Protest
Israel supporters shamelessly smear Bushnell with ‘dead jews’ claim. It’s an outright lie
US serviceman whose self-immolation resonated around the world did not say ‘Palestine will be free when all the jews are dead’, as multiple pro-Israel accounts have claimed
Supporters of apartheid Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinian civilians have begun spreading a claim that Aaron Bushnell, the US serviceman who died this week after setting himself on fire outside Israel’s embassy in Washington, posted a comment to his Reddit account that ‘Palestine will be free when all the jews [sic] are dead’.
The image has been touted by accounts well known for dismissive and often racist commentary about Palestinians as a means of trying to justify Israel’s war crimes. ‘Comedy’ writer Lee Kern was one of the most prominent:
Kern not only propagated the fake claim but described the whole of Palestine as a ‘racist hate movement’
Kern described the whole of Palestine, not just a resistance group, as a ‘suicide death cult’
Writer Kern’s 2021 comment appears to have been deleted but was commented on as early as 2021 and he does not appear to have made a denial to the many times it has been thrown at him
A careful examination of Bushnell’s Reddit account by fact-checker Snopes, over a wider period than the two months ago that the image shows – including using a service that records deleted posts – showed that no such post had ever been made by Bushnell and the image is completely fake. A reverse image search also revealed no other instances before the image began to be circulated by propagandists.
Bushnell’s shocking protest has focused even greater attention on Israel’s slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children. The attempt by supporters of the slaughter to divert from his aim in his terrible protest by posting an outright lie about him after his death is shameful and entirely unsurprising.
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Palestine Protesters Vow to Keep Marching Despite Fresh Clampdown Threats, as Muslim Council Blasts Islamophobic Rhetoric
Pro-Palestine groups and human rights campaigners have vowed to oppose “growing attacks” against the right to protest in the UK, as politicians and parts of the press ramp up the rhetoric against the Gaza ceasefire demonstrations taking place weekly across the country.
On Tuesday night, Home Secretary James Cleverly suggested pro-ceasefire marchers should stop protesting, telling the Times that they’ve “made their point” and are “not really saying anything new”.
And some Government-linked figures are now pushing for a fresh raft of anti-protest laws – including Lord Woodcock (Baron Walney), the UK Government’s adviser on political violence and disruption.
This week, he claimed that the “aggressive intimidation of MPs” by so-called “mobs” was being “mistaken” for an “expression of democracy” as he called for an ‘exclusion zone’ to be placed outside of Parliament to restrict protest, in the name of protecting MPs.
There have also been calls to ban political messages being projected onto Parliament, as happened last week when activists projected the contested slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” onto the Palace of Westminster.
"Overwhelmingly Peaceful"
At a press conference on Wednesday, Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal hit back at the calls for fresh clampdowns, and said peaceful protesters were being wrongly tarred as extremists.
He pointed to a mass lobby event last week, which saw 3,000 people “stand in line for four hours to speak to their MPs.” Another 80,000 people wrote to their MPs to back an immediate ceasefire.
“It was presented as a suspicious act by Islamist extremists seeking to threaten and intimidate MPs. This narrative is now being used to suggest that special measures need to be introduced…banning or restricting the rights to protest outside MPs’ offices, council chambers, and parliament itself.
“We do not accept in any way shape or form that there is something problematic with peaceful protests. outside entities offices, council chambers of Parliament,” Jamal added.
And the PSC director asserted that the official marches have been “overwhelmingly peaceful”, and attended by a wide range of communities.
“As to the narrative that they are making the streets unsafe for Jewish people, it ignores the fact that at each of these marches there are 1,000s of Jewish people marching in an organised Jewish bloc. All of them feel safe marching. And all of them, by the way, proudly chant the Palestinian slogan of liberation ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’” Jamal said.
The chant has been criticised as antisemitic by some for the suggestion that it could suggest the abolition or destruction of the state of Israel from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean, a claim PSC and Stop the War Coalition strongly deny.
Chris Nineham, national officer for the Stop the War Coalition – a co-organiser of the protests – said that despite the “extraordinary level of hysteria” the protests have been “overwhelmingly peaceful”.
