Is "Fair Vote" - the most misleading handle of all time?

Dear "Fair Vote" Campaigners,

I saw your poster and had to write.

To suggest the British public can be bought for the princely sum of  £625,000 is not only absurd, it is obscene and gravely insulting. If you honestly believe (and I don't think for a minute that you do), that this amount of money's worth of tacky posters and Facebook messages from Bojo riddled with politic-speak made a jot of difference to the deeply held feelings of the British voters, you are dreaming. You're in Never Never Land with the current government, who refuse to earn their money honestly by engaging in diplomacy and meaningful dialogue on our behalf; who choose instead to fabricate a new "cold war" "McCarthyite" culture, complete with 20th century prejudice toward Russia - which they keep mistaking for USSR in the 1980s - and dropping bombs on countries with oil, mistakenly convinced that the British people will approve of any of that.

I voted to leave the E.U. because I did not want Brussels beaurocrats interfering with my family life in any way.  I voted to leave the E.U. because that organisation went fourteen years without keeping proper accounts, and are wasting billions of pounds worth of European tax payers' hard earned money on pointless beaurocracy. I voted to leave the E.U. because I don't want British law to be amended or written by politicians in Brussels. E.U. was and is encroaching upon our lives, and indeed the lives of all European people, in a way that is unhealthy and smacks of covert global governance incrementally imposed. I am very sick and tired of government over-reach in school business, hospital business and in family life. E.U. initiates and encourages these trends toward overbearing, unhealthy state control.

Under E.U. "protection", hundreds of thousands (at least 20,000 is a very conservative estimate) unaccompanied, traumatised children remain unaccounted for. Missing. Never properly registered at border control, effectively encouraged to "keep going" in their search for relatives, in their search for safety. Nobody in the E.U. has seen fit to stop these children ending up in the hands of sex traffickers, organ traffickers, and ruthless paedophiles. The scandal of lost, unaccompanied children slipping through the net - which is as loose, fluid and ephemoral as the E.U. financial records, is, on its own, in human terms, enough of a reason never to trust this rancid, abstruse institution.

All of these things make European citizens less safe in their beds. I am quite sure there are many French people, many Greek, Spanish, Italian people who would love to be free of all of the above as well. They would be the Europeans who truly love Europe. The true patriots. The true believers in inalienable human rights which are intact at the time of our birth. Rights which, contrary to the fallacy pimped around as fact by E.U. paper-fiddlers, cannot be doled out and then retracted according to the whimsy of a group of politicians.

These are a few of the valid reasons why I voted to leave the E.U. Europe is the continent in which I live; a continent I dearly love, in all its variety and magnificent diversity. Despite every effort from this overbearing organisation to homogenise and synthesise to the point that every town looks the same, we are not the same. We love and treasure those differences. We produce goods at varying rates, at our own rate, rather than at the rate which the E.U. deems to represent "competitive" and "successful". We sing from different hymn sheets on occasion. Those differences, those beautiful shapes of individualism and fruitful diversity should be treasured and respected. Instead, they are trampled underfoot as defects or weakness; wrinkles that need to be ironed out by conformity to meet "productivity targets". The fat rats in this particular sewer pipe have no allegiance to any country, and no interest in preserving the cherishable aspects of any nation's identity that can hinder the swelling of the bloated coffers of the damned.

If you think a tawdry little poster from Boris Johnson's office "made me" think of any of the above ideas, ideas I've formulated myself by watching the E.U. in action for over twenty years, you need to get a "proper job", because you're so wildly out of tune with the electorate now that you're likely to do even more damage to Britain's already tarnished reputation, tarnished at the hands of reckless, errant politicians.

If you think insulting the American public or the British public by implying they don't know their own minds enough to see through a bit of PR tat and under-graduate market-speak, you're not even living in the same century as the rest of us, and really need to catch up.

