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Tommy McKearney ☭ The current dispute between the US and China relating to the supply of microchips has more profound implications than a one-off spat over trade.

31-October-2025

 It points to a fundamental change in the global economic system, as the realisation is dawning on Washington and Brussels that the People’s Republic is inexorably gaining the upper hand. After centuries of world dominance, the era of European and US supremacy is coming to an end.


In a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable and reinforce the rule of capitalism, Donald Trump is thrashing around, seeking measures to halt the advance of history. Among a plethora of often erratic measures, he is now trying to stall the flow of hi-tech equipment from the US and EU to China by focusing on microchips. From smartphones to computers, from weapon systems to satellites, from the stock market to industrial control systems, practically everything works today thanks to a tiny yet powerful resource: microchips. Hence the effort to deny China access.

Not for the first time is the United States leading a drive in an effort to prevent the technological advance of other countries. In 1949, they launched the ‘Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls’ in order to prevent the USSR from gaining access to Western technology. How successful this strategy was may be gauged from the fact that over the following decade the Soviet Union launched the world’s first satellite into space and, two years later, sent the first man into orbit around the earth.

In the modern era, though, the current US president has decided to continue with a policy first introduced by his predecessor, Joe Biden, and that is to target Nvidia’s exports to China. Under the management of Jensen Huang, the California-based company manufactures state-of-the-art microchips, including those used in the production of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) applications. For a period of time, the hi-tech industry in China bought large quantities of microchips from Nvidia.

In light of this, Trump decided to double down on Biden’s restrictions and in April of this year imposed a complete ban on the export of the valuable H20 chip. However, a number of factors intervened that forced the Donald to retreat.[1] Deprived of access to the Chinese market, Nvidia lost a huge slice of its regular income, resulting in the company being forced to cut back greatly on research and development. At a time of rapid advances in this field, it would probably have meant the company losing its lead in this crucial area.

A fact reinforced by the shock delivered to the smug US “tech-bros” and their volatile asset in the White House by the creation of the Chinese AI app, DeepSeek. By developing and granting open access to this high-powered app, China demonstrated that its citizens had the technical ability to match (and possibly outperform) anything Silicon Valley could do. More recently still, after being barred from markets in the US and much of Europe, the Huawei company has succeeded in manufacturing advanced microchips on a par with those produced by Nvidia.

And if that wasn’t enough, China has fired a shot across its competitors’ bows by restricting the export of rare earth materials. China controls an estimated 90% of the world’s rare earth refining and processing capacity [2] and holds nearly half of the global total rare earth reserves—materials necessary for the production of a wide variety of hi-tech devices, from lightbulbs to guided missiles. For example, the American F-35 fighter jet depends on rare earth magnets for its sensors, engines and wing flaps.

Faced with being out-manoeuvred, Trump did what any unprincipled capitalist (is there any other type?) would do and did a deal. In August, Nvidia and another, albeit smaller, US company, AMD, were permitted to sell mid-range microchips to China, but only after paying the US Treasury 15% of their revenue from these exports.

Conceding ground in this crucially important sector is indicative of the overall change in the global economic system referred to at the beginning of this article.

According to a report in the Financial Times last month, “China accounts for two-thirds of global EV (electric vehicle) sales, compared with just 9% in the US. China also has about 70% of the world’s battery share, as well as dominance across the processing of nickel, cobalt and graphite and production of cathodes and anodes.” [3] All are crucial to battery performance, longevity and energy density in advanced engineering. Complementing its manufacturing capacity, the People’s Republic assists climate improvement, as it leads the world in renewable energy deployment, producing 60% of global wind turbines and 80% of global solar panels.

Central to the emergence of the new order being led from Beijing is the country’s employment of socialist-driven central planning. Currently in the process of developing the country’s 15th Five-Year Plan, the emphasis will continue to be on the pursuit of greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology. Standard Chartered’s conservative estimate is for China’s economic growth at 4.3% over the next five years. Goldman Sachs estimates the US rate for the same period to be approximately 2.1%.

No surprise, therefore, why the White House and its allies are desperately trying to stall the rise of China, with its practice and example offering solid evidence of a viable alternative to monopoly capitalism. Because when the chips are down, history is on the side of progressive humanity, as exemplified by ‘Communist China’.

Tommy McKearney is a left wing and trade union activist. 
Follow on Twitter @Tommymckearney

European And US Supremacy Is Coming To An End

Event Announcement 🎤 Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign march in solidarity with Palestine.

Assembly Point: Garden of Remembrance, Dublin.

Destination: Dáil Éireann.

Date: 29 November 2025

Time: 1300.


