Its Democracy, Jim, but not as we know it

It seems the revolution has begun. The Occupy demonstrations have taken place in over 95 cities across 82 countries but it's no longer just about 'the economy, stupid' (to use Bill Clinton's famous phrase), but about the corporate state. The economic crisis was caused by large financial institutions which had more power than elected governments. It was the economy that moved people into activism, but a bigger picture is now emerging.

Mussolini talked of the "Corporate State of Fascism". That's exactly what's developing now. It's been a hidden Fascism, with a democratic veneer, but since the turn of the century people in the US and the UK – 'Oceania', as George Orwell described it in '1984' – have been increasingly frustrated at their lack of a voice in big decisions of state. In the UK we had no voice in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, despite there being two million people out on the streets; Parliament voted on the basis of a lie. In 2001 Parliament had no vote at all, since decisions on waging war could at that stage be taken only by the Prime Minister in conjunction with the Monarch. So who did take these decisions? There is a growing feeling throughout the Western world that such decisions are taken not by elected politicians, but by gigantic financial institutions which in the end will profit from these wars.

So what would one expect from a corporate society? We may not expect the same brutality that one would have in an openly tyrannical regime, and, indeed, I am grateful to my opponents for not pulling my fingernails out, but in principle we would expect something similar. A corporate society does not uphold democratic values, even if it pretends to. Any troublesome group will be infiltrated by the corporate state, to neutralise its activities, or at least to keep them within certain limits.

This is exactly what has been emerging over the past year. On 20 October Newsnight broadcast a further revelation about an undercover policeman having infiltrated a civilian group with the purpose of subverting it:

"So far this year there have been no fewer than eight inquiries set up, after the discovery that undercover police have been used to infiltrate political organisations. There may be a ninth soon, because Newsnight has evidence of another operation, in which undercover policemen may have given false evidence in court. The officer became an activist in the Reclaim the Streets campaign, and was arrested after a group from the campaign occupied an office".

'Reclaim the Streets' is a direct action group which is concerned about the increasing takeover of urban streets by the corporate state. Their video documentary does show law-breaking, and indeed this is to be expected in a society which is more and more sceptical of the democratic processes in the country. "It turns the street into a road …", says their video, " the street can be much more about community, about social interaction … the road is a means of getting from A to B". The police do have a responsibility to keep the traffic flowing, but are their methods appropriate, and is it acceptable for the police to incite the very law-breaking which they are supposed to prevent, by means of agent provocateurs?

The Newsnight programme was about a cyclists demonstration of August 1996 in Central Lonon, in which a splinter group went to the headquarters of London Underground to unfurl protest banners. The incident led to the false arrest of one protestor, and false testimony in court by the undercover cop, who had played a leading role. The officer concerned was Jim Boyling, known in 'Reclaim the Streets' as Jim Sutton.

The Metropolitan Police were due to publish a report on an internal inquiry the following day, but at the last moment that report was delayed

It transpired that the alternative news source Indymedia had first become aware of the issue of undercover cops in protest movements and had passed information to The Guardian and BBC's Newsnight team, who worked together on their investigations. Again, the agenda is being driven by the alternative media rather than by paid investigative journalists

Since this is not just a British issue – some of these British cops had also been subverting groups abroad - Indymedia is now asking people to translate a statement on this into various languages.

I reported previously on Mark Kennedy, who had been posing as Mark (Flash) Stone in an environmental group, and whose actions had nearly led to the imprisonment of at least twenty innocent campaigners,

Lynn Watson (real name unknown), the police officer dressed as a clown in the Rebel Clown Army, a tiny group protesting against the Iraq war,

Other undercover police officers unmasked were Bob Lambert, posing as Bob Robinson,

Mark (Marco) Jacobs, whose real name is unknown,

Peter Black

and

Simon Wellings.

Groups infected were a variety of protest groups, such as anarchist, animal rights, anti-fascist, anti-globalisation, anti-racist, environmental and left-wing political groups. Those groups included: 2008 Camp For Climate Action, 2008 demo against the planned military academy at St Athan, Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp, Animal Liberation Front, anti-EDL, Cardiff Anarchist Network (CAN), Cardiff Radical Socialist Forum, Climate Camp, The Common Place (Leeds anarchist centre), Dissent! (the network mobilising protesters for the G8 summit at Gleneagles), Globalise Resistance, London Greenpeace, No Border campaigns, Rebel Clown Army, Reclaim the Streets, Rising Tide Network, and Trident Ploughshares direct action network.