Yours sincerely,

Lyn Smith
UK citizen who voted to leave, and will again, however many times you repeat the exercise.https://twitter.com/fairvoteuk/status/990972456641925121

The censorship of our conscience.

If people are not concerned that The Times had a three page spread, including the front page, to attack academics who question aspects of our involvement in Syria, they should be. It sets a deeply worrying precedent indeed.

Our media and our government can't have it both ways. Either they're open and transparent, unafraid of criticism, as it is a necessary part of the democratic process, or, they're dictatorially silencing those who question the narrative; which means it's "highly likely" they have something, or perhaps, rather a lot, to hide.

Slapping an "Assad apologist" label onto everyone who has questions about war, is similar to slapping a "Saddam apologist" label on anyone who dared to question there might not be any WMDs in Iraq.  It is absurdly childish and very telling indeed. There is clearly an organised campaign afoot to vilify and ridicule anyone at all who dares to discuss counter arguments to those which have been rubber stamped by war enthusiasts and those with some other vested interest in dropping bombs. These activities reveal a government who will collude with media to silence those who have every right to ask awkward questions when lives are at risk. It reveals a government who is clearly prepared to spend tax payers money on covert censorship and manipulation of the public's perception of foreign affairs, through expensive front page newspaper hit pieces, and warped coverage of events overseas. Ironically, this witch-hunting of dissenting voices has had the effect of rendering a larger number of people much more skeptical of the government's claims, and much more eager to investigate for themselves.

The low brow, poorly written, factually inept articles in The Times newspaper were not only "not news", they were simply three pages of name-calling and in certain instances probably libelous - yet this is the least of our worries. We need to ask what on earth these people are doing, orchestrating
coordinated attack campaigns across press, TV, radio and social media upon dissenting voices, when they ought to be running the country and reporting the real news, respectively? These activities are not at all indicative of a government which is happy in its own skin.

I for one am grateful to Tim Hayward and his colleagues, for all their hard work and integrity. I cherish the work of independent journalists who cast light upon our world from varying angles and view points, as is in keeping with a robust democracy, which should never have a fear of words honestly spoken by its citizens.

In the past month I've witnessed a shrinking of our democracy to the point where it barely exists at all. "Democracy" is a weary, tarnished word, peppered all over our government's PR. It rolls easily of the tongue when one is finger-wagging at a "dictator" overseas. Its meaning now lost, it represents a concept which has not been cherished, has not been watered or nourished, and has not survived.

Journalists Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett and others suffered a heinous attack by an outlet which purports to be independent but, during the attack, presented in surprisingly "old school mainstream finger-wagging " video format, it was mentioned that more (attacks) are coming. Along with other threats, and incitement to hate the named individuals, their intriguingly prophetic choice of language immediately signalled to me they might have prior knowledge of media articles in mainstream press, which sure enough did later appear.  Has this "independent" channel been lobbied, compromised or simply bought? We don't know. What we do know is they echo exactly the same hate speech, the same lack of context and the same disregard for facts which was later demonstrated in The Times on 14th April.

The title alone would take another whole rant for me to tackle it fairly... , and I've already mentioned the inappropriateness of the lazy catch-all phrase "apologist for Assad", so let's say only this one paragraph about the article in The Times. Would it matter if these individuals, who hold views about their country's involvement in Syria, were "working in the dry cleaners on Edge Hill"? "Working in universities" implies they are subverting young minds, though I rather think that vacancy has been filled, by tabloids, TV and other media spiralling down onto the people of UK from Mr. Murdoch's universe. Mr. Hayward works at a university. He also has political opinions. Some people work as doctors, or bus drivers, and also carry opinions and views about most things. Is the inimitable "investigation" team who wrote this sparkling piece of journalistic literature asserting that university lecturers are only to hold the same views as government?  If not, why is Mr. Hayward's occupation worthy of a headline? It was a cheap shot worthy of a shabby tabloid.