“It's the biggest cycle of protests we’ve seen…But there has been a tiny number of arrests. At the last demonstration, there were a total of 12 arrests and on average, the number of arrests is three times less than the number of arrests in an average year at Glastonbury, per person involved. The number of arrests is less than the average Premier League football match per person involved.
“The overwhelming majority of these arrests are for wearing an [offensive] t-shirt, having a placard, or chanting a slogan that the police rejected. None of it is necessarily illegal…The overwhelming majority of arrests don't lead to charges as far as we can tell.
“There is not a single example on any of our demonstrations of any violent incident towards a bystander of any kind, whether a politician or anyone else. There is simply no case to be made that these demonstrations are threatening, disorderly, violent in any way.
"The argument that they are is a complete fantasy. It's a fiction dreamed up…largely in these corridors of power and then amplified by sections of the media,” Nineham told press.
Over-Policing Claims
The Gaza protests have faced intense scrutiny from the political Right, with former Home Secretary Suella Braverman going as far as to push for a ban on a November demonstration.
Nineham said the police remained under intense pressure to clamp down on their protests: “Since [November] they have tried to stop his marching into the centres of power. At least twice, we've had a strong attempt to stop us marching towards Downing Street and Parliament.”
He claimed police had rolled out an “unprecedented” number of restriction orders – so-called Section 12, 14 and 60 orders which place limits on protests.
“[They] have been deployed against all of the [Gaza] demonstrations…[They] haven't been applied to comparable mass protests over trade union issues, austerity issues, or actually over the Iraq war, the wars in Libya or Ukraine.
“There's been a level of aggression in policing, a kind of over-policing that’s been exceptional as well. The police say they use record numbers of officers, and they mobilise record numbers [against our] protests.
“Just to give you some indication, they tell us there are about 1700-1800 police officers for most of these demonstrations. At Pride on an average year, there's 150 officers that are deployed, which is an event maybe half the size of our average protest.”
Nineham alleged that police themselves have said repeatedly to demonstrators that they are under “huge pressure” from politicians.
“This whole movement is being attacked, we believe as a way of deflecting from the central problem, which is that the overwhelming majority of people in this country want to see a ceasefire, and our Government refuses to back that demand.”
Asked by Byline Times whether he expects Sir Keir Starmer to repeal anti-protest laws if elected this year, host John McDonnell MP said: “Across the Labour and trade union movement, there's a real anxiety now about the way in which fundamental human rights are under attack by this Government."
“There will be a general view within the whole of the movement that what we need to do is reassert our civil liberties. That may well result in some of the legislation we’ve seen so far being repealed," the Labour left-winger added.
Yasmine Adam, head of politics at the Muslim Council of Britain told the conference she believed much of the rhetoric against the Gaza protests was driven by Islamophobia, with peaceful Muslims presented as extremists. Hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters have been tainted as "mob" by senior Conservatives and some commentators.
Ased if she believes Labour and the Conservatives are institutionally Islamophobic, she said: “Yes.” PM Sunak and most ministers refuse to use the word "Islamophobic", instead using the phrase "anti-Muslim hate".
Amid concerns over MPs’ safety, Yasmine Adam pointed to an alleged failure to address safety concerns from pro-Palestine MPs. Labour’s Zarah Sultana has “faced huge numbers of threats because of her outspokenness on Palestine,” she said.
“[Yet] Keir Starmer has refused to raise those concerns when talking about MPs’ safety for example. When Zarah Sultana asked at PMQs for an end to the genocide, the PM’s reply was [basically] ‘she should ask Hamas and the Houthis to stop the killing’.
“If that's not Islamophobic, I don't really know what it is. It's so widespread and normalised that it’s second nature to these parties.”
On Wednesday, the Government announced a £31m package to provide extra security measures for MPs.
Non-profit monitoring group Tell Mama documented 2,010 Islamophobic incidents between 7 October and 7 February, the BBC reported last week, marking a sharp rise from the 600 it recorded for the same period the year before.
All the organisers said they were committed to continuing the protests, at least until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
The press conference came as the courts considered a claim by Liberty and other human rights groups today challenging the legality of recent anti-protest legislation.
