With just nine days remaining in the Unite general secretary contest, union members in Scotland are complaining that the union is failing to deliver their ballots.

Incumbent Sharon Graham typically has little support in Scotland. The complaints come hot on the heels of revelations that Unite has failed to deliver ballots to around 5,000 members in Gibraltar.

Graham has been heavily criticised for her treatment of union staff. Her rival in the election is Simon Dubbins, Unite’s international officer, who took many of the union’s biggest sectors and branches in the nominations phase.

Unite members in Scotland complain

On Saturday, a Scottish Unite member wrote on his Facebook page about “corruption of the highest order”, regarding many Scottish members not receiving ballots when “Sharon Graham has no support in the Scottish region”.

The issue appears to be widespread. Branch secretary Donna Collins responded that many members of her branch have still not received theirs.

She wrote:

I’ve already emailed them as the branch secretary as a lot of my branch members haven’t received their ballot papers. This is not on!!

The union told members in Gibraltar that no alternative arrangements could be made to avoid the need to send in ballots by post:

The current legislation governing this election requires ballot papers to be issued by post and for members to be given the opportunity to vote by post. For that reason, the election arrangements must continue to operate within that statutory postal voting framework.

Unite and Graham’s anti-union record

The election has seen a string of former die-hard Graham supporters call on members to vote her out – including the man who wrote her 2021 manifesto. These defections come on top of Dubbins’s unusually strong performance in the nominations phase, winning many of Unite’s biggest sectors and branches that previously backed Graham.

Despite running Unite, Graham has repeatedly been accused of using appalling, anti-union tactics against workers employed by Unite, leading to several strikes. In many cases, these tactics have been seen as Unite’s attempts to protect her husband, Jack Clarke. Clarke is the target of much of the industrial unrest among Unite staff.

Soon after her accession in 2021, Graham created a new Bargaining and Disputes Support Unit (BDSU). Outside of the union’s usual procedures, Clarke was appointed to run it. The appointment was made despite Clarke being on a final warning for bullying and misogyny. As striking workers picketed against Clarke, Graham’s faction staged counter-demonstrations against them and attacked their reps.

Most recently, Graham’s plan to shut down the union’s popular, 20,000-strong ‘Community’ section has been exposed. And she has been accused of letting odious Labour right-winger Wes Streeting and his team write an attack in her name on potential next chancellor Ed Miliband, to boost Streeting’s prospects under Andy Burnham.

Unite lawyers’ explosive admission

Explosively, Unite’s lawyers admitted to Skwawkbox that the union had destroyed evidence that workers had gathered against him. This did not stop further complaints and strike action from workers in his new fiefdom, with almost all the women working under him quitting and 90% of Unite’s HQ staff backing strike action.

The challenger and the hide-and-seek

Dubbins, by contrast, has spoken out consistently against Israel’s genocide and against Unite’s disengagement from wider politics to suit Graham’s narrow ‘workplace only’ agenda. He was suspended as Unite’s international director after refusing to cancel a pro-Palestine fringe event at a Labour conference.

Graham hid from union branches and declined to debate Dubbins at any hustings event during the nominations phase, angering many, including allies, by sending weak proxies instead. Last week, Dubbins publicly challenged Graham to stop hiding and face him in an open debate in front of members.

Any of these issues could and should be decisive in a union election with a history of low turn-outs. Based on recent history, Graham’s paid organiser team will be working hard to secure support for her — but members need to hear the voices of those who used to be prominent in campaigning for her and now see her as an ongoing disaster.

Unite has approximately 150,000 members in Scotland. General secretary elections are typically decided on a turnout of around 10-12% of Unite’s now sub-1 million members.

Graham won her first tenure in 2021 with the backing of just 4% of the union’s membership at the time on a 10% turnout, so around 40,000. With Scottish members, Unite Community members and overseas members likely to back Dubbins, such a level of support looks decidedly vulnerable.

Assuming members in those sections are allowed to get their votes in before the 11 August deadline.

Featured image via Jacob King/ PA and Nurith Wagner Strauss 

By Skwawkbox

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Right then. Let’s not mess about. Andy Burnham has been Prime Minister for two weeks and already the man who promised real change and a break with the past, has filled his top team with so many Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) veterans, pro-Israel donors, and establishment re-treads you’d be forgiven for thinking Starmer never actually left.

