We Raised More Than £2,000 for MAP, Askar Medical Centre in Nablus,
the Lebanese Red Cross and Three Anti-Racist Projects
Last
Sunday, together with my son Daniel, I walked across the South Downs from Brighton
to Lewes, the town where Tom Paine worked and lived from 1768-1764. We were
greeted by Lewes
Palestine Solidarity Campaign who were celebrating their first anniversary.
After
resting Daniel and I made our way up to Lewes High Street for a drink and then
made our way back to Brighton. This was the third such walk I had taken part in.
Fortunately the weather was not as hot as last
year but that was because it was held two weeks later, at the end rather
than in the middle of August.
About 40
people took part and I am hopeful that at least £10,000 will eventually be
raised. Below are a few photographs.
I want to
thank all the wonderful people who contributed to my appeal.
It’s not too late to donate money. You can send it to
The Brighton Trust, Account number 67453784-00 Sort code 08-92-99 or here.
In Order That We Can Meet
Our Commitments to Grantees, Including the Al Tafawk Centre & Brighton’s Palestine House, I am
asking you to contribute to Our Emergency Appeal
On 2nd June
Santander froze
the bank accounts of The Brighton Trust, a registered charity. Eight days later they contacted me to explain that they couldn’t tell me why they had frozen them.
Not only did they
freeze the accounts of the Brighton Trust but they froze the accounts of Brighton
and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre, two personal accounts and an account
belonging to my son, which I administer, via a Lasting Power of Attorney.
Debanked: How Regulations Are Hurting Innocent UK Bank Customers
Last Monday, Kent
Reliance or One Savings Bank also froze accounts belonging to my family and
also accounts containing money belonging to the Brighton Trust. Again they refused
to say why they had frozen the accounts.
In the past two
years I have been debanked by Nationwide building society (which contrary to
belief is an anti-Palestinian
bank), HSBC
and First Direct. The only conclusion I can reach is that this is because I
am being prosecuted under the Terrorism Act 2000 for allegedly inviting support
for a proscribed organisation, Hamas.
These are not the
first attacks on the Brighton Trust. In 2022
and again in 2025,
the Charity Commission has conducted investigations of the Brighton Trust.
These investigations were almost certainly triggered by Zionist charities such
as UK Lawyers for Israel and/or the Campaign Against Antisemitism.
It would seem that
some government agency, either the National Crime Agency or the
Counter-Terror
Police, is deliberately feeding false and malicious information to those I
bank with informing them that I am involved in money laundering and/or
terrorism financing.
I wrote to the NCA
asking if they had anything to do with the bank closures and they wrote back to
say they do not instruct banks as to what they do but it is clear that they do
supply the misinformation that causes banks to freeze and debank people.
The use of ‘regulatory’
pretexts has been used by financial payment services such as Wise
and Payoneer to completely
cut off people in Gaza from their money. These are literally life and death
decisions made by faceless and anonymous bureaucrats.
Banks are
notoriously ‘risk averse’. They act first and ask questions later. Or rather,
they don’t even bother asking questions. They either freeze or close accounts
or both.
Ironically the
increased use of money laundering legislation and counter-terrorism legislation
has
made no difference to criminal gangs but it has impacted on political
groups and vulnerable people, which one suspects was the original intention.
When Nigel Farage
had his accounts
closed by the Royal Family’s banker, Coutts it was headline news but when
ordinary people or campaigning groups have their accounts closed it is ignored.
We are not the only
ones this has happened to. Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign has had £20,000
frozen
by Unity Trust Bank, which is owned by the trade unions, for a year now.So has Greater
Manchester Friends of Palestine. This is in addition to debanking
individual Palestine solidarity activists.
Both the National Crime Agency—answerable to the
Home Office—and counter terrorism police declined to answer the Guardian’s
query about which agency took the decision to freeze the GMFP’s bank account.
And then there is
the decision
of Lloyds Bank to freeze and debank The Canary, the radical alternative news
organisation. This is a straightforward
political decision by corrupt bankers. The Canary isn’t racist like Farage so
the BBC and the rest of the media have had nothing to say.
We don’t know
whether Lloyds is going to use ‘regulatory’ reasons as the pretext to debank The
Canary but it may be that direct action will cause the bank to cough up since
being polite has had little effect so far.
What is happening
is that legislation passed for one purpose – terrorist financing or money
laundering – is being used for entirely different purposes, namely to crack
down on organisations that are campaigning against the genocide in Gaza.
The Brighton Trust
provides the majority of funding for the Al
Tafawk Centre, a kindergarten in Jenin in the Occupied West Bank of
Palestine.
We went
undercover to EXPOSE Israeli settlers
We also agreed earlier
in the year to two year funding, £25,000 per year, towards the rent of The Old
Palestine House in Brighton. All of this has been put in jeopardy by the
decision of Santander.
In addition on 6
July Kent Reliance (One Savings Bank) froze £70,000 belonging to Trustees of
The Brighton Trust and intended as grant aid to a number of radical community
groups.
The Brighton Trust
was established in 2016 as the Trust for Unpopular Causes. We have given
hundreds of grants to Palestinian groups, campaigning organisations and people,
as well as numerous other radical causes. See here for details
of the last 3 years of grant giving.
