Declassified UK.
Posted: 5th February 2025
This is Laura Pidcock, and I am absolutely delighted to have been appointed as Co-Director of Declassified alongside Mark Curtis. We hope, amongst everything difficult going on, you have had a positive start to the year.
I am so pleased to be able to put my energy into an independent media organisation which is doing vital work exposing UK foreign policy and telling the truth about the government’s role in the world.
This is an incredibly serious political juncture and the work Declassified does is essential and its journalism is brave & ground-breaking. It becomes critical when we think of the way in which the mainstream media fail (despite their huge resources) to thoroughly investigate and expose the government on foreign policy matters. Here, let me highlight just some of the stories Declassified have reported on this month.
Importantly, Mark uncovered the way Britain’s so-called public service broadcaster, the BBC, is keeping the public in the dark about UK support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. Our research on the BBC’s written outputs since October 2023 finds the corporation has mainly not reported at all the major ways the UK government has been working with Israel. Des Freedman, professor of media and communications at Goldsmiths, described this as a ‘national scandal’. You can read the research below.
Fierce independent journalism is also essential because we have a new government which must be scrutinised.
This month, our video journalist Alex Morris exposed how a high-ranking Israeli military delegation tried to quietly visit London. Alex quizzed a senior Israeli General outside the Royal United Services Institute, a UK “security think-tank”. You can see footage of the military official being questioned on Instagram. You can read the story below.
Without Declassified’s reporting, would the public have known such a meeting had taken place in the UK?
The Israeli military onslaught in Gaza has prompted protest and direct action from activists with arms factories being a target. Declassified journalist John McEvoy in partnership with Irish news site The Ditch has found that those arms factories hit by protests were sending supplies to Israel. Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori told Declassified: “This revelation confirms that taking direct action against the Israeli weapons industry in Britain is a crucial element to resistance against colonialism and genocide”. Read the full story here.
Royal Air Force surveillance flights over Gaza have relied on technical support from a company called Gama Aviation, we have found. Declassified’s Editor, Phil Miller, looked at Gama which provides “engineering services including design, maintenance and repair” for the RAF’s six-strong fleet of Shadow R1 surveillance planes. You can read the details here.
Why is Britain still sending spy flights towards Gaza you may wonder? This is something John McEvoy explores as two RAF surveillance planes have flown over the Eastern Mediterranean during the ceasefire.
Earlier in the month, Richard Norton Taylor revealed that Harold Wilson, one of Britain’s most left-wing prime ministers, was delighted by MI5’s surveillance of a seafarers’ strike in the 1960s. In recently declassified documents, the full extent to the close relationship with senior MI5 officers is revealed.
Did you see this article on Peter Mandelson from Solomon Hughes? He looks in detail at Starmer’s pick for US Ambassador.
And, of course, of fundamental importance, is the human story of foreign policy and how it devastates the lives of those impacted. Please read this powerful testimony from our regular contributor, the indefatigable Dr Shahd Abusalama who assesses what Gaza’s ceasefire means for her surviving family.
This incredible journalism is only possible because of your support, when you follow our social media accounts, share the stories we produce, and talk to your friends and family about what our journalists have uncovered. When you become a paying supporter, you are contributing to exposing the truth and we can’t thank you enough.
Yours sincerely,
Laura Pidcock
Co-Director, Declassified.