By contrast praise for “the huge impact in symbolic meaning “for the British move came from Yaser Allkam, foreign relations of the well-off municipality with a large Palestinian-American population near Shiloh.[8] Symbolism can and does matter.

However this automatic reduction of criticism of Israeli policies to antisemitism has increasingly become a busted flush not least because of the plurality of Jewish (and Zionist) representative opinions. While no robust data exists on whether British Jews support sanctions on Israeli settlements specifically, there is a spectrum of dissent from the Chief Rabbi’s condemnation of the sanctions from across British Judaism. Jonathan Wittenberg, a senior rabbi of Masorti Judaism witnessed “with my own eyes” the effects of settler violence in the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair while Miliband was delivering his speech. For him what is occurring in the West Bank “is a Chillul Hashem, a violation of God’s name of the worst order” and that there was an imperative to “speak out…out of deep concern for what is human and just… for the sake of Israel and Judaism.” Endorsing the sanctions as “the UK’s commitment to a two-state solution”, Rabbi Alexandra Wright from the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London, and co-chair of the British Friends of Rabbis for Human Rights, stated that:

The Anglo-Jewish community is committed to a Jewish state that is founded, not on oppression and violence, but, in the words of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, ‘on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel. 

Jeremy Gordon, the rabbi of New London Synagogue who in his advocacy for sanctions, justified call for action on the grounds that:

the playbook of these settlers is predicated on the notion that they will be appeased or ignored, and that well-meaning Jews the world overlook their illegal and criminal actions.[9]

The sanctions were also welcomed by prominent Israelis from the security, political and cultural elite. A joint statement signed by the former prime minister Ehud Olmert, the former commander of the military Dan Halutz, the ex-ministers Yuli Tamir and Roni Bar-On, the former ambassador Yoram Ben-Zeev and UK-born Prof David Harel, the president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities said “This decision is precisely what the State of Israel should have received in order to remove the disgrace of Jewish terrorism from the face of the country” and pointedly stated that “sanctions (are being imposed) against Jewish terrorists, and not against the legitimacy of the State of Israel”. They further emphasised that “There is no basis to the (Israeli) government’s response to impose sanctions against Jewish terrorists is an expression of antisemitism”. Support for the sanctions also from a Zionist perspective came from Nadav Tamir, executive director of J Street Israel and previously one of Israel’s top diplomats in the US, who said: 

Any move to prevent annexation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in the West Bank (and Gaza) are serving the long-term interests of the Zionist vision of Israel as the democratic homeland of the Jewish people.[10]

The shift in gear from the timidity of the Starmer administration which stricken by fear of being seen as anti-Israel resisted calls from within the Foreign Office and the Labour Party to ban trade with West Bank settlements[11] is a refreshing assertion of true Labour internationalist and emancipatory values. Cynics may point to the upcoming by-election in the Holborn and St Pancras seat vacated by the former Prime Minister which the Greens who harvested a lot of Labour votes shed by disillusionment over Gaza is contesting though its eco-populist leader Zach Polanski as a motive for the introduction of the sanctions. But such cynicism can be refuted by pointing to the work which Ed Miliband undertook over the summer to build a coalition of the willing to implement the measures. 

Fears have also been expressed that the measures could tilt the balance in favour of Netanyahu’s far right coalition in the Israeli general elections on the basis that it will galvanise his base and further entrench the laager mentality in a nation in which nearly three-quarters of Jewish Israelis favour a partial or total annexation of the West Bank according to a recent poll for the Jewish People Policy Institute and in which all the leading election candidates oppose a Palestinian state. But while acknowledging that since the attacks of October 7th 2023, Israel has become much more inward-looking and has a “nobody likes us, we don’t care” attitude to the rest of the world, the political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin says that the UK move will not affect the outcomes significantly since domestic issues will be of greater salience and that the bombshell revelations concerning Netanyahu’s failure to act on warnings from the UAE of an imminent Hamas attack on Israel can hardly enhance his prospects.[12] More fundamentally, as Ed Miliband said in the Commons, British foreign policy cannot be outsourced abroad.