The lengths some of these undercover cops will go to in gaining credibility in the groups they have infiltrated are extraordinary. Kennedy provoked fellow officers to beat him up in a Climate Camp. Jim Boyling lied under oath in a criminal trial to protect his identity. Bob Lambert appeared in court under a fictional name. Several of them had sexual relationships with some of their victims, sometimes long-term relationships.

Jim Boyling even married one of his victims and had two children with her, now aged 5 and 7. How do you explain that one to the children, even when they are older, and how will they feel when they realise how they were brought into the world? Does the state have liabilities for their maintenance and for compensation for possible psychological trauma?

So if all this is going on with the police force in groups taking part in street activism, then what is going on with the security services in other groups that the corporate state disapproves of? I have already dealt with reports from former MI5 officers of large-scale infiltration in political parties, even "tiny organisations which pose no threat to national security". The purpose would be to turn these groups into controlled opposition, or to dismantle them, or at least make them ineffectual. It appears that the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Socialist Workers Party had around a thousand members each at the time the Berlin Wall fell, and each had, I understand 20 to 40 agents, whose job it was to cause quarreling and to demolish the organisations. How extensive is this, and how far will they go in 'gaining credence of the committee', to use a phrase from an email to me from the Director of Development of Esperanto Association of Britain shortly after he had left, admitting that that was all he had been doing for the two years in which he was being paid to develop the association.

Most people's reaction to anything like this is to pretend it isn't happening, and to try to shut others up when they talk about it. They'll tell you you're putting people off joining. I take the opposite view. I'm pleased to see that Cardiff Anarchists Network put out a statement on this:

But he [Marco Jacobs] also deliberately and systematically set out to damage a movement, and we think it is important that knowledge of what he did, and how he did it, is shared and discussed as widely as possible". They also wrote that many members were reeling with anger, resentment and guilt. "Marco worked hard to sow distrust, dislike and suspicion amongst us, and it was allowing him to do [that] that was perhaps our biggest mistake", they wrote.

Yet after all this, no-one, it seems, is capable of uttering the words 'the British secret police', even though it is patently obvious that such a thing exists. Yet the police now have a problem, because if they carry on behaving like SS thugs more cases will be uncovered. It will be in their interests to keep their noses clean until the whole issue has passed over. Perhaps that is why there was so little violence in the Occupy demonstrations in London this month. It is generally believed by many of the regulars who demonstrate for various causes in Central London that the police regularly use such tactics.

The late Brian Haw complained bitterly about such things and former MP George Galloway made allegations about agent provocateurs during some demonstrations. I myself would not have believed that such things could happen until I started taking part in truth and anti-war demonstrations only a few years ago, and started seeing things for myself.

We need more people to speak out. Most people who know things won't, and those who do will get criticised for their 'methods'. Some people, such as those in the South Yorkshire Police in the Tony Farrell case, see themselves as 'footsoldiers of the Government' and are therefore consciously complicit in the cover-ups. Others, like many I know, are simply in denial, or are suffering from Cognitive Dissonance or doublethink. Even those who recognise what is going on remain silent. Yet a few, like Tony Farrell have the courage to speak out.

During my researches into the Esperanto association in 2005, I would have loved to have come across a report somewhere of subversion in some other membership association which was being taken over by an inner clique, so that I could see how that may work, and so that I would have a base for comparison. Surely someone, somewhere would have been carrying out some investigation into their own association. Did no-one in the Labour Party compile membership statistics and link them to what was recorded in the minutes and the accounts? I could find nothing. If anyone knows of any such work, I would love to receive information on it. We need this information in order to build up the bigger picture, which is now looking very ominous indeed.

I can say that at long last we have a response from the Esperanto association to my financial chart, which I eventually managed to publish in EAB Update (pp 12-13) and, in the following issue, the treasurer accepted that my figures were correct. That issue of the periodical has now appeared on the Internet for all to see (p19).

That means that she should now explain why she told the Management Committee that the capital was being eaten up when at the time it was growing. Instead of doing that, she demonstrated how she had also given the same impression to members, by producing a rival chart showing a decreasing capital. She can be sure that few members will read the text, because they have such confidence in the treasurer, that they would refuse to believe that such a contradiction would be possible, rather than looking at the evidence, so they would not notice that that was a forecast for November 1994! Why produce the forecast figures when you have the real figures, unless the intent was to deceive? The other chart gives the impression of annual losses, which obviously could not have been the case if the capital was in fact increasing.