The precedent for
all this was set by the United States which has sanctioned
and frozen
the accounts of UN Raporteur Francesca Albanese and the judges
of the International Criminal Court. We have in the Trump Administration
the political equivalent of the Mafia.
US issues sanctions against
UN investigator probing abuses in Gaza • FRANCE 24 English
What the NCA and
the Counter-Terror Police have not done is to freeze the funds of Zionist organisations
involved in sending money to illegal settlements in the West Bank. 32 charities
according to Melanie Ward MP have sent
£28 million to illegal West Bank settlements without so much as a murmur from
the NCA or Counter-Terror Police.
Indeed the Charity
Commission has approved
the sending of money by Zionist charities to West Bank settlements.
We are therefore appealing for donations to
fulfil existing commitments and to enable us to continue to make small grants to
radical organisations as well as seeking to bring legal action against the
banks and/or the state bodies involved in these attacks.
Either we confront
what the state is doing now or we will allow them to continue to target
activists and campaigns they don't like, especially those connected with
Palestine.
Brighton's Old Palestine House
Politically the
banks, which didn’t hesitate to come running to the State, i.e. taxpayers after
the banking crash of 2007/8, need to be taken into public ownership. They were
given handouts because they were ‘too big to fail’. They are too powerful.
Banking is an essential requirement of modern society and the banks cannot be
allowed to use their own reactionary politics to impose censorship on civil
society.
Banks are too important to remain in the
private sector. They are candidates for nationalisation. See
It would be useful
if people email Santander to protest at their outrageous behaviour and ask them
if they are happy depriving the Al Tafawk Children’s Centre of vital funding.
Email addresses I have for the bank are:
Nearly
a year ago I wrote about
how the Police and the Security Services were using money laundering
legislation, introduced to stop serious crime, to target Palestine solidarity
supporters, including myself.
As is
normal these days with the Terrorism Act 2000, legislation introduced for one
purpose is being used for another purpose, in this case attacking peaceful
direct action groups and opponents of Genocide.
It is
Financial Terrorism because it is intended to frighten and deter people from
taking action against the British State which is actively complicit in the Genocide
in Gaza. The State faces an uphill battle to convict me in a trial starting at
Kingston Crown Court on August 18th for ‘inviting support for a proscribed organisation (Hamas)’. This
despite the fact that we have a hostile Judge Plashkes KC presiding over it.
Ironically I Received This From Santander Today!
Hence
the attempt to intimidate me. The question that springs to mind is whether
those responsible for contacting the banks are engaged in trying to pervert the
course of justice.
The message I get when I log on
In the
past two years I have been debanked by three banks – Nationwide, which is an anti-Palestinian bank, HSBC and First Direct. No reason has ever been given
but it’s not hard to work out what was going on. The Financial Ombudsman
Service, to which I complained, has proved itself a completely toothless
lapdog.
I Received This Yesterday From Santander!
The
Police and the National Crime Agency have decided to attack the finances of Palestine solidarity
groups. Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Greater Manchester Friends
of Palestine have both had their bank accounts frozen because of an alleged link to Palestine Action,
even before thelatters unlawful proscription.
Unity
Trust Bank, which is supposed to be a progressive bank, since it’s owned by the
trade unions, confirmed at a meeting with Scottish PSC that the freezing of
their account was at the behest of the NCA. It seems that ‘serious crime’ today
is not robbing a bank, money laundering or human trafficking – it is opposing
Genocide in Palestine.
The NCA
is one of these organisations that are accountable to no one but wield a great
deal of power because their remit is serious crime. However Palestine
solidarity has been redefined as ‘anti-Semitism’ and ‘terrorism’ so the NCA has
become the State’s instrument of choice in the attempt to criminalise
solidarity with the Palestinians.
It is
not only in this country that the State is employing financial terrorism.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Rapporteur for Palestine, has been a target of the
Trump regime. Her bank accounts, credit cards and finances have been frozen,
all because she has been an outspoken critic of the West’s role in financing
and arming Israel’s genocide.
Albanese’s
reaction to US
sanctions sums up my attitude – ‘What
a mafia. But they will not break us.’ The Trump and Starmer regimes
are just that – mafia bosses in suits. At least though Trump doesn’t claim to
be a human rights lawyer unlike Starver.
The Judges of the
International Criminal Court were also targeted by Trump’s sanctions, which
include travel bans, asset freezes and denial of services from US companies,
for having had the temerity to press war crimes charges and issue a warrant
against Netanyahu, the Hitler of our age. The idea of indicting war criminals
is not one that our leaders take very kindly given that they may be next in
line.
As Ashifa Kassam wrotein respect ofKimberly Prost, a Canadian Judge at the
ICC:
For
years, she has sat as a judge at the international criminal court, weighing
accusations of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity; now she is on
the same list as terrorists and those involved in organised crime. “It really was a moment of a bit of
disbelief,” she said.
And
that is the reality of the financial sanctions that I and others face in
Britain. A government which had an iota of morality or principle, would have
condemned outright the US sanctions on Albanese and ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, which
the Trump Junta imposed in
February 2025.