Solidarity With Palestine March

Barry Gilheany ✍ It was the endorsement from Hell. 

Far right activist, grifter, felon and self-styled “ citizen journalist” Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, in a response to a post on X that predicted the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood would announce that refugees will be granted only a temporary stay in the UK and deported if their home countries are later deemed safe, posted: “The Overton window has been obliterated, well done patriots”[1]. 

This post went out on the weekend that the Home Secretary published her proposals to reform the UK’s admittedly dysfunctional asylum and immigration system. When the proposals modelled on the model implemented in Denmark by Labour’s sister Social Democratic government were brought to the House of Commons on Monday last, Ms Mahmood in response to a question that referenced Yaxley-Lennon’s congratulatory post, said that his name will not be mentioned in the House. In her introduction of the proposals, she stressed how toxic and divisive the asylum and immigration debate had become; that there was a moral imperative to sort out the chaos and unfairness in the system and described the racist abuse she, as a woman of South Asian heritage has been subjected to. Still, one can only imagine the frisson of horror felt by many Labour MPs as well as many refugee advocacy organisations at such support coming from a figure many of whose followers would deem her eligible for deportation because of her skin pigmentation and the faith she professes.

Before entering into a discussion of the merits and demerits of the 33-page document released by Ms Mahmood entitled Restoring Order and Control, it is necessary to give a precis of the core proposals. The Home Secretary hopes that the following policies will curb bogus asylum seekers and cut the numbers of people attempting to cross the English Channel in vessels that have entered the lexicon of national threat, namely “small boats.” The document proposes:

The end of permanent protection or refugees. Currently refugees in the UK receive a five-year initial period of leave. It is proposed to make refugee status temporary and to review it.

To escalate the removal of families including children whose asylum claims have been refused.

To axe legal requirement to support destitute asylum seekers. This will be replaced by a discretionary power to offer support, as previously provided under UK law. Support will be denied to those who have the right to work, a category which entrants on work or student visas before claiming asylum. Those working illegally, who commit crimes and who do not comply with deportation, will likewise no longer receive support.

Plan to introduce a new definition of “family” to curb claims from extended families. On Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the UK government is promising to legislate to make sure the right to family life only applies to immediate family.[2].

These proposals have this week been supplemented by proposals out to consultation by Shabana Mahmood on the eligibility of migrants for the receipt of welfare benefits. Under these, people who migrate to the UK will be eligible for benefits and social housing only when they become British citizens rather than being granted settlement on arrival in the UK as is currently the case. Those [3]who arrive by small boat could have to wait up to 30 years for residency.

The plan for “earned” settlement and doubling the wait time before eligibility for long-term status was announced in the Government’s White Paper on immigration. Arrivals will now be able to remain in the UK. Residents may qualify for resettlement through the much faster lane of a new contribution-based model, such as volunteering in the local community, having A-Level standard English and not being on benefits.[4]

More than 600,000 people and family members who arrived on health and care worker visas will be eligible for settlement after 15 years, under the new plans. If anyone on these visas, or their dependents, have claimed benefits for a year and more, thus would increase to 25 years. Visa overstayers and those arriving in small boats or lorries would have to wait for up to 30 years to settle. Doctors and nurses working in the NHS can settle after five years while high earners and entrepreneurs will be able to settle for three years.[5]

The context of this earning level and residential settlement model is the “Boriswave” of over than 1.6 million people who came to the UK after the post-Brexit wave of relaxation of visa rules. It is of course of no small irony that the man whose endorsement of Vote Leave was crucial to the Brexit vote in the 2016 referendum; whose sabotage of Theresa May’s EU Withdrawal Agreement caused such turmoil in British politics and whose negotiation of a Hard Brexit as PM has led to a fourfold drop in GDP; stands accused of facilitating “an open borders experiment” as current PM Keir Starmer has with sone degree of disingenuity put it. Was Brexit supposed to “secure our borders” though the ending of free movement of people from the EU? Did Vote Leave not promise to “take back control” of immigration policy? For the Boris visa scheme was a stark example of the deception at the heart of Brexit: the dishonest conflation of asylum, immigration and internal EU freedom of movement of labour by the charlatans the biggest act of economic and reputational damage to the UK since, in the opinion of Professor AC Grayling, 1914.