Yet members will not speak out, but will criticise me for doing so. In the same issue (page 17) a former Honorary Secretary expresses that he could not see the point in publishing my article, even though he says I have a point. He also wrote that my chart raises the question of why they sold the shop in London. Fine, but that's his point, not mine. I could have made a case out on that, but I didn't. That letter had actually been written before my article appeared, though it was presented as a reaction to it. Criticism of the President, with which I wholeheartedly agreed, had been cut out by the editor, who also rejected my reply, saying that the matter of the capital was a 'non-issue'.

A second letter in the same issue, from a former President, criticises me for virtually everything under the sun, including my work for the 9/11 truth movement, but avoids the issue which I had raised in my article (pp 17-18). There was nothing provocative about my article, and in no way was it critical of the committee, since that had been an explicit condition imposed by the editor. The problem of waking people up in a membership association is a small-scale example of waking up the masses in the case of hidden tyranny. The solution that I see is two-fold: (1) engage with the small minority who will be prepared to engage with you, and (2) take the issue outside the brainwashed community. Then things can start to happen. The statement by the Cardiff Anarchists Network may help to encourage others to speak out.

I also found an article by comedian Mark Thomas, who had had to come to terms with the fact that a close friend and trusted co-worker had been found to be spying on his activities. That turned out to be industrial espionage, which takes us back to consider the whole lot as different aspects of the corporate state. If that causes such soul-searching, imaging what it's like if there are five, ten or twenty of them whom you've known for as many years.


I found an interesting video called 'Psychologists help 9/11 truth deniers' which describes how people react when their fundamental beliefs are challenged. This is well-worth watching by anyone who understands English. It applies not only to 9/11 but to any situation in which people may react by saying "I refuse to believe ...", rather than looking at the evidence.






I've received a couple of messages from Esperantists, saying that they were interested to hear of the infiltration of the cyclist group or the environmental group, but that I should keep quiet about the Esperanto case. Eventually they will realise that by the same logic some in the cyclist group, the enviromental group, the 9/11 truth movement, and many other groups, may be interested in the Esperanto case for the same reason. The common issue for all these groups, even though they may be working for different causes and may not agree with each other, is the defence of democracy. For undemocratic methods to be brought to light, people need to speak out in public. It's not necessary to be able to prove who has infiltrated an organisation and with what purpose; it's only necessary to demonstrate behaviour. My crime was to produce hard facts, with no allegations or interpretation. It was then for others to interpret those facts, and we have just seen examples of that in the magazine. On the other hand, members should have been more alert to undemocratic methods being used by people of influence. This is essentially the point being made by former accountant for the European Commission Martha Andreasson, who is now an MEP for my area. The accounts had not been audited, and that in itself should be good reason to replace the people in charge. Concealment in itself should be sufficient reason to remove people's representatives from office whether at governmental level or in a tiny membership association.

My idea of advancing this issue at about the same rate as the general truth movement seems to be paying off. I reported in my last newsletter about the Guardian report of a 9/11 conference in the US.

Since then we have seen a blog in the Daily Telegraph, usually one of the most establishment of the national newspapers, with the title 'The 9/11 conspiracy theories aren't as irrational as you might think'.The rest of the article was critical of the truth movement, but at least here we have a grudging acceptance that we may actually have a point. Keep them coming! Encourage them to keep slagging us off, as long as there is a grudging admission that we may be right!

There are also big issues arising in the mainstream media. The Murder of Muammar Gadaffi may have been an uncontrolled revenge killing by soldiers on the ground, or it may have been allowed to happen by those higher up. Gadaffi would have realised that they couldn't send him to the International Criminal Court for trial because of the incriminating evidence he may provide against some of the NATO governments. His murder had actually been attempted by a group in the 1990s by what is now known as Al Qaeda, paid for by MI6, but it was bungled. That was what eventually made David Shayler decide to leave MI5 and blow the whistle.

