Kernow Damo

Right, so Lloyds, one of the biggest banks in Britain, has cut off The Canary from its own cash.

This isn’t demonetising a YouTube video. Not suspending a social media account. Not sending one of those cheery little “we’re updating our terms” emails that everyone deletes while making tea. A bank account. The thing a media outlet needs to pay staff, pay contractors, take donations, pay bills, and keep the lights on.

The Canary says Lloyds cut off access to its funds. It says it was given no warning. It says it was given no explanation. And it says the damage was immediate.

We do not know Lloyds’ reason. It seems no matter how often they are asked, they don’t want to answer. So it’s no good pretending we can read Lloyds’ mind through the vault door, but we will debate the matter and the longer they take to justify their action, the worse it still looks for them, social media full of comments in regards to boycotting them and their subsidiaries.

A bank holds the money, a news outlet says it has been cut off from it – their own money - and Lloyds has still not publicly explained why, so functionally it looks like theft doesn’t it? They’ve got your cash, won’t give you access to it, won’t tell you why.

But it isn’t just Lloyd’s we should be critical of here, because the only mainstream televised broadcaster to cover this story, actually treating this as a debanking story, is GB News.

Yes. GBeebies. Covering The Canary. On debanking and why it should concern us.

Right, so Israel invaded Syria and lost the phone.

Not a metaphor. Not a joke. Well, it is a joke, unfortunately for the IDF, tiny violin time again, but it’s also the news.

Israeli forces went into Abdin, in southern Syria’s Daraa province and the locals said to themselves we’re not having this. Residents blocked roads. Stones were thrown. Young men and boys were apparently among those throwing them and the IDF ran away. The soldiers had to pull back amid the confrontation, and then one classified military communications device somehow ended up exactly where a classified military communications device is not generally meant to end up: with Syrian civilians.

So yes, they lost something. Boy did they lose something.

Not a lunchbox. Not a water bottle. Not one of those little morale patches soldiers collect so they can look tactical on Instagram, the IDF equivalent of the boy scouts, if the scouts did a most amoral army badge. A classified military communications device, which basically amounts to a Samsung phone by the look of it. But it’s all encrypted, so I’m sure all the classified intelligence on it will be safe right? Right?

A heavily armed force entered a Syrian village, hits local resistance, had to pull back amid the confrontation, and then Israeli sources themselves had to explain why a rather important bit of their kit had gone missing.

So much for elite security doctrine. Mum I’ve lost my phone! Complete with state secrets on it perhaps? I wonder if the scouts do a most incompetent army badge instead?

Right, so Israel has got itself a shiny new Lebanon deal.

A ceasefire deal. A de-escalation deal. A Washington-backed framework, which means they don’t need to cease firing at all. Very serious people have apparently been very seriously working on this, which is always comforting, isn't it? Nothing says peace quite like a conference table full of people who won't be anywhere near the blast radius.

But then of course this is what south Lebanon actually gets out of this isn’t it?

Diplomatic breakthrough? Don't make me laugh. That is what a peace framework looks like when it hits the ground face-first.

So before anyone starts wafting the word "calm" around like air freshener in a burning kitchen, let's be clear what this story actually is. Israel has a deal it wants to sell as security. Washington has a framework it wants to sell as diplomacy. Lebanon has smoke in the sky and explosions on the ground and too much of people’s everyday lives are in flames, a Parliament Speaker doing his best Ian McKellen impression and saying to this deal “you shall not pass!” And an annex full of terms and conditions and exceptions in the background.

But the first thing that really matters after the explosions isn't another Israeli spokesman telling us how responsible they are and how moral their ceasefire busting army is. That particular circus horse has been doing that lap for years, it’s spent.

What matters is what happens when this deal hits Lebanese politics, or more specifically when it comes to be debated, because it’s all well and good Joseph Aoun’s government signing southern Lebanon away in effect, Lebanon is a democracy, and that still has to get through their parliament.

Right, so this is one of those stories where the danger isn't wearing a helmet, waving a flag, or kicking someone's door in at six in the morning. It's sitting in a Bill. Nice and quiet. Grey paper, serious title, national security sprayed all over it, but not in a nice way, more like a skunk.

