SOCIALIST UNITY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
30 June 2009

[23 miles off the coast of Gaza, 15:30pm] - Today Israeli Occupation
Forces attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the SPIRIT OF
HUMANITY, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries,
including Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman
Cynthia McKinney (see below for a complete list of passengers). The
passengers and crew are being forcibly dragged toward Israel.

“This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our
boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission
to the Gaza Strip,” said Cynthia McKinney, a former U.S. Congresswoman
and presidential candidate. “President Obama just told Israel to let
in humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that’s exactly what
we tried to do. We’re asking the international community to demand our
release so we can resume our journey.”

According to an International Committee of the Red Cross report
released yesterday, the Palestinians living in Gaza are “trapped in
despair.” Thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed earlier
during Israel’s December/January massacre are still without shelter
despite pledges of almost $4.5 billion in aid, because Israel refuses
to allow cement and other building material into the Gaza Strip. The
report also notes that hospitals are struggling to meet the needs of
their patients due to Israel’s disruption of medical supplies.

“The aid we were carrying is a symbol of hope for the people of Gaza,
hope that the sea route would open for them, and they would be able to
transport their own materials to begin to reconstruct the schools,
hospitals and thousands of homes destroyed during the onslaught of
“Cast Lead”. Our mission is a gesture to the people of Gaza that we
stand by them and that they are not alone” said fellow passenger
Mairead Maguire, winner of a Noble Peace Prize for her work in
Northern Ireland.

Just before being kidnapped by Israel, Huwaida Arraf, Free Gaza
Movement chairperson and delegation co-coordinator on this voyage,
stated that: “No one could possibly believe that our small boat
constitutes any sort of threat to Israel. We carry medical and
reconstruction supplies, and children’s toys. Our passengers include a
Nobel peace prize laureate and a former U.S. congressperson. Our boat
was searched and received a security clearance by Cypriot Port
Authorities before we departed, and at no time did we ever approach
Israeli waters.”

Arraf continued, “Israel’s deliberate and premeditated attack on our
unarmed boat is a clear violation of international law and we demand
our immediate and unconditional release.”
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WHAT YOU CAN DO! (more…)

The Resolution Foundation, which is an advocacy charity for the UK’s 13.4 million ‘low earners’ has produced an interesting audit report showing how this sector of the population is particularly vulnerable in the recession.

Low earners are those living on less than average incomes but independent of state support, and are sadly an invisible group to policy makers. Low earners face significant challenges during the recession and recovery period, as they are:
• squeezed in the mixed economy – often too poor to access the full benefits of private markets, yet receiving little state support
• an overlooked group – they include the working poor but also a large number of people above this who struggle to live month-by-month on their earned incomes
• vulnerable to loss of work and with few or no savings - low earners are highly exposed in the recession and at risk of paying the price when public spending is constrained.

Some credit is due to the Labour government, as the introduction of tax credits and an increase in investment in public services since 1997 has benefitted the group. So that Between 1997 and 2007 the income gap between low earners and higher earners closed slightly, after decades of the gap growing; and for every £1 of tax that low earners contribute they are now receiving more back in benefits and the use of public services.

However low earners are highly exposed to insecurity by their vulnerable employment prospects. They rely more heavily on earned income than those on benefits who receive most of their income from the state, and higher earners, who have access to accumulated wealth and savings. By contrast, 64% of low earners said they have no safety net if they lose their job. Low earners are also disadvantaged compared with higher earners in a weak labour market because of their lower skills levels and lack of access to training. Low earners are also particularly exposed to cuts in public spending

Low earners are also most likely to be denied outside sources of advice and support; as they are not rich enough to attract commercial advice, but not poor enough to qualify for state and voluntary sector aid.

A hard and alienated vote - from Searchlight

A new survey into the attitudes of BNP voters has produced some startling revelations. Unsurprisingly BNP voters are overwhelmingly opposed to immigration and asylum seekers but a sizeable number also share the BNP’s hardline attitudes about citizenship and racial superiority.

It shows that BNP voters are predominantly working class, drawn from former Labour-voting households and feel more insecure about their economic prospects.

Conducted by YouGov from 29 May to 4 June, the survey questioned 985 BNP voters as part of a much bigger study of the political views of 32,268 people.