As regards the Euro crisis, was it not all inevitable from the start? I kept quiet when the Euro was about to be introduced because I regarded myself as an ignoramus on economic affairs, when the experts were telling us all that it would be alright. Are we really to believe that no-one in the higher echelons of the EU spotted the flaw? Many in the financial markets below them would have been fooling themselves rather than accepting the obvious. So was this a project destined to failure? Was the objective to force the EU countries into a United States of Europe similar to the United States of America? Fine if they want to form such a union, but only if such a decision is taken by democratic means. So what happens if we in the UK have a referendum on leaving the EU? It's quite simple, really. If the vote goes against, we stay in, and if it goes in favour, we have another referendum. But if we were really to withdraw, what would be the consequences? Is it not time someone produced a proper analysis? Are those who want power to return to Westminster deluding themselves? Who has the power now, and who would have it if we were to withdraw? It sounds to me like the gigantic financial corporations in both cases. It's just a question of which financial corporations.

So where do we go from here? I think we are on the right track. We need to maintain an awareness of the bigger picture regarding corporate control of our society, the way in which we are manipulated by hidden propaganda, financial dealing, fear-mongering, and infiltration even in tiny membership association which pose no threat to national security. There will be more revelations. When the Occupy movement starts putting up placards relating to 9/11 truth, then the whole issue of who controls our society will come to a head.

But the danger is, as always, some false-flag terror event, which could bring everyone back into line, in supporting the next war, and persuading the population that they really do love Big Brother. At the October meeting of the Keep Talking group in London we had a guest speaker from Oslo, Torstein Viddal, who is the key researcher in the truth movement into the Norwegian attacks of 22/7. He lives only a couple of minutes away from where the Oslo bomb exploded, and despite a building between there and his flat, his window was blown open. He grabbed his camera and rushed out. At the Keep Talking meeting he showed a short video of how the International Criminal Court works, and suggested that we call for an investigation by the ICC with a view to prosecuting for war crimes. That's worth thinking about. His text can be read on the Norwegian 9/11 Truth site

Also worth thinking about is the issue of corporate government, and how to bring all these issues together in the current rebellion, and how to cope with the next terrorist event, which may well be intended to derail the rebellion and give an excuse for going in with truncheons, tasers, jack-boots and worse. Keep thinking. And keep talking.

Iraq, Chilcot and linguistic hegemony

Originally sent March 2010

Whatever the outcome of the Chilcott Inquiry into the Iraq war (http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/), the fact that it is being held in public will enable people to join some of the dots in the bigger picture. What is the connection, for instance, between Iraq, Gordon Brown’s role as Chancellor, 9/11, Baroness Ashton’s appointment as EU foreign policy chief, and language wars? Read on.

In his performance before the Chilcott Inquiry on March 5, Gordon Brown showed a masterly skill in appearing to say one thing, but implying the opposite (http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/100305.aspx).

When repeatedly questioned on his part in the decision-making, as a senior member of the Cabinet, he would say that the details did not concern him, or that he was informed of this or that. On points where he may have disagreed with the Blair policy, he would say merely that there were lessons to be learned. I think we can take it from Clare Short’s statement to Chilcott that Gordon Brown was marginalised in the decision-making regarding the waging of war against Iraq, may well have been justified.

The first question, coming from the chair, was whether he thought the decision to invade Iraq was right. He replied “It was the right decision, for the right reason”. What was that reason? He didn’t subsequently mention Weapons of Mass Destruction, nor 9/11, but only violations of UN resolutions. He didn’t even justify the invasion on the basis of an immediate threat of agression from Iraq. The stated reason was vague: “For me, the problem goes back to how we deal with rogue states”, he said.

Although Tony Blair had talked about UN violations, Gordon Brown’s statement would suggest that he thought that Tony Blair had gone to war largely for the wrong reasons. He gave no indication of any collective Cabinet view on the issue. When pressed on the decision-making process, he would talk about trying to achieve a diplomatic solution, in the knowledge that there was a military option. “We had to make the diplomatic solution work”, he said. The Chancellor is not traditionally in war cabinets, he told Chilcott, and his role was not to second-guess military options, but to make sure the funding was there. This would be in line with Clare Short’s statement that Gordon Brown had been non-commital on the invasion of Iraq before the event.

In his rather lengthy answer to the first question, he pointed out that the structure of decision-making had been changed. Communication between ministers and their opposite numbers in the US was now much easier, he pointed out. What, then, were these new decision structures? Did that mean that the Cabinet was being by-passed, and that the decisions were being taken at best by Blair and Bush, and at worst by powerful people in Washington or Wall Street? Later he stated that they needed proper structures for decision-making. “Shouldn’t we have had a Cabinet committee?” he was asked. “I think we need to learn that lesson”, he replied.