This month, several excellent commentary Twitter accounts have been closed without warning or justifiable reason. Closing social media accounts, and name-calling anyone with an opposing view a "Russian troll", is  a thuggish bullying tactic worthy of a despotic regime;  oh how the ironies keep piling up, don't they? It is also indicative of Government collusion with social media companies, collusion which is used to censor rather than to keep us safe; using the "war on terror" as the excuse to silence those who, well, just might not be Tory voters, let's face it (!) I have not heard of any Conservative people who support intervention in Syria being denied access to their Twitter account, but do correct me if I am wrong. Now I am not accusing the Tories of vote rigging here. I am flagging up the possibility that powers our government has to influence the media are open to abuse by those who want to hold onto power by shutting down natural opposition.

I am regularly accused of being a "Russian bot". This particular "bomb" is usually thrown by intellectually lazy people with absolutely no arguments of substance, and nothing in their debating arsenal but name-calling and Hitler-esque badging of opposing opinions. Recent witch-hunting, and the rounding up and demonising of opposing voices, is an extremely incriminating development. Attempted character assassinations of individual citizens and journalists, McCarthy-esque lists of persona non grata and  "badging", is evidence of co-ordinated government and media oppression.

Pointing fingers at "dictators" in countries that have oil, whilst silencing, attacking and attempting to demonise its own citizens - and indeed  even the legitimate opposition leader - with personal attacks which abandon factual information in favour of hate rhetoric, smells like totalitarianism to me. "Totalitarian": a dictatorial system of government requiring complete subservience to the state."

Once again, as at the time of the Iraq invasion, we have an unhealthy, unholy coupling of state and media which quite frankly is not simply distasteful, it is questionable to the point of requiring serious investigation.  Mysteriously, there is not one journalist in the whole of UK examining this particularly frightening aspect of life in twenty first century Britain.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/apologists-for-assad-working-in-british-universities-2f72hw29m

FAKE "FAKE NEWS" in the "NEWS" IS ALL fake! Now that's what I call news!

I'd like to address the comedy that is the "fake news" "news" story which seems to have really gathered steam when Hillary Clinton went off her rocker before the US elections. Since then it has grown into this:

1) Government asserts a version of events

2) An alternative source challenges that assertion and provides a counter narrative which is immediately labelled toxic "fake news".

3) The censorship, vilification and silencing of any individual or web site which is not pumping out the exact same version of events to the US / UK government.

A democratic  government should be fearless of counter narratives put forward by its citizens, if its version is correct. Surely facts alone will be their witness, and indeed in time, witness testimony from the scene will surely eventually back up and completely verify their account, and the alternative versions will lose credibility?

Of course, once investigated, upon analysing the available data, there might well be opposing views on the same data.  Rather than see this as a sign of a healthy democracy, this seems to pose a different set of worries for our modern governments in the west. This is puzzling to me, because democracies are supposed to embrace variance of opinions, and are suppose to cherish the ability of everyone to bring their opinion to the table for rigorous debate, aren't they?

Surely everything is open for discussion and interpretation of known facts? Surely the most robust argument will win the day? Incidentally, Trump and May worshippers,  tweeting "you are paid by the Kremlin", "you are a maniacal despot apologist" or similar abuse does not constitute a 'robust argument'.  In fact, I'm going to take this a stage further. Speaking as someone who is attacked in this manner every day,  I'm going to give you a taste of your own medicine, to see how that flies.

If you are supporting and enabling the behaviour of NATO countries in Libya, Iraq and Syria, knowing what we now know from the infamous and sadly toothless #Chilcott inquiry;

@Theresa_May @DonaldTrump @BBC, @Newsnight, @Channel4News @Skynews @CNN @TheTimes @TheGuardian @Washingtonpost @Newyorktimes       

...you are choosing to ignore decades of literature that points in the other direction and time and time again documents in finest detail this obsession with bogus regime change. For reasons best known t only to yourselves, you are brazenly ignoring thousands of reports, books, lectures, films, witness testimony, university theses, statistics and analysis; all of which suggest that this interventionalism is wrong, to the point of being illegal, profanely immoral and completely undemocratic. You are also brazenly pouring scorn and derision upon the terrible loss of life resulting from Iraq being invaded under false pretexts, by calling for it happen all over again in Syria.

