Great Reset U-Turn: Labour Party to Ditch National Car Emissions Tax Zones Scheme

Sir Keir Starmer’s left-wing Labour Party has reportedly abandoned plans to impose so-called “clean air zones” that would slap drivers with emissions taxes in localities throughout the country.

Following steep public backlash and a disastrous by-election result attributed to anger over leftist London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s widely despised plan to expand the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) car tax scheme to all of London, the Labour Party has reportedly scrapped plans to campaign on bringing the Great Reset-style scheme to the rest of the country.

While the party had included a pledge to support “clean air zones” in its draft report at Labour’s National Policy Forum — which will serve as the basis for the party’s election manifesto — it has now removed the text, according to The Telegraph.

The original text stated: “Labour supports the principle of clean air zones and recognises the huge damage to human health caused by air pollution and the damage to our climate caused by carbon emissions from polluting vehicles.

“However, they must be phased in carefully, mindful of the impacts on small businesses and low-paid workers, and should be accompanied with a just transition plan to enable people to switch affordably to low-emission vehicles.”

Yet, a photograph seen by The Telegraph reportedly shows that this paragraph has been removed. It comes as Labour suffered a shock defeat in the Uxbridge by-election in North London after it was predicted to safely pick up former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s seat in the parliament.

The defeat has been attributed to the unpopularity of Sadiq Khan’s plans to expand the ULEZ scheme to all 33 boroughs of London later this month, at which point average drivers will be required to pay between £12.50 to £27.50 per day if they drive in the city, with exceptions carved out for supposedly “greener” vehicles such as hybrids and electric cars. The plans have caused outrage among blue-collar workers who need to drive in and out of the city in order to put food on the table.

Following the by-election loss, Sir Keir Starmer appeared to want to distance himself and the party — which is currently predicted to take the reigns of power from the Tories after next year’s general election — from the anti-car agenda of Khan.

“That result in Uxbridge demonstrates there is never any reason to be complacent and never a reason to rest on our laurels. It is reminder that in an election, policy matters… We are doing something very wrong if policies put forward by the Labour Party end up on each and every Tory leaflet,” he said.

A Labour Party source confirmed the u-turn on the policy, saying: “Clean air zones are Conservative government policy. The Tories are the ones who have pushed councils to introduce them. Labour is not in favour of extra burdens on drivers during a Tory-made cost of living crisis.

“Labour’s priority is growing the economy to improve living standards and tackle the cost of living crisis.”

However, others are less convinced that the left-wing party will maintain such a position if they are given power by the people, with Conservative London Assembly Member Susan Hall, who will challenge Sadiq Khan in next year’s London mayoral election, saying: “Everyone knows Labour won’t stop with Sadiq Khan’s Ulez expansion, no matter what they say.”

“[Deputy leader] Angela Rayner has admitted that she wants to see Ulez schemes all over the country. Sadiq Khan’s tax will punish poorer families who rely on their cars, and Keir Starmer was too weak to tell him to stop. That is why we must stop them both at the ballot box in 2024.”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/08/13/great-reset-u-turn-labour-party-to-ditch-national-car-emissions-tax-zones-scheme/

‘Establishment Stitch-Up’ — Farage Accuses Banks and Regulators of Slow-Walking Debanking Investigation

‘Mr Brexit’ Nigel Farage has accused the NatWest banking group and regulators of engaging in an “establishment stitch-up” by intentionally slow-walking investigations into his de-banking and the leaking of his details to the press.

In the wake of the revelation that Nigel Farage’s bank accounts were shut down for failing to “align” with the values of Coutts, the former UKIP leader has filed a second subject access request, demanding that NatWest release any other documents relating to his debanking on the suspicion that the move was discussed higher up the chain in the banking group.

While typically subject access requests are required to be met within a month, NatWest has claimed that the case is “complex” and therefore can take advantage of a two-month extension, meaning that further information about his debanking may not be revealed until late October.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Farage said: “The establishment are now clubbing together in an attempt to kick this as far into the long grass as they can. All of this now hinges on a report that could be many, many months away because no deadline has been set for it.”

Mr Farage has also called for a sit-down meeting with the interim chief executive of Coutts, Mohammed Kamal Syed, who replaced Dame Allison Rose after it was revealed that she had leaked the Brexit boss’s private banking details to the BBC. However, Syed has so far refused to agree to meet with Farage, claiming that an internal review must be completed first.

“I have asked for a meeting with Syed to find out what went wrong, to get an admission that they broke the law and to ask how many other people have had their accounts closed as a result of their political opinions. But they have just fobbed me off and said they are not going to do anything while the review is going on,” Farage said.

The GB News host went on to claim that he is a victim of an “establishment stitch-up”, with the City of London regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), refusing to open up its own investigation into Dame Alison’s alleged violations of data protection laws until the bank has finished its own internal review.

The review itself has also been called into question by Farage, given that it has been outsourced to the law firm Travers Smith. The law firm’s chair emeritus, Chris Hale, was an ardent opponent of the Brexit movement that Mr Farage led, describing the campaign to leave the European Union as “a disturbing mix of xenophobia, racism and nostalgia”.