Burnham offers just more of the same

We were told it would be different. Burnham said he had heard the anger. He knew people were sick of being ignored and sick of lobbyists calling the shots; sick of foreign governments dictating our foreign policy while our own people go hungry. And then? He turns around and hires the exact same people who’ve been doing exactly that for the last decade.

Let’s run the numbers, because they tell a story even the BBC can’t spin. Almost 40% of Burnham’s cabinet are affiliated with LFI — the lobby group that works hand-in-glove with the Israeli embassy. It doesn’t expose its funders, and LFI’s former director went on to become a spokesperson for the Israeli government.

Not some of them. Not just a few bad apples. Two in every five. And that’s just the ones we can name. The real figure is almost certainly higher. And it’s not his cabinet. It’s the people he’s put in the most powerful jobs around him. The ones who actually write the policy. The ones who decide who gets listened to and who gets shown the door.

Take James Purnell, Burnham’s new chief of staff. The most important job in Downing Street outside of the prime minister himself. And who is Purnell? The former chair of LFI.

Purnell ran the lobby group between 2002 and 2004. A Blairite through and through, and it should go without saying, Purnell voted for the Iraq war. Now, he’s running Burnham’s operation.

The list goes on and on

Then there’s Bridget Phillipson. Burnham’s first big appointment as Labour Party chair was announced in the last few days. She’s been in the role for barely a week and it’s already been reported that she’s received two £40,000 donations from Stuart Roden, a financier whose Tel Aviv-based venture capital firm employs “an array of former Israeli soldiers, many of whom have served in elite intelligence units”.

Roden holds private meetings with the Israeli ambassador.

And it’s not just Phillipson — Lisa Nandy, another top Burnham appointee, also took £40,000 from him. And we’re supposed to believe that doesn’t matter?

But it somehow gets worse because it’s not just money, it’s the policy. Burnham spent months hinting he’d be different on Gaza and has apologised for Starmer’s slow response. But he then, of course, reappointed Ian Austin as UK trade envoy to Israel. Yes, that Ian Austin.

The man who quit Labour over Corbyn, was ennobled by Boris Johnson, has falsely smeared pro-Palestine campaigners as antisemites and Holocaust deniers. He was forced to apologise in court. This is the man who has openly defended Israel’s actions in Gaza even after the UN said it found a plausible risk of genocide and Burnham put him back in the job as if nothing happened.

Poor judgement and poor leadership.

Of course Burnham won’t say the ‘G’ word

Let that sink in. While millions of people in this country are horrified by what’s happening in Gaza — marching, protesting, donating, begging for our government to stop sending arms and start speaking up — Burnham’s response is to promote the lobbyists, reinstall the smeer-merchants, and pack the cabinet with LFI veterans.

It is insulting and frustrating in equal measures. Burnham had a clean slate. He could have done anything. He could have reached for people who’ve actually stood up for Palestine and who’ve actually fought for public services. Those who answer to us and not foreign lobbyists. Instead, Burnham gazed at the list of Starmer’s most loyal pro-Israel ministers, crossed out the ones the papers didn’t like, and put the rest in charge.

Wes Streeting — LFI.

Ed Milliband — LFI.

John Healey — LFI.

Yvette Cooper— LFI.

The list goes on. These aren’t accidental appointments. These are not the best people for the job. This is the establishment’s safety net.

They let Burnham have the job because they, and we knew, they were guaranteed; that when it came to things that actually matter to power, he’d pick the same team.

I’m not claiming any of these people are inherently evil. It’s that there’s no fresh start here. There’s no break with the past. There is no Burnham revolution.

There’s a man who rode public anger into power on the back of a promise to change things. Then, the very first thing he did was hand the keys to the same people who’ve been driving us off a cliff for 20 years.

Did you really expect change?

If your top team is stuffed full of people with deep, documented financial and political ties to a foreign government — and that government is still slaughtering innocent civilians by the thousands — you cannot claim to be putting Britain first. You cannot claim to be different.

We can see the appointments, can see the donors and the lobby groups. Actions speak louder than Northern accents and so far, every single action of Andy Burnham’s since walking into Downing Street screams one thing loud and clear: business as usual.

Burnham hasn’t sailed into a new era. He’s just taken the wheel of the same ship, and the passengers he’s supposed to be carrying aren’t you and me.

They’re the one’s paying for the voyage and we all know who they are.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachael Swindon

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The fight over data centers has suddenly become a defining battle in the race to run Kansas — on both sides of the aisle.