Starmer seems to be thinking just how much authoritarian borderline fascist policy can I ram through before handing over to Andy Burnham, and so his government is pushing a State Threats Bill, and the sales pitch is exactly what you'd expect: Russia, China, Iran, hostile powers, urgent threats, but don't worry your little heads about the wording. Yeah you, let me decide what I’ll worry about thank you very much Keith.

And it’s in the House of Lords that the nasty bit of this has been pointed out.

Information.

Not money. Not weapons. Not formal support. Information. The thing journalists ask for, the thing aid workers need, the thing war reporting is actually built out of.

And then it gets even more awkward, because the government says this whole proscription-style state-threats machine comes from Jonathan Hall's recommendation, Jonathan Hall KC and for those of us familiar with Johnathan Hall KC, the alarm bells are very much ringing. His public record on Israel, protest and terrorism law is not exactly what I’d call neutral.

Right, so The Canary has just been debanked and this is something that should raise immediate alarm bells with all of us.

An independent media outlet has just had its banking services withdrawn. A fundraiser is now being launched to help keep it going, and I’m covering this because when an independent media organisation is financially cut off like this, we are looking at something much bigger than one outlet having a bad week with a bank, because we’ve seen too much of this going on, certainly at individual levels, but this is a whole other ball game and as independent media as well, this could literally happen to any of us, hence the importance of those who support us and as such we support each other too.

Obviously, facts matter here. The appeal process depends on them being known, but the democratic issue, much easier to talk about at this early stage ought to be obvious already.

Debanking means a bank or payment provider withdraws financial services from you. That can mean an account closed. It can mean payments blocked. It can mean access disrupted. It can mean donation routes interrupted. It can mean the basic financial plumbing of an organisation suddenly stops working properly. Think what it would mean to you to find yourself in a position where you had no access to money. What would you do?

And for a media outlet, that is the same only amplified. That is survival.

Right, so Israel's war machine has run into a problem.

Not more Hamas or Hezbollah tunnels. Not a wave of drones they didn’t see coming. Not the Iranian bogeyman wheeled out for the cameras because Netanyahu needs another week of political oxygen as his actions leave Israel gasping for breath.

It’s an invoice.

The little bit of paper that turns up after the speeches are over, after the flags are packed away, after the generals have finished pointing at maps, and it says: lovely, very dramatic, but who's actually paying for all of this now?

Because this is not a story about Israel suddenly having no army tomorrow morning. It is not "the IDF has gone to the cupboard and found three buttons and a lonely biscuit where the interceptor shells for the Iron Dome used to be." That would be a lovely image, admittedly, but that's not the bill we're talking about.

Calcalist is reporting that Israel's budget deadlock could hit new shell production orders from Elbit, and could also disrupt procurement of air-defence interceptors from Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries.

The firms that make the things, the factories, the orders, the payments. The bit of the war machine that doesn't run on speeches and photo ops and Netanyahu in a flak jacket looking like he's wandered out of a cosplay convention for deranged and dangerous men.

It runs on money.

And apparently, funny thing, when you spend years expanding war like he’s been doing, the money eventually becomes a bit of an issue.

Right, so before we even get to this war-crimes complaint heading Itamar Ben-Gvir’s way, let’s just remind ourselves for a moment at what this soulless psychopath apparently thought made him look strong.

The minister, the flag, the detainees on the ground with their hands bound with zip ties, the little stroll-through like he's inspecting a prize-winning marrow at a village fair, except the marrow is human humiliation and the fairground is Israeli state violence.

Nobody leaked that. Nobody hid it. He wasn't desperate to bury it. It's the image he wanted out there. He looked at it and thought, yes, that's me, that's my brand.

But here's his problem now. When you turn abject cruelty into content sooner or later someone, somewhere, is filing it. And they have.

The Hind Rajab Foundation says it has now filed a request for prosecution with the US Department of Justice against Itamar Ben-Gvir, ahead of his expected presence in New York on the 7th and 8th of July. They allege war crimes, genocide-related offences and incitement, including in relation to US nationals.