The urgency of the meaningful sanctions is starkly emphasised by the Eliminationist Project report authored by the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem shared with the Guardian in advance of publication which claims that Israel is working towards the systematic “elimination” of the conditions that sustain Palestinian collective life in the occupied West Bank; an assault “governed by a coherent organising logic” which comprises five “interwoven domains of action”: violence and intimidation, movement restrictions, economic strangulation, social and political destruction, and ethnic cleansing and territorial takeover. The process bears the imprimatur of Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right minister with broad powers over civilian matters in the West Bank, who sketched out the “blueprint” for the project in 2017 and who in September 2025 promised to use every means possible:

to prevent the danger of a Palestinian state, including bringing about the collapse of the Palestinian Authority . . .  through economic strangulation.[13] 

The clock may well have moved to thirty seconds before midnight.

References

[1] Pippa Crerar, Jessica Elgot and Kiran Stacey UK condemns ‘ethnic cleansing by Israeli terrorists’ in West Bank. The Guardian. 9 September 2026 p.8

[2] Ibid

[3] Patrick Wintour. Analysis, With the two-state solution on life-support, Miliband has taken a risk. The Guardian 9 September 2026 p.9

[4] Pippa Crear et al, Guardian 9 September 2026 p1, p.8

[5] Ibid, p.8

[6] John Crace, Rare oasis of calm in Commons as Labour makes break with the past over Palestine Sketch. The Guardian 9 September 2026 p.9

[7] Jewish News, 8 September 2026.

[8] Ben Lynfield, On land obtained by force: Israel’s newly sanctioned settlers cry foul in Britain. The Observer, 13 September 2026 p.27.

[9] Many leading UK rabbis back sanctions in effort to curb settler violence. The Guardian 10 September 2026 p.6.

[10] Emma Graham-Harrison, ‘It’s a good beginning. Ex-PM among Israelis to hail intervention. The Guardian 10 September 2026 p.7

[11] Isabel Coles, Keir Starmer resisted pressure to ban trade with West Bank.The Observer. 13 September 2026 p.26

[12] Ibid

[13] Quique Kirshenbaum and Peter Beaumont ,Israel ‘attacking every aspect of Palestinian life in West Bank, The Guardian. 14 September 2026 pp.20-21

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

What A Moment In Time 🪶 Ed Miliband And Andy Burnham Shift The Dial On Israel-Palestine

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Ninety Three

 

A Morning Thought @ 3265

Packy Carty ✒ The 2021 census numbers tell only half the story, and it's the least interesting half.

Break the 2021 figures down by age instead of blending every generation into one number, and the picture changes. Among over-65s, nearly 60% come from a Protestant background. Among under-15s, that collapses to 32.5%. The crossover sits around age 60 — below it, the state's founding arithmetic has already inverted; above it, what's left is a shrinking, ageing remainder still large enough to drag the headline census figure down to a modest plurality.

That's population momentum at work, not a hidden fertility advantage — the old myth about Catholic families simply outbreeding Protestant ones has been dead for thirty years, and conceding that only strengthens the point. A population still of childbearing age produces more births relative to its size than one that has largely aged past it, regardless of family size, because one group can still reproduce and the other, increasingly, cannot. The North records roughly 21,000 births and 17,000 deaths a year. Because the over-65s skew so heavily Protestant, that cohort alone accounts for something like 10,500 to 11,000 of those deaths, against only 6,300 births into the same background — a net organic decline running into the thousands every year, mechanically, before anyone emigrates or changes their mind about anything.

The generation replacing them isn't drifting toward some neutral middle ground as it grows up either. It is being raised inside a state that still sorts its people from birth across every line of daily life — schooling, housing, and social relationships. Over 90% of children attend segregated schools, an educational system Peter Robinson himself, as First Minister, famously called "a benign form of apartheid." Most go through childhood and adolescence without any meaningful contact or relationships with the other community until adulthood, by which time national identity has already solidified. Long before this generation ever sees a ballot paper, it has been sorted by neighbourhood, schooled in isolation, and shaped by GAA clubs, the Irish language, music, history and a cultural infrastructure built specifically to keep that identity intact. By the time it reaches eighteen, it isn't undecided. It's already Irish.

