Julian Assange has won a partial victory in his battle against extradition to the United States.
The High Court has found a point of law that may be argued – whether there was an injustice in the lateness of America’s assurances that he will be well-treated.
Assange must now lodge an appeal with the Supreme Court – and the future of that attempt is uncertain.
If the Supreme Court rejects his appeal, his extradition – to face a possible 175 years in prison if he is convicted of 18 counts of terrorism-related offences – may go ahead.
His partner Stella Moris had this to say after this morning’s High Court decision:
The US government wants to prosecute Julian Assange for 18 alleged crimes – 17 of them under a 1917 terrorism act – because his reports of these alleged US war crimes on the website Wikileaks allegedly caused risk to the lives of American military personnel.
No evidence has been brought forward to substantiate the claim. US prosecutors have admitted that they do not have any.
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Protest: you can tell the strength of public feeling in support of Julian Assange from this image – taken at Julian Assange’s last High Court appearance in December.
A High Court judge is to announce whether Julian Assange will be permitted to appeal against a decision to extradite him to the United States.
The decision will be handed down at 10.45am.
According to Wikileaks, the judgment will go one of two ways.
It may certify that points of law raised by Assange to prevent the extradition are of general public importance and give him permission to lodge an appeal with the Supreme Court.
Or it could deny him a certificate, meaning the extradition order will pass to Home Secretary Priti Patel, who will have the power to personally authorise – or deny – the extradition.
Details of the case and the issues it raises are available here.
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Protest: the court’s announcement on whether to extradite Julian Assange faced huge public opposition.
Lawyers acting for Julian Assange have filed an application to appeal against a High Court decision to allow him to be extradited to the United States to be tried for espionage.
High Court judges must now decide whether one of the grounds of the appeal is a point of law of general public importance, before the application may be considered by the Supreme Court.
Birnberg Pierce Solicitors, acting for Assange, say they believe serious and important issues of law arise from the High Court’s reliance on US assurances regarding the prison regimes and treatment Assange is likely to face if extradited, and from its judgment.
Assange is wanted in the US over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
A decision on the application is unlikely to be announced before the third week in January.
This Writer is now agog to find out if the US will still surrender Anne Sacoolas, accused of killing Harry Dunn in a road collision but who then fled the UK under the protection of diplomatic immunity, to court proceedings beginning on January 18.
See. Assange’s extradition is in line with a one-sided UK-US deal whereby the UK has to surrender anybody wanted by the US, but the US doesn’t have to do likewise.
The fact that Sacoolas was suddenly offered to the UK after the High Court allowed Assange’s extradition seemed extremely suspicious to This Writer, for precisely that reason.
And now that the extradition is in doubt, I’m on tenterhooks to find out whether the Sacoolas trial will still go ahead.
(Not that I ever expected her to come to the UK to serve any sentence, if she’s found guilty. Do you?)
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The late Harry Dunn: his family have been campaigning for justice ever since his death more than two years ago.
One aspect of the Julian Assange extradition case that has been well-examined is the fact that the US may demand that we hand over our people while there’s no reciprocal obligation.
That’s the reason Anne Sacoolas was given asylum in the United States after the death of Harry Dunn, who she is alleged to have killed in a road crash outside RAF Croughton on August 27, 2019 – she claimed diplomatic immunity and the US granted it.
Now, suddenly, everything has changed – and after the chief campaigner for the Dunn family had been told he had only a one per cent chance of securing a criminal trial:
The Crown Prosecution Service … sought an extradition warrant to bring her back to the UK to stand trial, but the US state department adamantly refused to grant her extradition, insisting that her status as the wife of a serving US diplomat meant she was not required to stand trial. The US confirmed she had been an intelligence officer.
The case would be heard at Westminster magistrates court on 18 January, the Crown Prosecution Service said. It is understood that she will appear via video link.
The Dunn family have always said they wanted her to face justice in the UK, and it is not clear what would happen if she was found guilty or whether she would serve a sentence or pay any fine in the US.
Was an under-the-table deal struck between the UK and the US – we give them Assange and they give us Sacoolas?
Its very hard to consider it a coincidence, what with both decisions occurring so close to each other.
I mean, people here were infuriated at the decision to extradite Assange to the US, due to a one-sided treaty with that country that doesn’t demand reciprocity. The announcement about Sacoolas gives the UK government a chance to save face.
It would be entirely in character for the UK’s corrupt Tory government to manipulate even the course of justice in order to win a public relations advantage.
