Every minute of every day there are numerous Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians taking place somewhere in the occupied West Bank.

Many attacks involve direct violence, but settlers also intimidate, steal and destroy land and property.

Their purpose, by whatever means possible, is to steal Palestinian land for the Zionist’s colonial project of a “Greater Israel”, in the occupied Palestinian territory. And they have the full support and protection of the occupation’s police, military and government.

Here are just a few of the recent attacks on Palestinians by these illegal settlers…

Israeli settlers terrorise towns and villages

On 19 May, settlers and the occupation’s military stormed Madama, a town south of Nablus. They entered an area classified as ‘Area B’ under the Oslo Accords and vandalised property.

The following day, they destroyed parts of the town’s electrical network, including electricity poles.

A few days later, Israeli occupation soldiers raided the village, forcing shop owners to close their businesses.

No access for medics and ambulances

On 30 May, in the early morning, there was a coordinated attack.

Armed settlers assaulted residents with clubs and live ammunition, and targeted their homes. The occupation’s soldiers fired live bullets and tear gas, while the settlers attacked residents. They prevented ambulances from reaching injured people, as commonly happens. Dozens of sheep were also stolen.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that the attack hospitalised at least seven Palestinians. They were beaten with clubs, hit on the head with rocks, and shot at.

The settler attack in Madama was just one of several taking place in the Nablus district that day.

Settlers also raided the Jabal Bir Quza area in the town of Beita, in south Nablus. Video footage shows them wielding clubs and throwing rocks at a house. They also smashed the windows of several cars.

The moment Israeli settlers launched an attack on the Jabal Bir Quza area in the town of Beita, south of Nablus, vandalizing and setting residents’ property on fire. pic.twitter.com/mHcl4tA2uL

— Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) May 30, 2026

Israeli settlers carried out another attack on the Bir Quza area of Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. Dr. Rabee Shourfa, Deputy Mayor of Beita, described the damage inflicted on residents property during the raid. pic.twitter.com/B6ETz7aaeh

— Government Communication Center (@pal_gcc_en) May 31, 2026

Settlers from the same outpost attack again

Then, in the evening, the settlers targeted Palestinian-registered vehicles on the road between Beita and Awarta.

They sprayed adults and children with pepper spray, and attacked homes in Ras al-Ein, in the village of Qusra.

One resident was stabbed while trying to defend his home before being taken to hospital with moderate injuries. This resident was the cousin of Amir Odeh, 28, who was shot in the chest and killed in the same area in March by settlers from the same outpost.

When Amir’s father, Mutasem, went to his aid, he was beaten unconscious with a stick and stabbed in both legs. Amir was pronounced dead before he arrived at hospital in Nablus.

Northwest of Ramallah, settlers also pushed a car off a slope, near the village of Deir Abu Mashal. Soldiers had chased it while it was on a nearby road. Soon afterwards, the car stopped and parked.

Settlers then beat the driver while he refused to hand over his keys. In retaliation, they pushed his car down a steep slope and left the scene without being stopped by the soldiers.

No action from authorities

Recently, there have also been many arson attacks on Palestinian agricultural land, by both the occupation’s army and settlers.

In Duma, near Nablus, settlers arrived on all-terrain vehicles, which the occupation’s government supplies. They blocked the only village entrance and then burnt olive trees and agricultural produce.

The army was there but did nothing to prevent the attack or arrest the illegal settlers.

A new outpost has now been set up on land belonging to Abu Falah, north-east of Ramallah.

Settlers set fire to agricultural land planted with olives on the outskirts of the village. Several hours later they set fire to the land again, this time next to a chicken shed.

Soldiers did nothing to prevent the crime or help put out the fire.

Abu Falah is the neighbouring village to al Mughayyir, which has also experienced numerous fires over the past weeks. Settlers shot at villagers while they tried to extinguish the flames.

In Saffa, west of Ramallah, Israeli occupation forces set light to land planted with wheat, olive trees and figs. The fire burnt more than 15 hectares of land. When residents and volunteers attempted to extinguish the fires, the occupation opened fire.

