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Leading medics publicly accuse RCP of misleading docs about non-doctor ‘associates’
Open letter to Royal College of Physicians officers cites false claims, failure to declare conflicts of interest and disregard for patient safety
Twenty-nine Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) have accused the RCP’s leading officers of misleading doctors and hiding conflicts of interest in an attempt to persuade them and other RCP Fellows into voting down a key motion, tabled at last week’s RCP Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM), calling for a slow-down in the expansion of ‘physician associate’ (PA) roles pushed by the government, which ninety percent of doctors believe are endangering patients.
Last week, Skwawkbox covered the extraordinary scenes at, and outraged reaction to, the EGM and the conduct of the RCP panel as it refused to engage with doctors’ questions and misleadingly presented statistics to inflate support for the way in which the government is (ab)using PA roles, which do not have a medical degree, to replace fully-trained doctors – and to excuse the RCP’s continued support for the government’s programme. The RCP was exposed as having a huge financial interest in the programme.
The Fellows, senior doctors and medical professors, sent their letter to the RCP expressing concern at the ‘terrible harm’ the RCP leadership has done to the College’s reputation and detailing the issues with the way the EGM was run and data were presented by the RCP panel in the debate – and the way in which the College mishandled the need to come clean after the issues were exposed, failing to let doctors know before the close of the vote on the five motions that they had been misled. The motions, including the fifth one that the RCP board had urged doctors to reject, passed overwhelmingly:
STATEMENT OF CONCERN
The events of the last week have done terrible harm to the reputation of the College and the trust that its members and the wider public have in the leadership of the organisation.
Prior to the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on 13th March 2024 to discuss issues around Physician Associates (PAs), members of the College who are not eligible to vote on the motions were surveyed. Their views were important to inform Fellows voting on the EGM motions about the impact of PAs on patient care and doctors’ training. It has become apparent that the Senior Officers of the College presented selected survey data at the EGM on 13th March, that in our opinion was manipulated in a way that can only have been intended to mislead fellows of the college.
Of note, the Deputy Registrar who presented the survey data, but who we understand did not prepare the slides, resigned from their post immediately after the EGM.
Following the EGM, multiple formal written requests were made to the CEO and Senior Officers to release the survey data. The CEO and Senior Officers refused for 5 days to release the survey results, only doing so after sustained public and direct pressure and multiple written requests. PRCP also cited the same misleading, manipulated survey data in an email to Members and Fellows of the College after the EGM.
The survey results were published on the RCP website at 9am on Monday 18th March, but no attempts were made during the voting period which ended on 20th March, to directly inform members or Fellows of the College that the data presented at the EGM were misleading, although PRCP emailed members on related matters.
During this time, Fellows voted on the 5 motions presented at the EGM, and they were doing so informed in part by the misleading information presented to them at that meeting.
The 5 motions presented at the EGM have been approved by a substantial majority of the Fellows of the College including Motion 5, which the Senior Officers had advised Fellows to vote against, despite the patient safety concerns raised in relation to PA scope and practice.
Discussions at the EGM and events leading up to and following the meeting raise serious concerns about the conduct, governance, and performance of the RCP, especially in relation to patient safety.
These concerns include but are not limited to a number of issues over several years:
- Apparent failure of the RCP to adequately monitor the role and scope of PAs since the College agreed to house the Faculty of PAs (FPA) in 2015
- Apparent failure to communicate clear parameters and scope for PAs from 2015 to March 2024, including failure to clearly communicate that PAs are not doctors and PAs must not replace doctors.
- Apparent failure to respond to the concerns of the RCP Training Committee in relation to PAs raised in 2015 and subsequently with regard to loss of training opportunities for doctors and patient safety.
- Apparent failure to respond to patient safety concerns raised by Fellows of the RCP with Senior Officers during 2023.
- Providing false assurance from 2015 onwards to Members and Fellows of RCP and the wider public that PAs were safely working in their intended scope of practice.
- Apparent failure to acknowledge that PAs in substantial numbers are and were working outside the intended scope despite being provided with evidence that this was the case.
