Kernow Damo

Iran talks in Oman show one thing clearly: Israel pushed too far, the agenda is trapped, and the US can’t widen it without the whole process collapsing. Right, so Donald Trump is back at it, threatening Iran’s leadership with one hand while sending Steve Witkoff off to “talk” with the other, and the talks are in Muscat today for one reason: Iran has already shown it will walk rather than let their nuclear file be turned into a disarmament trap. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has boxed this thing into a narrow channel, nuclear and sanctions, with discussions about anything else being an automatic kill switch, because if Washington tried the “this or nothing” routine again, Iran very much will, as they’ve already shown, choose nothing. So now the meeting, despite media narratives only actually exists on Iran’s terms. And here’s the part people are being slow to admit out loud: Israel’s preferred demands are the very thing that are jamming the talks, because missiles and regional alliances aren’t side issues for Iran, they’re the deterrent you keep when the US has already proved it can tear up a deal whenever it fancies, or indeed bomb you as they did last year. As for other mediating states like Qatar, Türkiye and Egypt - they can float as many “frameworks” as they like, but if the framework is just a surrender document with percentages on it, it’s dead on arrival. So in a minute I’m going to show exactly what just broke, who forced it, and why the only “diplomacy” left here is a trapped channel nobody can widen without blowing the room up and any prospect of a deal with it. Right, so Abbas Araghchi has set the time and place for nuclear talks with the United States in Muscat at around 10 a.m., local time, taking place as I was writing this and he has publicly credited Oman for arranging the meeting. Steve Witkoff is the named US envoy for the talks, and Oman is not a decorative host, it is the mediator because the talks are indirect rather than face-to-face. Iran has pushed the venue into Muscat after Istanbul was floated, and that venue switch is notable when the argument is about who gets to set conditions.

China has officially blocked new investment into Israel, freezing money mid-deal and triggering panic inside Israel’s economy as genocide drags on. Right, so China has just cut Israel off from getting any more money, and it didn’t even bother telling anyone first. A Chinese fund has gone into an Israeli court and said their deal with the blue and white state is dead because Beijing now treats Israel as too dangerous to invest in. Not controversial. Not debated. Just blocked entirely. And that quietly blows a hole in the one thing Israel has always depended on, which is the idea that it can keep fighting and the economy just keeps ticking like nothing’s changed. That only works if investors believe the war ends soon. China doesn’t. So the money doesn’t move. And here’s the part people haven’t clocked yet: when capital stops believing the violence is temporary, it doesn’t come back with reassurance, it disappears without drama. Deals don’t finish. Projects don’t start. Losses don’t show up as crashes, they show up as absences. That’s what’s started happening. And once that machine switches off, it doesn’t switch back on just because people shout about it. And Israel very much is. Right, so China has done something very specific, and it has already entered Israel’s legal system much to their despair. A Chinese investment fund called Ballet Vision has told the Tel Aviv District Court that it cannot proceed with new investment in Israel because the Chinese government has classified Israel as a high-risk zone and prohibited new Chinese investment. That statement is a constraint placed on the record in a live lawsuit, and it immediately stops money that was expected to move from moving at all. Ballet Vision controls eighty per cent of an Israeli company called Hanita Lenses, an intraocular lens manufacturer based at Kibbutz Hanita in northern Israel. The kibbutz sold most of the company to the fund in 2021 for thirty-five million dollars, with twenty-five million paid directly to members of the settlement and the rest invested into the business. The deal included an option for Ballet Vision to purchase the remaining shares later.