Unionist commentators point to the 2022 Assembly election, noting that even as a nationalist First Minister took office, the combined unionist bloc still held 37 seats to nationalism's 35. Fair enough — that's the actual number, and no piece built on this argument should pretend otherwise. But a state engineered in 1921 specifically to make that gap unbridgeable now has to fight to hold it at two seats, and it's worth being clear about why that's happened: not because any party has cracked some new political formula, but because the population underneath the whole system has shifted, and whichever party happens to occupy the nationalist ground was always going to be the one left standing to collect it. That party currently is Sinn Féin, and it now sits as the largest single political party in the Assembly, in local government, and at Westminster simultaneously — not because its politics have earned that position, but because the demographic tide described above was always going to wash up somewhere, and it happens to be the vehicle sitting closest to shore. It holds outright control of Fermanagh and Omagh District Council, is the largest party on Derry City and Strabane, and dominates Mid Ulster. None of that required a single vote to be won by argument. Partition's founding premise didn't need every seat in the North to end. It only needed the automatic guarantee behind it to go, and that guarantee is already gone regardless of who's currently placed to benefit from its absence.

Demography doesn't translate seamlessly into voting intentions in a standard democracy, and this piece isn't claiming otherwise. But the Northern State was never built as a standard western democracy — it was engineered as a sectarian construct, with identity socialised from nursery school onward inside segregated systems built to produce exactly the outcome they're now producing. The youth cohorts maturing into the electorate every year are drawn overwhelmingly from backgrounds that state was never designed to include as equals. The 37-seat unionist total at Stormont isn't a floor to build back from. Given the age-band data above, it's closer to the ceiling.

Run the political trajectory forward alongside the actuarial math and the destination is hard to argue with. Unionism is moving toward becoming an explicit, permanent political minority inside the six counties — the fate partition was built to impose on nationalists, coming full circle onto the people who designed it. That doesn't have to be the end of the story. A million unionist voters trapped forever on the losing side of a shrinking six-county headcount stay trapped. The same million voters inside an all-Ireland state of over seven million, under proportional representation, where blocs a fraction of that size already decide who governs, become something else — a vote worth courting rather than a minority to be managed. A senior UUP figure has already said as much: unionist TDs could hold the balance of power in a future Dáil. A former Fine Gael Taoiseach has already floated dissolving Stormont into an integrated all-island cabinet with guaranteed unionist seats. That's not republican wishful thinking. That's the establishment on the other side of the border already doing the sum.

The state promised unionism permanent dominance and can no longer deliver it by design. What comes after that isn't extinction. It's the same choice nationalism was handed in 1921, just facing the other way — a permanent minority inside a shrinking fortress, or a seat at a bigger table where the numbers actually work. The population data says that choice is arriving whether anyone plans for it or not.

⏩ Packy Carty is an East Tyrone Socialist Republican. 

The Demographic Slow Cooker

People And Nature ☭ The Russian political prisoner Andrei Trofimov has appeared on a video link to a court hearing on Thursday, after four months’ loss of contact.

28-August-2026



His supporters, who fear he was being mistreated in the notorious IK-9 prison in Petrozavodsk, Karelia, north-western Russia, are relieved – but he is not out of danger.

Andrei Trofimov. Photo from
supporters’ telegram channel

The court heard a claim that prison staff had prevented Trofimov meeting his lawyer. The hearing was adjourned and will continue on 15 September. The court ordered that materials be passed to Trofimov for him to study.

At the start of the hearing, Trofimov read a poem, for his friends, that said:


My friends, I’ll get back from prison.
The age of the mad sultan is finite.
Shame will forever haunt
The idiot who raised a sword against our union.

Human rights organisations had reported last month that lawyers had gone three times to the prison and were not able to meet Trofimov.

At Thursday’s hearing, according to a report by Sota Vision, Trofimov said that on one occasion he had been told that a lawyer had arrived, but not the lawyer’s name, which had made him suspicious. He had asked to be told about visits in advance, in writing, but no letters had reached him.

One of Trofimov’s lawyers, Roman Masalev, and a representative of the prison authorities, also addressed the court.

Trofimov, who is known to his friends as an energetic correspondent, also told the court that he had received no letters since the end of April. Some letters that arrived in March were passed to him only on 3rd July, without either paper to write replies or the censor’s approval.

He said he had made five written complaints to the prison authorities about correspondence being blocked.

The court also heard that Trofimov’s brother had tried unsuccessfully to arrange a visit. The prison representative claimed that, as Andrei was being held in a punishment cell (PKT), there were no visiting rights.

Trofimov, 59, has been a civil society activist since the 1980s, and in 2022 protested publicly against the all-out invasion of Ukraine.