- Apparent failure to acknowledge that PAs are and were working in place of doctors in General Practice, and that PA locum agencies were facilitating this using NHS ARSS funding despite being provided with evidence that this was the case.
- Apparent failure to acknowledge that PAs in substantial numbers are and were working in place of doctors on medical rotas in hospitals.
- Apparent failure to act on evidence ]Provided by DAUK and the BMA that PAs are and were systematically replacing doctors in General Practice and hospitals.
- Apparent failure to work collaboratively with NHS England, the FPA and GMC to ensure that PA Schools educate and communicate with PAs in line with their agreed scope, including but not limited to the principle that PAs are not doctors and must not replace doctors.
- Apparent failure to adequately monitor and analyse the performance of PAs in clinical practice to determine patient safety, performance, clinical outcomes and cost effectiveness.
- Apparent failure of Senior Officers to act on patient safety concerns raised by Members and Fellows and the wideir public because of the potential financial impact on the College.
- Apparent failure of the Senior Officers to fully declare their Conflicts of Interest.
- Apparent failure of the Senior Officers to adequately determine the Conflicts of Interest of the FPA leadership team.
- Apparent failure of the Senior Officers and CEO to act in accordance with the RCP Code of Conduct.
- Apparent failure of the Senior Officers to act in accordance with GMC Good Medical Practice.
This non-exhaustive list highlights that the Senior Officers and CEO have failed on multiple accounts to adhere to the RCP Code of Conduct.
Whilst, given the time pressures, there must be an immediate action plan to ensure that PAs are working within their scope of practice and not in place of doctors, there is a parallel urgent need for an independent review of the Senior Officers with a particular focus on governance and probity.
Dr Asif Qasim FRCP
Professor Alexander Ford FRCP
Professor Charlotte Bolton FRCP
Professor Trisha Greenhalgh OBE FRCP
Professor Martin McKee CBE FRCP
Dr Dagan Lonsdale FRCP
Professor Shah Ebrahim FRCP
Dr Taryn Youngstein FRCP
Professor Nick Hopkinson FRCP
Dr Vinoda Sharma FRCP
Dr Barry Monk FRCP
Dr John Stephens FRCP
Dr Arjun Ghosh FRCP
Dr Scot Garg FRCP
Dr Shrilla Banerjee FRCP
Professor Liz Lightstone FRCP
Professor Mamas Mamas FRCP
Professor Raanan Gillon FRCP
Dr David Nicholl FRCP
Dr Animesh Singh FRCP
Professor Jim Nolan FRCP
Dr Philip Pearson FRCP
Dr David Cohen FRCP
Professor Shahrad Taheri FRCP
Dr Rajiv Sankaranarayanan FRCP
Dr Nasser Khan FRCP
Dr Kevin O’Kane FRCP
Dr Zoe Wyrko FRCP
Dr Muhammad Ahsan FRCP23rd March 2024
The use of PAs, which is considered by nine out of ten doctors to be dangerous to patients and confuses many patients, who do not realise that they have not been seen and treated by a fully-qualified medic, is being pushed by the government as a way of ‘downskilling’ the NHS, reducing costs and allowing increased profits for private providers, under the guise of the so-called ‘NHS Workforce Plan’ as part of the ‘Integrated Care Systems’ (ICS) project.
ICS, formerly called ‘Accountable Care Organisations’ (ACOs) after the US system it copied, were renamed after awareness began to spread that ACOs were a system for withholding care from patients and that care providers were incentivised to cut care because they receive a share of the ‘savings’. The system remained the same, but the rebranding disguised the reality.
The government used a ‘statutory instrument’ (SI) to pass these changes, avoiding proper parliamentary scrutiny, but both the Tories and Keir Starmer’s Labour support these and other measures to cheapen the NHS for private involvement and only independent MP Claudia Webbe spoke against them during the brief SI debate. Green peer Natalie Bennett’s motion in the House of Lords to attempt to kill the instrument was defeated by the Tories with the help of Labour peers.