The biggest Gaza flotilla ever assembled is preparing to sail, putting Israel’s blockade back under more pressure than ever before! Right, so Israel has already shown what it does to Gaza flotillas. Boats are seized. People are detained. Claims are made. And then nothing follows that actually settles it. Israel’s claims get debunked, the Gaza blockade remains in place however. The optics of each flotilla has nevertheless always been a nightmare for Netanyahu and co, because there is no part of it where they come out looking good and the more media attention these voyages get, the worse it is for them. Therefore in light of that, you’ll be elated to know that the largest civilian flotilla yet has now been formally announced, dates fixed, ports named, routes published. The assumption was always that interception ended the problem, but instead it hardened resolve. This time, stopping the boats doesn’t finish anything, it repeats that unresolved, ongoing mess of Israel’s own making at a bigger scale, with more people watching, more governments implicated, and fewer ways to pretend the missing evidence associated with Israeli false claims of Hamas backing doesn’t matter. Right, so Benjamin Netanyahu’s flotilla problem is back because the last time Israel stopped one, it didn’t actually finish anything. The boats were taken. People were detained. Claims were made about militant links. And then the whole thing just stopped. No prosecutions. No evidence released. No case laid out that anyone outside Israel could examine and say, alright, that explains everything. The people were sent home. The vessels stayed impounded. And the accusation was left hanging in the air, unresolved. That unfinished business is exactly why this is coming back now, because once you’ve used a claim that serious without ever backing it up, you don’t get to reuse it and expect it to land the same way again. Israel stopped the flotilla last time by saying it was dangerous. It took the boats. It detained the people. It said there were militant links. And then it never showed anything to back that up. No evidence. No charges. No case anyone else could look at.

Politicians and pundits attacking the Filton 24 acquittals are actively undermining the right to a fair trial while 18 related cases are still live. Right, so a jury has just acquitted six Palestine Action activists in a UK courtroom, but the verdict itself isn’t the real story. What matters is what happened next. Politicians, pundits, and media figures didn’t just criticise the outcome, they rewrote it. They asserted guilt after acquittal, treated allegations as facts after the fact, and openly questioned whether juries should even be trusted when they don’t deliver the “right” result, as the current right wing Labour government still plots an end to default trial by jury. That reaction has real and dangerous consequences for all of us. There are eighteen other defendants from the same case still waiting for trial, and one of the acquitted defendants now faces the possibility of retrial over an alleged sledgehammer attack. The presumption of innocence doesn’t survive very long when public voices from across the political and punditry sector are loudly announcing who they think should be convicted and why, the right to a free and fair trial as is all of our human right be damned. So this isn’t about whether you like the protest or not. It’s about whether the right to a fair trial still functions once powerful voices start in chorus deciding it’s inconvenient when they don’t like the result. Because if verdicts only count when the state wins, then juries aren’t a safeguard anymore. They’re an obstacle. And that is a problem that won’t stay confined to one case. Right, so a jury at Woolwich Crown Court has acquitted six Palestine Action protesters of aggravated burglary after a break-in at an Elbit Systems factory in Filton in August 2024, and that decision has already triggered a chain of consequences that endanger the remaining Filton cases still to come.

Peter Mandelson’s involvement in Labour’s candidate selection process raises serious questions about the party’s 2024 parliamentary intake. Right, so We already knew candidates were being parachuted into safe seats based on loyalty to Keir Starmer. That wasn’t hidden, we saw it repeated across the country ad nauseum. What’s changed is that we now know who was strapping the parachutes on. Peter Mandelson was involved in deciding who could stand going into the 2024 General Election. And in light of everything else that’s come out about him, that detail lands very differently. We already knew selections were managed. What’s changed is that the person involved can no longer be defended, and that removes deniability for the entire intake. That matters because authority relies on everyone accepting the route to power. Once the route is compromised, loyalty becomes conditional and discipline becomes risky. So when people talk about stability, unity, or Starmer being in control, they’re leaning on an assumption that no longer holds, because more and more it seems to be the case that he never has been. Who are we actually being led by therefore? This isn’t about embarrassment. It’s about the fact that the gatekeeping stage was handled off the books, by someone whose name now poisons the process itself. Poisons everything he touches. So for as much as the government still functions and Starmer limps on stubbornly, it isn’t just him tainted by the Prince of Darkness, because even if he goes, the taint will still linger. Right, so we’ve been over this Mandelson thing for days. Surely the argument is done. He’s gone. That’s It. Well no, it really isn’t as it turns out. because what’s left is living with the consequences and Labour remains riddled with them to the point it may never scrub itself clean. Peter Mandelson was involved in deciding who could stand as a Labour MP before the 2024 election. Names were assessed. People were filtered. Some were blocked. Some were advanced. That process ran alongside Labour’s official selection rules, not inside them.