Gubernatorial hopefuls are trying to leverage the issue to weaken their rivals in the final stretch before Tuesday’s primaries, with attack ads, dark money and accusations of flip-flopping roiling the race. Democratic state Sen. Cindy Holscher and GOP state Sen. Ty Masterson, two of the top contenders in their respective fields, are bearing the brunt of the criticism.

Republican businessman Philip Sarnecki has spent more than $300,000 on ads attacking Masterson for voting for a bill last year to expand data center construction and give 20-year tax breaks to developers, accusing him of being beholden to big tech.

On the Democratic side, Holscher voted for the same bill but has now staked out a populist stance calling for a moratorium on data centers — an appeal to the same grassroots base that has put her in a strong position to win. Her primary opponents are attacking her as a flip-flopper, and social media ads fueled by anonymous backers keep highlighting her past vote in support of data centers. She’s up against state Sen. Ethan Corson, whom Gov. Laura Kelly endorsed, and Overland Park Mayor Kurt Skoog.

The brawl shows just how divisive and complicated the politics of data centers has become, as politicians in both parties struggle to define a clear winning position on the mass hubs amid growing voter backlash. A July POLITICO Poll found that Americans are increasingly souring on data centers, a trend that’s especially evident among Democrats but crosses partisan lines.

Republican and Democratic candidates are harnessing that opposition to gain an edge in crowded primaries, a rare moment of partisan crossover that speaks to its potency. 

In Kansas, a state with nearly 40 data centers and many pending proposals, local opposition to the industry has animated city council meetings from Wichita to Kansas City. Several towns, like Topeka, have chosen to pass one-year moratoriums to give leaders more time to study the proposals.

Now, the state’s top race is getting caught in the crossfire, as Democrats look for a way to hold onto the governor’s mansion after eight years under Kelly — and Republicans grow bullish about taking back the seat in a red state that voted for President Donald Trump by 16 points in 2024.

“It’s bleeding across both primaries and it’s blurring traditional party stances,” said Bob Beatty, a political science professor at Washburn University in Topeka, who said the rapidly shifting politics speak to a growing “fear around AI.”

Tuesday’s Kansas primaries will help show the party bases’ appetite for data centers — signaling whether voters are looking for a leader who takes a strong position against new developments or a middle-of-the-road approach aimed at bringing in more tax revenue.

Both Masterson’s and Holscher’s campaigns are dismissive that the attack ads will work.

“It’s a very kind of kitchen sink approach here at the end,” said a Masterson campaign adviser, granted anonymity to speak freely about the race. The aide argued that the attacks have been ineffective against the state Senate president, especially given he’s the Trump-endorsed candidate in a state the president won three times.

Holscher, who said in an interview she regrets her vote, argued her new position reflects where people across the state stand now: “This is a unifying issue in terms of where people are on it, urban and rural as well as young and old,” she said in an interview. “I’m the only Democrat in this race to call for a moratorium on data centers because we have to get these guardrails in place. We are having our people and our resources exploited.”

Data center construction — and hostility towards them — exploded after passage of the 2025 legislation backed by Holscher and Masterson, which saw widestrong bipartisan support and was signed by Kelly, a pro-business Democrat.

Masterson has said that “folks build here on our terms, or they don’t build here,” and that local communities should be in charge of deciding whether they want the infrastructure. He supports a Kansas version of the White House’s position on data centers — a voluntary commitment designed to prevent them from driving up utility bills.

But several of his Republican opponents take a more hardline approach by calling for an outright moratorium, like Sarnecki and Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt, another candidate in the top tier of the field.

The Kansas Comeback PAC, linked to Sarnecki, has challenged Masterson’s vote for the 2025 bill. “After 20 years in politics, Ty Masterson has mastered the game,” the TV ad by Kansas Comeback PAC says. “Thousands from big tech. Rewarded them with tax breaks.”

On the Democratic side, it’s difficult to tell who’s leading the field given limited public polling. Holscher’s supporters have cast the race as a choice between a populist fighter and a safe establishment figure, and they believe she will be boosted by the national tailwinds propelling leftwing candidates in states like Colorado, New York and Michigan. One survey from June, conducted before the candidates began running ads, had Holscher up by 27 points.

Corson is also backed by former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Lt. Gov. David Toland, and supporters believe he has the necessary crossparty appeal to win the general election in conservative Kansas. Kelly cut a TV ad on his behalf that started to run in major media markets last week.