The Danish Model

Before the announcement of the Home Secretary’s immigration proposals, the imprint of the model adopted by Denmark to deal with its migration divisions was widely trailed. When Mette Frederiksen, the Social Democratic Prime Minister came to power in 2019, she announced her intention to cut the number of asylum seekers to zero. Of all the measures introduced to deter would be asylum seekers over the past decade, the impermanence of refugees’ status is often held up as the most effective. Before 2015, refugees were initially given residency permits for between five and seven years after which they automatically become permanent. But then after the deluge of a million refugees arriving in Europe fleeing war and persecution mostly from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Eritrea the Danish government implemented stringent changes to this relaxed migration regime.[6]

Since then, temporary residence permits have only been granted for one to two years at a time. To gain permanent status refugees have to be fluent in Danish and must have been have had a full-tine-job for several years.[7]

Most controversial is the so-called law “against ghettoes” (now known as “parallel societies”) which allows the state to demolish apartment blocks in areas where at least half of the residents have a “non-western” background. In February, a senior adviser to the European Court of Justice found the law constituted direct discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin.[8] At least critics of Shabana Mahmood’s proposals can console themselves that they include no such provisions.

In terms of efficacy, the measures appear to have met their objectives. In 2014 a total of 14,792 asylum seekers arrived in Denmark, with the largest numbers of coming from Syria and Eritrea. By 2021 that figure had dropped to 2,099 and in 2024 it was 2,333. Of nearly 100,000 residence permits granted in Denmark last year just 1% were recorded as having gone to refugees. The 99% included 9,623 refugees from Ukraine who are categorised separately, migrants from other parts of the European Economic Area, family reunification and people on study permits.[9]

The political debate in Denmark over these measures have similar contours to that in Britain. Critics can point to the increase in support for the far-right DPP which advocates remigration – the mass deportation of people with immigrant backgrounds as evidence that, rather than spiking the guns of the far right, the measures have helped shift the agenda further onto the ground of the nativist nationalists. Mirroring the sentiments of her UK counterparts, Eva Singer, the director of asylum and refugee rights of the Refugee Council, said it was politicians, not the public, driving anti0-immigrant sentiment:

The politicians say they follow the popular mood, but maybe the popular mood is coming from what the politicians are saying which is not based on fact.

Michala Clante Bendixen, who runs Refugees Welcome Denmark and the country coordinator for the European Commission’s migrant integration hub, claims that the temporary nature of refugee status is “poison for integration” because it did not give people to establish their lives in a new country.”[10]

Love's Labour Lost (Again)

Most fundamentally, Danish critics say that the adoption of such populist right-wing ideas as zero asylum admissions into nominally centre-left; politics has corroded some of the ideals that Denmark (and indeed all Scandinavian nations) are renowned for: progressive internationalism, welcoming of outsiders and a liberal social dispensation. Much of the angst felt by potential Labour opponents of the Home Secretary’s proposals is of a similar character; that they are not “who we are” and that Labour has camping out on Reform UK ideological territory in the hope of recovering defecting Labour voters to Reform who are not going to return. Instead, the asylum proposals will alienate Labour from what has become his liberal middle-class, professional base.

By contrast, in her combative address to the Commons Shabana Mahmood defended them as being rooted in Labour values of fairness and contribution. For her it is “a moral mission” for “a country without secure borders is a less safe country for those who look like me” and to take the UK back from the “dark forces stirring up anger in this country, and seeking to turn that anger into hate.”[11]

At the moment two dozen Labour MPs have raised concerns about families being forcibly removed from the UK if they refuse cash incentives to return to their countries. Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, has admitted to not being “comfortable” with forcible deportations while agreeing that “it is the right thing to do for the country.” When Mahmood in her address to the Commons Monday before last, cited “around 700 Albanian families living in taxpayer-funded accommodation having failed their asylum claims – despite an existing returns agreement, and Albania being a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights” she drew the accusations of “demagoguery” and of a poor echo of the “rhetoric of the populist far right” by Albania’s prime minister, Edi Rama.[12]

The suggestion that, because of its presence in the Danish model, that in some cases asylum seekers surrender jewellery or other valuables to cover costs prompted accusations of economic and political illiteracy by one Labour MP. Others said that “the policy of chasing Reform will not build confidence but fear” and that any Labour MP facing the probable danger of losing their seats to the Liberal Democrats or Greens would in all probability say no to the proposals.[13] However it should be emphasised that confiscation of jewellery and other personal effects do not form part of the Home Secretary’s current proposals.

The wider context of Labour discontent at the asylum proposals is the current dysfunction at the top of the Labour government. Along with the anonymous briefings against alleged leadership coup plotter Wes Streeting and the mixed messages being conveyed about this week’s Autumn budget, this latest hard-line immigration crackdown is a totemic illustration of the accurate perception of an out-of-control and chaotic No.10 under the unpopular chief of staff Morgan McSweeney.[14] (Winning campaigner of legend he is; people manager he certainly is not.)