Starmer
and the ‘Labour’ Government said nothing and quietly went along with everything
Trump decreed, ending up with Charles Mountbatten being sent to Washington to flatter
Trump.
Capitalism
is now run by politicians who owe more to Al Capone than Thomas Paine and the Rights of Man. This is the context in which I have once again
been faced with anonymous allegations, the nature of which I am not allowed to
see or know, being used to freeze my accounts and those of the charity of which
I’m a trustee.
For the
past year Santander has intermittently carried out 3 investigations into the
accounts of the Brighton Trust and related organisations. It found nothing but
I always suspected that their justification of ‘getting to know their customer’
was simply a pretext.
I first
found out what was happening when Stripe, who handle payment processing for the
Chuffed crowdfunder which we set up to appeal for donations to the Al Tafawk Children’s Centre in Jenin sent me a cryptic message saying that ‘A recent payout to your connected
bank account failed’. It soon became clear why it had failed.
Without any warning
Santander had frozen a total of 8 accounts. The only one spared was that of my
son, which I administer. When I contacted the bank no one would speak to me
from the department in question.
It was not until June 5, three days after the
freezing of my accounts that they sent me an email, which said nothing other
than that ‘We will arrange for a
specialist complaints manager to contact you at their earliest opportunity.’
They still have not contacted me.
It is as if they were
too ashamed to even try to defend their decision.
It means that I have
had to take emergency action to ensure that funds raised for the children of
the Al Tafawk Centre are secured. To attack the ability to operate of a charity
raising funds for a children’s centre is despicable. They suffer enough at the
hands of the terrorist IDF without facing the terrorism of the British state
acting via its banking system.
The faceless men who
run the National Crime Agency in conjunction with tame bankers are, like their
counterparts in the Metropolitan Police, devoted to supporting the Genocide in
Gaza and ethnic cleansing underway in the West Bank.
I am taking legal
advice over my next steps and without giving anything away I will not hesitate
to challenge the freeze in court if necessary. I intend to force Santander to
justify their actions and to release the money. To do this I will need to raise
money so I ask people to contribute to my Legal
Crowdfunder. As Chuffed
is based in Australia it is beyond the reach of Starver’s mafia and his police
state mates.
However this whole
debanking exercise needs to become a political issue. Banking is essential for
anyone to function in the modern economy. To take peoples’ banking facilities
away because they don’t conform to the state’s expectations is financial terrorism.
Banks need to be forced to justify any attempt to debank someone.
The ideal solution would be for the banks to be nationalised.
They are too important to be left in the hands of the private sector. When they
get into trouble, as was the case in 2008, then they come running to the state to
bail them out. If they are ‘too big to fail’ which is how they were able to
secure billions of pounds from the state in a bailout, then they are too big to
be owned by private shareholders.
Ivor Caplin caught by a sex sting
I have no doubt that
these dirty tricks tactics by the state are intended as a prelude to my trial
at Kingston Crown Court. But whilst the Secret State is targeting my bank
accounts and those of other opponents of genocide, paedophiles like Ivor Caplin
– former Defence Minister and former Chair
of the Jewish Labour Movement go scot free.
Caplin was the subject
of a sting in January 2025, when he tried to liaise with a
young boy for the purposes of sex. 18 months later he still has not been
charged. Of course the police have form over this as Jimmy Saville might
testify. As do Sussex Police which turned a blind eye
to Saville and another prominent paedophile and Charles
Mountbatten’s friend, the Bishop of Lewes Peter Ball.
Ivor Caplin arrested for attempt to meet 15 year old boy
However Sussex Police did arrest
a friend of mine, Greg Hadfield, a former journalist on the Sunday Times and
Daily Mail, for exposing
Caplin’s predeliction for hard core pornography and sex with young boys on
Twitter.
Jeremy Scahill on
Sky TV About Israel's Burning Alive of Children
It can't be often that a Perjurer is Given a Police Award!
Hadfield was the subject of a complaint by a leading
Brighton Zionist Fiona Sharpe, friend of Sussex Chief Constable Jo Shiner, who
was awarded
a top police award. Sharpe cannot but have been aware of Caplin’s extra-mural activities
as he advertised them on X. Another who clearly knew was his ex-boyfriend and
now Trade Minister, Peter Kyle the MP for Hove. Corruption
But whatever dirty tricks the Police and National
Crime Agency get up to between now and my trial they will not deter me. As
should be obvious from my arrest
at the Nakba demonstration for defying Mark Rowley’s ban on the use of the
words Globalise the Intifada.
So when we hear of two-tier policing we should
remember that the Police and the Crown Prosecution Service, have always
protected the rich and the powerful. That is why Andrew Mountbatten was able to
get away with raping trafficked girls without as much a whisper from the Metropolitan
Police. Their only concern is leaked documents.
But we should never forget that this is about the British
State continuing to support war crimes such as the burning alive of people in
tents as Israel bombs them mercilessly or the targeting of hospitals in Lebanon
- three of which have been attacked in the last week. Attacking a state’s
health facilities is a speciality of the barbarous ‘Jewish’ state.