The study tells us that men are twice as likely to support the BNP as women, 44% of BNP voters are aged 35 to 54 and 61% are drawn from the social groups C2DE. One third of BNP voters read The Sun or the Daily Star, whereas only 13% read the Daily Mirror and those reading The Guardian and The Independent are statistically insignificant. One fifth claim to be members of trade unions or trade associations and 36% identify themselves as skilled or semi-skilled manual workers.

On one level the report tells us little new. More BNP supporters regard immigration as one of the key issues facing the country at the moment – 87% compared to 49% among all voters. Again unsurprisingly, 94% of BNP supporters believed that all further immigration should be halted. This compares with 87% of UK Independence Party voters, 68% of Conservative voters, 46% of Labour voters, 43% of Lib Dem voters and even 37% of Green voters.

Only 4% of BNP voters believed that recent immigration had benefited the country.

What is more startling is the strength of the racial attitudes of many BNP voters. In a result that gives the lie to the BNP vote simply being a protest, 44% (compared to 12% of all voters) disagreed with the statement: “non-white British citizens who were born in this country are just as ‘British’ as white citizens born in this country”.

Among BNP voters 21% strongly disagreed with the statement compared to just 1% of Greens and Lib Dems and 2% of Labour and 3% of Conservative voters.

More disturbingly, 31% of BNP voters believed there was a difference in intelligence between the average black Briton and the average white Briton.

Although only 2% of BNP voters deny that six million Jews, Gypsies and others died in the Holocaust, a further 18% accept that the Holocaust occurred but believe it has been exaggerated.

It is clear that the BNP receives support primarily on issues of race, immigration and identity but there is also a clear link with economic insecurity. Several of the questions probed respondents’ views on their current and future economic prospects. BNP voters repeatedly had the most gloomy outlook.

When asked whether they were satisfied that they had enough money to live on comfortably, 74% of BNP voters said no, compared to just 43% of Labour and 50% of Conservative voters.

On whether they were confident that their family would have the opportunities to prosper in the years ahead, 75% of BNP voters said no compared to just 35% of Labour voters.

Over half of BNP voters felt the financial situation of their house- hold would worsen over the next 12 months. In contrast only 29% of Labour voters agreed and 27% thought it would get better.

Again, more BNP voters thought someone in their family would lose their job in the current recession than supporters of other parties.

One of the most startling results was the response to the statement that “there is a major international conspiracy led by Jews and Communists to undermine traditional Christian values in Britain and other western countries”. Amazingly one third of BNP voters completely or partially agreed.

However, the significance of this response actually lies in the feeling of victimisation felt by many BNP supporters and cleverly exploited by the BNP itself. The view that they are losing out because of the conscious action of others is widespread among BNP supporters and it comes out clearly in this survey. Over three quarters of BNP voters believed that white people suffered unfair discrimination whereas only 3% thought Muslims did. Nine out of ten BNP supporters felt that councils allowed immigrant families to jump housing queues.

This feeling of victimisation coupled with a widespread belief that the Labour Party, which most once supported, at best no longer cares about them and at worst conspires against them makes these voters susceptible to the BNP’s big lie. It is hardly a surprise then that so many people in Barking and Dagenham were happy to believe the Africans for Essex myth.

Think of the balance of forces. On one side you have the Labour Party (which 57% of BNP voters think no longer cares about them), politicians (who 78% of BNP voters think are corrupt), senior officers in the council (who only 1% of BNP voters trust a great deal) and immigrants (who 87% of BNP supporters think are a problem and only 4% believe contribute anything positive). Then you have the BNP, the anti-establishment party speaking up for the forgotten white working class.

This survey is both predictable and disturbing. While immigration remains the dominant issue for BNP voters it is clear that they more than any other group feel economically insecure and politically abandoned. What is shocking is the depth of their racism and the alienation from mainstream politics. Support for the BNP goes far beyond being a protest, as some politicians would have us believe, and the racist attitudes will not disappear simply by improving economic conditions.

We should be under no illusion that a long and hard struggle lies ahead.

From the ever excellent International Viewpoint

Upon the arrival in Copenhagen of the morning’s ship from Poland Søren Søndergaard, an MEP and a leader of the People’s Movement against the European Union, demanded that the parliament and government should ensure that foreign labour is not subjected to unacceptable and highly dangerous working conditions.

