Although the five men arrested near RAF Fairford were initially held on explosives charges, no “viable” explosives were found. Although they were arrested on terrorism charges, which allow for 14 days of detention, they were released on bail under normal criminal laws in less than two days. It has also emerged that the men had several empty “barrels” in their vans, plus one that contained what police described disturbingly as an “accelerant”. Actually, that was simply a reference to petrol. The stuff that goes into vehicles to make them accelerate. British prime minister Andy Burnham held a rare national emergency Cobra meeting over the incident. Meanwhile, the Trump administration got involved because RAF Fairford, despite its name, is in reality a US air base from which American planes are waging an illegal war of aggression against Iran, with the UK’s blessing. US Secretary of state Marco Rubio has said the incident “clearly involves the hands of a foreign actor”. When asked whether Iran was that actor, Trump replied: “It might be.” He added: “I know the answer... I can be very specific, but I'd rather not say.” Despite these sparse facts, the British media have uniformly rushed to a single conclusion: that this was almost certainly part of an Iranian terror plot to target the US airbase and its planes. The only room for debate allowed is whether the five men were witting or unwitting actors in that plot. As context, let us note the following: that British and US officials have every interest in trying to hype this incident as an Iranian “terror plot”, whatever the actual evidence suggests. Why? Because the US is waging an illegal war on Iran, and the UK is allowing it to do so from British soil. Under the rules of war, Iran has every right to attack RAF Fairford. If the British state and billionaire-owned media were actually serving as a truly “free press”, they would be offering the context that RAF Fairford is a legitimate military target and that any attack on it by Iran would not constitute terrorism. Of course, none have done so. Instead, they have loyally regurgitated the British and US security services spin of a “terror plot” – based on no tangible evidence at all – that paints Britain and the US as the victims of a sinister and unwarranted act of Iranian aggression. This is an extract from my latest article Reporting of the RAF Fairford arrests blows the idea of a ‘free press’ out of the water. Find a link to the rest in the reply post below ⬇️

A double lie here from Ed Miliband: 1. He doesn't need to wait for the Supreme Court to rule on Palestine Action's proscription. The Burnham government could overturn the decision tomorrow if it so chose. 2. Miliband says no one's intent was to criminalise "grannies and vicars" for holding up signs. He's right. That's because the Starmer government imagined it could misuse terrorism laws to intimidate the respectable, white middle classes into silence on genocide. The plan was to leave "brown" people isolated and exposed to the full force of the law if they raised their voices in protest. The Labour government hoped to associate in the public's mind opposition to genocide with supposed Islamic extremism. It massively underestimated public revulsion at the genocide and the UK's complicity. Don't expect anyone in the establishment media, including Andrew Marr, to highlight either of these very obvious and salient points.