Government Responds
Asked by Byline Times if the Government was putting pressure on the police to clamp down on Gaza protests, the PM's spokesman said: "No, we obviously do completely continue to enshrine the operational independence of the police."
The official spokesman claimed that a Government-organised meeting this Wednesday of the PM and the National Police Chiefs Council was "normal".
"The Prime minister and Home Secretary have regularly met with police chiefs to talk about the issues that communities people [have]...This afternoon's roundtable will also address the additional funding that we're providing to protect our democratic processes and institutions."
He denied that pressure would be applied to police chiefs to take a tougher line on Gaza protests, saying: "No, there will be a discussion consistent with our approach...It's entirely routine and normal...to talk to the police about the operational challenges that they face, but also the concerns that people in this country face."
Do you have a story that needs highlighting? Get in touch by emailing josiah@bylinetimes.com
Met confirms arrest of Gaza protester at Thornberry’s office
Outrage among activists at anti-genocide protest
The Metropolitan Police Service has confirmed the arrest of a protester on Monday night at what outraged other protesters have said was a lively but entirely peaceful protest, outside the Islington office of Shadow Attorney Emily Thornberry, against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the Labour regime’s support for it.
A Met spokesperson told Skwawkbox that a woman had been arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred and bailed ‘pending further investigations’:
A small demonstration was held in Islington High Street during the evening of Monday, 26 February. A woman was arrested at the scene on suspicion of inciting racial hatred. She was taken into custody and later released on bail pending further enquiries. Next due on a date in April.
Protesters against genocide and for the human rights of Palestinians have been demonised by politicians and supporters of Israel for supposed ‘hate speech’ since Israel’s slaughter of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank accelerated after the Hamas raid and the Israel military’s well-known – but ignored by the UK ‘mainstream’ media and politicians – killing of ‘immense’ numbers of its own citizens. The Tory government, aided by ‘opposition leader’ Keir Starmer, have continued to attack the civil rights of the UK people to protest.
Right-wing MPs, along with pro-Israel campaigners, continue to call for tougher police action against demonstrators, despite the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of protests.
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US serviceman sets himself on fire outside Israeli embassy in protest over Gaza genocide
Aaron Bushnell says he can no longer ‘be complicit in genocide’ in Gaza
A US airman has set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC in protest against Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. Aaron Bushnell, an active duty serviceman, recorded a video en route to the embassy gates in which he said he could ‘no longer be complicit in genocide’. Despite the terrible protest he was about to make, he seemed quite calm and composed, saying that what he was about to suffer was nothing compared to the suffering of innocent Palestinians in Gaza:
I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonisers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.
Aaron Bushnell
Security personnel attempted to put out the fire before Bushnell was rushed to hospital with extensive burns, but family members said that he later died of his injuries.
Before the act, which he reportedly live-streamed, Bushnell sent a message to news agencies:
Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people.
Bushnell is said to have worked in IT for the US air force. Whether that led him to seeing things that his conscience couldn’t bear is not know. His last words were ‘Free Palestine’. Police pointed guns at him as he burned.
The protest was reminiscent of Thich Quang Duc, Vietnamese Buddhist monk and the first of several to do so, who set himself on fire in protest against the persecution of Buddhists by the US-friendly South Vietnamese government in the 1960s. Duc’s sacrifice galvanised public opinion around the world and focused international attention on Vietnam.
Another victim of Israel’s genocide and war crimes, Bushnell clearly hoped that his protest would do the same and shock a complacent US government and (in part) public into action against the apartheid occupation regime and its war crimes.
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Graham suspends official who refused to cancel pro-Palestine Labour conference fringe
Simon Dubbins told Graham’s proxies she should come and tell him herself if she wanted Unite Palestine solidarity fringe cancelling.
CORRECTION: Dubbins is ‘under investigation’, but not suspended..
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has suspended a senior Unite official who refused last October to cancel a solidarity fringe even for the Palestinian people that he had arranged during Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool.