Mahmood’s plan seems to illustrate the crisis at the heart of Labour. As a result of the toxic staffing relationships within 10 Downing Street that is the legacy of the dismissal of Sue Gray as Chief of Staff due to hostile briefing, the people inside No.10 do not trust the cabinet, Labour backbenchers, or even one another. They have alienated almost every base of power upon which a government relies. Much of their media briefing seems designed to alienate the liberal urban voters who are Labour’s core vote in the 21st century.[15] If not on the scale of the chaos and malevolent incompetence of the Boris Johnson administration laid bare in the Hallett Report on the decision taking during and management of the Covid pandemic, then the state of No 10 appears to be past the point of return with a leadership challenge to Keir Starmer appearing to be a matter of “when” rather than “if”.

In this maelstrom of Labour Party politics with prominent figures such as Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting on barely disguised manoeuvres, Shabana Mahmood’s immigration plans are likely her pitch for the top job given her well attested ambition and her oft told backstory of growing up as a woman of Pakistani Muslim heritage in Birmingham where a baseball bat had to kept on the premises of the family business as a deterrent to criminals and where she experienced racism. While there were “no dissenting voices” in the Cabinet meeting of 18th November when she restated the case for the biggest changes to the asylum system since the Second World War, Mahmood may also have recognised that some Labour politicians privately worried with the plans were in attendance and that, should the plans unravel, cabinet colleagues will turn on them in order to stake out positions in any future leadership contest.[16]

For it is no secret that Mahmood was Morgan McSweeney’s pick for Home Secretary and that the main aim of the Cabinet reshuffle in September in which she was appointed was to get in someone prepared to do “whatever it takes” to reduce small-boat crossings. The primary and all-consuming motivation behind the asylum proposals for No.10 is to ensure that immigration is not top of the agenda at the next general election. The trouble for the Labour high command is that, as hinted by Wes Streeting’s “discomfort” with the proposals, is that they risk the exposure of a split between two figures within the Labour “Right” : Streeting from the Blairite, pro-business, socially liberal traditions of the Progress think-tank and McSweeney of the Blue Labour, Labour First tradition that combines state interventionism with social conservatism. Mahmood would appear to lean towards the latter ideological orientation. The new asylum and immigration policy represents an internal victory for the McSweeney brand of politics[17] – his valorisation of the “hero voters” of the “Red Well” and all that but at what cost; the alienation of scores of Labour backbenchers in marginal seats and members and the possible loss of millions of Labour voters to the Liberal Democrats, Greens or even the Dave Sparts of Your Party if it can decide between its People’s Liberation Front of Judea or Judean People’s Liberation Front version. All of which could come to pass even if immigration is the salient issue at the next General Election.

There is consensus that the UK immigration system (indeed that of any nation) needs to be controlled and that borders need to be secure. However, as the Labour MP Sarah Owen, says, “a strong immigration system doesn’t need to be a cruel one.” Instead of enforcing these new policies, the UK should work with other European countries and bodies such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to ensure asylum seekers are fairly distributed between safe countries, and that the right to seek sanctuary for those fleeing persecution is not eroded beyond recognition.[18]

The headline aspects of Labour’s asylum removals do not add up to really successive outcomes on their own merits. Removals have increased, with 11,231 asylum-related returns in the year to November 2025. But many of these removals were to countries regarded as safe, like Brazil and India, which have historically low asylum grant rates. Mahmood’s plan to get tough on Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo by refusing to grant visas to their nationals if they don’t take back foreign national offenders will have a pin-prick impact on overall immigration figures despite the huge difference made to the lives of those involved since only a few thousand visas were granted to migrants from all three countries combined, according to Home Office data.[19]

Meanwhile, migrants and refugees who currently work in the UK; have families and are progressively integrating into British society face the possibility of enforced return to their countries of origin if deemed “safe” should they lose Right to Remain status; regardless of the actually existing conditions on the ground.

Migration As A Barometer For Breakdown Of Societal Trust

And yet there are legitimate grounds for dissatisfaction and anger with the current asylum and immigration system. The use of hotel accommodation to house asylum seekers which has generated such ire is the result of the build-up of asylum claims which the previous government virtually ceased tackling and of its profitability for the private companies entrusted with housing migrants. That latter factor explains why so many asylum seekers are placed in some of the poorest areas of the country and in houses of multiple occupation (HMO).[20] Poor communication from and inefficient working practice within the Home Office continues to bedevil policy and implantation as much as it did when New Labour Home Secretary John Reid in the 2000s declared it “not fit for purpose”.