Iran is openly rejecting Israeli red lines, revealing the limits of US military pressure and exposing the stalled escalation right now in the Middle East. Right, so Israel has now publicly demanded that Iran dismantle its nuclear programme, scrap its missile capability, and abandon its regional allies, and the United States backed that demand with carrier groups already deployed in the region threatening an or else if Iran don’t acquiesce. Well Iran hasn’t walked away. It agreed to talks but at the same time rejected the terms. No zero enrichment, no missile disarmament, no surrender of allies. Thusfar, since that rejection landed though obviously still ahead of those potential talks, nothing has yet followed. No US strike, no escalation, no enforcement.. That’s the moment the mechanism failed. Once Iran can sit at the table while rejecting those demands outright, the demands stop doing any work. When demands are rejected and talks proceed regardless, the demands have already failed. Right, so Israel and the US started by demanding everything at once: that Iran give up its nuclear programme entirely, dismantle its missiles, and abandon its allies. That was not an attempt to negotiate limits or trade-offs. It was an attempt to see whether simply issuing a threat would force Iran to comply. Iran refused those demands, but it did not walk away from diplomacy. It said it would only discuss the nuclear issue, and only if threats stopped. After that refusal, nothing happened. The US did not carry out the threat that was supposed to sit behind the demands. That order of events matters because it shows the test failed. The demand was made. Iran rejected it. And the power that was supposed to enforce it chose not to act. Once that happens, you are no longer dealing with a negotiation problem. You are dealing with a credibility problem. After Iran rejected the demands and the US did nothing, the situation stopped being about messaging or posturing and became about reality. The question was no longer whether talks would work. It became whether the US still has the ability or willingness to force outcomes when the other side has already decided it can live with saying no.

Labour accuses the Greens of a “grubby deal” in the Gorton and Denton by-election, but it's backfired exposing Labour’s own panic and hypocrisy. Right, so Labour is attacking the Greens in the Gorton and Denton by-election by accusing them of cheating and cowardice at the same time, and in doing that it has blown up its own case for why it deserves to win this seat at all. What Labour is saying is simple. It’s calling it a “grubby deal” that two smaller parties chose not to stand and said, publicly, that the Greens were best placed to beat Labour and Reform. And it’s calling it “bottling it” that the Greens selected a local candidate instead of parachuting their deputy leader into the race. So not splitting the vote is corruption, and picking someone from the area is weakness. That’s the attack. And once you understand that, the rest of the behaviour suddenly makes sense — the panic, the shouting, the contradictions, the refusal to debate, the sudden surge in Green ground operation. This video is about what Labour has just admitted by making those attacks, why it can’t walk them back, and what breaks when a party starts trying to disqualify opponents instead of beating them. Right, so Labour has picked a fight in the Gorton and Denton by-election, and the way it’s done it tells you something has already gone badly wrong for them. Not later. Not hypothetically. Already. So here’s what’s just happened. Labour has accused the Greens of two things at the same time. First, it has accused them of being involved in what it called a “grubby deal” with other parties. Second, it has accused Zack Polanski of “bottling it” by not standing himself and without an ounce of self reflection. Start with the so-called “grubby deal”. In this by-election there are three parties with a realistic presence on the ground: Labour, Reform, and the Greens. Alongside them are smaller parties who don’t have the numbers, the volunteers, or the reach to win the seat themselves. Two of those smaller parties being Your Party and the Workers Party. They looked at the race and made a decision. They decided not to stand candidates. Not because they’d been promised anything. Not because they’d been offered positions. Not because there was any agreement behind the scenes. They said, publicly, that in a three-way contest the Greens were the strongest chance of beating both Labour and Reform, and that standing themselves would just split the vote.

Media rush to frame the latest Epstein files around Russia while downplaying documented Israel-linked proximity, raises questions about bias again. Right, so more of the Epstein files have dropped, and before anyone’s even read them properly, the British media have already decided what the real story is here. Russia. Putin. Moscow. Intelligence intrigue. Straight in, no pause. The cost of that hits straight away, because once that frame clicks into place, you’re not weighing evidence anymore, you’re being guided away from it. The confidence you’re hearing isn’t built on proof, it’s built on swapping things out, actually known links out, Israel those alleged Mossad ties. Thin claims get shoved to the front, awkward ones get ignored, and before you know it, counting how many times a certain word crops up in the files passes for analysis while the evidence and actual proximity, those real ties get buried. That’s what’s just given way here. Not a story, not a theory, but the sorting mechanism itself. And once you clock how that confidence is being put together, it doesn’t switch off again, because this isn’t confined to Epstein, it isn’t confined to Russia, and it won’t be confined to this release. Right, so another tranche of Epstein files come out and, on cue, the British media decide it’s Russia that’s the problem behind Epstein. Always Russia. No analysis required. You just say the words, look grave, spout some inanity and move on. It’s a very efficient way of sounding informed while avoiding the documents or anything like evidence entirely. Andrew Marr went on air as the poster boy for this and started counting words. Putin appears 1000 times, Moscow appears 9000 times, therefore Russia must be the story. That is not investigation, it is substitution. It replaces judgement with arithmetic and pretends that repetition equals relevance. By that logic London would be running the operation, London appears nearly 30,000 times, which nobody seriously claims, and the fact that nobody follows that logic through tells you it is not logic at all. It is a way of sounding empirical while avoiding direction.

