Intentionally and Knowingly

Like all Labour Governments, this one is full of lawyers. Yet it is stumped by a simple arrest warrant. A warrant issued on the application of an English King's Counsel who had been advised by a Holocaust survivor and former Israeli Ambassador who was now a British citizen, a Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, a Visiting Professor at Oxford, a Visiting Fellow of Mansfield College, and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College. Theodor Meron should be knighted or even ennobled, while Karim Khan's own Call Me God, at least, is long overdue. Like all the best people, he has been subjected to both of the witchcraft allegations of the present age. Yet he still deserves to be honoured even further.

Does the Government fear warrants for its members' own arrest? It should. Being democratically elected is absolutely immaterial to being the subject of a potential prosecution for crimes allegedly committed in the discharge of the functions of that office. For free, the RAF flies nightly reconnaissance missions over Gaza on behalf of Israel. Even after today, that is happening again tonight. Prove me wrong. Britain is proudly supplying F-35 parts to Israel. And so on.

Israel and the United States, of which Meron is also a citizen, have joined Russia and Sudan in repudiating the Rome Statute of which Meron was an author. And until 1 January 2025, Ukraine will still not quite be a party to it. Before that date, would this warrant be executed in Ukraine? It cannot transport, target or fire Storm Shadow missiles, which can be fired only by British military personnel using American or European satellites. The United Kingdom has just directly attacked Russia for the first time since our intervention in the Russian Civil War, an intervention that ended 104 years ago.

But this time, we are at war with a nuclear power. And for what? To stop overwhelmingly Russian areas that were historically part of Russia from either becoming so again or as good as? Undoubtedly. To keep them in a state that would not execute an arrest warrant of the International Criminal Court? Presumably. At least we are not in the position of the United States, where a President whose own party had considered him unfit to seek re-election, has nevertheless not only launched such a war after that party had lost that election, but also proposed to write off $4.65 billion of a $10 billion loan to Ukraine. Yet against Joe Biden's terrors of the earth, Donald Trump is silent, choosing instead to throw Matt Gaetz under the bus, doubtless with more to come. That is not loyalty, which is a two-way street. That is an abusive relationship. It is not the only one.