Some of the signatories, such as Keele University Professor Mamas A Mamas, have added a demand for a full investigation into the actions of the RCP leadership – and ‘urgent action’ to prevent the government’s push for physician associates to operate beyond safe boundaries:
Despite the government’s attempt to keep this cost-cutting, care-degrading manoeuvre below the radar, it is rapidly becoming a major public issue – yet both Labour and the Tories are committed to continuing it, despite the avoidable deaths among patients that it has already caused.
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Pro-Israeli judge Myerson sanctioned for ‘judicial misconduct’ for social media
Well-known Israel advocate and Corbyn critic found to have breached professional standards in attack on trans rights campaigner
Pro-Israeli barrister and part-time judge Simon Myerson KC has been disciplined by the Lady Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor for attacking a transgender rights campaigner on the Twitter/X social media platform.
Myerson supports Israel against accusations of genocide and has frequently attacked Corbyn and his supporters
Myerson received a sanction for ‘judicial misconduct’ after complaints were upheld for a series of offensive tweets. Myerson accused the campaigner of having a “tiny intellect” and making “idiotic statements”. The disciplinary decision can be found here. Myerson broke the principle that judges should avoid participating in online debates on politically controversial topics to maintain the integrity and dignity of their judicial office.
Myerson insists Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza despite its slaughter of tens of thousands of women and children and insulted a Jewish anti-genocide campaigner
Some observers might consider there to be a suggestion of hypocrisy to Myerson’s behaviour. In September 2023, Myerson was a witness against a solicitor accused of posting offensive tweets at a disciplinary tribunal. Myerson’s evidence was that the solicitor’s tweets went “well beyond the bounds of acceptable conduct”, raising questions about whether he gave evidence to a tribunal about another person’s offensive social media posts without telling the tribunal that his own offensive posts were under investigation by the Lady Chief Justice.
Myerson also has a history of controversial comments on Twitter/X about the suicide of the Northumbria University academic Dr Pete Newbon, who died after a row with his wife. Newbon had posted to Twitter/X a meme of an image that originally showed Jeremy Corbyn reading much-loved author Michael Rosen’s Bear Hunt to some children, but in which the title of grossly antisemitic forgery ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ had been photoshopped onto the book.
Rosen, who is Jewish, was understandably unhappy that the Protocols had been photoshopped on his book. Myerson suggested that it was Rosen’s tweet in response to Newbon that led to complaints to Newbon’s employer that were linked by Newbon’s supporters to his suicide. Rosen’s tweets were far less offensive than the tweets Myerson has now been disciplined for and the coroner did not mention Rosen or his tweets at all in his inquest findings. Newbon, who had tried to get fellow academics sacked, was in fact on a final warning from the university because of his repeatedly awful conduct on social media – and was doing badly in a lawsuit brought by another individual whom his false claims on social media had endangered. Rosen has featured frequently in Myerson’s Twitter/X timeline.
Myerson, like Newbon a founding signatory of the so-called ‘Labour against antisemitism’ (LAAS) group that weaponised antisemitism allegations to attack then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and whose directors have also attacked Michael Rosen, continues to be active on Twitter/X in support of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Myerson rejects the finding of the International Court of Justice that Israel may be engaged in genocide. His position is that Israel’s actions in bombing Gaza and refusing to allow aid to enter are proportionate responses to the October 7 attack by Hamas. Most serious legal commentators are clear that Israel’s actions are disproportionate and are likely to amount to war crimes.
M
Simon Myerson criticised a court for finding anti-Zionism is a protected political belief and insists that Israel was not told to implement a ceasefire even though the International Court of Justice told it to stop killing Gazans and protect them instead.
Those reading Myerson’s recent social media output might feel justified in concluding that a change in his behaviour is unlikely. Yesterday he bizarrely accused a Jewish Twitter/X user of having learned to be snide ‘almost certainly aided by being Jewish’ when the user gently mocked the Israeli spokesperson Eylon Levy.
Mr Myerson did not respond to a request for comment accompanied by an initial draft of this article.