A NatWest spokesman said: “As per normal process, where a subject access request is classified as ‘complex’ under the GDPR, an extension for responding to the request is applied.

“Our teams are working hard to provide responses, and customers and the ICO are being kept updated.”

Mr Farage has launched a campaign to form a “powerful group to lobby government” and represent those who have also been debanked by the increasingly woke financial system. Speaking to Breitbart News Daily on Sirius XM Patriot earlier this month, the Brexit leader warned that the West could see the imposition of something akin to the Chinese social credit system, with lenders looking to begin monitoring the social media posts of their customers.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/08/13/establishment-stitch-up-farage-accuses-banks-and-regulators-of-slow-walking-debanking-investigation/

Russia May No Longer Be Funding Mercenary Wagner Group, Claims UK Military Intelligence

In its latest intelligence briefing, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said on Sunday that there is a “realistic possibility” that Russia is no longer funding the operations of the mercenary Wagner Group.

Following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s apparent failed insurrection against the Kremlin in June, the Russian government of Vladimir Putin has been acting “against some other business interests” of the Wagner chief, according to the UK defence ministry, which suggested that this may point to Moscow cutting financial ties altogether from the warlord.

In a statement posted on social media, the MoD said: “The Wagner Group is likely moving towards a down-sizing and reconfiguration process, largely to save on staff salary expenses at a time of financial pressure.”

“Since the abortive mutiny of June 2023, the Russian state has acted against some other business interests of Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin. There is a realistic possibility that the Kremlin no longer funds the group.”

The Ministry of Defence said that if Moscow is no longer funding the Wagner group, it is plausible that their new “paymasters are the Belarussian authorities.”

“However, the sizable force would be a significant and potentially unwelcome drain on modest Belarusian resources,” the MoD said.

In the wake of the apparent failed coup attemp from Prigozhin, President Vladimir Putin demanded that his forces either disband, join the Russian military, or go to neighbouring Belarus, where Prigozhin was sent in effective exile.

Since arriving in Belarus — a chief ally of Moscow — Wagner forces have reportedly travelled to the country’s border with Poland, sparking concern of a potential military action against the NATO country and resulting in the Polish government mobilising some 10,000 troops to the border.

In a potentially veiled threat, Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko said during a meeting last month with Putin that the Wagner forces were looking to “go on tour” in Poland.

Tensions rose further when two Belarusia military helicopters entered Poland’s airspace last week, which Warsaw considered a deliberate provocation.

Although Minsk has allowed its territory to be a staging ground for invasion, Lukashenko’s government has so far attempted to remain on the sidelines of the war in Ukraine. Concerns have risen, however, following the announcement in June that Belarus will host Russian tactical nuclear weapons.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/08/13/russia-may-no-longer-be-funding-mercenary-wagner-group-claims-uk-military-intelligence/

CT Family Suing Snapchat and Instagram After 15-Year-Old Was Raped and Assaulted By Two Sex Offenders Who Contacted Her on Apps

A Connecticut family is suing Snapchat and Instagram after their 15-year-old daughter was raped and sexually assaulted by two registered sex offenders that found her on the apps.

Social media apps have been subject to lawsuits nationwide over minors committing suicide, self-harming, obtaining drugs, and developing eating disorders after being shown dangerous content or being contacted by predators.

According to the lawsuit, the unnamed minor was only 10 years old when she was contacted by a first predator on Instagram and coerced into sending explicit photos of herself. He kept demanding more, leading to the child attempting suicide “in the hopes of finding some escape,” according to the lawsuit.

When the family found out what was going on they reported “the exploitation to police, who informed them that Meta’s Instagram product was designed in such a way that they could not identify who was behind the Instagram account that was used to abuse her, and a case was never opened,” the 95-page lawsuit states, according to a report from the CT Post.

In 2019, when she was 13, the child was contacted on Snapchat by a second convicted sex offender — Reginald Sharp — who knew her real age. He convinced her to send nude photos and blackmailed her, saying that he would post them online unless she met him in person.

The girl snuck out and met him and was repeatedly raped.

She picked Sharp out of a lineup, and he pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual assault, risk of injury to a child, enticing a minor, and violation of parole.

“It was a parent’s worst nightmare; a repeat sex offender raped my baby girl. It killed my soul that I couldn’t protect her from this monster. For some time, she wouldn’t dress as a girl because she was worried someone would attack her because she looked pretty,” the girl’s mother told the sentencing judge, according to the report.

Sharp was sentenced to 20 years in prison and 20 years of special parole.

In October 2021, the girl was still allowed on social media apps, and the situation repeated itself with another registered sex offender, Edward “Eddie” Rodriguez, a former New Haven police officer. He was on probation for assaulting another teenage girl.

The girl met with Rodriguez and he sexually assaulted her in his car before driving her to school.