Graham sent underlings to tell Simon Dubbins, Unite’s Director for International Affairs, that the event must be pulled – but as Skwawkbox revealed exclusively at the time Dubbins refused, telling the proxies that if Graham wanted the event cancelled she should come and say so herself. She didn’t, and it went ahead.
The official reasons for the suspension have not been revealed, but Unite insiders have linked it to the fringe event.
Sharon Graham has been slammed for her actions – and inaction – relating to Palestine and the Israeli regime’s genocide in Gaza. She 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 – and an email from her official union address to an angry member dismissed the genocide perpetrated on the people of Gaza.
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.
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Commons chaos as SNP, Tories walk out over Hoyle’s help for Starmer over Gaza
Hoyle selected Labour’s weak Gaza amendment for debate , against Commons protocol
MPs swarm.out of the Commons chamber
Tonight’s Commons vote on the SNP’s call for a ceasefire in Gaza has collapsed into chaos, with both the SNP and the Tories walking out of the Commons chamber in protest at Speaker Lindsay Hoyle’s decision to allow Labour’s amendment to go onto the agenda.
Parliamentary protocol dictated that the Tories’ amendment should have ruled out Labour’s weadel-worded attempt to dress up a motion calling for a pause when it suits Israel as an amendment to the SNP’s clear condemnation of Israel’s genocide.
But Hoyle selected Labour’s amendment, allegedly after threats from Starmer and his team that they would try to remove him as Speaker if he didn’t accede. The announcement led to chants from some MPs for the return of John Bercow, the previous Speaker.
The Tories said they would ‘play no further part’ in the vote. SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said he would ‘take significant convincing’ that Hoyle’s position was not now untenable.
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Unite Brighton/S Coast votes unanimously to picket next exec over Graham’s Gaza silence
Members blast ‘refus[al] to implement Unite’s democratically agreed policy on international solidarity in respect of Palestine/Israel but of actively suppressing attempts to mobilise in support of Gaza’ and move to ‘pause’ Unite’s affiliation with Stop the War group
Unite Brighton and South Coast branch (SE 6246) voted unanimously last night in favour of a motion to picket the union’s next meeting of its executive, which takes place Monday March 11th 1pm at Unite’s HQ at Holborn in London.
The union’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, has been heavily criticised for her continued silence over Israel’s genocide in Gaza and for trying to thwart attempts to show solidarity with the people of Palestine. She has also been accused of banning or deterring union staff from participation in protests on behalf of Unite or showing official Unite banners on marches and at rallies.
The full motion reads:
Motion for branch meeting 20 Feb 2024
Many members by now will have seen the blistering speech by Jim Kelly, Chair of London and Eastern Region, in which he lays bare the General Secretary’s imposed policy of not only ignoring and refusing to implement Unite’s democratically agreed policy on international solidarity in respect of Palestine/Israel but of actively suppressing attempts to mobilise in support of Gaza.
Indeed, some 20,000 Palestinians had been slaughtered before Unite, on 3rd November, called for a ceasefire. Since then attempts to mobilise support have been met with obstruction, warnings issued designed to deter and silence Unite staff from speaking out on national marches, and in a particularly egregious move the General Secretary advised the EC to pause its affiliation with Stop the War. Unite members across the country are outraged at Unite’s continuing silence and failure to mobilise, particularly in light of the ICJ ruling that Israel may be committing the crime of genocide.
This branch demands that the
- Unite EC and constitutional committees use all means possible to publicise and encourage members to attend national PSC demonstrations in line with Union Policy as carried at Conference;
- Unite EC be present with their banner on national PSC demonstrations and provide a speaker, ideally the General Secretary;
- Unite EC and constitutional committees, as well as the Regional Offices, organise a visible Unite presence on national and local PSC demonstrations, providing members with the resources to attend including transport or reimbursement of travel fares;
- Unite HQ implement a social media plan that regularly reports on the on-going campaigns by Unite members as well as statements on social media channels of solidarity and support for the Palestinian struggle in Gaza, the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
- Unite immediately reinstate its affiliation to Stop the War
Further, that officers of this branch work with other branches to organise a mass lobby by members of the next EC meeting, Tuesday 5th March, 10.30am (tbc).