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Why are women cited less than men?
Strong evidence suggests that women are not cited less per article than men, but that they accumulate fewer citations over time and at the career level. Cary Wu argues that a focus on research productivity is key to understanding and closing the gender citation gap. Citation counts count. The number of citations is commonly perceived … Continued
Government ordered Google to disclose names of users who watched videos
US attempts to trample privacy
US federal authorities ordered Google to provide names, addresses, phone numbers and details of other videos watched, of all users that viewed particular YouTube videos, according to Forbes magazine – and to provide the IP addresses of anyone who watched them without being logged in.
The government said it wanted the details to investigate a suspected crime committed by the publisher of the videos – but did not demonstrate any suspicion that those watching the videos had committed or colluded in any crime, telling the company only that the records would be ‘relevant and material’ to its investigation. Tens of thousands of accounts are believed to have been involved.
A US court granted the order but asked Google not to publicise it. In a separate incident, government agencies asked Google for a list of all accounts that watched eight livestreamed videos. It’s not known whether Google acceded to the orders.
Google told Forbes that it has ‘rigorous’ processes to protect user privacy, but the discovery of the government moves raised concerns about governments being able to access private information just because it claims ‘relevance’ and does not demonstrate any reasonable grounds to suspect that an individual has committed any crime. It is not known whether the UK or other governments have made similar attempts to access Google user records.
In 2021, Google admitted running ‘experiments’ that hid some websites from search results, raising questions about the risk of political or commercial interference in search results. In January of this year, the company paid five billion US dollars to settle a lawsuit over its collection of user data through its Chrome browser even when users activated its ‘incognito’ mode.
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Exclusive: Unite membership ‘falls by 210,000+’ under Graham
Huge membership fall since last official figure in late 2020, say insiders – but management hasn’t reported official membership despite requirement to do so every year – and continues to donate millions to anti-worker Labour party
Yesterday, Skwawkbox reported the collapse in the Unite union’s strike fund – the fund members rely on to pay their bills and feed their families when they are on strike – from £35m when current general secretary Sharon Graham took office to just £11m now. Some insiders say the fund was increased to £50m just before previous general secretary Len McCluskey retired, though Skwawkbox has not yet been able to confirm this.
£11m is only enough for about eight months, based on spending in each of the last two years.
Senior union figures have also complained that the union management is not being transparent about the union’s membership and has not signed off financial accounts since Ms Graham took over in 2021 Unions are required to report membership annually, but Unite has not done so – and risks severe sanction from the Certification Officer. One senior official of another union told Skwawkbox:
Unions have to declare membership every year to the Certification Officer. Unite doesn’t appear to have done so for several years and the CO could effectively decide to shut them down if she chooses.
But well-placed Unite insiders have now told Skwawkbox that the latest internal estimates show a catastrophic fall. Unite’s membership in late 2020, the last official figure, was 1.081m:
- Automotive Industries 72,453
- Aerospace & Shipbuilding 63,238
- Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Process and Textiles 43,134
- Civil Air Transport 65,892
- Community Youth workers and not for profit 42,985
- Docks, Rail, Ferries & Waterways 17,228
- Education 17,335
- Energy and Utilities 32,485
- Engineering, Manufacturing and Steel 57,753
- Finance and Legal 61,559
- Food Drink and Agriculture63,589
- Government, Defence, Prisons & Contractors 10,751
- Graphical Paper and Media & Information Technology 36,810
- Health 88,770 Local Authorities 61,783
- Passenger Transport 76,861
- Road Transport Commercial, Logistics and Retail Distribution 62,619
- Service Industries 50,564
- Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians 68,083
- Community 14,971
- Unknown 6,668
- Retired 65,503
Total 1,081,034
According to internal estimates, it is now around 870,000 – a fall of a fifth (19.5%) from the 2020 figure Graham inherited – and is still falling. By a different measurement, sources say that the 2020 figure was 1.28m, which would mean a fall of almost 400,000 in two and a half years.