However, what shapes hostility towards migrants is not the presence of migrants but perception of trust and cohesion. In this regard, Kenan Malik cites the work of sociologists Vera Massing and Bence Sagvari who have been tracking long-term trends in public attitudes in immigration using the European Social Survey (ESS), a biannual study conducted since 2002.This tool allows for comparison between migration policies and different attitudes to social institutions.[21]

They find that:

People in countries … with a high level of general and institutional trust, low level of corruption, a stable, well-performing economy and high level of social cohesion and inclusion … fear migration the least.

They note, whereas:

people are fearful in countries where the basic tissue of society is damaged , where people don’t trust each other or the state’s institutions, and where social cohesion and solidarity are weak.

Since “countries with a negligible share of migrants are the most hostile” then Messing and Sagvari conclude are an “expression of people ‘s lack of safety and security, and a symptom of deep-rooted problems in the society.” [22]

Thus, immigration has become symbolic of a seemingly insecure, precarious and out of control world. It has become a lightening rod for the discontents of globalisation, social atomisation, uncertainty in the worlds of work and business, the degradation of public services and loss (or perceived loss) of identity at the level of the personal, social and national. The list can go on. Migration anxieties can speak to one of the most elemental fears; that of change. In the UK, they reflect a plethora of indicators of lack of trust and belief in the capacity of the state to deliver social and economic change and in politics to address people’s grievances. Shabana Mahmood’s asylum proposals will not ameliorate such popular discontent. For those of us alarmed by the draconian tenor of the core proposals it is to be hoped that they will at least be modified in the course of their parliamentary passage if not withdrawn altogether as a consequence of a change at the top.

References 

[1] Diane Taylor Labour’s asylum plans are cruel, clumsy, and unachievable. The Guardian Journal. 18th November 2025 pp.1-2

[2] Guardian, 18th November 2025

[3] Rajeev Syal Migrants must be UK citizens before getting benefits, says Mahmood. The Guardian, 20th November 2025 p.16

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] Miranda Bryant, The Danish system. What are the policies the UK is hoping to emulate? The Guardian. 16 November 2025 p.9l

[7]Ibid

[8] Ibid

[9] Ibid

[10] Ibid

[11] Shabana Mahmood Dark forces are stirring up anger in the UK. My asylum reforms are our chance to stop them The Observer 16th November 2025.

[12] Rajeev Syal and Rowenna Mason Migration. Streeting says he is not ‘comfortable’ on removals The Guadian 20th November 2025.

[13] Peter Walker and Jamie Grierson Immigration and asylum. Mahmood’s proposals branded ‘illiterate’ by backbenchers The Guardian 15th November 2025.

[14] James Ball Inside Starmer’s Shambles The New World Issue 460 20th November 2025 pp.14-15


[15] Ibid

[16] Ailbhe Rera, Morgan McSweeney is pinning everything on Shabana Mahmood’s immigration plan. The New Statesman 21-27 November 2025 p.11

[17] Ibid

[18] Taylor, op cit.

[19] Ibid

[20] Kenan Malik, The real crisis Britain faces isn’t immigration but a profound breakdown in trust. The Observer 23 November 2025

[21] Ibid

[22] Ibid

⏩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.

The Lunacy Of UK Asylum Policy 🪶 Labour’s “Reform” Proposals

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Eight Hundred And Ninety Eight

 

A Morning Thought @ 2979

Anthony McIntyre  ☠ Israel's Hutu Power-like genocide in Gaza is a deeply emotive issue.


We can sense the raw anger pulsate through our ranks as Drogheda Stands With Palestine gathers every Saturday. It cuts to the bone, making it difficult to reconcile ourselves to the pro-Israel perspective or indifference of others. That feeling is not specific to Drogheda. A recently conducted poll in the UK found that almost half those surveyed would end a friendship over the genocide. 43 per cent of those who support Palestine felt that way while the number was slightly higher for supporters of Israel at 46 per cent. 

I have a friend who insists that friendship is too clean to be ruined by something as dirty as politics. I am not quite sure how well that works when a genocide is taking place.

The evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne observed recently that people are inclined to believe not what is true but what makes them comfortable. Although we try it each time we stand in West Street, moving people out of their comfort zone and having them assume credible positions is not an easy task. The thought has to cross our minds as to how anybody could be comfortable with what Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. 