In 2023, Trofimov was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for “incitement to extremism” and “discrediting the Russian army”, due to social media posts he wrote opposing the war in Ukraine. The court stated that he had completed an application form for the Freedom of Russia Legion, and convicted him of preparation to participate in an unlawful armed formation.

Trofimov’s statement to the closed court hearing, ending “Glory to Ukraine. Putin is a dickhead!” was published outside Russia. This resulted in a further trial, at which he was convicted of incitement to terrorism and three years were added to his sentence.

It is not easy, from outside Russia, to help Trofimov – but his supporters are asking us all to draw public attention to his case.

We are preparing an open letter, which we will publish in September. If you wish to sign it and/or help circulate it, please contact the Ukraine Information Group at 2022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com.

🔴 More in English about Andrei Trofimov’s case here. Sota Vision’s report and video from court is here.

🔴 More on People & Nature about political prisoners in Russia here.

☭ People & Nature is now on mastodon, as well as twitter, whatsapp and telegram. Please follow! Or email peoplenature@protonmail.com, and we’ll add you to our circulation list (2-4 messages per month)

Political Prisoner Andrei Trofimov Has Appeared In Court, But Is Not Out Of Danger

Dr John Coulter ✍ Hopefully one of the benefits of President Donald Trump’s two-day pit stop visit to Southern Ireland over the weekend will be to finally convince the Dublin administration that Eire needs to sign up to full membership of NATO given Vladimir Putin’s desire to rebuild the Russian empire.

And before Irish nationalists start whooping with joy that Trump is also an ‘Irish republican’ as well as an American Republican because of his off the cuff comments about Irish unity, it should be remembered that The Donald is also an astute businessman.

If he needs to play the politics game when in Southern Ireland as laying the groundwork to getting Eire to join NATO, then play the united Ireland card! And who says it has to be an all-Ireland republic outside of the United Kingdom Trump is talking about?

Maybe he has embraced my concept of Revolutionary Unionism and wants to see an all-island state as part of the new Union of the British Isles as part of NATO.

Meanwhile, for generations under the Tsarist monarchy, Imperial Russia tried to dominate Europe. That collapsed with the 1917 communist revolution and the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, but not before millions of Russians were killed in the Great War.

Next came several decades of communist dictatorship and Stalin’s purges which again saw millions of Russians slaughtered by the communists or died fighting in World War Two.

And now we have ex-KGB man Putin flexing his muscles militarily in Ukraine and constantly giving the diplomatic two-fingered salute politically to the UK using the Russian air force and navy to probe and test British readiness.

In spite of Eire’s Irish Defence Forces having a sterling record of service with the United Nations peace keeping forces in Lebanon and Africa, the Dail has constantly pussy-footed when it comes to joining NATO and playing a full role in the defence of Europe.

However, The Donald can be very persuasive and whether in private conversation or in diplomatic talks, he will have left Southern Ireland in no doubt that the geographical island of Ireland will have a key strategic role in any future showdown with the Russians.

And maybe The Donald could give British Prime Minister Andy Burnham a few tips on how ‘to grow a set’ militarily when it comes to dealing with the latest Argentinian threat to the British Falkland Islands.

Burnham needs to show the same patriotic spirit as one of his predecessors in Downing Street when in 1982 then Tory PM Maggie Thatcher sent a strong task force to the islands when the Argentinian military junta decided to invade the Falklands.

The Donald may have hinted that the US would remain tactically neutral in the event of the Argentinians attempting another invasion of the islands in a bid to get the UK to substantially strengthen its military capacity.

Burnham cannot afford to Irish-style pussy-foot with the hard line Argentinian government. He needs to indulge in the same fighting talk as The Donald does against Iran.

Burnham needs to tell Argentina’s ruling elite - put one toe on the Falklands and we’ll nuke your capital Buenos Aires! Israel has not messed about with the terrorists of Hamas or Hezbollah; the United States has not messed about with Iran or Venezuela; the SAS did not mess about with the IRA’s East Tyrone Brigade, so the British armed forces need to act tough with any Argentinian aggression.

Burnham needs to realise his soundbite honeymoon period as PM is over. He has also pledged to devolve more power to the United Kingdom’s regions, but with this problem of Russian aggression still on the agenda, the time has surely come to replace the 1998 Good Friday Agreement with a new Anglo-Irish Treaty which persuades Eire to abandon its traditional military neutrality.