On financial reconstrucion, he said that one of his regrets was that he was not able to push the President further on this issue, again supporting the interpretation that the masters were in the US rather than London. Asked whether he thought the Cabinet was properly briefed, he said, “I was”, again avoiding the issue of collective decision-making in the Cabinet, and giving credence to Clare Short’s view that the Cabinet was not properly briefed. On the question of whether the Cabinet was able to take a genuinely collective decision, he said, “Let us be clear”. That would sound like another lesson to be learned. He then restated that the war was right for the right reason.

He also said that in future the House of Commons should make the final decision to go to war. So who did take the decision to go to war? When asked why a decision had to be taken on March 17, and whether this was because the US was about to go ahead, he stated merely that that was a matter of judgement. Who would have made that judgement? Would they have been in London or Washington? The Chairman asked whether he thought that a simple yes/no answer from the Attorney General on the legality of the war was sufficient, and whether he should have seen the Attorney General’s document. Gordon Brown replied that he knew the military were satisfied by the legal assurance. Presumably, the military would have thought that the Cabinet would have been satisfied by the legal assurance, since that was where the document was supposed to have originated. It sounds as if each side accepted the legal advice because they thought the other side had accepted it. In future, Gordon Brown said, we will have to provide greater information to Parliament. Another lesson learned.

On reconstruction, he was asked what went wrong. He said that we needed a UN reconstruction agency. It was pointed out by Chilcott that the UK didn’t get the support of the UN for the war, so we didn’t have legitimacy of international institutions. Gordon Brown emphasised that we need international organisations, and concluded, “We have learned lessons”. He also said twice that he did a paper for the Americans. Not for the Cabinet? Not for the international development secretary Clare Short? For the Americans. “I felt the US should take more seriously the issue of reconstruction”, he added. Yet Clare Short had been persuaded by Tony Blair to stay on in the Cabinet thinking that she was in charge of reconstruction on the British side.

Much of the questioning of Gordon Brown was on the financial side, and the role that he had played in funding the war. One telling line was, “Clearly, when sanctions are involved, the treasury has to know”. He was marginalised, then, in the decision-making. There had been much cricisism from the generals about lack of equipment for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet when questioned on this, he stated that he had, as Chancellor, made it clear to the Prime Minister that no option should be ruled out on the basis of cost. “Every request for equipment had to be met”, he said. When asked about the Treasury setting limits on the military, he said it was the other way round: “If you need more, come back to us”, he had told the military. “We managed to meet the requirements for Iraq and Afghanistan”, he told Chilcott. “The first priority was to ensure that the soldiers were properly equipped”, he insisted. He stated that he did understand the concerns of relatives, and that every request for equipment was answered. As Prime Minister, he asked the military to assure him that they have the resources. However, he did add, “It’s not for me to make decisions on specific items of equipment”. So how do we reconcile that with previous claims of a guilotine coming down on military expenditure? “That’s not much to do with Iraq”, he said, “The Iraq war was being funded separately. MoD ended up with more money than expected”. He then repeated, “The Ministry of Defence ended up with more with more money, not less”, adding that the Ministry of Defence’s budget was out of control. On equipment, he said that there had been a procurement problem, involving a time lag, and that the Chinooks had to be modified, and adapted for use in Afghanistan. The UK helicopter fleet, however, was the biggest in Europe.

The overall picture coming across is that Gordon Brown had been attempting to restrain the military by means of the only tool at his disposal, but that he gave the military all they needed for the specific operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It looks as if he was indeed marginalised in the decision-making process, which took place behind the scenes in the UK and the US. Faced with that fait accomplis, he adopted a survival tactic, rather than vociferously speaking out, as Robin Cook and Clare Short did. What would have happened if Gordon Brown had not restrained the military post 9/11? Would the military have been better equipped in the subsequent wars? Or would they have extended their reach into more areas? Would we by now have been in Iran and Pakistan, or some other areas of the world? It would have been quite in line with traditional Labour Party politics to attempt to restrain the military and its post-colonialist adventures. Suppose that Gordon Brown had resigned, together with Robin Cook and Clare Short. Would that have stopped the war? Or more to the point, would it have been likely in the judgement of someone in Gordon Brown’s position to have stopped the war? Clare Short didn’t know in advance that Robin Cook was about to resign, so there was no coordination in any case. At first sight, a resignation of three key ministers would have made the war impossible. On the other hand, Gordon Brown may have been aware that it would only have taken a Gladio-style operation to bring the House of Commons back into line very quickly.