For reasons best know to yourselves you have set your propaganda and bullshit radar to "sleep" mode, and turned off your crtical thinking skills, to become obedient stenographers for John Bolton, Dick Cheney, Netanyahu,The Bush Cabal, Rupert Murdoch and co. You are in fact, apologists for a genocidal hegemony spreading terror, torture chaos and death all over the globe with impunity, but absolutely fook all legitimacy of any kind because let's face it... who's going to check anyway? Your own cronies? Hardly worth the airfare I suspect.  I can imagine the train of thought goes something like this: "we got away with it in Iraq. It'll be fine to pull that one again. After all, what are Mr. and Mrs. Nicely of Rotherham going to do about it?  They'll never find out. They can't exactly go to Syria and have a look for themselves, can they... Feck it anyway, just drop the bombs."

I really don't know of an act of contrition meaningful enough to make amends, or any sort of worthy apology to the world for this level of shameful complicity to a devastating war machine that just will not stop killing.

Open letter to Theresa May

Dear Theresa,

Talking - how hard can it be?

Today I had to watch you making childish, surly jibes to Mr. Corbyn such as, "I know you like Czechs"  (play on words cheques/czechs.. a cheap reference to the already debunked claims of a tabloid that Corbyn was in the pay of the Czech secret police). So, you having set the tone typically low, I later had to suffer your disingenuous bleatings about Syria, about the "violence of the regime", meaning the Syrian Arab Army and their efforts to free East Ghouta of terrorism. Do you want to know how we know if you are lying or not Theresa? Want to know the acid test for MPs and media whores alike? Here's what we do. We ask ourselves this: Do you tell both sides of the story equally and without bias, or do you stick to only one particular angle in your narrative? If you do the latter, we know there is something amiss. Simple, but it works every time.

I have never once heard you discuss deaths caused by your beloved "opposition rebels" or "moderate rebels". Not even this week, as they fire mortars into the middle of crowded civilian areas full of school children and people on their way to work in Damascus. That is because they never were "moderate", were they, Mrs. May? Anyone who had a political gripe about Assad has long ago shut the feck up about it and got behind the Syrian Arab Army. The only people shelling army positions now are extremist murderers, and you know it. Imagine if that happened on the outskirts of London? There have been hundreds of casualties in Damascus at the hands of terrorists, and they go unreported and unmentioned in parliament. These injured or murdered civilians are never discussed, never named. Yet, you are happy to be outraged by the Syrian army's attempts to take back their own territories from murdering jihadis, in areas which have been long cleared of civilians except for those who choose to stay with the terrorists, and people trapped there, held as human shields. Again, these activities are never reported, but there is no way that you are not aware of these details. So what are we to conclude from your one-sided outpourings on the subject of Syria?

When Baroness Caroline Cox, lifelong peer of the realm, went to Syria on a fact finding mission, you would not listen to what she had to say upon her return. Do you not find that strange, Theresa?  We certainly do. People slandered and libelled Baroness Cox, because she chose to speak on RT (ooh she must be a ccommunist then, obviously). They seemed to rather miss the point that nobody, not one UK media outlet, would allow her to speak her truths to the public, except RT. What exactly does it say that you are censoring your own people if they happen to come back from Syria with "the wrong story"? I see from the latest questions raised by Baroness Cox, she is still getting the run around, but at least these statements are now on the public record, thanks to her courageous work. If one ounce of your feigned concern for the people of Syria was genuine, you would be desperate to hear what Baroness Cox had learned from her trip, from the real voices of real Syrians, who are pleading with UK to take a different approach. Here are just some of the illuminating points that Baroness Cox has managed to get out into the open despite your best efforts to shut her down:

*****
Hansard Source: Syria: Overseas Aid:Written question – HL4197
Question 2: 14th December 2017

Baroness Cox: To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following the suspension of their financial support to the Free Syrian Police, what assessment they have made of the use of funds provided to the armed Syrian opposition; whether those funds are supporting the administration of areas controlled by extremist groups including Hayat Tahrir Ash Sham and Ahrar Ash Sham; and if so, whether they will suspend all such financial support.