Disregard for Oslo accords

The occupied West Bank is divided into three administrative zones — Area A, B and C — according to the Oslo Accords.

In Area A, the Palestinian Authority (PA) officially has full civil and security control. In Area B, the PA must coordinate security with the Israeli occupation, while Area C is under full “Israeli” control. But the occupation wants to control all of the West Bank and steal as much Palestinian land as possible. It is doing this in a variety of ways.

The aim of the occupation is to control all of Area C, significantly expand Israeli occupation settlements there and declare “Israeli” sovereignty over the entire area.

In February this year, the security cabinet officially began the permanent acquisition and registration of title deeds in Area C. The PA has issued deeds and documents for decades to help local communities record their land rights, but the occupation has refused to recognise any of these.

It now says any Palestinian land in Area C lacking formal private ownership documentation from the Israeli occupation registry system — an institution designed to exclude them — belongs to the Israeli occupation government. But displacement, document loss and lack of recognition by Israeli courts, mean few Palestinians have this documentation. 

Oslo Accords under threat

Members of the Knesset have also recently introduced legislation to formally scrap the Oslo Accords. They propose to replace the existing framework with full Israeli occupation sovereignty over Palestine. The aim is to block the establishment of a Palestinian state and encourage settlements in Areas A and B.

For decades, settlement outposts were almost exclusively established in Area C, but since October 2023, there has been a shift. There is now a push by the occupation to establish new outposts in Area B and, in some cases, even inside Area A — areas supposedly under at least partial Palestinian control.

Settler outposts extending into Areas A and B, ensure intimidation and settler attacks towards Palestinians do not only occur in Israeli occupation controlled Area C, but throughout the occupied West Bank. The eventual aim of the criminal Zionist regime is to forcibly displace Palestinians from their land, ethnically cleanse the territory, and steal it for themselves.

Featured image via the Canary

By Charlie Jaay

Source link

Albanians have continued to protest against a luxury resort linked to Zionists Jared Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, being built in the Vjosa-Narta protected landscape and the island of Sazan.

Albanians are back on the streets for a third day — protesting a luxury resort linked to Jared Kushner.

Demonstrators are calling for the project to be cancelled, citing its threat to the Vjosa-Narta Protected Landscape, a key habitat for migratory birds. pic.twitter.com/VMfrCPlXQ2

— euronews (@euronews) June 3, 2026

Reuters reported that protesters were outside the ​office of Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama on Tuesday evening with signs that ​read “Nation is not for sale” and “I don’t want Albania like Dubai.”

Ivanka boasts of the “discovery” on a podcast

The daughter of the current deranged President of the United States said that she first discovered the 1,400-hectare island whilst swimming off a friend’s boat.

She said:

Well, it’s an unbelievable, beautiful 1,400-hectare private island in the middle of the Mediterranean. We were on a friend’s boat, and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that’s how we found it. We swam to the islands. We went on a hike barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated, and it stayed with us ever since. And over the course of many years, we developed the opportunity to help realize its potential and transform it….

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Vocal Politics VPol (@vocalpolitics)

POLITICO has, however, reported some good news. Albania’s anti-corruption office confirmed on Monday that it had opened an investigation into controversial changes in the area’s protected status and land ownership in 2024, which opened the door to tourism development.

However, they also reported that Kushner had unveiled plans for Affinity Partners to turn the site into a luxury resort in August 2024. The Zionist couple then visited the site in January 2026.

Edi Rama had recently confirmed to POLITICO that talks were ongoing between the government and Kushner over the deal, which is set to include 10,000 hotel rooms.

Kushner and Gaza waterfront

The Kushner’s clearly do hold the white supremacist belief of “terra nullius.”

Terra nullius, or “land belonging to no one,” was the theory that foreign lands “discovered” by European explorers were vacant of any preexisting title and, therefore, claimable.