While Holscher now wants to pause construction to give time to develop regulations, Corson supports construction moving forward with data center development, with guardrails around energy costs and water usage.

“Cindy seems to think that we should just go along with her flip-flopping and not making up her mind and doing what’s politically convenient for her race, and that’s not what we’re going to do.” said Ty Dragoo, chair of the Working Kansas Alliance, a group of more than 23 unions. Corson has raked in endorsements from trades unions like those represented by Dragoo’s group.

“Our north star is to get jobs, to get high-paying jobs, and to get sustaining jobs, and we’re not going to deviate from that.”

Holscher says her experience holding town halls throughout the state, including in deep red areas, opened her eyes to the depth of the opposition to the developments, which have sparked concerns about human health and environmental harms like water usage.

“She’s been listening, and people just want to be heard,” said Democratic state Rep. Linda Featherston, a Holscher supporter. “You have to be out amongst the people listening to what they have to say and not just brushing them off.”

But Holscher’s push for a moratorium has alienated some county, state and labor leaders who see an opportunity for data centers to boost the state’s economy. Corson is advocating for a local-first approach where communities get to decide whether they want to welcome the industry, while at the same time instituting statewide regulations so that the facilities pay energy costs, minimize water usage and ease the tax burden on residents nearby.

“Ultimately, these decisions should be made by communities, not by politicians in Topeka,” Corson said in a statement. “I believe some communities will look at a potential project and decide to move forward, and when they do, my Department of Commerce will work side-by-side with them to make it as beneficial for the community as possible. But other communities will decide that a data center is not a good fit, and as governor, I will absolutely respect that decision.”

Corson’s war chest also puts him in a good position to face off against likely opponent Masterson, who will bring the force of the national GOP’s deep pockets. The Republican Governors Association has already placed a nearly $7 million TV ad reservation in major Kansas media markets starting immediately after the primary.

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There has been public outrage over a horrific incident in which authorities gunned down 51 cattle in County Tyrone, in the north of Ireland, doing so in a publicly visible area.

Complaints from politicians have centred on why the brutal measures had to be carried out in an area viewable by locals. However, the obvious question this begs is the following: why would mass murder suddenly become justifiable if it is hidden out of sight?

The details of the incident are unquestionably distressing. According to Sinn Féin councillor, Eugene McConnell, the killing took almost 12 hours to complete. He told the Irish News:

The shooting started at 10:00 in the morning and the last animal was shot at 9:50 that evening.

McConnell also said:

It was like a Wild West scene — there were cars blocking the roads, there were people standing on ditches watching the marksmen shoot the animals dead in the field.

Deborah Erskine, South Tyrone MLA for the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), said:

Members of the public shouldn’t have seen this. In one case I’m aware of a father and son driving past this field and witnessed this in broad daylight, that shouldn’t have happened.

County Tyrone: Cruel meat industry lacks transparency

Observers said cows fled in a distressed state following initial gunshots and that the gunman killed cattle in front of each other. The animals were part of a mixed breeding herd owned by 59-year-old Martin Beattie. The purpose of such a herd is to produce fresh cattle, most of whom would have been murdered at some point in a slaughterhouse.

These cattle suffered well before that, however, as many were diseased and “highly stressed” due to abandonment. The Irish News reported:

Beattie’s defence solicitor said his client had suffered from mental health issues and that he was isolated, while the judge said he was “overwhelmed” by the job of running the farm. The defence solicitor added the remaining 66 cattle, mainly cows and calves, were in a “reasonable state”.

Beattie had pleaded guilty to 21 offences related to his failure to properly care for the animals. Questions remain as to why the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) let things get to the point where the mass slaughter was necessary.

Only weeks previously, the cows were apparently in a “reasonable state”. Given DAERA carried out “four previous culls”, it’s unclear why they weren’t more attentive to potential deterioration among any remaining cows.

Agriculture Minister, Andrew Muir, was hardly transparent about what occurred on the day of the shooting, saying he was “not at liberty to discuss further” all the details of the incident.

Transparency hasn’t exactly been a strength of farming in the north of Ireland. It is only in the past week that the region has come in line with British laws around CCTV in abattoirs. This might lessen the chances of the most egregious cruelty to animals in these horrific places, but it can’t prevent the brutal truth: there is no humane method of mass murdering animals.