Rodriguez has pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault, illegal sexual contact and violating his prior probation. He is scheduled to be sentenced in September.

“(The victim) has been hospitalized and in counseling because of the harms Meta and Snap caused her,” the lawsuit states. “She has isolated herself socially; she has suffered from anxiety and depression, thoughts of self harm and suicide; and tremendous pain and guilt for what her dependency on their products and her inability to just stop using them has caused her family.”

“This lawsuit seeks to hold the social media defendants’ products responsible for causing and contributing to the burgeoning mental health crisis perpetuated upon children and teenagers of the United States,” the lawsuit says.

The family is being represented by the Social Media Victims Law Center, which “works to hold social media companies legally accountable for the harm they inflict on vulnerable users by applying principles of product liability.”

“We feel this is a very significant case given everything that our client has gone through,” attorney Michael Kennedy of New Haven, who is representing the family along with the SMVLC, told the paper.

The CT Post reports, “The suit seeks unspecified damages from Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and Snap Inc., parent company of Snapchat, as well as the two convicted rapists, one a former New Haven police officer.”

Meta declined to comment when contacted by the paper.

A spokesperson for Snap claimed that the platform makes it “very difficult” for strangers to find and communicate with minors.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/connecticut-family-suing-snapchat-instagram-after-15-year/

China makes weapons ‘breakthrough’

Beijing’s military scientists have claimed success in enabling high-energy lasers to operate “indefinitely” without overheating

Chinese military scientists have reported a research breakthrough that could make it possible for Beijing to develop high-energy laser weapons that can shoot for as long as their operators desire, without interruption and without any degradation in performance.

Scientists at the National University of Defense Technology in Changsha, China, published the results of their research earlier this month in Acta Optica Sinica, a peer-reviewed Chinese journal. They claim to have developed a new cooling system that makes it possible to operate high-energy lasers “indefinitely,” without any effects from overheating.

“This is a huge breakthrough in improving the performance of high-energy laser systems,” the team said in its research paper. “High-quality beams can be produced not only in the first second, but also maintained indefinitely.”

The cooling system controls gas flows to remove heat from inside a laser weapon, preventing vibration and disruptions in performance. It can enable longer operation, increased range and greater firepower, the scientists said. They noted that 60 years on from the invention of the first ruby laser, weapons developers haven’t been able to create “death rays that can instantly kill targets.”

Some of the most high-profile US laser weapons projects have been canceled, despite shooting down targets in testing. “The true reason for the cancellation of these projects was that their destructive power did not meet expectations,” the Chinese scientists said. Longer, continuous operation times are needed to extend the range of laser weapons beyond a few kilometers, they said.

Such weapons generate high-energy beams that heat up the gas in their path as they pass through the air, creating turbulence. This effect can distort the beam, diminishing its accuracy and strength. The heated gases can also contaminate the mirrors in a laser weapon, reducing performance and potentially damaging a system.

The Chinese researchers said they developed a system that blows gas through the weapon to remove waste heat and keep the mirrors clear. Their technology is already being used in a number of laser weapons that the Chinese military has under development.

https://www.rt.com/news/581201-china-makes-weapons-breakthrough/

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CBP Apprehended Nearly 40,000 Border Crossers in First Ten Days of August

Customs and Border Protection apprehended nearly 40,000 border crossers in the first ten days of August.

Border Patrol captured 39,324 illegal aliens during this time frame who were crossing outside legal ports of entry — an average of 5,708 apprehensions per day.

According to a report from Breitbart News, the Tucson and Rio Grande Valley Sectors reported more than 10,000 apprehensions each.

“The Tucson and Rio Grande Valley Sectors reported 10,867 and 10,465 migrant apprehensions, respectively. The five Texas-based border sectors accounted for 23,119 of the 39,324 migrant apprehensions,” Breitbart reports.

If this rate continues, nearly 200,000 illegal aliens could be caught at the border this month, an estimated 177,000 migrants.

The Wall Street Journal reports that over 130,000 illegal aliens were apprehended at the southern border in July, a third more than were caught in June.

“While arrests for illegal border crossings have increased sharply in recent weeks, they remain significantly below the 222,000 reported in December,” the report explains. “They are also lower than in the months before the Biden administration stopped enforcing the Title 42 public-health law that allowed agents to quickly turn back migrants before they could ask for asylum.”

Liberal cities, including “sanctuary cities” like New York, have been begging for federal assistance dealing with the floods of migrants overwhelming their shelter systems.

Over 90,000 border crossers have ended up in the Big Apple since last Spring, and Mayor Eric Adams announced in July that the city has “reached full capacity.”

In 2021, Adams claimed that New York City would remain a “sanctuary city” under his administration.

“We should protect our immigrants.” Period.

Yes, New York City will remain a sanctuary city under an Adams administration. #EricOnNBC

— Eric Adams (@ericadamsfornyc) October 20, 2021

More recently, however, Mayor Adams has called the rising number of illegal migrants “a real burden on New Yorkers.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/nearly-40000-border-crossers-apprehended-first-10-days/