A couple of days ago something came up on my Facebook feed about one of those pastor types expressing his sense of honour to be officiating at the funeral of one of his congregation. The only thing he revealed about the deceased congregant was that he was a friend of Israel. Obviously the pastor was comfortable stating that on a public forum. To my ear that is like praising somebody for being a friend of Nazi Germany. I imagine that the shame of saying it would make a reasonable person run for cover once the damning words were uttered. But not with this pastor. Silent about genocide but waving his pious fist the minute the horrible Iranian morality police pull a woman up for not wearing a head scarf. Children being massacred in Gaza makes him comfortable. Women being compelled to wear religious attire in Tehran makes him uncomfortable. Both make me uncomfortable but the objective gap that separates the degrees of human suffering between those inconvenienced by morality police and those incapacitated by genocide is as measurable as it is huge.

I guess it helps us better understand the phrases no hate like Christian love or you know god is on your side when he hates the same people you do. The fact that Christian pastors assigned to the SS could accompany the Einsatzgruppen on its murder missions against Jewish men, women and children, should serve to disabuse us of any misconceptions we might have that men of god can not be every bit as monstrous as others in this world, where cruelty before kindness is their pious priority. 

I recently read that the Satanic Temple in the US is providing food to people who are hungry as a result of Trump's withdrawal of the hunger averting SNAP assistance. Having a belief in neither demons or deities, I still found that most instructive about the relationship between religion and morality. If we lack compassion for those suffering cruelty in the world, our morality is seriously warped. 

Love comes not from heaven but from the heart. Nor is that love a hippy type schmaltzy, feel good, fuzzy feeling. It is simply a passion to achieve a world society where people - including those so far removed from us that we could not possibly love them as traditionally understood - are treated justly, are allowed human rights, are not subjected to war and genocide, are not starved and butchered. Asserting that type of love for a world order which protects rather than persecutes, we repudiate those with a mouth full of scripture and a heart full of hate.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Scripture

Event Announcement 🎤 1916 Societies host Exposing Stakeknife.

Venue: Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich.

Date: 28 November 2025

Time: 1900.

Main Speaker: Seamus Kearney.



Exposing Stakeknife

Dr John Coulter ✍ We can always think of the most bitter medicine we’ve ever had to swallow in life, but politically those who see themselves as moderate Unionists must face the equally bitter reality that the Alliance Party of 2025 is no longer a ‘soft U’ Unionist party, but an integral part of the Pan Nationalist Front.

Long gone are the days when Alliance was led by moderates, such as Lord John Alderdice, a fellow mainstream Presbyterian minister’s son and Boys’ Brigade enthusiast like myself. John and I were at Ballymena Academy together and were members of the school’s cross country and athletics clubs.

During the era of his leadership of Alliance, it was a party which Unionists could transfer to in PR elections. In past European, Assembly, Westminster and council elections in Northern Ireland, the so-called ‘Alliance Bounce’ has seen the party make gains its founders in the Seventies could only dream about.

The perception among the pro-Union community is that Alliance made those gains by attracting votes from moderate Unionism. Perhaps those moderate Unionists saw voting Alliance as a form of protest against the ‘Big Three’ Unionist parties - the DUP, UUP and TUV - rather than remaining at home and not voting.

But a new brand of Alliance Party has emerged in recent months which completely shatters that 20th century perception that Alliance is a ‘soft U’ Unionist party.

Taking the Alderdice era as a benchmark, Alliance was generally stronger in the pro-Union communities and constituencies. West of the River Bann was not viewed as fertile electoral territory for this so-called middle ground, centre party.

However, to advance into that territory west of the Bann, whilst hopefully holding onto any gains east of the Bann, Alliance has had to rebrand itself as a ‘soft R’ republican party capable of attracting transfers and even first preferences from traditional SDLP and Sinn Fein voters.

Basically, Alliance has rebranded itself on the ground once occupied by the now defunct ‘soft R’ republican Irish Independence Party, once fronted by former British Army officer and Protestant John Turnley. He was a Larne IIP councillor when he was shot dead by the UDA in Carnlough in June 1980.

Even before a border poll would ever be called, Alliance is currently under pressure to declare how it would encourage folk to vote on the issue of Irish Unity.

When it comes to talk of a border poll, parties like Alliance cannot afford - or will not be allowed - to adopt a ‘sit on the fence’ attitude. Look what happened to the UUP over the Brexit referendum in 2016.

However, if the Assembly and local government results in Northern Ireland are taken as a snap shot, Alliance is inextricably linked to the Pan Nationalist Front of Dublin, the SDLP and Sinn Fein in wanting a united Ireland.

Recent opinion polls have shown a slow but steady decline in support for Alliance. Could it be that moderate Unionists are finally waking up to the political reality that Alliance has attached its coat strings to the Pan Nationalist Front and republicans and nationalist parties merely see Alliance as a few extra votes to get motions passed at Stormont or councils.