Sadly, while one of those involved – Sacoolas – is likely to face justice, as This Site has reported already, it seems unlikely the other – Assange – will.
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Of course Windrush victims don't trust the Home Office. This is the agency that made them lose jobs, livelihoods and homes. It illegally deported some and refused re-entry to others. An independent agency to oversee the compensation scheme is long overdue.https://t.co/P561UPfYUz
Sajid Javid says the government's impact assessment on their changes to the social care cap, which should show how many people will have to sell their homes to pay for care, won't be published until next year, long after the legislation is passed by MPs. https://t.co/x72YkJGPFY
Majority of UK voters think the govt is corrupt, poll finds. People can smell the stench of corruption, it’s over all institutions of govt. We need politics which prioritises people rather than the interests of big corporations. Time to take back control.https://t.co/jLqVkGWMWt
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Incredible sulk: how Boris Johnson would probably look if he read this article from Papua New Guinea.
This humiliating summary of Boris Johnson’s government comes from Papua New Guinea, once partly a British protectorate.
What a takedown for Johnson that a country the UK used to rule is now ridiculing his rule of his own land:
For those who have trouble reading text in images, here it is:
So once more to the UK, where the court of despot Johnson is arrayed by the kind of sycophants and shills who would have made Caligula blush. And that’s just the journalists.
The UK is ‘world beating’ in that it is the first country voluntarily to impose economic sanctions on itself, and the first to suffer the labour shortages and stagnating wage growth that nobody but those who predicted it could have predicted.
Eagle Annual nostalgia has begat a reckoning with which Johnson’s poltroons are ill-equipped to deal. In recent weeks several pillaging lawmakers have been lacerated by the self-same media that only months ago turned a blind eye to the slaughter through negligence of tens of thousands. And they’re getting twitchy.
WhatsApp messages are deleted quicker than you can say “Kathryn Stone should consider her position”. Taxes of minimum wage carers that ended up as PPE contracts in the silken pockets of Savile Row suits are being laundered in the usual way: through real estate and favours further down the road.
The Tories are a superstitious tribe, but the magical incantations of ‘Oven Ready’, ‘Leave Means Leave’, and ‘Get Brexit Done’ that once made half the nation dance in ecstasy are now inducing a danse macabre, as the women of child-bearing age fire boltguns into the temples of screaming pigs and the men contemplate imminent planetary systems collapse by driving their SUVs at the new ascetics: smug [smug? Shurely shome mishtake?] pensioners who block motorways.
Everyone knows the reckoning is coming. Westminster is buzzing with the sound of shredders working overtime and Tories squabbling over scraps from the pharma, gambling, and petrochemical firms with whom they’ve spend a decade screwing their constituents.
But Boris doesn’t mind. The caste system left behind by the empire means there’s no shortage of Home Counties talent willing to lick the brogues of a proven liar. The price Britain has paid for painting two thirds of the atlas red is a ruling order so damaged that its members would rather sell their souls to a corporation before admitting that a single mother on eighty quid a week is their equal.
The “shredding” part is particularly relevant now, as demands for Lord Bethell to produce evidence of his meetings with Randox build in volume. What happened to his emails and text messages? Where are the minutes of his meetings?
Has the paperwork already been through one of those buzzing shredders?
And what punishment will Bethell face if he refuses point-blank to co-operate and cough up the juice?
Are we so corrupt – as a country – that we’re just going to let him get away with it?
No wonder we’re such a laughing stock around the world.
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Border Force won’t turn back asylum seekers and migrants crossing the Channel because of the risk of causing someone’s death from drowning https://t.co/8KUPl9lEkR
We bought – at five times the normal price – so much PPE, including from our VIP mates, that it costs £1m a day to store it. What a grotesque waste of public money. https://t.co/K9tnIwds1y
Conservative MP Owen Paterson may have now resigned, but Government’s behaviour in the past week has been truly appalling. Our democracy is under threat. https://t.co/pXTf3WZI7I
Labour calls on Jacob Rees-Mogg to resign over lobbying row Ha! Rees Mogg and Andrea Leadsom. "Arsenic and Old Lace " springs to mind ! https://t.co/rjtNXfNhZI
.@davmidd highlights the crucial importance of stepping up grassroots demands for action to prevent potential climate catastrophe in this article for @CreatingSociali https://t.co/1iBlbrOUxy
Which country's secret service spied on prominent press and broadcast journalists in an attempt to discredit them? Read @jmcevoy_2's article in @TheCanaryUK for the answer. https://t.co/3tqgvkIqOu
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One rule for him: remember, Dominic Raab is the Tory minister who couldn’t be bothered to return to work from holiday when Kabul fell. He breaks government rules habitually yet presumes to lecture us on the law.