This concept, rooted in a series of 15th-century Papal Bulls, sanctioned Christian explorers like Christopher Columbus to colonize and exploit non-Christian nations and seize their lands. Trump’s administration frequently boasts of Columbus.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The White House (@whitehouse)

In Albania today, that same logic is being repackaged as luxury development, and as we have also seen in the live-streamed genocide of Gaza. Kushner envisions Gaza as his “waterfront” property.

Like his wife gushing about the ‘discovery’ on a podcast, Kushner gushed about Gaza’s waterfront property:

It could be very valuable, if people would focus on building up livelihoods.

The genocidal profiteer sits on the Board of Peace for Gaza.

The Vjosa-Narta protected landscape is a wetland home ​to flamingos, seals, and sea turtle nesting sites.

Genocide and ecocide are preconditions of the desire of Zionists like the Kushners, and they don’t care about it. That precondition is acceptable to them.

Featured image via Getty/Nathan Howard

By The Canary

Source link

The latest journalist to be fired by Bari Weiss, the freshly-minted editor-in-chief of CBS News, was Scott Pelley. Clearly, self-declared “Zionist fanatic“ Weiss is overhauling the news division.

Oracle’s David Ellison, another Zionist, acquired CBS owner Paramount ⁠and installed Weiss last year.

Just last week, on Thursday morning, CBS News fired correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who had feuded with Weiss over a delayed 60 Minutes segment, and executive producer Tanya Simon.

Washington Post’s Scott Nover listed the four correspondents of CBS’s 60 Minutes who have been fired or resigned since Weiss became head.

2025-26 “60 Minutes” Correspondents:
• Lesley Stahl
• Bill Whitaker
• L. Jon Wertheim
• Norah O’Donnell
• Anderson Cooper (resigned)
• Sharyn Alfonsi (fired)
• Cecilia Vega (fired)
• Scott Pelley (fired)https://t.co/zNRuTTEq0O https://t.co/fDGqGSXSI8

— Scott Nover (@ScottNover) June 3, 2026

Nover also reported that “60 Minutes” staffers, past and present, were outraged about Pelley’s firing.

Bari Weiss ‘was brought in to kill it’

Just a day before Pelley was fired, he said in a tense meeting with CBS colleagues that:

By The Canary

Source link

Wes Streeting appears to be attempting to rewrite history over his position on Gaza, after supporting Israel’s genocide for years.

You spent two years supporting genocide and now pretend you didn’t? Just staggering dishonesty from
these human pieces of excrement. https://t.co/Vz7iEYsHIW

— Bog Standard Marxist (@muskeatsbogeys) June 2, 2026

Recently published conversations between Streeting and Peter Mandelson, a friend of Epstein and a former government advisor, show Mandelson calling Streeting “hysterical” and “pathetic,” saying:

I think Wes is experiencing an early mid-life crisis.

Previously, Streeting released some messages between himself and Mandelson to clarify the nature of their relationship. In them, he described Israel as a “rogue state” and admitted that:

Israel Is Committing War Crimes Before Our Eyes.

Now, Streeting has told the Guardian that he was “horrified by the war in Gaza”. He stated that he “did everything I could” to get the government to act with the “moral urgency the conflict demands”. Supposedly, he shared eyewitness testimonies from doctors on the ground in Gaza, to ensure what was happening “wasn’t a war without witnesses”.

He added:

I’ve always supported Israel’s right to defend itself and Palestinians’ right to a state of their own. I’ve met survivors of October 7th and was the first shadow cabinet minister to visit Israel. I visited the West Bank a decade ago, I called for sanctions on Israeli settlements when I was a backbencher – this wasn’t some emotional or one-sided reaction; it is what I and other ministers believe.

I was proud to be part of the government that eventually recognised a Palestinian state, but we took far too long to get there.

Streeting and Israel’s ‘right’ to self-defence

Streeting has publicly supported Israel for the entirety of his career, since his days at the National Union of Students. He has been a member of Labour Friends of Israel for over twenty years, and was Starmer’s first shadow minister to visit Israel. Labour Friends of Israel – a highly secretive Israeli lobby group- paid for the visit.