When the 8 am ferry arrived from Swinoujscie, Poland, on June 3rd, more than fifty activists from a number of trade unions welcomed it with red flags, sandwiches and leaflets in Polish.

There were two speeches by candidates of the People’s Movement against the EU (Folkebevaegelsen): Ole Nors Nielsen, a leader of the dockworkers’ union; and MEP Søren Søndergaard, the lead candidate.

“I welcome the Polish and Eastern European workers to Denmark. The People’s Movement against the EU support the workers’ right to go to other countries in search of work.. But we can not accept that foreign workers are abused by social dumping and subjected to unacceptable and often fatal workplaces” said Søndergaard in his speech.

“Unfortunately, the EU today allows the under-payment of foreign workers. It must be stopped. That’s why the People’s Movement therefore calls on the government and parliament to decide that foreign workers must work according to Danish standards. Work performed in Denmark, must be performed by existing Danish agreements.” [2]

There should be equal work on equal terms: that is the clear message from Søndergaard.

Søren Søndergaard is a Member of European Parliament and a central leader of the Fourth International. He was elected into the Parliament in 2009 to represent the People’s Movement against the EU, and previously had represented one of its components, the Red-Green Alliance. He is a member of the Socialist Workers’ Party (SAP), one of the Alliance’s founders.

By Nick Lowles of Searchlight

There are three clear facts that need to be remembered at the outset of this article. The first is that the British National Party has won two seats in the European Parliament. This provides it with the platform, financial clout and semi-respectability from which it hopes to build future success at a local and even parliamentary level over the coming year. Secondly, their election is a game changer. Debates around no platform, access to the media and political representation will change whether we like it or not and we will need to adapt accordingly. Finally, and in terms of this article probably most importantly, anti-fascism can be successful particularly if it becomes more organised. While I will argue that only by addressing the public policy issues that give rise to the BNP and challenging the racism at the core of its support can the far right be properly defeated, anti-fascism, particularly at a local level, can halt and even reverse its growth.

It is also important to dispel two widely (though separately) held assumptions. Firstly, this is not the protest vote against mainstream parties and useless locally elected representatives that many politicians would like us to believe. It is an increasingly hard and loyal vote which is based on political and economic insecurities and moulded by deep-rooted racial prejudice. This in turn is linked with a second myth, that the way to beat the BNP is simply to tack left and offer more socialistic policies. While this might peel off some BNP supporters who feel economically marginalised, it will not in itself address the strongly held racist views of many BNP voters. (more…)

A couple of weekends ago I attended the Soundings annual event, which was quite an interesting gathering, (although a little too academic for my personal taste); where there was some serious discussion about the state of British politics, and the likely aftermath of the next general election. In particular, the potential eclipsing of the Labour Party in the election will require a bold reimagining of the landscape of progressive politics.

There is clearly some overlap between the articulation of this possibility from Soundings and the readership of this website, indeed Jonathan Rutherford, the editor of Soundings, tells me there have now been around 10000 downloads of the Soundings e-book about Politics After the Crash from www.Socialistunity.com  alone.

One workshop I attended was introduced by Andy Pearmain, based upon an article by himself called “Pieces of Labourism and the ‘fascist possibility’ in English politics”, available on Lawrence and Wishart’s website. I chatted to Andy about it afterwards, because it was a thought provoking and interesting discussion; but he is staggeringly mistaken, not only because his basic understanding of the general nature of labourism is wrong, but also his understanding of the particularities of the Labour Party’s own history is inaccurate; so the conclusions he draws from his analysis are also ill-judged.

Most mistaken of all is Andy Pearmain’s view that the BNP are a variant of labourism, and that there are precursor’s of the BNP in Labour’s own history.

Firstly, we need to understand the social and political phenomenon of labourism. For Pearmain, labourism was a political “alliance [that] consisted of most of the organised, waged, culturally unified and overwhelmingly white, classically ‘subaltern’ working class on the one hand, and the radical-liberal, ‘progressive’ and well-educated sections of the salaried middle class on the other, the ‘traditional intellectuals’ of the professions and the public services.”

Now in a sense this is correct, but it is too vague a description to be analytically useful. In actual fact the Labour Party has historically been an alliance with the trade unions as institutions, and a bewilderingly inconsistent political movement that has sought to modernise British society to make it more egalitarian and meritocratic.