This brings back memories of Harold Wilson and his silent opposition to the Vietnam war being waged by the Americans. He managed to keep Britain out of that, but could not openly oppose it. As a Prime Minister with traditional Labour Party views, he would have been opposed to post-imperial military adventures of this sort. A further sign of this is his support for Esperanto as a second language for the world, rather than the imposition of English, which, we now know was being planned behind the scenes in conjunction with the security services (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4jVeGWtzQ1oC&dq Interview at http://www.lingvaj-rajtoj.org/robert-phillipson/). In the Esperanto association we knew at the time that there was something wrong, because of Wilson’s silence on this during his premiership, despite the Esperanto Parliamentary Group having a majority of members in the House of Commons. He had spoken out in favour of Esperanto before his premiership, and, indeed, joined the Esperanto Parliamentary Group some time after his premiership, but Esperanto seemed to be taboo for those holding office. Harold Wilson was ousted as Prime Minister in 1976 by MI5. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4789060.stm).

Wilson was not the only office holder at that time to keep quiet on Esperanto. Lord Thompson of Fleet, having been appointed UK Commissioner to the European Economic Community, denied knowledge of Esperanto in an interview with The Guardian, only days after having written to a member of the Esperanto association that he spoke the language and supported it. Wilson’s friend Lord Davies of Leek resigned suddenly as Chairman of the Esperanto Parliamentary Group, following dirty tricks, which I was charged with investigating. I concluded that the Esperanto association was under surveillance, and that a spoof letter sent in his name to The Guardian was a professional job. I was puzzled, though, at Lord Davies’s immediate resignation, when he could easily have declared that he had not been the author of that mysterious letter. I felt the he must have known something I didn’t. This was in the same period that there was a denigration campaign against the President of the Universal Esperanto Association, a professor at the London School of Economics, and shortly before my own resignation in my public relations role in the British Esperanto Association, following dirty tricks from within. It took thirty years to join the dots (http://esperanto.org/Ondo/Ondo/165-lode.htm#165-08).

Meanwhile, in 1997 the Shayler Affair exploded in the British media, when David Shayler and Annie Machon resigned from MI5, telling the press about illegal operations by the security services, including penetration and dismantling of even tiny organisations which posed no threat to national security. Subsequently they have continued to bring these issues to the public’s attention, despite the odds. Annie Machon nearly died of a rare strain of meningitis, and David Shayler is now immersed in narcotics. Annie has talked publicly about their experiences on numerous occasions. She gave a fairly detailed account at a conference in Berlin, which is available on video via the Internet (http://www.anniemachon.com/annie_machon/what-can-we-do-to-counter.html).

Following 9/11, Gordon Brown told Chilcot, the counterterrorism budget doubled in size, leading to twice as many people working in the security services. So what have they been up to? The Shayler Affair and the Wilson Affair both point to the security services targeting the very people they are supposed to be protecting. With a very much enlarged budget and extended personnel, are the security services really there to defend the realm, according to MI5’s motto, or are they moving us towards a police state, as many people in the UK now suspect? If Harold Wilson had been Prime Minister during the current era, what more could he have done to reign in these military adventures? Gordon Brown would have been acutely aware of Wilson’s predicament. Tony Blair’s EU Commissioner was for some time former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. I don’t remember what his previous views on Esperanto had been, but Glennys Kinnock, recently denied that she had written to a constituent before she was an MEP, saying that she was in support of Esperanto. Unfortunately, the archives are missing. Either in an act of incredible stupidity or an act of language vandalism, the two filing cabinets of Esperanto Lobby disappeared from the Esperanto headquarters in London. That was about the time that a frenzy was stirred up against their organiser, leading to the collapse of the Esperanto Parliamentary Group. In 2002 The European Commission asked their Vice-President Neil Kinnock to set up a working group on Esperanto. Later he obfuscated on whether or not that had been done, but the previous year he had come under fire from the French and German foreign ministers for his plans to cut down on the number of languages used in EU translation.