According to Declassified UK, as of June 2024, Streeting had taken nearly £30,000 from Britain’s powerful pro-Israel lobby. This included donations from Sir Trevor Chinn, Lord Mendelsohn, and David Menton.

Streeting has previously criticised specific Israeli policies. This included illegal settlements and denying British MPs access to the Occupied West Bank. However, he has also regularly made comments about Israel’s ‘right to self-defence’ – despite that right not actually existing under international law.

Yet Streeting is a member of the same government that walked back comments from David Lammy, in which he claimed Israel had violated international law.

You were part of a cabinet that armed and supported a genocidal apartheid Israeli state.

Spare us the crocodile tears.

No amount of revisionism erases your role in that. You’re complicit, whether you like it or not. https://t.co/ctF6YX630H

Advertisement

— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) June 2, 2026

Streeting was also caught on camera saying “persuade Hamas” in response to a question about Israel’s war crimes and “why can’t we have a ceasefire?”

This is despite armed resistance being legal under international law when living in an occupied territory.

Last year, after Israel had already destroyed a number of hospitals and attacked ambulances, Wes was asked what his party would do to force a ceasefire, he arrogantly shrugged and said his constituent should “persuade hamas” https://t.co/ETY0HzV5vM pic.twitter.com/cxCJP9k9f1

— Chłoddy (@OfSymbols) July 24, 2025

Advertisement

Complete contradiction

Additionally, Streeting doesn’t seem to realise that Israel’s right to self-defence completely contradicts the ‘two-state solution‘. Which, of course, he is also in favour of.

Aside from the fact that the two-state solution is a colonialist idea that legitimises the displacement of indigenous Palestinians, the two ideas completely clash in both international law and politics. No state can claim self-defence against a territory it occupies and exercises control over. Yet a two-state solution means recognising Palestine as a sovereign and, therefore, independent state.

As long as Israel claims “self-defence” to justify illegal occupation, bombing, and blockades, Palestine cannot function as an independent state. This would be required for the two-state solution, which Streeting is so keen on.

If Streeting truly believes his texts to Mandelson, why on earth has he accepted so much money from Labour Friends of Israel? And why has it taken him until now to say these things publicly?

Streeting has no backbone. If he truly cared about Gaza, he’d have spoken out and publicly condemned Israel’s war crimes. He would not have just done it via text to Epstein’s pal. He also wouldn’t wait until now, when there is a potential leadership contest in the not-so-distant future. It’s pretty convenient that he’s suddenly taking a hardline stance against a genocidal terrorist state. What good are your faux morals if they only appear to benefit your potential run as party leader?

Featured image via Leon Neal/Getty Images

By HG

Source link

On the 2 June, far-right bigot Nigel Farage put out a statement ostensibly aiming to avoid societal dissolution in response to police treatment of murder victim Henry Nowak. Roughly 24 hours later, rioters took to the streets of Southampton to throw wheelie bins at cops.

Farage tried to despicably weaponise the murder of Nowak to incite racial hatred. He specifically called for “pure, cold rage.” Lo and behold, fellow racists rioted in Southampton, and the riots trended on social media as #FarageRiots.

In the UK, this is precisely how white supremacy functions: politicians, mainstream media, and regular people all do their bit to keep the wheels of racism turning.

Farage got what he wanted

Yesterday, Reform UK Ltd. put out a video video statement by their party leader calling for “pure cold rage” in response to the murder and police treatment of Henry Nowak. He claimed to make demands hoping to avoid the breakdown of society:

The most important thing that needs to change, that has to change, if our society is not to be ripped apart, where communities start to distrust each other and deeply distrust the police and all the other institutions of this country, is we need a change in culture.

For Farage, this meant:

Enough of anti-white prejudice, a promotion of the idea that white lives matter just as much as black lives.