Trump’s Venezuela oil seizure drives China toward Iranian crude, blunting US sanctions pressure & giving Iran an unexpected payday! Right, so Donald Trump invaded Venezuela, took control of the oil, largely seen as the only reason he did it, and by doing so shipments of Venezuelan oil to China have dropped. No surprises there, but China is still going to want oil from somewhere and in news that shouldn’t be much of a surprise either, Chinese refiners have responded to all of this by buying more Iranian crude instead. It’s cheaper, it’s already stored, it’s already available. You didn’t think yet more sanctions would actually stop any of that did you? The barrels that were meant to disappear from the Chinese horizon have simply changed flags and routes, which also removes the assumption that sanctions automatically squeeze the target and it leaves Washington and the day-glo orange oaf supposedly in charge unable to control where the money actually goes. Oil is still flowing, Iran is still selling and now selling even more, China is still buying, and the confidence that pressure equals compliance no longer holds where we were all told it very much does. This doesn’t stop at Venezuela or Iran, because once buyers learn they can substitute sanctioned oil without paying a strategic price, as has been the case for years, Iran long ago found ways and means around decades of sanctions, the whole enforcement story weakens all the more. The people who sounded most certain about leverage now have to explain why the outcome ran the other way, why disruption in Venezuela has now given Iran, the supposed target of the next big US military push a big fat economic boost, and why a system built on threat consistently fails as it does. Right, so Donald Trump has pushed a set of moves around Venezuelan oil that have tightened supply to China, and the immediate practical result has been Chinese independent refiners leaning harder into discounted Iranian crude that is already sitting in bonded storage in China and on ships, because it is there, it is cheap, and it is politically easier for Beijing to tolerate than being told by Washington what it can and cannot buy. That is the part that matters, not the macho talk, not the press-conference posturing, not the vague threats about “pressure” that never quite land anywhere real. Oil is still moving, money is still changing hands, and the buyer that counts is still buying.

Dockworkers across more than 20 ports announce coordinated industrial action against Israel , escalating labour resistance over Gaza. Right, so dockworkers in more than twenty Mediterranean ports have announced coordinated industrial action against arms shipments linked to Israel, with dates fixed, unions named, ports confirmed, and that has just blown a hole straight through a confidence governments never admit they’re relying on. The confidence that once they approve military support, the people at the bottom will make it function without argument, without delay, and without becoming a problem. That assumption has failed. The people who load the ships have said no, and suddenly ministers, generals, and pundits who sounded very sure yesterday can’t guarantee movement, timing, or silence today. And this doesn’t stay contained, it crawls into insurance risk, shipping contracts, diplomatic cover, and the cosy fiction that ports are neutral plumbing for state violence. You’ll hear this dismissed as protest because “loss of control” is not a phrase anyone in power is allowed to say out loud. But that’s what’s happened. The machinery still exists. It just doesn’t answer to them automatically anymore. Right, so Israel’s supply chain has just run into organised labour, and that isn’t a moral statement, it’s an operational problem. Dockworker unions across more than twenty Mediterranean ports have announced coordinated industrial action against arms shipments linked to Israel, with dates fixed, unions named, ports confirmed, which means the assumption that this stuff just moves has already failed. Not delayed. Failed. Consent has been withdrawn at a chokepoint governments treat as obedient plumbing, and once that consent goes, authority stops being theoretical and starts needing enforcement. And this isn’t anonymous anger or last-minute disruption. In Italy, Unione Sindacale di Base has put its name on it, with at least ten ports already committed. In Greece, dockworkers at Piraeus are in. In the Basque Country, LAB. In Türkiye, Liman-İş. In Morocco, the same coordination.