Declassified UK December Newsletter

A few key developments to inform you about this time.

Hi everyone
 

We’ve just released our new investigation into the UK’s global military base network, a ground-breaking piece of research by Phil Miller that took months. Nothing like this has been published before, and it reveals how larger the UK’s global military presence is compared to previously thought.
 

This work follows Phil’s capturing on video of Nigerian helicopter pilots being taught to fly in Cornwall – a significant issue given the Nigerian military’s role in human rights abuses in the country.
 

Another major piece we published this month was Namir Shabibi’sinvestigation in Kenya. This cited intelligence officers saying that MI6 was involved in the arrest in Kenya of Michael Adebolajo – who went on to kill the British soldier, Lee Rigby in London. The analysis accused MI6 of misleading two enquiries. Richard Norton-Taylor commented on the piece by outlining MI6’s long history of being a law unto itself.
 

Namir is writing a further piece for us, also based on his investigations in Kenya, which we hope to publish in the next few weeks.
 

In the pipeline
 

What else have we got in the pipeline? We have a couple of very sensitive investigations under way that unfortunately I can’t even mention here. What I can mention is that Matt Kennard is doing further work on the Foreign Office role in Venezuela, and that we’ve commissioned writers to investigate the UK government’s role regarding Turkey and Egypt – two key policy areas for the British government which have been terribly under-analysed in the traditional media. We’re also looking to cover the spycops saga in the UK and also the unanswered questions surrounding the 2017 Manchester bombing.
 

We’ve started a series of occasional articles where we’re highlighting positive Alternatives to current policies. Nick Dearden, the director of Global Justice Now – in my view, the most important development-focused NGO in the UK – is doing an analysis of: “What would an international development policy for the UK look like?”   This follows Richard Norton-Taylor’s recent piece on how to make the UK intelligence services accountable.
 

If you have suggestions on what else we should cover in this Alternatives series – or any other investigations – please let me know.
 

You’ll remember that Declassified was recently blacklisted by the Ministry of Defence, which then apologised and ordered a parliament review. As I write, we’ve been told this review will be published imminently. It’s something we’re keeping an eye out for.
 

We’re pondering some things. We’re looking into doing more videos and film investigations and also considering doing podcasts. We’re also doing more work across social media to ensure more people see our work. The number of our followers is rising rapidly.
 

Big problem – capacity. There are only three of us full-time and we need to be careful not to over-reach ourselves. I’ve just worked out that the Guardian Media Group’s revenues are 1,122 times larger than ours! Yet correct if I’m wrong, but we’re producing 10 times more important output than they are.
 

Become a member
 

Many people have recently become members of Declassified. I really can’t thank you enough for this. We seek to build a community of people who want to understand and reveal what UK governments do in the world. It’s a key way of supporting our public service journalism.
 

If you’re not already, please become a member. Membership starts at just £2 a month and includes exclusive, donor only, access to our new monthly online Ask Me Anything (AMA) events, newly designed mugs and t-shirts starting from only £10 per month and a signed book authored by us if you join annually from only £100 per year! Plus more benefits at other levels.
 

There are two places you can become a member. Either go to Enthusehere (https://declassifieduk.enthuse.com/donate#!/), to start your subscription from only £2 per month, or to join our annual donor programme, or if you prefer Patreon here(https://www.patreon.com/DeclassifiedUK), from only £3 per month.
 

The cost of becoming a member and getting exclusive AMA access is so low, I’m hoping all of you can join. It would make a huge difference to us, help keep us going and keep our journalism free from ads, and thus influence.
 

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