The very next day, like clockwork, hundreds of assorted racists, white supremacists and card-carrying neo-Nazis gathered outside a Southampton police station to riot. Far-right grifter Tommy Robinson addressed the crowd, launching into a rant about Muslims (in spite of the fact that the murderer was a Sikh person).

It’s precisely this kind of riot that the Reform leader claimed he wanted to prevent. After all, this is the same man who actually lost the (extremely lucrative) support of billionaire Elon Musk for preventing Robinson from joining Reform, given that Robinson was a former member of the British National Party (BNP).

This is white supremacy

The thing is, this is precisely how white supremacy functions – all around the world, but especially in the UK.

A compliant media aids and abets Farage, Robinson, and their ilk with its reporting. Despite their claims of in-fighting, it’s hard to believe any of them are particularly aggrieved when violent rioters are throwing bins around and hoisting flags. Whether it’s allowing Reform to grab uncritical headlines and puff pieces like GB News’:

Nigel Farage declares ‘white lives matter too’ after police finally release footage of Henry Nowak’s arrest

Or merely dangerously misleading reporting like the BBC’s claim that the murderer used:

a ceremonial blade Sikhs are required by their faith to carry.

The national broadcaster used that line in the very same article where it quoted Sikh leaders explaining, very patiently, that the knife was not a religious requirement, and certainly wasn’t a kirpan. Likewise, the same community leaders also reported a massive uptick in anti-Sikh hatred as a consequence of the trial.

This kind of reporting primes the public to focus on the murderer’s Sikh faith, and ultimately his race. It fosters the idea that the problem is that Sikhs in general are allowed to carry knives, which quickly slips to the idea that brown people are treated better than white people (in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary).

The same tired line

With the public primed and readied, Farage doesn’t actually have to say ‘I would like my followers to riot’. In fact, he can stand in front of a camera acting as if he wants to prevent a riot.

Meanwhile, he continues to bleat about ‘anti-white discrimination’ and ‘two-tier systems’ – the exact dogwhistles (foghorns) that will prompt his followers to riot. This was so utterly predictable that the Canary drew yesterday’s article on Farage’s address to a conclusion with the line:

Clearly, the far-right leader has now pivoted from avoiding media scrutiny to a frantic attempt to create a distraction. If he has to incite another race-riot to do so, then so be it.

It was so utterly predictable because this is exactly the same attack line the racist right used to incite the 2024 race riots. In fact, an Institute of Race Relations report in the aftermath of the riots stated that:

Even as the ‘riots’ were ongoing, a range of figures sought to spread the notion that white defendants were victims of a ‘two-tier’ policing system that treated them more harshly ‘because of their race and political views’

Shocking nobody, one of those figures bleating about ‘two-tier policing’ was Farage himself. Then, as now, politicians and commentators highlighted that the Reform leader’s words were dangerous.

But, of course, he knows his words are dangerous. He knows they’re driving the rise of white supremacy; he knows they’ll spark white riots. We’d wager that he was counting on it.

That’s wholly a feature, not a bug – Farage knows that he’s the ‘acceptable’ political face of white supremacy in the UK, whether or not he’d call himself that openly. Inciting a race riot is probably cheaper and more effective than hitting the campaign trail for Reform UK.

Featured image via Getty/Finbarr Webster

By Alex/Rose Cocker

Source link

Far-right race-hate activist ‘Young Bob’ has posted footage of himself among neo-nazi thugs as they rioted in Southampton and attacked police.

The footage does not blur his friends’ faces, but no one ever accused the far right of being too weighed down with brain matter. The video is shown below in case ‘Young Bob’ realises what he’s done and deletes his X post.

Far-right rampage

The thugs were part of a mob that rampaged through Southampton’s streets yesterday, egged on by their hate-preachers. The mob attacked police and spewed anti-Muslim hate on the pretext of the conviction of a Sikh (not a Muslim) for murder.