To be clear, this is not the DOJ charging him. This is HRF filing a request for prosecution. But Ben-Gvir's US visit is not just running into bad press, or protest, or a few angry people outside a hotel with placards. It is running into a record that even the US cannot ignore here, especially after his recent Visa problems forcing him to cancel a trip to Florida recently, because the US Embassy wanted his fingerprints. Well, he does have a criminal record for terror offences that no amount of crying and antisemitism accusation will make go away.

Now some of this case file remains confidential, but a lot of it doesn't and that’s because he performed it, he filmed it, he posted it on social media and Israeli media as a trophy.

Right, so Donald Trump’s great Iran MoU has reached the stage every American peace deal in West Asia seems to reach sooner or later: somebody starts bombing the peace partner.

Beautiful stuff. Tremendous diplomacy. The sort of peace framework where the ink is still drying, the Gulf is already lighting up, Israel is measuring curtains in southern Lebanon, and Nabih Berri, the Lebanese Parliamentary Speaker has to send in a camel because apparently nobody can explain sedition without help from livestock.

And no, this is not just "regional tensions rising". I hate that phrase. It is wallpaper for arson. It makes war sound like rising damp.

Tensions did not wander in off the street and knock over a table by accident. Somebody did this. Washington did this. Israel is doing this. Trump's sham of a deal did this.

Because the trick was never complicated. Iran keeps Hormuz open. Trump gets his oil route back and the markets bounce which is a win for him. Israel gets the right to stay in southern Lebanon. The spineless Aoun government gets used as the stamp on the envelope for that process. And then everyone claps because this shambles gets called peace.

But Lebanon was always a red line.

That is the bit they have either missed, ignored, or filed away under "awkward things to deal with once the cameras have gone". Iran was never going to watch Israel bedding into southern Lebanon and shrug, and say, well, Aoun signed this thing, so that settles it.

You don’t rub out a red line by handing the pen to somebody else.

Right, so Britain's doctors have just done something the Israel lobby will absolutely hate.

They have taken IHRA, one of Israel's favourite institutional weapons, the one that gets waved around every time someone criticises what Israel is doing to Palestinians, and they've put it straight in the NHS bin.

And no, before the usual bad-faith sock puppets start limbering up, this is not doctors saying antisemitism does not matter. Of course antisemitism matters. Racism matters. Patients and staff should not be abused, intimidated or treated like dirt at work.

But that’s not the argument is ot?

The argument is what happens when a definition that is supposed to tackle racism gets wired into workplace discipline, regulator complaints and professional fear, because then it stops looking like protection.

It starts looking like a weapon.

Palestine speech became a career risk, and the process itself became the punishment.

The process itself is the tool of silencing.

Not the verdict. Not the final finding. Not even the suspension in some cases. The process.

That letter landing in your inbox. That meeting with management. That referral to the GMC. That little professional stink that starts following you around before anything has actually been proven. A smear. A career threat.

And that is how these things work, isn't it?

You don't always need to win the case if the complaint has already done enough damage. You just need to make the example visible. You just need every other doctor watching to think, "Right, say too much about Gaza and that could be me next."

Right, so this is what peace looks like now, apparently.

Burning tyres in Beirut. Lebanese anger in the streets. The army going in. Warning flyers over the south. And in Washington, a signing table dressed up like the birth of sovereignty while Israel is still talking about a security zone it very much gets to keep.

They want you watching the handshake. They want you watching the pens. They want "framework" and "peace" and "first step" floating down over south Lebanon as though the words themselves could turn occupation into liberation.

But the footage says something else. It says people are being warned away. It says the streets are furious. It says this deal did not land as peace. It landed as a sellout by the Vichy administration passing itself off as the Lebanese government.

And Netanyahu, who reckons keeping the south is some grand achievement, has been warned from inside Israel's own establishment that Lebanon has buried Israeli prime ministers before and it may yet bury him too.

So the question is not whether he got a win. It is whether he just walked into something that actually could still finish him.

The reality is that Lebanon's government has put its name to a deal sold as sovereignty while Israel stays in the south under its own security-zone logic. They preferred that option to Iran’s deal which forced Israel out completely. Little wonder the country is up in arms. The people watching this from Lebanon are not looking at a liberation here, a win here. They are looking at the south of their own country being run by somebody else now