The ideological and social parameters of trade unionism are delimited by seeking to represent the sectional interests of working people (or in some cases the professional salariat) within capitalism. It therefore seeks to improve the lot of the working classes, but not overthrow the profit system, or the institution of wage labour. The political expression of trade unionism has therefore been hostile to the greed, privilege and corruption of individual capitalists, and indeed hostile to the capitalist class collectively, but has not been systematically opposed to the capitalist system, notwithstanding the rule book commitments of some older unions. (more…)

EMERGENCY PICKET AGAINST COUP IN HONDURAS! TUESDAY 30 JUNE, 5PM, HONDURAS EMBASSY, 115 GLOUCESTER PLACE1) EMERGENCY PICKET AGAINST COUP IN HONDURAS! – PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELYTuesday 30 June, 5pmat the Honduras Embassy, 115 Gloucester Place, London, W1U 6JT.An emergency picket has been called outside the Honduran Embassy in response to yesterday’s coup against Honduras’ progressive elected president (see VSC statement and further information below.) Please come and show your support for social progress and democracy in Latin America.· For more information contact info@venezuelasolidarity.co.uk. Called by Venezuela Solidarity Campaign (formerly VIC), and supported by Unite London and Eastern Region.

By Ger Francis

On Friday night I attended the London City Circle event entitled ‘The BNP – How should we deal with them?’. The speakers were Lib Dem councilor Fiyaz Mughal, Respect party Leader Salma Yaqoob, and blogger Sunny Hundal.

It was a disappointing evening. But it did highlight the way in which a narrative that seeks to blame Muslim communities for the appeal of the BNP has been taken up by some media friendly race commentators.

Sunny Hundal echoed BNP arguments about minority ethnic communities and asylum seekers getting preferential funding treatment. He then retracted the charge, only to later repeat it.

Fiyaz Mughal challenged this, pointing out that local government funding simply does not operate on the basis that money is ‘taken’ from what Sunny lazily described as ‘white community groups’ and given to asylum seekers or minority ethnic community groups instead.

Salma Yaqoob argued that funding should go to where the greatest need is, irrespective of race or religion. Considering the disproportionate numbers of people from minority ethnic communities living in areas with high deprivation indices, it is right that some of these areas will attract special funding. If Sunny is going to give oxygen to these allegations he needs to be able to substantiate them somewhat better than making a vague reference to a Hindu group in Leicester.

Asim Sadique, the chair of the City Circle, had a slightly different, but also mistaken approach. Quoting a Channel 4 YouGov opinion poll, Sadique relied on the interpretation of the results by Peter Kellner which plays down the racism of BNP supporters. YouGov claims that “depending on how the term ‘racist’ is precisely defined, our survey suggests that the label applies to only around a half of BNP voters”.

But if it is the case that the BNP vote is not primarily motivated by racism then we end up echoing false and self-defeating arguments about white British identity being ‘under siege’, the ‘failure’ of multiculturalism, and, at an extreme, sinister warnings about a growing ‘Islamisation of Britain’.

Martin O’Sullivan at Islamophobia Watch provides a useful corrective, claiming that the poll results contradict Kellner’s interpretation :

‘94% of BNP voters thought “all further immigration to the UK should be halted” – way ahead of supporters of other political parties, with the exception of UKIP. 79% of BNP voters agreed that “even in its milder [sic] forms, Islam is a danger to western civilisation” – again, far higher than Labour, Tory, Lib Dem or Green voters.

Kellner sees it as a positive result that “just 44 per cent” of BNP voters “agreed with the party in rejecting the view that non-white citizens are just as British as white citizens”. However the question didn’t concern all British citizens, but rather “British citizens who were born in this country”. If the question had included people born abroad who have come to the UK and subsequently acquired citizenship, the percentage of BNP voters denying that non-white citizens are “just as British as white citizens” would undoubtedly have been even higher.

In that connection, it’s worth noting that 81% of BNP voters disagreed with the proposition that “Britain has benefited from the arrival in recent decades of people from many different countries and cultures”. Only 8% of BNP voters agreed with this proposition, compared with 63% of Green voters, 55% of Lib Dem voters, 53% of Labour voters and even 31% of Tory voters.