Against that backdrop, according to the Electoral Commission the union under Graham has donated around £4m since the winter of 2021 to Keir Starmer’s Labour, despite Starmer’s assault on democracy, betrayal of and contempt for striking workers, blocking of union candidates in parliamentary seats and his support for ‘spycops’ and anti-protest laws.
Sharon Graham’s failure to speak out on Gaza and behind the scenes attempts to quell free speech on the issue since Israel’s genocide there began last October has outraged many members and others. She
Graham has been publicly silent about the slaughter, but has:
- been criticised for banning Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests
- banned and smeared films and books exposing the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam, placed an official under investigation who refused to cancel a Palestine solidarity fringe event at Labour’s 2023 annual conference
- allegedly told her chief of staff to threaten a soon-to-retire official with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians
Her supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at last week’s meeting of the union’s elected executive.
Ms Graham’s tenure as Unite boss has also been marked by a string of other allegations – which neither she nor the union has denied – including alleged destruction of evidence against her husband in threat, misogyny and bullying complaints brought by union employees. She is also embroiled in both an employment tribunal for discrimination and a defamation lawsuit brought by Irish union legend Brendan Ogle for the union’s treatment of him and comments made about him by Graham and her close ally Tony Woodhouse – a situation that has caused outrage among Unite members and politicians in Ireland.
Unite has been contacted for comment.
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Exclusive: Unite strike fund ‘collapses’ by over two thirds amid fall in membership
Graham and team not providing official member numbers – and no finances signed off since 2021
Birmingham bin lorries stand idle during a strike under the previous Unite leadership
Unite’s strike fund has ‘collapsed’ by more than two thirds from the level current general secretary Sharon Graham inherited from the McCluskey administration – a level that allowed strike payments of £70 a day that Graham tried to claim credit for when she took over the job. The collapse appears to be driven by fall in Unite’s membership.
At the start of Graham’s tenure, Unite had built a strike fund of £35m, able to pay striking members enough to maintain large, lengthy disputes. However, as of last week the fund had fallen to just £11m in less than three years and Unite’s recent announcement of increased membership fees is explicitly linked to the collapse.
Skwawkbox understands that there have been ‘significant’ falls in membership numbers and dues, but the union management is not disclosing an exact figure – and insiders say that no finances have been ‘signed off’ since 2021. However, the latest working figures show that Unite’s cash account has also fallen by £13m, more than ten percent.
Unite has paid out more in strike support in the last two years, but the falling member numbers and an apparent lack of planning for the replenishment of funds have left the union looking ill-prepared for future battles, with only around eight months’ worth of funds in its reserve based on the last two years’ spending.
The planned subs rise, from 1 April, of a maximum of 22p a week with many paying much less, is apparently well0 short of what would be required to maintain the strike pay outgoings of the last two years, let alone rebuild the reserve.
One senior insider told Skwawkbox that the lack of transparency and the ‘collapse’ of the fund were a serious concern and that morale is ‘rock bottom’ among union officials because of the management’s conduct, including the lack of opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Ms Graham allegedly told elected officers that ‘Palestine is not a service Unite offers members’.
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Analysis: Catalonia’s pro-independence movement forces Spain to approve amnesty
Catalan film-maker Jordi Oriola Folch on Spain’s amnesty for pro-independence politicians and activists and the success it represents for them
Photograph: Josep Renalias – Lohen11
In the Middle Ages, Catalonia was one of the great European nations, but after 1714 it was subjugated by Castile (Madrid) and lost its sovereignty. The Spanish way of being (vertical, authoritarian, conquering and warlike) is opposed to the Catalan way (horizontal, pacifist, democratic and merchant), that is why Catalonia has always tried to become independent, but Spain has violently prevented it.
From 1939 to 1978, Spain had a fascist dictatorship, which was not defeated as in the case of Germany and Italy. The transition to democracy was not by conviction but because the world demanded it and it was very deficient. Since then, two major parties have alternated in power, PP from the right and PSOE from the center. The PP is the direct heir of fascism and the PSOE is the heir, by environmental osmosis, of the same intolerant nationalism.