Pigs struggle to survive before throats are slit

Animal Equality thoroughly debunks this myth on their web page. They point out that stunning of animals in the moments before slaughter is ineffective and itself causes pain to those about to be killed. For example, they reveal the horrors suffered by pigs when carbon dioxide gas is used to stun them prior to death:

Carbon dioxide does not cause the pigs to become unconscious immediately and high concentrations of the gas can cause them significant pain and distress. Pigs have been shown in studies to gasp for air, squeal and struggle to escape for up to a minute before losing consciousness.

A UK Government report says: “There are longstanding concerns about the negative welfare impacts of high concentration CO₂ stunning systems for pigs.”

After the pigs fall unconscious, a slaughterhouse worker slits their throats and the pigs bleed out until they die.

Meanwhile, abattoirs use electric baths to stun chickens.

[The birds are] painfully hung upside down by their legs and carried towards a bath containing electrified water. When the chicken’s head makes contact with the water, they’re electrocuted and become unconscious. The chickens are then carried towards a metal blade which slits their throats.

Yet they often suffer a painful death, due to cases where they are:

…not shocked strongly enough to render them unconscious.

The cruelty of farming animals for meat starts long before death, due to the brutal practices of factory farming that are still routine across Britain and Ireland.

[Dairy cows are] kept indoors and forced into a life of misery spent walking back and forth to the milking stations where they are attached to milking machines that take the milk intended for their calves.

No justification for brutal mass killing of animals

Animal Equality points out:

Cows are extremely maternal and social animals who can naturally live up to 20 years. However, on dairy farms, a cow is slaughtered when she is around three or four years old and sold for cheap meat or leather products.

Even in an imaginary world where we found a totally humane method of slaughter, we have no business ending the lives of these intelligent creatures so prematurely. In my opinion, it is not necessary to consume meat — a good plant-based diet is a healthier alternative.

The events in Tyrone were unquestionably horrific, and no one should be exposed to brutal violence without consent. However, the horror would still be present were it to take place within the confines of an abattoir. The gunning down of cows in public is simply a reminder of the obvious truism:

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.

Featured image via BBC

By Robert Freeman

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This email actually came in a couple of days ago, but we’ve been too dumbstruck to respond to it until now.

Because, like, wow.

Firstly, let’s take a moment to note the weird font change halfway through that central paragraph, as though someone else entirely butted in. And let’s also note that those 93 words took COPFS 27 days to come up with, which makes it all the more shocking that they haven’t even read the question.

The letter we sent them on 3 July couldn’t have been any more explicit: we WEREN’T asking them about fraud. We acknowledged fraud was hard to prove. We said, with the starkest clarity, that the issue was embezzlement.

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We’re sure they tried really hard to remember that.

But the eventual response is an insult so crassly contemptuous (and therefore entirely in character for the Crown Office, which is answerable to no-one and can do whatever it likes in Scotland) that it’s hard to know what to do about it. Normally officialdom at least vaguely pretends that it cares about accountability to the people that pay its wages, but to be frank it’d have been less offensively dismissive if COPFS had just sent us a dog turd in a jiffy bag.

We’ll let you know where we go from here when we know ourselves.

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Jewish anti-genocide activist Tony Greenstein says that multiple “political debanking” attacks have forced him into the “cash economy”.

His trial under the Terrorism Act, for supporting Palestinians’ legal right to resist Israel’s occupation, begins on18 August.

In a statement, Greenstein explains the history of debanking — an attack also used against the Canary — and details how he has been a recurrent victim of debanking as the UK state represses pro-Palestine speech.

In full, the statement reads:

When Nigel Farage was debanked in June 2023 by Coutts for his political opinions it made the national headlines. Dame Alison Rose, CEO of the National Westminster Group, which owned Coutts was forced to resign.

In July 2024 I was debanked by Nationwide Bank for ‘regulatory reasons’. They refused to provide any reasons. I had been with Nationwide over a quarter of a century.

In July 2025 I was debanked by HSBC which closed the account which my wife and I had open for our son, who is autistic. The only transactions that were made on it were for my son’s care.

At the same time I was debanked by First Direct, the telephone bank owned by HSBC, which I had been with for 33 years, just three years less than the bank itself had been in existence. Again no explanation was provided by either bank and unlike Nigel Farage my debanking has attracted no publicity from the mainstream press.

In June 2026 Santander froze both my personal accounts and those of The Brighton Trust, a registered charity for which I am Treasurer. At the time of writing they are still frozen. No explanation has been given for their actions.