What the poll reveals is that racist attitudes exist among supporters of all political parties (which is what you would expect, given the migrant-bashing, Muslim-hating propaganda that pervades the popular press) but that people who vote for the BNP are much more racist than those who vote for mainstream political parties.’

The idea that ‘white culture’ is ‘besieged’ by the non-white ‘other’ is paranoid nonsense. Any pandering to this argument flies dangerously close to a BNP narrative which blames the victims of racism for racism. As Salma has argued, this mantra ‘on the need to make others more “British”, rather than making ourselves less racist, has helped undermine concepts of national identity that celebrate pluralism and diversity.’

It appears Sunny came to the event more minded to attack Respect than the BNP, dragging George Galloway and Iran into the proceedings, despite its complete irrelevance to the topic at hand, and repeating the smear of Respect being ‘communalist’. This was substantiated by reference to a single anti-war leaflet produced by George Galloway aimed at Bengali voters.

Maybe for those blinded by hostility to Respect this stuff sounds impressive. But Fiyaz Mughal concurred that every political party produces literature aimed at specific sections of the community. What is communalist is when conscious attempts are made to counter pose one racial or religious grouping against another. It is only the BNP and similar fascist parties that practice this kind of politics.

Salma, Fiyaz and Labour GLA member Murad Qureshi, who spoke from the audience, strongly emphasized the need to address anger over social deprivation in white working class communities combined with an uncompromising anti-racist message. Murad reminded the audience that just as the BNP seeks to demonise the Muslim community today, the National Front in the 1970’s took a similar approach towards the Irish community.

Picking up on this point, Salma emphasized how fascists traditionally turn their fire on specific ethnic or religious groups as the cutting point of their wider racist agenda. Muslims bear the brunt of this today, but it is the modern day equivalent of earlier racist campaigns against Jews, the Irish, Black and Asian people.

She said the way to combat such racism is not to insist that victims of racism should be any less Jewish, black, Irish, or Muslim, but through a united anti-racist message.

Since 9/11 there has been a right-wing narrative which seeks to blame anti-war critics and Muslim organisations as being in some way responsible for the growth of anti-Muslim racism. By his obsession with the Muslim Council of Britain and George Galloway it appears that Sunny Hundal and friends have, to some degree, fallen for it.

The massive interest in the aftermath to the disputed Iranian election among the mainstream media and commentariat needs to be compared with the almost total lack of interest in the simulataneous scandal and protests over the election in Haiti.

It is easy to see why Iran gets more attention. Iran is a major oil exporting country; that borders on the conflict zones of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan; whose government has made strategic alliances with Venezuela and China; and provides material, political and moral assistance to Hezbollah and Hamas. What is more, scandalised reportage of the more illiberal aspects of Iranian society feeds into the dominant colonialist narrative of our time: Islamophobia.

We should also note that reportage of the events in countries where the poulation is overwhelmingly black is much more scant than reportage where the people have paler skin. The treatment of gay people in Iran is a real and terrible oppression, but many of those Westerners who are scandalised by it do not speak out for the plight of gay people in, for example, Africa. There was silence when three gay men were paraded in front of TV cameras by the police in Ebo, Nigeria last week. The growing pogrom against homosexuals in Uganda is hardly reported in the West, despite a witchhunt atmosphere orchestrated by the state, newpapers and vigilante groups: gays are outed on the front page of national newspapers and then attacked by mobs.

Iran is a sexist society but why is there so much more attention to Iran than other sexist countries. For example, the report last week  that one in four men in the Republic of South Africa admits to being a rapist was hardly noticed in Britain. The African Union has been meeting recently, and there is a push for  the African Union Protocol on the Rights for Women to be adopted by all countries; an important development for women across a whole continent, but not reported in Western newspapers. How often have you seen the role of women activists in Africa reported in the Western press?

In truth, which stories the Western media consider newsworthy is influenced by Western business and geo-political interests and unacknowledged racism.

The protests against the disputed election are newsworthy. But how many reports have you seen about last Sunday’s election in Haiti, and the subsequent street protests where Brazilian troops from the UN army of occupation were filmed shooting into the crowd, killing one protester.

Haiti was invaded by the USA, France and Canada five years ago to depose leftist president Aristide, who was abducted by US marines and flown against his will to the Central African Republic. He is currently being held under House Arrest in South Africa. He had been elected with 91.8% of the vote, and instituted a number of progressive measures, his overthrow was greeted with despair by the poor of the Cité Soleil.