Yes, the opinion polls prove the Alliance Bubble is leaking, but if it is to be finally burst by the time of the next Assembly poll in 2027, the pro-Union parties need to expose Alliance as being that integral partner in the Pan Nationalist Front.

Just as some Unionists vote tactically for the SDLP after they have voted for all the pro-Union parties, all Unionists - and especially moderate Unionists, centre ground Unionists, middle of the road Unionists, or whatever term this section of the pro-Union community wants to call itself - need to stop giving first and second preferences to Alliance, and only see a vote for Alliance as the least worst option to having someone elected from the SDLP or Sinn Fein.

Strategically, the 2027 Stormont election campaign has already begun. The pro-Union community needs to educate the Unionist electorate not just to engage with the electoral process and actually come out to vote, but also to inform that Unionist electorate exactly what Alliance has now become.

One of the challenges in achieving this is that many in the pensioner lobby of the pro-Union community still see Alliance as being a 21st century John Alderdice-type party. The flip side of the coin is that younger and first time voters may see Alliance as a protest party.

In reality, both these voter bases need to recognise that the so-called ‘centre ground’ political mask of Alliance has slipped badly and the party is firmly in the clutches of the Pan Nationalist Front.

When the utterances of numerous Alliance elected representatives are taken into consideration, many of those politicians could feel equally at ease ideologically in the SDLP, maybe some in Sinn Fein.

Likewise, just as President Connolly got elected by creating a Broad Left alliance, will we also see in the coming months Alliance drifting away from the so-called middle road ideologically and become a clear Left-wing movement rather than a liberal party?

If moderate Unionism needs a political wake-up call about what Alliance really now is as a movement, it needs only to watch again the debate in the Stormont Assembly concerning the No Confidence motion in the DUP Education Minister, which was led by Left-wing West Belfast MLA Gerry Carroll from the Far Left party People Before Profit.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Moderate Unionists Need To Learn Alliance Now Major Player In Pan Nationalist Front

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Eight Hundred And Ninety Seven

 

Pastords @ 17

 

A Morning Thought @ 2978

Maryam Namazie ✊This is the amended text of a speech given by me at the International Conference on Science for Choice, held in Split, Croatia, on 27 September 2025. 

Maryam nNamazie giving the speech in Split, Croatia.

I spoke in place of Ibtissame Betty Lachgar, who has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison in Morocco for wearing, in London, a t-shirt stating ‘Allah is Lesbian’. Lachgar, co-founder of the Mouvement alternatif pour les libertés individuelles (MALI), has long defended women’s rights and bodily autonomy in the face of fierce religious and political opposition. As a cancer survivor, her imprisonment is not only unjust but also dangerous to her health. She should be free, honoured for her courage and lifelong defence of freedom, not behind bars.

Earlier this week, Lachgar’s appeal was rejected and her sentence upheld. This article is dedicated to her and the plight of all women like her. We must renew our commitment to #FreeBetty!

It was first published on 10 October in The Freethinker.

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Across the world, women’s bodies remain battlegrounds for political, religious, and economic control. Abortion restrictions and bans, like other restrictions on women’s rights and freedoms, serve to police and discipline women, regulate sexuality, and reinforce power. Whether under Islamism, Catholicism, or other religious-Right or authoritarian states, the goal is the same: to control women’s bodies as a means of controlling society itself.

In Morocco, for example, abortion remains a criminal offence except when it is deemed necessary to save a woman’s life or health—a definition interpreted so restrictively that access becomes virtually impossible. The framework also demands both medical and, at times, spousal approval, ensuring that women’s autonomy is always conditional.

Amnesty International reports that one young woman, Salma, became pregnant after rape. Because Moroccan law criminalises abortion, she had no legal recourse and resorted to an unsafe abortion. She was later coerced into marrying her rapist. ‘I was treated like a criminal when I was the victim’, she said.

This is true in many countries under Islamic laws, where abortion laws generally fall into four categories. I have based these on G. K. Shapiro’s 2014 article in the journal Health Policy and Planning, ‘Abortion law in Muslim-majority countries’:


  • Life only: abortion permitted solely to save a woman’s life (18 countries, e.g. Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen).
  • Life and health: permitted when pregnancy endangers physical or mental health (9 countries, e.g. Algeria, Morocco, Pakistan).
  • Specific grounds: permitted in cases such as rape, incest, or foetal impairment (9 countries, e.g. Iran, Indonesia, Sudan, Bangladesh).
  • On request: allowed in early pregnancy (11 countries, e.g. Tunisia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan).

The pattern is clear. The more restrictive the law, the higher the rate of unsafe abortions and the greater the toll in women’s deaths and suffering. In states where abortion is legal on paper, albeit with ‘life-threatening’ restrictions, medical and bureaucratic gatekeeping often denies real access.