The ongoing independence attempt is the most powerful in history because now Spain cannot consider killing us in the institutional framework of the EU. In 2017 we held and won a self-determination referendum. The PP fought it using anti-democratic methods: judges, secret services, police… and then the PSOE is doing the same: repression and denial of any option towards freedom for Catalonia.
In the recent electoral campaign, the PSOE ridiculed Catalan independence, assured that it would arrest and lock up in prison Carles Puigdemont (the president of Catalonia who carried out the referendum in 2017 and who is in exile in Belgium) and denied the possibility of an amnesty for pro-independence criminals or any referendum on self-determination for Catalonia. The PSOE was showing off its chest by exhibiting the aggressive nationalism that is typical of the Spanish identity.
But the PP and the extreme right of VOX won the elections of July 23, 2023 without an absolute majority. Then the PSOE, seeing that it does not govern in any large region or city council, wanted to get the government of Spain so that its party has economic viability. And everything has changed. They no longer blaspheme the Catalan independentism, but they make a pact because they need their 7 votes to govern.
On March 7, the amnesty law that the PSOE said it would never approve was passed. And they have approved it with the Catalan pro-independence parties and other parties, in total 8 parties (179 seats and 12.3 million votes). It is a success for the Catalan independence movement because it has shown that they were falsely accused. Nobody would have been able to approve an amnesty that would pardon real terrorists. Spanish nationalism, in full fury, invented accusations against Catalan independence: rebellion, sedition, terrorism, treason, hate crimes, economic embezzlement,…. But it is quite the opposite, the Catalan independence movement is exemplary in its democratic approach (it does not want to impose independence but has always wanted to hold a referendum of self-determination for the Catalan society to decide democratically) and it is not violent (it has made massive and peaceful mobilizations). Aware that there had been “lawfare” (judicial dirty war), the PSOE has now accepted an amnesty.
But the right and the extreme right do not want to accept the amnesty, because they see it as a defeat. They have always imposed themselves by force and now they do not want to accept the law passed by the Spanish parliament. The judges threaten to sabotage the law and not to apply it. And the fact is that, there being no crimes, an amnesty law is needed because the judges accept the invented accusations and condemn the pro-independence supporters to destroy this political movement. With that motivation, the judges will look for subterfuges not to apply it and to continue condemning.
And all this is because now the PSOE needs the 7 pro-independence votes, but what will it do when it does not need them? What will it do when the Catalan pro-independence movement, remade from this chapter of repression, mobilizes again to free itself from Spain? We know: Both PP and PSOE will go back to repression. But for the moment, the independence movement has managed to demonstrate that it is not guilty of any crime and that it only wants freedom from a country that only increases the desire of the Catalans to free themselves from it.
The EU cannot continue tolerating these abuses and will have to intervene sooner or later, because the European Justice is about to issue judgments against Spain (this imminence has also motivated the PSOE to approve the amnesty). In order not to waste time, or energy, or increase the Spanish institutional crisis, it would be better for the EU to force Spain to accept the result of the 2017 referendum or hold a new one in which the Catalans can decide their future free of impositions and authoritarianism.
Jordi Oriola Folch is a physicist, documentary filmmaker and teacher who lives in Barcelona and fights for the independence of Catalonia.
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Exclusive: Corbyn’s Islington North CLP system access suspended by Labour
Local party officers’ access to Labour’s ‘Organise’ campaign platform revoked as party tries to shut down local democracy, say locals
A banner from Corbyn’s Islington North constituency (image: S Walker)
The Labour party has suspended former leader Jeremy Corbyn’s local Labour party in Islington North, but hasn’t bothered to tell local members or elected officers of the ‘CLP’, according to inside sources.
Instead, Labour has revoked officers’ access to the party’s ‘Organise’ campaign system, without telling them why or even that it had been done.