‘Bob’ and his footage will have been very helpful to the police and Crown Prosecution Service. Assuming, of course, that the state can spare the resources from its persecution of anti-genocide protesters to prosecute actual hate and violence.

Featured image via X/ YoungBobRB

By Skwawkbox

Source link

Prime Minister Keir Starmer told MPs on Wednesday “there is no justification for more violence and disorder” following riots in Southampton.

4 min read19 min

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has told MPs “there is no justification for more violence and disorder” following riots in Southampton and criticised Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s calls for “pure cold rage” in response to the murder of Henry Nowak. 

Advertisement

Footage released this week by police showed 18-year-old student Nowak being handcuffed and arrested as he lay dying on the ground in Southampton in December, telling officers he was not able to breathe.

Nowak had been stabbed by 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, who had falsely told officers at the scene that he himself had been a victim of a racist attack. On Monday, Digwa was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 21 years. 

There was unrest in Southampton on Tuesday night following the publication of the footage showing Nowak’s arrest. At the time of writing, two people had been arrested for their role in the protests, which resulted in 11 officers being injured, according to Hampshire Police.

Advertisement

Speaking in Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday, Starmer said now is “time for serious work, not rage”, and described attacks on police officers in Hampshire last night as “disgraceful and completely unacceptable”.

He paid tribute to the “extraordinary dignity” shown by Nowak’s family, “after their son’s life was stolen in appalling circumstances”.

“He was clearly a kind, thoughtful, and much-loved young man. There are serious questions to answer, including how accusations of racism informed police thinking. And we’re supporting the IOPC (Independent Office for Police Conduct) to get to the bottom of what happened,” he said.

Advertisement

The IOPC police watchdog has initiated an investigation into the conduct of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary, while at the same time, the Attorney General’s office is considering whether to review Digwa’s sentence.

Later in PMQs, Farage asked Starmer about “two-tier policing”.

“Following the horrendous circumstances of Henry Nowak’s death, can I urge the Prime Minister to consider this: it is now clear to growing millions in this country that we’re living under two-tier policing,” the Reform leader said.

“The instructions that are given to police officers from police bosses are clear and written down in ink: it says he must treat different ethnic groups in different ways.

Advertisement

“That apart from the upset and the anger at the circumstances of his death, the anger that you saw spilling out in Southampton last night, and which is in danger of getting considerably worse.”

Starmer said he doesn’t believe there is two-tier policing in the UK, then accused Farage of pretending to respect Nowak’s family.

“I’m really shocked that he pretends to have respect for Henry’s family, and then acts in this way.

“A grieving family have asked us not to respond in the way that the leader of Reform has responded: they’ve asked us not to, they have lost their son in the most appalling circumstances.

Advertisement

“They make a simple plea of us, as human beings, to please not exploit that. That is their plea to us, but we all need to reflect on those words of Henry’s father. My response, and the response of others… has been focused on the lessons to be learned, so we can deliver justice.

“His response has been to appeal for rage. Rage. That’s his response to a father who’s lost his son and asked for that not to happen. Exploiting this tragedy to create grievance and division would be wrong in any circumstances, but to do it when the family are expressly saying please don’t, is unforgivable.

“It shows exactly who he is.”

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch struck a similar tone to the PM, telling MPs it was the “responsibility of everyone to bring people together, not divide them”. 

Advertisement

“I also want to share my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Henry Nowak,” said Badenoch. 

“The circumstances around Henry’s wrongful arrest and tragic murder must be a wake-up call to the entire country and to our institutions that every life matters. And that it is the responsibility of everyone in this house to bring people together, not divide them.”

 

Source link

Israel lobbyists — and UK politicians who take donations from Israel lobbyists — characterise protests against Israel’s genocide as ‘hate’. It’s a bare-faced lie. But the far-right is full of hate yet many MPs refuse to say so.