Remember: this is what the UK voted for:
In a move designed to strengthen authoritarianism, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said today that an overhaul of the U.K.’s Human Rights Act would include a “mechanism” to “correct” rulings by the European Court of Human Rights. We live in dangerous times as fascism looms large.
Dominic Raab has decided that if human rights judges in the UK make decisions that he doesn’t like, he will override them in blatant disregard of the rule of law.
This is what the UK voted for.
In a blatant rhetorical reversal of what actually happens, he has said that he would stop “judicial legislation” – that is, judges making UK law. But they don’t; they never have. They simply apply the law of the land to individual cases. Stopping this would be breaking the law.
You see, so-called “case law” – legal precedents set by judges – are only examples of the way the law should be interpreted when applied to particular situations, to be followed if such situations arise again in order to avoid contradiction and confusion. They are not situations in which judges take legislative power for themselves and Raab is lying by suggesting that.
But this is what the UK voted for.
He said he wanted to stop the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg from dictating law to the UK, but…
1 The Human Rights Act is British law, enforced by British Judges in British Courts 2 If our Parliament doesn’t like a judgment, then it has a mechanism to override it, it’s called Legislation 3 Blaming foreigners for it is dishonest 4 Challenging Govt is the basis of democracy pic.twitter.com/yH8YIDdPig
Human rights lawyer Jessica Simor QC said that Raab’s plan would have an effect opposite to what he was suggesting, because it would mean
more complaints going to Strasbourg and more rulings against the UK, unless the government intended to pull Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights altogether, which would be “a step into a dark place for this country and the world”
But if that happened, it’s what the UK voted for.
The former head of the government’s legal service, Jonathan Jones, said:
As parliament is already able to legislate to correct flaws in the law, it appeared Mr Raab was trying to use a new mechanism to allow ministers to take this step without obtaining MPs’ approval.
In other words: dictatorship.
It’s what the UK voted for.
Cambridge professor of public law Mark Elliott pointed to a recent Supreme Court ruling, saying that allowing a minister to overrule a decision of the judiciary simply because he did not agree with it would cut across “principles that are fundamental components of the rule of law”.
It’s what the UK voted for.
“If that is what is in contemplation, then that is profoundly problematic,” said Prof Elliott. “Indeed it turns constitutional principle on its head.
“Ministerial power to do this would itself be deeply troubling. It would reassign a basic judicial role – interpreting the law – to ministers.
“Ultimately, this all strikes me as part of a project to enhance executive supremacy by treating courts, whether foreign or domestic, as unwelcome interlopers.
“And yet all of this masquerades as an attempt to protect parliament. The reality of this executive power project, as we might call it, is that it will be the executive that is the principal beneficiary of such changes, and the loser will be basic standards of good governance.”
It’s what the UK voted for.
You don't really expect better from Raab do you – it was only recently that he discovered he lived on an island, we know he is illiterate in Geography & maths so he's bound to be just as illiterate in comprehension & law is way too complicated for him. https://t.co/xuYPVP4uJF
Did anybody know? This Writer made clear what was going to happen in articles published before the 2019 election but I don’t have the reach of the mass media organisations who were screaming at everyone to vote Tory or else face a future of horrific Communism under Jeremy Corbyn.
It seems that, faced with such an onslaught, many people voted without thinking.
And isn’t that exactly how the Hitlers and Mussolinis of the 20th century took power?
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Boris Johnson: The blond lummox is humiliated again.
The Tory conference has started – with a wave of controversies and scandals.
Let’s look at a few of them:
Lord Heseltine slams Johnson’s ‘levelling up’ sloganising
Former Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine accused Boris Johnson’s government of “sloganising” rather than having the political will to actually improve the nation.
He said: “It’s very easy to keep sloganising, but they’ve been doing that for nearly two years and they have wasted that period of their power with a large majority.
“What is missing is the political will to take difficult decisions… This Government simply doesn’t face the facts about how it needs to be done and the single minded purpose that has got to be applied to it.”
Boris Johnson humiliated over a £20 note
STV reporter Kathryn Sampson made a fool of Boris Johnson in a Conservative conference interview – by brandishing a £20 note.