Answer 2: 29th December 2017
Lord Ahmad: In partnership with other donor countries, Her Majesty’s Government provides a range of support to Syrians to help save lives, bolster civil society, counter extremism, promote human rights and accountability, and lay the foundations for a more peaceful future. This financial year, we have allocated over £60 million through the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF). Of this £10 million has gone to armed opposition groups, in the form of non-lethal assistance and lifesaving support, helping them protect civilians from the threats of both the Assad regime and extremists. This support to armed groups has not been delivered in areas controlled by extremist groups and is not supporting the administration of such areas.                (ends)

****
and this, from the House of Lords, Theresa, did you listen to or read a single word of this, I wonder:

Baroness Cox:  "Yet the darkest days of the war appear to be over. ISIS and other Islamist military forces have been driven out from their main strongholds by the Syrian army, assisted by Russia. Reconstruction projects are underway. People are beginning to return to their homes. President Assad, meanwhile, is reasserting his authority. Whether Her Majesty’s Government like it or not, he is winning the war and will almost certainly remain in power.

I visited Syria last month with two colleagues from the House of Lords: Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury; and Lord Hylton, a fellow Crossbencher. We were invited by the Syriac Orthodox Patriach and met a variety of religious leaders, representatives of diverse political parties (including the political opposition), nationally and internationally respected artists, musicians and intellectuals, the humanitarian aid organisation St Ephremel Patriarchal Development Committee and members of local communities. All of those whom we met expressed dismay and anger at the devastating impact of British foreign policy.
Their concerns:

Regime change: Despite the well-documented criticisms of the Syrian Government, many Syrians are deeply concerned by the UK’s continued commitment to impose a transition of power, including the removal of President Assad. Everyone we met passionately believes that Syrians should have the right to determine their own future and to elect their own leadership, without foreign interference. As there is no remaining ‘moderate’ armed opposition, it is feared that forced regime change will – to quote three former British ambassadors to Syria (The Times, 21 Dec 2016) – create a “chaotic situation similar to, or perhaps even worse than, those in Iraq and Libya”.

Opposition forces: The British Government has provided massive financial support to so-called ‘moderate’ opposition forces (HL Hansard, 19 Oct 2017). However, we heard time and again that these forces, including the Free Syrian Army, are now dominated by jihadist militants. (One example was powerfully publicised in a recent BBC Panorama investigation ‘Jihadis You Pay For’.) The vast majority of these opposition forces have extremist ideologies, with no intention of creating democracy in Syria.

Sanctions: All of those with whom we met spoke of the serious damage caused by sanctions and the destruction of industrial infrastructure. These greatly harm civilians, for whom it is very difficult to obtain employment, and adequate supplies of food, medicines and medical equipment." (end of quote from Hansard)

****

Dear British government of millionaires, you need to sack our representatives at the UN if they ever dare to walk out of a critical UN meeting again. Last year, I was disgusted to witness the UK, UN, and French representatives walk out of the UN talks on Syria, at the moment when Bashir Al Ja'afari, the Syrian representative at UN got up to speak. I have since seen deliberate avoidance of face to face meetings to discuss the real events (as against the staged version of events) in Syria in any meaningful way with Syria's legal and legitimate leader.