The ‘protest’ (riots) in Southampton on Tuesday, egged on by fascists Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson, put it beyond doubt.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MEND Community (@mendcommunity)

Israel-aligned politicians attack humanitarians instead

Yet the Starmer regime is treating this real hate as a side issue. It’s too busy waging war on peaceful protest, free speech on genocide and the humanitarians who resist mass murder and war crimes.

The ‘mainstream’ media are no better. While peaceful marches are ‘hate’, fascist race-riots are both-sided and branded as “clashes with police”. Britain is being broken on purpose.

Featured image via Isabel Infantes/AFP 

By Skwawkbox

Source link

Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: 12 July 1936 – 28 May 2026 | Image courtesy of UK Parliament

4 min read5 min

Former spy and later a government minister and whip, Meta Ramsay was an exceptional person in so many ways. Loyal to her country, her party and her friends, she was a mentor to many of us. Words by Lord Foulkes

Advertisement

Meta Ramsay was an exceptional person in so many ways: a powerful woman in a man’s world, a most generous friend in every sense, and a mentor to many of us. She was loyal in every way: to her country, the Labour Party and, above all, to her friends.

Her background was relatively modest. Those who knew her mother, Sheila – the daughter of Jewish refugees from Ukraine – could see where Meta got her strength of character. Her father, Alexander, was a gentle man in every sense, but nevertheless an avid supporter of Glasgow Rangers. This likely explains why Meta, though not a football follower herself, would always know the Hearts result by the time we spoke on Sundays.

After happy years at her local Battlefield Primary School, her parents saved enough to send Meta to Hutchesons’, then a fee-paying corporation school, which enabled her to gain a place at the University of Glasgow. There, she joined a cohort of formidable debaters and politicians – including Donald Dewar, John Smith, Ming Campbell, and Douglas Alexander (father of the current secretary of state) – and was able not just to hold her own, but to better them.

Advertisement

At Scottish universities, the men’s and women’s unions were social and debating centres, but the students’ representative council (SRC) was the true hub of power. Meta became the first woman to serve as president of the Glasgow University SRC, a foretaste of things to come. Scotland also had its own national student body, the Scottish Union of Students, and, once again, Meta was the first woman to become its president. It was then that we met, when I attended their conferences as a representative from the Edinburgh SRC.

At the time, the Cold War was at its height, and the international student scene was divided between the Communist International Union of Students (IUS) headquartered in Prague and the International Student Conference (ISC) in Leiden. In a further portent of things to come, Meta moved to the ISC to serve as assistant secretary.

Meta’s service in MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, was known to very few at the time, long before the organisation became as open as it is today. Her frontline work in Finland, and her role in the defection of Oleg Gordievsky in particular, is now the stuff of legend – and rightly so.

Advertisement

One disobliging colleague said to Labour leader John Smith, ‘Be careful, she was a spy,’ to which John retorted, ‘I know, that’s why I’m appointing her!’

Away from the intense world of intelligence, Meta maintained a warm and deeply grounded personal life. She was utterly devoted to her dear Cairn Terrier, Tam, so much so that she once prevailed upon me to chauffeur him from Glasgow to London! How could I refuse?

When she retired from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), she soon moved to work as foreign affairs adviser to the Labour leader, John Smith. One disobliging colleague said to John, “Be careful, she was a spy,” to which John retorted, “I know, that’s why I’m appointing her!”

Advertisement

She was appointed to the House of Lords by Tony Blair and became a whip, skilfully piloting the Scotland Bill through the Lords and keeping her flock in line. And when Labour moved into opposition, she served, fittingly, as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee and on the North Atlantic Assembly, Nato’s parliamentary body.

Her activity in the Labour Party spanned her entire adult life, bookending her foreign service, including joining the Scottish Executive Committee to provide vital senior female leadership during the period when Ian Murray was Labour’s sole Scottish MP.

She fell ill in London but returned home to Glasgow, where she passed away accompanied by her longstanding friend, assistant, and executor, the wonderful Caroline Thickett. She has since received glowing tributes from all sides of the House of Lords and beyond.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock is a Labour peer

Advertisement

Source link

Source link