Trump could be the political catalyst which prompts this military agenda - persuading Southern Ireland to join NATO, and persuading Burnham to radically increase military spending to make the UK on a realistic war footing.

While Burnham’s devolution strategy would probably see tax-raising powers devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly rather than Stormont having to rely on funding from Westminster, foreign policy will rapidly move to the top of his agenda.

Perhaps, too, Trump could persuade Burnham to give even limited military powers to Stormont - provided Assembly reform could see Sinn Fein out of power and Unionism once again running the show.

Burnham has to face the military bitter medicine that Russia is intent on constantly probing NATO’s capabilities and response times. During the original Cold War in the latter half of the 20th century, the geographical island of Ireland was always viewed by the Right-wing of the Conservative Party as ‘Britain’s Cuba’ - a military backdoor, not just into the UK, but also into significant parts of mainland Europe.

Since Ireland was partitioned in the 1920s as a result of the original Anglo-Irish Treaty, the then Free State (later the Irish Republic) has always maintained a strict military neutrality, especially in terms of full participation in NATO.

Indeed, the Irish Republic has not maintained a strict 100 per cent military neutrality as it has allowed American planes in the past to refuel on its territory in terms of rendition flights.

And while Irish republicanism may wish to see a border poll on Irish unity by 2030, the bitter reality is that the West may well be at war with Russia come that date.

In such a conflict, neutrality will not be an option as the island of Ireland is ideally located for stationing, arming and servicing NATO’s planes, ships and submarines. It would also be the perfect location, too, for land-based missiles to attack Russia’s northern fleet in the Atlantic. While Russia may wish to prioritise neutralising NATO’s missile capacity on mainland Europe, the ability to strike key targets in Russia from Irish-based missile sites may give NATO a tactical advantage.

The Middle East conflict is also presenting Burnham with an additional foreign policy headache. For several years, the British establishment has been struggling to contain the so-called small boat crisis, which has seen tens of thousands of illegal migrants and asylum seekers enter the UK from France using small rubber boats to cross the English Channel.

Militarily, there is the real danger that radical Islamic groups could use the small boat route to sneak terrorist activists into the UK.

It has not gone unnoticed by the current Iranian regime, which supports the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah, that the UK allowed British bases to be used by the Trump regime in United States to attack Iran through airborne bombing raids.

The peace process triggered by that Good Friday Agreement has resulted in a more open travel border between Northern Ireland as part of the UK, and the rest of Southern Ireland. Likewise, many illegal migrants are also using this open border to access the UK via Northern Ireland and then on to mainland Britain.

Given Russia’s clear support for the Iranian regime, it makes military sense for Moscow to support the migrant route in Ireland as a means of getting radical Islamic terror activists onto the island, and therefore, as a back door to the wider UK and Europe.

Whether it be to act as buffers to combat either Russian expansionism or radical Islamic terrorism, it makes clear military sense for Burnham to negotiate a new Anglo-Irish Treaty to replace the Good Friday Agreement to ensure that Southern Ireland gives up its current military neutrality in exchange for a future pro-active and full participation in NATO.

Certainly, knowing the strategic importance of geographical Ireland, Burnham cannot afford to wait until Russia makes its military move on mainland Europe beyond the borders of Ukraine.

While Unionists may see any new Anglo-Irish Treaty as a shift towards Irish unity, Stormont and Dublin must be prepared to work together more closely to face the threat of Russian aggression head on. The Trump visit may well signal the start of this much-needed process.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Dr Coulter has been a journalist since 1978 and is currently a political commentator with GB News.

Trump Trip Should Persuade Eire To Join NATO

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Ninety Two

 

A Morning Thought @ 3264

Kate Yo 🔖 Picking up a book is an exercise in great humility. 


It says the person who wrote this book knows more than you do. This book is an exception to that. It attempts to tell the story of the first blanket man, Kieran Nugent in a few easy pages. Nugent born in 1957, the same year as the raid in Brookeborough RUC station. This attack opens the book, then it's simply left. However Kieran's father hailed from Armagh, so too was Vincent Conlon,  the driver of the lorry that got the team away saving the lives of most of the crew.