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In July 2026 Kent Reliance (One Savings Bank) also froze the savings accounts of my family without giving any explanation. They have now closed them.

In December 2023 I was arrested for supporting the October 7 resistance operation by Palestinians in Gaza. I have been charged under s.12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 for what is an expression of opinion but which is classified as ‘terrorism’ today.

In much the same way over 3,000 people have been arrested for supporting the ‘terrorist’ group, Palestine Action.

It is clear that some national agency – either the National Crime Agency or the Counter-Terror Police has been feeding malicious allegations to the banks.

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Under money laundering and anti-terrorist legislation if banks are told that someone is suspected of money laundering then they are forbidden to ‘tip off’ the customer for fear of jeopardising an investigation. That may make sense when someone is involved in financing the drugs trade or ISIS but makes no sense when the ‘terrorism’ alleged is an expression of free speech.

At my trial later in August I will be pleading not guilty to supporting a proscribed organisation, Hamas. Clearly certain agencies of the state cannot wait for the trial verdict and are actively seeking to destabilise me.

I make no apology for supporting Palestinian resistance against Israel’s genocidal occupation which is now 59 years old. As far as I am concerned Palestinian resistance is no different to the resistance of Black people during Apartheid in South Africa. The only difference is that conditions in Israel today for the Palestinians are far worse than they ever were in South Africa.

In the 1980s both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher called the ANC terrorists however neither of them went as far as to accuse their supporters of terrorism too. In today’s political climate any support for Palestinian resistance against Israel’s genocidal army is called ‘terrorism’.

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Indeed the accusation of terrorism is being made against UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. We live in an era where opponents of Western wars and terrorism are themselves being accused of terrorism.

Debanking someone because of their political opinions is Financial Terrorism yet that is what the British State is doing today. Not only to me but Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine and Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

The BBC and British press, who were ready to cry foul when the leader of Britain’s racist Reform Party was debanked, are remarkably silent when it comes to opponents of racism being debanked.

Greenstein is holding a webinar exactly a week before the start of his trial to raise support for his legal fight. Speakers include Electronic Intifada‘s Ali Abunimah, Palestinian author Ghada Karmi, Jewish ANC veteran Ronnie Kasrils, Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori, and Greens for Palestine’s Lubna Speitan.

Featured image via YouTube

By Skwawkbox

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Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente has suggested Israel is behind the ‘immigration crisis’ in Spain’s Ceuta enclave in Morocco.

The Moroccan government is widely considered a US client state and is heavily dependent on Israeli weapons supply. Israel and the US have been accused of coordinating the Ceuta crisis, in which thousands of Moroccans poured into the enclave and at least 67 people have died, to punish Spain. Spain’s resistance to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its refusal to allow US warplanes to use Spanish bases and airspace to attack Iran and Spain’s condemnation of Israel’s racist attack on footballer Lamine Yamal have infuriated the imperialist regimes.

Spanish response

Puente was responding to Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon’s exploitation of the crisis to attack Spain. In an X post and a subsequent follow-up on he said:

Well, everything is starting to become quite clear.

You know what? I want Spain to be a sovereign nation in an interconnected world. I don’t want it to be a branch of Trump or Netanyahu.

As Al Jazeera has pointed out, Israel’s army of mouthpieces and bots have focused on fanning the flames around Ceuta for months.

In the months leading up to the crisis in Ceuta, pro-Israel voices conspicuously raised the issue of the enclave…[after] the Sanchez government has been increasingly critical of Israel, labelling it a “genocidal state” and cancelling major arms deals accordingly. In 2024, Spain recognised the State of Palestine.

Israel, of course, has no shame about the hypocrisy of criticising someone else’s enclaves while occupying the West Bank. And using Gaza as a concentration camp while it genocides Gaza’s indigenous population and other refugees from the Zionists’ theft of Palestinian land.

The Trump regime, meanwhile, has attacked Spain for months for not allowing the use of its airbases in the illegal war on Iran. Trump and his cronies are using Ceuta to fan anti-immigrant hate in the US, raising further suspicions that the US played a role in inciting the crisis as well:

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The ‘crisis’ does indeed look more like a punishment beating dished out to a country that dares to stand up against US imperialism and Israeli genocide and war crimes.

Spain has demanded an EU meeting and accused the EU of collaborating in the US-Israeli attack in its response.

Featured image via Paolo Blocco/ WireImage 

By Skwawkbox

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