The oligarchs behind the “humanitarian” regime change network now exploiting Jo Cox’s death to push for UK Labour split
Only
by masking their otherwise unpopular policies in the cloak of Jo
Cox’s tragedy, and humanity’s natural empathy for good samaritans
and the downtrodden, has this small group of powerful individuals
been able to launder disastrous wars and military adventurism as “the
right thing to do.”
by
Vanessa Beeley and Whitney Webb
Part
11 - Chuka Umunna’s new think tank
Beyond
Katerji’s invocation of Jo Cox as a justification to divide U.K.
Labour and return it to the pro-intervention party it once was under
the leadership of former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, there is
considerably more evidence that the same billionaire-led
“humanitarian” regime-change network working to promote regime
change in Syria is also intimately involved in the effort to divide
the party. Look no further than Labour MP Chuka Umunna.
Umunna
has long been a vocal critic of Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters,
whom he has likened to “nasty trolls” for opposing war abroad.
Umunna has long staunchly supported U.K. military adventurism,
consistently supporting the deployment of U.K. military forces abroad
as well as supporting regime change in Syria and the bombing of that
country. Indeed, Umunna’s pro-intervention stance is so well
defined that former U.K. Prime Minister and pro-interventionist Tony
Blair once promoted Umunna to be the future leader of the Labour
party.
More
recently, Umunna has played a critical role in the anti-Semitism
smear campaign targeting Corbyn, calling Corbyn’s Labour
“institutionally racist” despite Corbyn’s long past as an
anti-racism campaigner. The anti-Semitism issue was also used by
Umunna to cast doubt on Corbyn’s ability to lead the party, and to
promote a split of that party if Corbyn continued on in his current
role as leader.
Given
Blair’s past endorsement, Umunna seems poised to lead a new
Blairite Labour spin-off if efforts to divide the party are
successful. In this context, it is important to note that Umunna
himself is directly connected to the same billionaire-led nexus that
includes the humanitarian “regime-change” network that has been
the focus of this series.
On
October 15, Umunna announced via a column in the Independent that he
would be chairing a new “progressive” think tank, Progressive
Centre UK. However, as Umunna’s own column reveals, the Streatham
MP repeatedly conflates “progressivism” with the “centre-left,”
which Umunna defines as the politics of neo-liberal corporatists like
Tony Blair, Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau.
While
Umunna’s new think tank does not yet describe its funding or its
partners, it does openly note that it is proudly part of the “Global
Progress” network, which is an outgrowth of the Global Progress
Initiative (GPI). GPI was created in 2009 by the Center for American
Progress, a U.S. think tank led by John Podesta, long-time Clinton
associate and chair of Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential
campaign, as well as another Clinton confidante, Neera Tanden. GPI
promotes former neo-liberal leaders like Tony Blair of the U.K., Bill
Clinton of the U.S., Helle Thorning-Schmidt of Denmark, Justin
Trudeau of Canada, and Ricardo Lagos of Chile as “progressives.”
Notably,
Umunna’s ties to John Podesta and the Clintons precede the
creation of this new think tank, as Umunna reached out to Podesta,
then chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, and
offered to advise Clinton campaign staff on how to beat the “American
Jeremy Corbyn,” U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.
Umunna’s
Progressive Centre UK makes it clear that is the U.K. branch of the
Global Progress network, as it promotes its partners as the Global
Progress network’s other branches in Canada (Canada2020), Italy
(Volta) and France (Terra Nova). The Progressive Centre UK’s
Italian partner, Volta, does not have a single Italian on its
advisory board, despite being an Italian political think tank. Its
advisory board includes former Senior Adviser for Innovation to
Hillary Clinton, Alec Ross; former U.K. Labour politician and
minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, David Miliband;
French-born Murdoch lobbyist, Frederic Michel; and former Prime
Minister of Denmark, Helle Thorning-Schmidt. Notably, David
Miliband was once promoted as the “stand-in” for Jo Cox’s seat
in Parliament following her murder and encouraged by Blairites within
the Labour Party to challenge Jeremy Corbyn for leadership of the
party.
Thorning-Schmidt’s
inclusion in this network is also important given that she is
currently CEO of Save the Children, where Jo Cox once worked, as did
Brendan Cox until his “inappropriate behavior” was exposed.
Thorning-Schmidt is a board member of the European Council on Foreign
Relations alongside Mabel van Oranje. She is also a member of the
board of the International Crisis Group (ICG) alongside George Soros;
former Treasury Secretary under Clinton, Larry Summers; and Frank
Giustra, among others.
As
mentioned in Part 2 of this series, ICG and Save the Children —
which both are intimately linked to Thorning-Schmidt — are part of
the Crisis Action network, which is directly connected to the Jo Cox
Four through Gemma Mortensen, Brendan Cox, and Tim Dixon, as well as
Mabel van Oranje. Thorning-Schmidt’s connections are even more
notable in the context of the push to divide the U.K. Labour party,
given that she is married to Stephen Kinnock, a U.K. anti-Corbyn
Labour MP who led the original efforts to split the Labour party
following concern over Corbyn’s rise.
Like
Volta, the Global Progress Network’s Canadian branch, Canada2020,
is similarly problematic. While casting itself as an “independent”
and “progressive” think tank, it proudly lists its partners as
multinational corporations including Facebook, Google, Amazon,
General Electric, massive multinational mining conglomerate Rio
Tinto, Mastercard, and Shell Oil. Canada2020 recently hosted the
Global Progress summit that Umunna promoted in his column announcing
Progressive Centre UK. Umunna attended that summit, which was also
attended by Tim Dixon of the Jo Cox Four, as well as Ben Scott of the
Omidyar Network and John Podesta himself.
Though
the newly-minted Progressive Centre UK has yet to host an event or
make its donors and partners public, the other branches of the
Clinton-linked Global Progress Network make it clear exactly what
this new Umunna-led group will support and with whom it will
associate.
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