Declassified UK’s Matt Kennard spoke at Transform’s 2024 conference on Saturday 19 October. And he focused in particular on the struggle to stop Britain’s participation in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
As Declassified has reported, covert US flights have been leaving from RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus throughout Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And dozens of British warplanes have flown to both Israel and Lebanon. British spy flights have also been passing intelligence to Israel.
This, he told conference attendees:
is not a country which is complicit in what is happening in Gaza. It’s a country which is participating. A direct participant.
British politicians who have allowed this, he insisted, should face arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC). If they don’t, then “the law of the jungle” will reign in the world.
The mainstream media could expose, and end, British participation in genocide. But it won’t.
Matt Kennard didn’t let the mainstream media off the hook, either. It has been complicit in Israel’s genocide in two key ways, he argued. One is that the mainstream media “enforce the propaganda of the Israelis”:
And they’re doing that in a system where they won’t go to prison. They might lose their job if they start doing proper journalism, but they won’t go to prison.
The second way is that “they do not report the reality of what our role is in Gaza”. He said:
If the mainstream media reported it, there would be pressure on the government from a wide part of the society and the population to bring it to an end. Those spy flights would be grounded within a week… We’re a small website, Declassified. Four people work there. And we’ve created an absolute storm in Cyprus… And that’s just four people. Can you imagine if the resources of the BBC or the Guardian were used to actually expose that role? They’d have to ground those planes in a week.
He emphasised that:
The government is aware of all this, which is why they are launching a massive crackdown on journalists and activists who are exposing their role.
These authoritarian efforts, he asserted, are:
a sign that they know that they have lost control of the population. They’ve lost control of the narrative, despite owning the mainstream media.
And by trying to intimidate journalists and campaigners:
The signal they’re trying to send is to scare us into submission, to scare us to stop speaking out. But it should have the opposite impact.
Matt Kennard: “the empire has never been this exposed”
In a comment that should rally British socialists to unify around a common mission of peace and justice, Matt Kennard insisted:
The empire has never been this exposed. The media has never been exposed. So in that sense, the door is ajar, and we need to kick it in.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq, another key moment in recent history, was different. The reason for this is that “social media wasn’t around, so the media propaganda was much more [saturated]. It was very hard to circumvent that system and reveal the truth.” In 2024, on the other hand:
you just need to look at your phone and you’ve got citizen reporters in Gaza who are giving us the information, risking their lives.
Now is not just the time to push for a united left-wing movement because Keir Starmer and co have destroyed any hope for transformative change under the Labour Party. It is also the time to unite because we are witnessing a key Western ally commit genocide in real time on live stream. As Kennard says:
Personally, I did always think: What would I have done during the Nazi Holocaust if I’d known what was happening? Would I have taken on myself to try and stop it and do everything I can. Well now, I say to people, ‘well, you know what you would’ve done in the Nazi Holocaust, because it’s what you’re doing now to stop what’s going on in Gaza’.
Keep an eye out for our other articles from the Transform conference 2024.
Featured image via the Canary