I also demand you never again refuse to talk with Russia, and always go out of your way to reach diplomat solutions, like the competent professional adults you are purporting to be and indeed are paid to be, on our behalf.  The next world war cannot be won, by either side. Everyone knows this. In light of this knowledge, the current Russia-phobia fest is as absurd as it is extremely reckless, irresponsible and embarrassing. This behaviour is so out of time. It is so unseemly and so out of step with the rest of the modern world and smacks of desperation.

It is not 1940 any more. The British public can see and hear what is going on elsewhere. We can hear what Mr. Putin is saying and what President Assad is saying despite a barrage of shameless propaganda spewing forth from @BBC et al. And flawed though I'm sure they both are, as indeed are the rest of us, your attempts to paint either of these men as 'mad evil dictator psychopaths with no saving graces' simply will not gather a head of steam in the modern age. Sorry. You did it in Iraq, you did it with Gaddafi, you did it with Molosovic, and in many more historical take-downs. You lied about the Gulf of Tonkin, you lied about WMD, and about Afghanistan and the whole Taliban debacle, but I'm afraid you are dealing with a very different public this time around, which is probably why you you are so desperate to shut down the internet.

If you are saying you are incapable of coming to orderly, civilised arrangements with foreign nations without resorting to carnage and tearing countries apart, I must ask you to resign your posts immediately so that we can find somebody who more accurately reflects the tolerant, compassionate nation we know the British people to be. We are sick of being misrepresented. We are sick of feeling thoroughly ashamed of the actions of our military overseas, and of the undignified, deceitful behaviour of our leaders. We are nauseated by the propaganda being pumped out by media channels in UK, which serves only to reinforce and support the vile deceptions about who is fighting who and for what, in Syria and elsewhere.

Mrs. May, if I took up weapons to fight my way across UK and into London, killing all who opposed my views, to challenge you and your government because I disagreed with you, would I not immediately be arrested? Would I not, quite rightly, become an enemy of the state, hunted down on a shoot to kill basis? When will you admit that in fact, violent insurrection is not 'opposition', it is terrorism. 'Opposition' would be if I stood for parliament with a range of alternative ideas and policies and tried to win popularity for these through various legitimate campaigns. In what way does the insurrection in Syria differ and hold a different set of values and responses from your less than illustrious government? Syria has been invaded by thousands of non-Syrian agitators and cut-throat terrorists, who have been torturing and slaughtering people, and holding whole towns hostage for over five years. They are masquerading as valid opposition, yet their actions have crossed the line into criminal terrorist activity.  The line which we all know would call for a nation's army to legitimately attempt to eradicate those terrorising the citizens of that nation. These people are murdering innocent Syrians. Are you seriously telling me that if I raised a militia army to attempt an assault upon our parliament, using violent force as my argument, beheading children and throwing Hell Canon grenades at innocent civilians in our capital, that I would be considered to be a 'moderate rebel' or an 'opposition force' and would enjoy protection from the UN? Yet the British government insists upon referring to a particular group of people in Syria as 'moderate rebels' and 'the opposition forces', whilst referring to the legitimate army of Syria as "the Regime". Why? In my London scenario, if I killed UK soldiers, would you still be asking the UN to protect "my rights"? If I holed myself up in a school or a hospital which the British army subsequently raided to put an end to my tyranny, would you then report to the papers that the UK army had committed a "war crime?" Seriously?

As for screaming "war crimes" at Russia for trying to clear east Aleppo of these well funded, well armed murdering cut throat thugs, at the request of Syria, I think you know exactly just how wrong that really is, Mrs May. I want to ask you now, at what point does the hypocrisy become just to much to bear? You know where the terrorists are. They are hiding in schools and hospitals and crying "war crime" when a disused terrorist hospital hide-out is hit.