Le Monde described this as "a perfidious British plot in order to transform the EU into a sort of English speaking area”.

Neil Kinnock went on to head the British Council. In December 2009, Britain’s Baroness Catherine Ashton was appointed as the EU’s foreign policy chief, a post created by the new EU Constitution, together with the post of President of the European Council, which was filled by Herman van Rompuy. Britain’s rebel MEP Nigel Farage recently criticised Herman van Rompuy’s suitability for the post, and was fined for language which was considered unparliamentary in Brussels, but would have been considered parliamentary in Westminster. In reply, Herman van Rompuy used language which evidently was considered parliamentary in Brussels but would have been considered unparliamentary in Westminster. Previously, Nigel Farage had been reprimanded for criticising the appointments of Herman van Rompuy and Baroness Catherine Ashton to those positions:





Although Herman van Rompuy is a native Dutch speaker, he replied to the criticisms in French, and is known, in language terms, as a francofile. To offset the French language influence, Baroness Ashton is well qualified, as essentially a monolingual English speaker. Not only that, she is uniquely qualified as having been Tony Blair’s junior minister responsible for the collapse of foreign language learning in English state schools, in her role as chair of a ‘Languages Strategy Group’.

The National Centre for Languages (CILT) has been carrying out Language Trend surveys since 2002, and the 2009 survey shows that the number of students choosing to take a language at 14 is still in decline."

In 2002 there were calls from EU politicians and diplomats for the British to become more skilled in foreign languages.

Clearly, something had to be seen to be done. I also picked up on discussion in the Lords on a new strategy for languages in schools, and so I contacted an old friend, who had been a headmaster and language teacher, as well as the President of the British Esperanto Association in the 1970s. He wrote an interesting piece for me, saying,

“The Government's latest initiative on language teaching is like most Government initiatives - good in parts”, and then later suggesting, “And to ensure that only a very small number ever reach the stage of fluency in another language, they will allow the majority to give up at the age of 14.”

Some time later I was able to report on a forthcoming new languages strategy document to appear later in 2002.

This was announced in the Lords by a Baroness Ashton of Upholland. I did wonder at the time about Baroness Ashton’s idea that a Spanish teacher in Spain could teach a class of school kids in England via the Internet, but I thought they must know what they’re doing. Then in April 2003 I reported on an assessment from my language teacher friend, who had now rejoined the association and become their spokesperson for education. “There is already an acute shortage of language teachers”, he wrote, “If this policy is implemented, in a few years time there will be virtually none at all, thus making it impossible for pupils to achieve even moderate fluency in a language other than their own." What we hadn’t envisaged was crazy things happening within the association. That was my last newsletter for the association, and my language teacher friend left the association again a couple of years later. The Government went ahead, continually ignoring warnings. We all knew that language learning in the schools was collapsing, and the government just let it happen. It seems to me now that I was right: they did know what they were doing. The National Strategy for Languages in England now looks like one of those ‘projects destined for failure’ which Clare Short wrote about in her book on Iraq. Was it controlled demolition?

Now Baroness Ashton is talking of a comprehensive strategy for the Western Balkans.

Shortly before becoming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown suddenly started talking about the New World Order:





He described it as a ‘restructuring’. Presumably that is what he would have been referring to in his statement to Chilcott when he said that the structure of decision-making had been changed. Clearly, such a New World Order would be one to be imposed primarily by the US and British military. Yet Gordon Brown had been reigning in the military. What could have persuaded him at the last moment to make speeches that would impress the military in the US and the UK, but would have been unlikely to gain him much popularity amongst his own MPs or amongst the public? And was that a willing conversion? If you’re planning a military empire, there are certain things you have to do. One of these is to decide on an imperial language.


Sure enough, in 2008, Gordon Brown announced that he wanted the world to want to learn English, and that the Government were putting resources into this, and funding the British Council, a registered non-political charity, to implement this political strategy





I don’t know what Gordon Brown’s personal views are, but I doubt whether he had joined the Labour Party with the idea of imposing an English-speaking militaristic hegemony on the world.

According to Clare Short, we have not had cabinet government in Britain since 1997. So who does rule Britain? Is it the elected representatives, and are they allowed to speak freely. Or is it a military industrial complex, pushing its own interests, silencing anyone with dangerous questions, and using the secret services to turn the UK into a police state? We don’t quite know, but it looks like crooks.