On the back of this pamphlet, hardly a book as it has less than one hundred pages and costs ten pound, is a picture of Joe Cahill. Joe was responsible for the capture of the arms shipment discovered in Cohn in county Cork as he'd failed to organise the pick up. The cheques that came from Clan na Gael and Noraid were signed to Joe Cahill, although most of the money came in cash. That way the U.S. government couldn't keep tabs on it. This was the brain child of Michael Flannery. This money was to be used to feed and clothe the people of the north, as it was recognised that the men would be either imprisoned or dead. For families like the Nugents, but the money was skimmed off to buy guns. In particular the Armalite AR-180: the semi automatic commercial version that was light transportable and magazine fed. Instead of explaining this the author/editor merely touches on the poverty of the time and writes instead of things in current affairs such as happenings in Ghana and Malaysia.

This tells the reader two things: firstly, that Kieran is unknown to Morrison and, secondly, that this pamphlet has been cobbled together for publication to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the blanket protest. For all of Sinn Féin's publicly of this "book launch" around seventy people attended.

Eventually we read about Kieran. Growing up in West Belfast and going to Slate Street school where Morrison tells us another blanket man Jaz McCann is head master there. Kieran is one of eleven children and the family insights appear to come from the youngest, his sister Eileen. At 15 Kieran survived an assassination attempt where he was shot by loyalists in a drive by shooting on the corner of Merrion Street and the Grosvenor Road, his friend was fatally wounded. After this Kieran joined the IRA. D company at this stage was down to eight or nine volunteers and others came from Clonard to strengthen it, namely Jimmy T Pot and Finbarr McKenna who was later killed on the Springfield Road.

Kiran had been on remand for five months in 1974, suspected of being involved in a shooting, but the case was thrown out. He was then billeting around various homes. He'd been staying in Frank Gillen's flat, and when Cullingtree was being raided he jumped fourteen feet on to concrete smashing his ankles. He lay undiscovered all night until a postman came across him and went for help. He was then taken south but soon returned to Belfast and reported to the IRA. 

He was arrested again in 1976 in a Bedford van moving guns from one dump to another. On remand in Crumlin Road there were discussions on how to fight the criminalisation policy. In the book/pamphlet this information is taken from other more knowledgeable writers such as Laurence McKeown and Jaz McCann. After being sentenced to three years he was taken to reception at Long Kesh where they asked him what size of clothes he took. He told them I'm not wearing your monkey suit. So they gave him a parcel but he refused to carry it, so the screw carried it, and when they reached the cell about ten of them forcibly stripped and beat him. They then threw him into an empty cell where they even refused to allow him to sit. Eventually one of the screws threw a blanket at him and Kieran is quoted as saying "so, in fact he ( the screw) started the protest". He was then held incommunicado.

His elderly parents showed up at the republican press centre where neither Morrison nor Tombstone Tom Hartley knew who they were or the whereabouts of their boy. They got no help from there and were forced to engage a solicitor.

After release Sinn Fein took him on the campaign trail, presenting him in front of audiences in Mexico and the U.S. He was arrested by the Feds in New York obviously due to someone dropping a dime to the Feds. Hardly surprising due to what has subsequently unfolded as regards informants. Kieran was also interviewed by Tim Pat Coogan for his book On The Blanket and spoke of his time on the protestt. The rest of the book is press releases from . . . you know . . . the author/editor.

Kieran's addiction and subsequent death gets a very small mention. The foreword of the book is by Morrison himself rather than another author as that is the usual format. Gerry Adams has a paragraph at the front where he invites readers to imagine being the first on the blanket.

Imagine?

Imagine being through all that and then being abandoned by your comrades in the movement. As The Dark is quoted as saying:

Kieran Nugent the first IRA man on the blanket protest. Kieran died in 2000. They called him a river rat as he spent his last days drinking by the river in Poleglass. Why didn't somebody in the movement not see he'd problems and help him. He was the bravest of the brave.

According to Morrison's book there were those in the movement who knew he had problems. Richard McAuley who lived in Sevastopol Street had been awakened one night by loud banging on his door. It was Kieran in a bad way. Kieran had been doing an all nighter in the press centre which didn't close. He was surrounded there by pictures of the hunger strike and his dead comrades. McAuley sent him home.
 
They all knew.


 The book ends quote "Kieran Nugent . . .  the first blanket man."

I'd suggest, Kieran Nugent the first blanket man abandoned by his comrades, haunted by his memories, self medicated on alcohol and dead of a heart attack at 42.

May he rest in peace.