The ‘Organise’ manoeuvre is the latest in a long line of party moves to kill local member democracy to try to secure candidates and outcomes Starmer wants – and exposes yet again the regime’s deep contempt for party members and their rights. Starmer broke Labour’s rules to suspend Corbyn, prompting thousands of current and former party members from all over the UK to say they will travel to London to campaign for Corbyn in the seat at the next election. So far Labour has not named a candidate to stand against him.
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Students occupy Bristol uni building in protest at ‘profits from genocide’
Students demand divestment and an end to academic ties
Bristol University students have taken control of one of the university’s Wills Memorial Building in a protest to demand an end to its ‘complicity with arms companies’ and to call for a series of actions on its part to ‘support Palestine and Palestinians’:
The demanded actions include:
- an end to cooperation with weapons manufacturers
- protection for Palestinian students and special consideration for those taking exams who have been affected by Israel’s slaughter in Gaza
- protection for anti-Zionist beliefs among staff and students – an issue on which Bristol university has a shameful record and has been the scene of intense pressure campaigns by pro-Israel groups claiming that anti-Zionism, opposition to the settler-colonial state that has displaced Palestinians and treats them as inferior
- recognition of the existence of Palestine – an existence denied by hardcore supporters of Israel
- scholarships for Palestinian refugees
Israel has killed over forty thousand Palestinian civilians, more than two thirds of them women and children, and injured twice as many, in its genocidal assault on Gaza and has ignored orders from the International Court of Justice to cease its slaughter and allow food, fuel and medicines into Gaza immediately. Gaza is now in famine, with experts predicting that more will die in the coming months from hunger and disease than from Israel’s bombs, missiles and bullets, with children again worst affected.
Palestinian flags can be seen through the Wills building’s doors. The figures in the second image have been blurred to protect identities.
The group is also demanding an end to the use of a ‘check-in’ system that tracks the location of students.
Wednesday’s action is not the first by Bristol students demanding justice for Palestinians and an end to discrimination against them and their supporters. Four months ago, students protested in the university’s ‘profits from genocide’:
And earlier this month, a group occupied Bristol University’s Victoria Rooms in a pro-Gaza protest.
The British government has mounted a pressure campaign against universities, threatening to defund them if they allow ‘extremism’ or ‘antisemitism’ in the form of pro-Palestinian speech and activism. Shamefully, a number of universities have capitulated to pressure from the UK state and from pro-Israel groups claiming that speech against Israel’s crimes and occupation of Palestinian land infringe on their rights and constitutes ‘hate’ toward Jews, even though many UK Jews oppose Israel’s actions and oppression of Palestinians.
Last month, former Bristol professor David Miller won a landmark employment tribunal case against the university, which had sacked him after pressure from pro-Israel groups, despite lawyers it appointed to run two investigations finding that he had said nothing antisemitic. The win set a precedent that anti-Zionist political beliefs are a protected characteristic under equalities law and cannot be used as grounds for dismissal. Skwawkbox understands that Prof Miller is not involved in the students’ protest.
Solidarity with students in Bristol and elsewhere who are demanding an end to complicity in war crimes.
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Breaking: UN Special Rapporteur confirms Israel committing genocide (video)
Report to go before UN’s human rights commission against backdrop of starving Palestinian children and continued murder of innocents
The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, international lawyer Francesca Albanese, has told Al Jazeera this morning that she will present her expert findings confirming Israel’s genocide to the UN’s human rights commission next week.
In January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that there is a ‘plausible’ case that Israel is committing genocide, but Albanese – like hundreds of millions of people around the world – knows that the case is far more than merely ‘plausible’, even more so after Israel ignored the ICJ’s instructions to stop bombing, shooting and starving the Palestinians of Gaza:
Albanese’s interview took place against a backdrop of another confirmation of the obvious – that Gaza is now officially in famine and approaching a point where starvation and disease caused by Israel’s continued will kill more than Israel’s bombs and bullets. The harrowing footage of emaciated, dying children shown on Al Jazeera shows that Palestinian children are Israel’s main targets in the starvation campaign, just as they have been in the mass murder of civilians through bombs and missiles.
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