The exec is in fact planned for 11 March
One branch member told Skwawkbox:
The behaviour of our General Secretary Sharon Graham in seeking even to prevent others giving solidarity is despicable.
Unite’s press office has been contacted for comment.
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Pro-Assange protest grows larger still
Even more people than yesterday demonstrate at Royal Courts of Justice, ready to march on Downing Street against plan to extradite Wikileaks founder for exposing US war crimes
A banner referring to the fact that the main US witness against Assange admitted he had been lying all along
The number of people protesting at the Royal Courts of Justice against the extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has swelled beyond the approximately two thousand who turned out yesterday, despite foul weather:
The US government’s extradition case against Assange should have been laughed out of court when its main witness admitted he had been lying all along, but the courts and UK government have persisted in shoring up what constitutes a global assault on journalism, democracy and the right of peoples to hold their governments to account.
Protesters are now marching to Downing Street, led by PCS public service union’s Samba band.
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Video: protests for Assange as British justice goes on trial in extradition case
Up to 2,000 gather for ‘last chance’ to stop disgraced US case allowed so far by courts – but system seems stacked against Wikileaks founder, press freedom and public’s right to know
Protestors outside the court on Tuesday
Up to two thousand protesters gathered to demonstrate outside the Royal Courts of Justice today in London, where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and his legal team are fighting in what may be their last chance to avoid his extradition to the US, where the Biden administration wants to lock him in a high-security prison for the rest of his life for the ‘crime’ of exposing the actions of the US military.
Wikileaks embarrassed the US by revealing the wanton slaughter of Iraqi civilians – and the US wants its vengeance. To the UK’s shame, successive UK governments and courts have been all too eager to let the Americans have their way, despite the US case collapsing in disgrace when its main witness to Assange’s supposed ‘hacking’ of US systems admitted he had been lying the whole time – and plots by senior US officials to assassinate him. The admission should have seen the US laughed out of court, but UK judges granted its request anyway.
Protesters massed to show their solidarity with the Australian journalist, who has been imprisoned in Belmarsh prison since 2019 after a long effective incarceration in the Ecuadorian embassy while the UK and US governments conspired against him and even bugged supposedly sacrosanct meetings with his lawyers:
Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson gave the protest crowd a lunchtime update on the ‘absurd’ proceedings, which kept observers down to a handful despite the importance of the case, preventing even human rights groups from attending:
As with all the hearings so far, the case against Julian Assange appears to be stacked. After the farce of the collapsed US case being granted anyway, Assange’s appeal was denied by a judge with deep security service connections.
In the current case, one of the two judges was a lawyer for the Secret Intelligence Service and the Ministry of Defence, with clearance for access to ‘top secret’ information – and the other judge is the twin sister of right-wing former BBC chair Richard Sharpe, who resigned after an inquiry into his arrangement of an £800,000 loan for Boris Johnson before his appointment.
Activist Steve Price, who represented Skwawkbox at the demo, summarised the day:
On a cold day thousands gathered to lobby the court and raise public awareness of this situation. This morning at the RCJ, the chant of the day was “There’s only one decision – no extradition!” The demo was noisy, very colourful, with a visible but low-key police presence and many passing drivers honking horns in solidarity.
Speakers included three Labour MPs – Richard Burgon, Zara Sultana and Apsana Begum, alongside Chris Hedges, Andrew Feinstein, Stella Assange and Julian’s brother and father, as well as lawyers, Reporters without Borders (RwB) and Wikileaks’ editor-in-chief. John Pilger, the great Australian journalist, was remembered with great affection.
Julian’s brother said the Australian Parliament voted by two thirds criticising the UK and USA and demanding he be released and returned to his home country. Two of the lawyers, as well as RwB noted that this case has enormous implications for freedom of the press globally and there are obvious parallels with how journalists have been deliberately targeted by Israel in Gaza.
The magistrate back in January 2021 decided Julian should be released solely on the grounds that he might kill himself, but this was overturned by the Home Secretary. There are a number of legal grounds his team will advocate for refusing the extradition. He has been detained in Belmarsh (in solitary confinement) for nearly 5 years, spent 7 years before that confined in the Ecuadorian Embassy. His health has deteriorated, it’s a form of torture, they’re slowly killing him. He is believed to be too ill to attend court today?