Danny Morrison, 2026, Kieran Nugent: The First Blanket Man. Publisher: An Fhuiseog

⏩Kate Yo is a Belfast book lover.

Kieran Nugent 📚 The First Blanket Man

Ukraine Solidarity Group ✊ A Digest of News from Ukrainian Sources ⚔ 1-September-2026.

In this week’s bulletin

⬤  Appeal to international trade unions.
⬤ New evidence of Russian torture, & more here and here.
⬤ Parallels between Bosnia and Ukraine.
⬤ Volyn killings: a conversation.
⬤ Wildberries comment.

News from the territories occupied by Russia

Abducted Melitopol woman tells Russian court how she was tortured with electric currents and mystery injections (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, September 4th)

Young lives as collateral damage for Russia’s brazen revenge against Crimean Tatar leader (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, September 4th)

Russia increasingly obstructing return of children from occupied territories (Kyiv Independent, September 4)

Russia’s FSB claim to have ‘arrested’ seriously ill Crimean woman and her brother 18 months after abducting their entire family (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, September 3rd)

Young Crimean Jehovah’s Witness seized at Russian airport, faces long sentence for practising his faith (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, September 2nd)

Weekly update on the situation in occupied Crimea (Crimea Platform, September 2nd)

ATR Turns 20: Two Decades of Crimean Tatar TV Broadcasting (Crimea Platform, September 1st)

Abducted and tortured Crimean woman sentenced to 15 years for donations to Ukraine’s Army (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, August 31st)

Russians seize and torture Pavlo Kyshynets for videoed ‘confession’ almost a year before reporting his ‘arrest’ (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, August 31st)

Progress of the war

2 killed, 20 injured, in Russian attack on Kherson oblast (Ukrainska Pravda, September 6)

Ukraine nuclear company warns of critical situation at Zaporizhzhia plant (Ukrainska Pravda, September 6)

‘Drones and candy’. How ‘Madyar’s birds’ hunt Russian troops (Eastern Frontier Initiative, 5 September)

Putin announced fantasy battlefield encirclements, but Russian offensive accelerating elsewhere (Meduza, 5 September)

Scott Bessent met with Russian finance minister, then warned of ‘energy shock’ caused by Ukrainian strikes (Meduza, 4 September)

Shopping Malls, Markets, Warehouses: How Russian Strikes Are Destroying Ukraine's Retail Infrastructure (Tribunal for Putin, September 1st)

News from Ukraine

Ukraine Prosecutor denies part in call centre protection racket (Kyiv Independent, September 6)

Wild Victims of War: the Great Crested Grebe (Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group, 5 September)

Kyiv shoot out between Ukraine’s security services (Kyiv Independent, September 2)

War-related news from Russia

Ukraine’s forces hit Ryazan refinery (Ukrainska Pravda, September 6)

Russia: more members of pro-peace Yabloko party arrested (Kyiv Independent, September 6)

Lida Moniava: A Heroine of Our Time (The Russian Reader, September 4th)

Wildberries: the jungle of Russian capitalism, by Oleg Shein (Posle.media, 4 September)

“There is no such thing as a ‘sense of humor’ in the Criminal Code”: Russian stand-up comedians on surviving war and censorship (The Insider, September 4th)

Evacuating Civilians from the ‘Kill Zone’ Under Threat from Drones in Eastern Ukraine (Bylines Times, September 3rd)

Russian commander shot days after being linked to bombing of Kyiv children’s hospital (Kyiv Independent, September 3)

In Russia, Pacifism Is as Bad as Supporting the Enemy (Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, September 1st)

Bashmakovo Bands Together to Battle Press Gangs (The Russian Reader, August 31st)

Comment and analysis

Some thoughts on the death of Ratko Mladić, and current echoes (Labour Hub, September 5th)

‘The path to reconciliation is only possible after condemning the perpetrators’: a conversation between friends on the 1943-45 mass killings in Volyn (Commons.com.ua, 1 September)

International solidarity

Russian attacks on workers: an appeal to the international trade union community (Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine, 3 September)

Open letter: Free the Zaporizhzhia 15, solidarity with Ukraine’s workers (Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, 31 August)

Also not to be missed

Global food prices highest since 2022, amidst Black Sea strikes (Kyiv Independent, September 5)
🔴This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. More information at Ukraine Information Group.

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News From Ukraine 💣 Bulletin 211

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