‘The sooner we get these people out of our hair the better’

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 29 December 2023 Ten years after the UK overthrew the democratically elected government of British Guiana, it engineered a further, constitutional coup to ensure the same progressive leader, Cheddi Jagan, could not be elected again, declassified files show. By 1963, the UK colony of British Guiana was again faced with […]

UK refuses to confirm use of Cyprus base in sending US arms to Israel

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 7 December 2023 The British government is refusing to answer questions in parliament about the US military’s use of RAF Akrotiri, the UK’s vast air base on Cyprus, which is reportedly being used to deliver arms to Israel. The UK government is refusing to provide MPs with information about US […]

Why does the UK give Israel unqualified backing?

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 21 November 2023 The two key reasons are the need for Whitehall to demonstrate British subservience and usefulness to the US, and the power of the Israel lobby, argues Declassified’s editor. Rishi Sunak’s government has shown extraordinary levels of backing for Israeli military operations in Gaza over the past six […]

US military is secretly supplying weapons to Israel using UK base on Cyprus

by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 17 November 2023 The US is moving arms to Israel from around Europe using Britain’s vast air base on Cyprus, but the Ministry of Defence refuses to tell Declassified what American aircraft are flying or what weapons are on board. Respected Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported that over 40 US transport […]

The only US military intervention Britain (somewhat) opposed

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 25 October 2023 Margaret Thatcher’s government sought to prevent the US invasion of Grenada in October 1983, but once it went ahead, Whitehall refused to condemn it and sought its “swift success” – even though it knew it violated international law, declassified files show. The American military invaded the tiny […]

CPS doesn’t know what records its destroyed related to Keir Starmer’s Washington trips

by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 9 october 2023 Documents on Keir Starmer’s high-level meetings in the US while he oversaw Julian Assange’s possible extradition to Sweden have been removed from the public record – but the CPS tells Declassified it doesn’t even know what it has destroyed. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), […]

‘Our major interest is copper’: Britain backed Pinochet’s bloody coup in Chile

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 4 September 2023 When the Chilean military overthrew Salvador Allende’s democratically elected government in September 1973, UK officials supported and worked with the new junta as it indulged in widespread atrocities, declassified files show. On 11 September 1973, a democratically-elected Chilean government under President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a […]

Iran 1953: MI6 plots with Islamists to overthrow democracy

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 1 August 2023 Declassified British files highlight a little known aspect of the joint MI6/CIA coup against Iran’s democratically elected government in August 1953 – UK covert action in support of leading radical Shia Islamists, the predecessors of Ayatollah Khomeini. In many accounts the CIA is regarded as the prime […]

How UK media mislead us about Britain’s leading military ‘think tank’

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 15 June 2023 The British press has quoted the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) hundreds of times in the past two years without informing readers it is funded by the UK military, US government and arms corporations, and that it’s a bastion of establishment interests. RUSI has been cited in […]

Blair misled parliament over 1998 Iraq bombing, files show

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 17 April 2023 Declassified documents from 1998, when the UK and US bombed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, show Tony Blair was consistently informed military action was unlawful without UN authorisation. But he told parliament Britain had “the proper legal authority”. Tony Blair and his closest advisers were consistently informed by British […]