They want to extradite him for the crime of journalism, for exposing their hypocrisy, their dirty secrets, their war crimes.
Keir Starmer, the ‘human rights lawyer’, as he never tires of reminding everyone, has never spoken in Assange’s defence. As Director of Public Prosecutions, his actions are murky – because the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) destroyed its records of them and destroyed notes of what it destroyed. However, it is known that in the case of another extradition the US wanted – that of autistic hacker Gary McKinnon – Starmer flew in a rage to the US to apologise to his US government contacts as soon as then-PM Theresa May quashed the extradition on humanitarian grounds. The CPS and Sweden also destroyed records of their communications when the CPS was pressuring Sweden to continue to pursue Assange’s extradition there – no doubt a stepping stone to getting him to the US – on discredited rape allegations. Despite the destruction of evidence, it is known that the CPS told Swedish counterparts not to ‘dare’ drop its request and refused Sweden’s offer to come and interview Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Assange’s family and team have asked everyone who can make it to the court to continue demonstrating throughout the duration of the hearing to try to keep up pressure on the authorities. The Establishment’s relentless assault on Julian Assange is a war not just against him, but against press freedom and the right of the public to know what its supposed representatives are doing and to hold them to account.
The UK justice system has a last chance to show it is fit for purpose. If it happens, it looks as though justice will have to be wrung out of it. Absolute solidarity with Julian Assange and all persecuted journalists everywhere.
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Merseysiders protest government moves to replace skilled medics with less skilled
Demonstrations continue against Tory ‘downskilling’ of the NHS to increase profits
Members of the Merseyside Pensioners Association (MPA) joined health workers on Tuesday to protest outside a meeting of the Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care (ICS) board meeting against plans to cut NHS costs by reducing skill levels in the health service in a copy of unequal and heavily-privatised US healthcare.
The protest and meeting were held at the Floral Pavilion in Wirral’s New Brighton. The MPA joined a large crowd of Wirral Clinical Support workers and Unison members who have been demanding better pay. MPA members were protesting against the downskilling of medical professionals – a move under the so-called NHS Workforce Plan to replace doctors, midwives, nurses, anaesthetists and other highly-qualified workers with cheaper, less qualified staff to pad NHS staff numbers and reduce wage cost, allowing private health companies to provide services at greater profit.
One MPA campaigner told Skwawkbox:
Forcing or encouraging staff to work beyond their competencies is dangerous for patients and staff. NHS campaigners have been highlighting downskilling, professional deregulation, working beyond competencies and similar government moves for several years. It is not accidental, nor is it a response to “shortages of doctors”, “ageing population “, “bed blocking” or “underfunding” – these terms are all propaganda put out to justify the deliberate systematic destruction and withdrawal of the NHS to benefit big business & increase profit.
Some of us went into the meeting, raised questions about the difficulty and hostile processes involved in booking a GP appointment, the difficulty getting to see an actual GP rather than a Physician Associate [a position carrying out medical duties with only two years’ basic training] or other staff member and the lack of continuity that means we rarely see the same person twice.
We told the Board that we want to see fully-qualified medical professionals, that the right people with the right skills for the right job are fully-qualified doctors, anaesthetists etc. The Assistant CEO told us they have bought a new ‘cloud telephony’ service but that there won’t be any increase in GPs or Practitioners in GP surgeries, therefore we assume no increase in appointments either!
So the response appears to be they’ll just move the deckchairs on the Titanic around in a different manner! A longwinded way of saying they had wasted money on a new phone service presumably so you can more easily be told there are no GP appointments. At the ICS Annual General Meeting/ICB meeting last year an actual GP pointed out that without more GPs/appointments, changing the telephone system wasn’t going to help.
A further campaign meeting will take place on Friday 23 Feb at Liverpool’s socialist bar, the Casa:
The government’s use of ‘associates’ instead of fully-qualified medics has already been linked by coroners to at least two avoidable deaths.
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