At what point also will you concede that America's way of doing things, just like Israel's way of doing things, is not at all popular with 95% of humans on planet earth. USA invades countries, illegally, with the pretext of "helping" them. From the minute they arrive to "help", they act like that country's Lords and Masters... strutting around like the CEOs of a business, carving that country into pieces like it is a piece of pie for the consumption of America. Bases are set up, civilians are no longer free to go where they wish; in their own country, they are told what to do, by US soldiers.  Air fields and oil fields are taken over. This is all reprehensible and disgusting to most modern people. I am absolutely sure that if more Americans were aware of these activities, they too would be furious with their government and their military. Furthermore, the world has recently witnessed another way, that does not involve USA intervention, and guess what? They like it. Russia was invited to help rid Syria of terrorists. They did so, and are still helping. The Russian leader and President Assad shook hands as neighbours, as friends. The Russians did what they were asked to do, no more. They did not proceed to occupy Syria, or to march all over it as though it belongs to them.  Revelation!  There is another way to do business, and it turns out the USA way is wildly out of step with the wishes of the people in the middle east (and everywhere else). The people of UK are becoming much more aware of lies in the media and are extremely concerned about MPs who lie in parliament about what is going on. Chemical attacks that are as spurious as recent claims that Jeremy Corbyn is a Czech spy. UK citizens do not wish to be the puppy dogs of USA, responsible for carnage and rapacious, bullying behaviour. We do not want to be selling weapons to Saudi to drop onto innocent Yemeni children either. We do not want you to stay silent about the reviled "apartheid 2.0 " atrocities happening in the Gaza strip just because you are protecting your Israeli concerns and business interests.

President Assad is the elected leader of Syria, a sovereign nation state which has not attacked anyone. Assad's people will stand by him, you have seen that to be the case now. The people of Syria know it is outsiders who are causing the problems to their country, and they also know that you have set your sites upon destroying their nation, and they will never, never surrender to that. They know that if they allow you to take Assad away there will be a power vacuum which will be filled by Muslim Brotherhood extremists and hundreds of thousands of deaths will follow.

Talk to Russia. Talk to President Assad. His people want him to stay; and their opinion is the only opinion that matters to Syria. Yes, even those who formerly had gripes with President Assad now realise he is there only hope of not becoming another Iraq. The real (original) opposition party, by the way, wanted a few reforms - reforms which were being looked at by the present government at the time of the beginning of the "war". I repeat, they marched occasionally in town squares because they wanted reforms, just like in any other nation on earth; that is a world away from being hungry for war. Anyone who suggests the Syrian people were so embittered they wanted violent revolution is guilty of the most treacherous misrepresentation. Hell, I had serious gripes with Mr. Cameron back in the day, and I despise your politics, Theresa May, but I wouldn't have liked it if NATO forces took to bombing England into oblivion in an effort to 'help' me get either of you out of office! Nor would I fancy it if you galvanised thousands of mercenaries to terrorise neighbourhoods in a faux "rebel" army to try to "help" get you out of power, because that would have been a) illegal  and b) ridiculously out of proportion to my perceived "opposition". Neither would I be terribly impressed to have the UN holding debates about who is going to profit from the subsequent unwarranted, illegal invasion of my country. Yet this is what has happened to the Syrian people. This absurd scenario happened to them, a nation in which all faiths have peacefully co-existed for more than two thousand years.

I do not expect you will answer me, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and particularly those failed 'ambassadors' who have been repeatedly walking out of critical UN Security Council meetings on Syria - I say again - a country which has not broken international law and has not attacked anyone. There has been propaganda that the President has attacked his own people, but there is no physical or forensic or reliable witness evidence at all to back up any of these allegations; some of which have been absolutely refuted now, by Hans Blix and other renowned and respected weapons experts, even by C.I.A. and other official organisations. Most of these allegations about President Assad are as spurious as the baseless smear attacks against your current opposition, Jeremy Corbyn. We are well used to lies and can spot them, so easily.