In Iran, for example, legal abortion is allowed only in extremely limited circumstances: three medical specialists must certify that the pregnancy endangers the woman’s life or that the foetus has a serious anomaly, and then the state’s Legal Medicine Organisation must approve it, all before 19 weeks of gestation.

This process is designed to deter. According to a 2024 study, an estimated 300,000–600,000 illegal abortions occur annually in Iran. By contrast, in 2015–2017, 15,617 applications for legal abortion permission were granted, overwhelmingly for foetal causes rather than maternal causes; older reports suggest 7-8,000 abortions were granted.

Many underground feminist networks distribute abortion pills via encrypted channels and offer discreet counselling, despite the threat of arrest. Hospitals sometimes treat cases involving complications from unsafe abortion.

Abortion outside narrow legal exemptions is criminalised: those who encourage abortion can face three to six months’ imprisonment, providers six months to three years, plus diyyeh (financial compensation) to the foetus’s guardian (a male). Punishments escalate after the stage of ‘ensoulment’ (commonly set at 120 days), when abortion may be treated as homicide. Early in 2025, Iranian state-run media reported a death sentence against a person accused of performing 140 illegal abortions; they were charged with ‘corruption on earth’.

Abortion bans are not limited to the states with Islamic laws. Some of the harshest restrictions exist in Christian-majority countries like El Salvador and Honduras, where abortion is banned under all circumstances and women face prison sentences even for miscarriages.

Wherever abortion restrictions are imposed, they serve clear political, economic, and ideological aims. Religious and nationalist movements frame abortion as a threat, linking bans to the protection of family, religion, nationalism, and identity. Though couched in the language of ‘morality’, abortion bans are tools of power. By controlling sex, marriage, and fertility, states enforce order and hierarchy. They uphold the patriarchal family, binding women to compulsory motherhood. Abortion restrictions ensure a steady supply of workers, carers, and soldiers for the state, while keeping women dependent. Criminalisation disciplines women through fear and deepens surveillance of their bodies.

As Marxist feminist Sylvia Federici argues in Caliban and the Witch (2004), the witch hunts, suppression of midwifery, and criminalisation of abortion stripped women of control over reproduction and handed it to the state, church, and capital.

Neoliberalism, austerity, and privatisation intensify this logic. Social safety nets erode, and the burden of care shifts back onto women. Abortion restrictions ensure women continue to perform this unpaid labour under moral and legal coercion.

Every advance in women’s autonomy, including in accessing contraception, sexual freedom, and abortion rights, provokes backlash. Yet repression always meets with women’s resistance. Women continue to fight back, often at great risk. MALI, co-founded by Ibtissame Betty Lachgar, is a great case in point. They have kept abortion on the public agenda in Morocco, famously inviting the Women on Waves ship in 2012 and distributing abortion pills despite harassment and threats.

In Pakistan, the Aurat March has transformed Mera Jism Meri Marzi (‘My Body, My Choice’) into a national slogan despite blasphemy accusations, mob threats, and legal harassment. Alongside protests, activists provide abortion pills and post-abortion care, saving lives under restrictive laws.

In Turkey, abortion has been legal on request since 1983, yet only 7.8% of state hospitals actually provide it. When the Islamist Erdogan government attempted a near-total ban in 2012, tens of thousands of women marched through Istanbul and Ankara, chanting, ‘Abortion is a right, abortion saves lives’. The mobilisation forced the government to retreat.

In Tunisia, where abortion is legal on request, feminists confronted rising Islamist pressure after 2011 by staging hospital sit-ins, defending access, and resisting attempts by institutions to pressure doctors into refusal policies.

In Rojava (the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Syria), the feminist revolutionary project has institutionalised women’s rights even in war. Sex parity in governance, women’s houses, and autonomous justice systems have become norms. Abortion is legally available as part of women’s right to health and self-determination.

In Iran, the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising following the 2022 killing of Mahsa Jina Amini has declared bodily autonomy as a frontline demand. Women publicly unveiled, burned their headscarves, and confronted clerics. The ‘turban-flying’ protests—where people knocked clerics’ turbans off their heads—became a potent symbol of rejecting male religious authority and patriarchy.

Abortion bans are not about morality; they are about maintaining order through control of women’s bodies. Women’s rebellion and body riots insist that bodily autonomy is non-negotiable and that the struggle for women’s bodily autonomy is not peripheral to human freedom but at its core.

Maryam Namazie is a political activist, campaigner and blogger

Abortion And Bodily Autonomy 🪶 Restriction, Repression, And Feminist Fightback

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