As Peter Hallward explained in New Left Review: following US financial sanctions introduced by the Clinton administration the desperately cash-starved Aristide attempted to rally his countrymen in April 2003 with the demand that, in the bicentennial year of Haitian independence, France should reimburse the 90 million francs that Haiti had been forced to pay between 1825 and 1947 as compensation for the loss of slave owners’ property. Assuming a low return of 5 per cent in annual interest, he calculated that the sum was now equivalent to 21 billion American dollars. Aristide got a lot of support for this demand both inside and outside of Haiti, particularly in Africa and Latin America. Unlike most slavery-related reparation demands currently in the air, the Haitian claim refers to a precise and documented sum of money extracted in hard currency by the colonial power.

This was a huge diplomatic embarrassment for France one of the richest countries in the world, exposed for having extorted a fortune from the most impoverished country in the Western hemisphere, and stunted its economic development for more than a century. Within a year of the reparations claim being made French troops were on the streets of Port-au-Prince, and the grateful Haitian mobsters installed by the French and Americans to replace Aristide dropped the claim against France.

In last week’s Senate election Aristide’s party, Fanmi Lavalas, were banned from participating, even though they command the overwhelming support of the country’s electorate. As a result a widespread boycott of the election took, place, and in most polling stations, only the staff supervising the election voted.

As Haiti Action reported:

“The June 21 boycott by Lavalas was called “Operation Closed Door 2″ and urged voters to stay away from the polls. Rene Civil, one of the leaders of the boycott campaign stated, “They have to hold the elections again and allow Fanmi Lavalas to participate or face having a parliament that is not recognized as legitimate by the Haitian people. They will swear them into office but no one is going to take them seriously.”

“Buses and taxis operated throughout the day unlike the first round of Senate elections held last April 19. Most voters did not take advantage of the lifting of the transportation ban and stayed home. Journalists in Haiti’s nine departments continued to provide reports throughout the day of [sleeping] poll workers and near empty ballot boxes. ”

I was very pleased to read on the Nigerian Curiosity blog that Ayodeji Omotade, the Nigerian man whose protest of the inhumane treatment of a fellow passenger, led to Brutish Airways throwing over 130 Nigerians off a flight, has now been vindicated.

The original incident that sparked this case was Mr Omotade objection to the obvious distress of a felow passenger being forcibly deported to Nigeria, as the Independent reported at the time:

“The man, who was thought to be about 30, was being held down in his seat by four or five police officers as the other passengers filed on board, and was crying out in broken English that he was afraid he would die if he were sent back to Nigeria. The officers took him off the plane, then returned and arrested Ayodeji Omotade, one of the passengers who had complained about his treatment. When others on board protested noisily about Mr Omotade’s detention, the captain ordered them all off the flight. The only person who eventually flew economy class on flight BA0075 was the unidentified deportee who did not want to go.” (The Independent, 21 April 2008)

The court case was reported in the Guardian:

“Ayodeji Omotade was accused by the prosecution of being a “catalyst” for other complaints. Yesterday he was cleared of the charge of behaving in a threatening, abusive, insulting or disorderly manner towards crew, after waiting over a year for his case to be heard.

“Prosecution witnesses told the court Omotade had behaved like a ‘raging bull’, but the district judge, Deborah Wright, found he had made a ‘forcible but polite complaint’.

“Omotade told the court that the flight had been full of families, and children could be heard crying as the deportee – who was handcuffed and in leg restraints – let out ‘agonising’ screams for up to 20 minutes.

” ‘It was just animalistic screams, like someone in pain,’ he said.

“Omotade said he intervened when he heard the man say ‘I go die’, hoping to translate his pidgin English for the escorts from the security group G4S. He told them: ‘The man says you’re killing him, please don’t kill him.’

“He complained that he found the noise “traumatic” and, as a fare-paying passenger, expected better service.”

Nigerian Curiosity says that Sokari, of the excelent Black Looks blog has stayed in touch with Mr. Omotade and contacted him directly to confirm the Court’s verdict when it initially happened.

The whole incident is a dramatic indication of the ingrained levels of casual racism in British Airwaves, particularly the vindictive nature of their pushing for Mr Omotade to be prosecuted, and the witness’s statements about him behaving like an irrational “raging bull”.