She asked: “If I gave you this £20 note this evening, what would you spend it on? What would that mean to you though? A cocktail at conference? A taxi? For some Scottish families, there are charities that would say this £20 a week note is the difference between being able to heating their homes.”
When the prime minister started waffling, she changed tack to quiz Johnson on appointing Tory donor Malcolm Offord as Scotland Office Minister and peer in the Lords: “How many of these £20 notes would I have to give you to get a peerage? Do you know why I’m asking about peerages Prime Minister? Malcolm Offord. What Is it about the six figure sum he donated to the Conservative party that made you think he was the right candidate for a peerage and for a role in your government in the Scotland Office?”
Johnson tried to claim that his choice had experience, but was cut off: “What’s wrong with your Scottish MPs? They’re elected.”
Rees-Mogg wrong-footed by man with cerebral palsy
Tory Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg was lost for words when confronted by a disabled man who said the Tory benefit assessment system had forced him to prove that he still has cerebral palsy – which is a lifelong condition.
Dominic Hutchins, 43, said afterwards that not only did he have to spend an hour explaining all the things he cannot do (on the day Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey tried to re-state the Tory claim that the assessment system should be about what people can do), but the Tories had also robbed him of his job.
He said: “I’m a youth and community worker. Since the Tories got in power in 2010 they have demolished youth services, which made me claim benefits. I not only had to claim jobseeker’s allowance, I had to prove I am still disabled and I’ve not medically been cured.”
As Rees-Mogg beat his retreat, urging him to see his own MP, Mr Hutchins said: “They don’t care, it’s all lip service to shut people like me up. It’s awful.”
UPDATE October 5: I now have video of this. Be warned – it is upsetting:
Disley man confronts MP Jacob Rees-Mogg in Manchester City Centre. Dominic Hutchins says he had to prove he had cerebral palsy so he could keep claiming benefits #cpc2021@BBCNWTpic.twitter.com/RchLBglC4V
It’s mischaracterisation, but not as Sunak described it…
This is self-explanatory:
“On Friday the Prime Minister said never mind life expectancy, never mind cancer outcomes, look at wage growth. What does that say of this Prime Ministers priority’s?”
Rishi Sunak – “I think that was a mischaracterization of what he said”
Considering Rishi Sunak’s defence of Boris Johnson, we can draw our own conclusions about everything he said in his speech.
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Frustration: will the consequences of Boris Johnson’s many failures catch up with him at this year’s Tory conference?
The Conservative conference starts in Manchester on October 3 – just as we’re all seeing the consequences of their misbehaviour in government.
Let’s have a look at how some of those consequences have hit the headlines:
The government’s furlough scheme has ended
The scheme triggered a fall in wages when it was phased in, between April and June 2020 – and that’s why Boris Johnson was able to talk about a huge increase in the same months this year, as vaccinations meant people were going back to work.
Now it has ended, there is likely to be a huge mismatch between the skills people have and those employers need, meaning an expected fall in employment for an unknown length of time running into the future.
Energy prices are rising by 12 per cent in the UK while other countries subsidise the cost
That’s right – with the Universal Credit ‘uplift’ of £20 per week axed, plunging millions into poverty; with National Insurance rising; with the furlough scheme ending, meaning insecurity for millions more – a shortage of imported gas (from Russia, if I recall correctly) means much of the UK will be struggling to stay warm over the winter.
It’s the usual story of Tory government, with people again being forced to choose between heating and eating.
Meanwhile, what’s happening in other affected countries?
• Spain have just announced energy bills will fall by 22%
• France announce £100 energy vouchers & a cut from 12% to 4% in electricity rise
• Italy announce a €3.5bn plan to protect poorer from energy rise
Meanwhile in the UK the government have backed a 12% price rise!!!
The UK’s Covid-19 infection rate is among the worst in the world
Tory policies mean the UK’s Covid-19 infection rate is the highest in western Europe – by far – and only exceeded by 13 other countries in the world.
The UK is also out-infecting the US, Canada, and former Covid hotspots like India and Brazil.
Between the week ending September 15 and that ending September 22, UK infections rose by 18 per cent, with 191,771 positive tests.
Weekday infection rates are around 35,000 per day, with around 150 deaths. This is more than the average at which we were told Boris Johnson was likely to re-implement restrictions or another lockdown (1,000 deaths per week).
Locktober, anybody?
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