To get back to my point - talking. How hard can it really be, Theresa?  If you are seriously telling us that you can't manage to negotiate in a mature and constructive way on behalf of the people of Britain at a time when the stakes could not be higher; if you insist on absenting yourselves from vital discussions with Syria and indeed with Russia, and Korea, in so doing jeopardising the future safety of our country and that or the whole world, then I insist you look urgently to some of us, who, as an alternative delegation, would be more than capable of getting the job done without further loss of human lives.

If all you can ever think of as a response to efforts from Russia or Syria to negotiate is to stick your fingers in your ears and start hurling ad hominen attacks and smears, just as you use personal attacks upon independent journalists who print the truth; if that really is all you have to offer the world, Theresa, then your time in politics is over. But remember this: Syria is not a piece of pie for you to share out with your buddies at the UN. Syria belongs to the Syrian people, nobody else. Who governs Syria is the business of the Syrian people, and nobody else. The only thing you need to negotiate is how to get your troops the feck out of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, along with all of your disgusting meddling NGOs and so called "charities" -  yes, your "third arm of government", used for all your "soft power" meddling and agitating inside other people's countries, which, .strangely almost always have "revolutions" shortly after the said "meddling" (sorry did I say "meddling", I meant to say "offering humanitarian assistance".

If you genuinely seek the truth, and are genuine in your "caring about Syrian people's suffering", you would have nothing whatever to lose by holding public interviews with President Assad and President Putin - and hell yes, Kim Jong Un as well; why on earth not? What have you to hide? Won't they show themselves up to be the unhinged despots they clearly are?  What are you afraid of?  Words?  Surely not?

Well I'm sorry darling, but we want words from you, Theresa May. We want words that actually mean something, instead of your usual heartless, mindless, meaningless fluff pieces to camera. And if you can't do it, do one.  Move over and find someone who can. Words not bombs, Theresa. Words which, in the right order, prevent bombs from ever having to be dropped or indeed from ever having to be talked about - except by your crusty old war hawks who have shares in arms companies - but that particularly glaring conflict of interest is your problem to sort out, not ours. Nobody believes you that Russia wants to go to war with us, nobody. So you can shut about that now.

SANCTIONS
While we're here, this needs to be addressed once and for all. Every time you feel like slapping down a country who is pissing you off, you have made absolutely sure it is "lawful" to slap sanctions on that country's civilian population, therefore exonerating yourselves from future blame by simply saying "we're operating entirely within the law". I am here to tell you that imposing sanctions is an act of war. I demand you lift the genocidal sanctions you have imposed upon the Syrian people, and other countries around the world. Sanctions will not help you to overthrow President Assad, or any other government with whom you ever have differing perceptions. In Iraq, we now know that over 500,000 children died as a direct consequence of having essential medicines and food supplies becoming unavailable because of economic sanctions imposed by us. I would describe that as a war crime. I would say it was genocide. You will probably say "we did not know at the time it would hurt that many people or indeed have fatal consequences". Well, now you do. In which case, to repeat the same action in Syria with full knowledge of the unavoidable deaths as a direct consequence of your sanctions, I would say this perfectly fits the definition of a 'premeditated crime against humanity'.

To hide behind the letter of the UN 'law' on sanctions, with full hindsight of the effects this action is having, and will have, upon the people of a UN nation state, is unconscionable. You do not have plausible deniability here, and an unjust law is no hiding place for a government clearly guilty of extreme over-reach. You have all of the facts and many precedents and the "lessons should have been learned" scenarios from previous sanctions experiences around the world. Perhaps you share the stance of Madeleine Albright after Iraq, that the death of 500,000 innocents was "worth it". If that is the case, your country will not go with you on that. So be aware of that at the next election, Theresa,

To sum up and keep it fresh: while you're still in the business of demolishing innocent countries, we'll be in the business of calling that out. You do not have our consent to continue with your current deviant activities. You do not act in my name.

 Yours sincerely,

 Lyn Smith
 A disgusted, thoroughly ashamed UK citizen.