u/gessabean99

What a surprise, not!

When a single network of donors—particularly those with ties to foreign military intelligence (IDF) and foreign governments (via ELNET and the Israeli Embassy)—overwhelmingly backs an entire faction of the party, and that faction then takes all the top jobs, it is entirely legitimate for the public to ask: Who is setting foreign and defense policy?

Burnham cabinet is surrounded by a tight-knit ecosystem of donors, lobbyists, and former intelligence operatives who view the UK's relationship with Israel as paramount.

"Andy Burnham just appointed Bridget Phillipson as Chair of the Labour Party.

But did you know that Bridget Phillipson received £80,000 from an individual linked to Israeli military intelligence?

I’ve discovered some documents that Phillipson might not want you to know about...

In 2023, Bridget Phillipson registered two £40,000 donations from pro-Israeli lobbyist Stuart Roden.

He is the co-founder of Hetz Ventures, which he set up with ex-IDF intelligence officer Judah Taub.

But Phillipson is not the only Andy Burnham appointment bankrolled by Roden.

Last year, leaked diaries revealed that Stuart Roden had been conducting private meetings with then Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotolevy.

According to John McEvoy, Roden’s Hetz firm employs “an array of former Israeli soldiers, many of whom have served in elite intelligence units”.

Labour MP Lisa Nandy also held "secret" meetings with Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotolevy.

In the past, Nandy has received thousands of pounds from serial lobbyists Stuart Roden and Trevor Chinn.

Now, she is Andy Burnham's Culture Secretary.

After a FOI request into Lisa Nandy’s meeting with Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotolevy, the Labour government refused to provide further details.

Instead, Nandy’s department said that they would prioritise:

“…protecting relations between the United Kingdom and Israel.”

At the end of June, Labour MP Sarah Sackman registered two new donations from veteran lobbyist Trevor Chinn.

She previously worked as a judicial clerk at the Israeli Supreme Court.

Andy Burnham just appointed Sackman as a justice minister.

Yvette Cooper is another Labour MP who has benefited from Trevor Chinn’s financial largesse.

In 2024, Cooper also received £47,000 from Labour Together and £210,000 from Gary Lubner for “staffing costs”.

Last week, Andy Burnham appointed Cooper to his cabinet.

For at least two years, Burnham’s new Labour Party chair Bridget Phillipson was receiving quarterly payments from Trevor Chinn.

During her deputy leadership bid, she also received support from Labour First, a group once run by ex-Israel lobbyist and now Labour MP Luke Akehurst.

Luke Akehurst was quick to celebrate Burnham’s appointment of Bridget Phillipson as Labour Party chair

In the past, Akehurst has also been funded by Phillipson financier Stuart Roden.

Ex-IDF officer Shai Masot described Akehurst as “one of the best on the inside…of the party”.

In 2023, ELNET UK paid for a member of Bridget Phillipson's staff to visit occupied Palestine.

Described in financial disclosures as a "study tour", they were accompanied by Akehurst.

A staffer for Burnham's new Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, also travelled with the group.

ELNET list the Israeli Foreign Ministry as one of their “partners”.

A 2024 trip organised by the lobby group was led by Jeffrey Epstein “pal” and disgraced ex-Labour peer Peter Mandelson.

Mandelson described Burnham’s new chief of staff, James Purnell, as “one of my boys”.

In October, Bridget Phillipson received £40,000 from David Sainsbury and £15,000 from his daughter, Francesca Perrin.

Phillipson has also admitted to accepting £14,000 in donations from Waheed Alli for “lobby journalist” events.

Alli was Keir Starmer’s largest “personal” donor.

In 2022, Phillipson accepted £15,000 from ex-Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy.

Under Murphy, Labour lost 40 of their 41 seats in Scotland.

This year, his Arden Strategies lobby firm was caught offering access to a VIP dinner with top advisers to Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves.

Jim Murphy’s “lobbying behemoth” Arden Strategies now has its own Labour Party “directorate”.

In 2024, Arden helped raise funds for more than 30 Labour election candidates.

Their clients include arms manufacturer Northrop Grumman, which supplies weapons components to the IDF.

In November, Bridget Phillipson stood for deputy leader of the Labour Party.

She received £10,000 for her campaign from Jim Murphy, a former director of Labour Friends of Israel.

Murphy promised to “support Israel long after my political career is over”.

In October 2024, Bridget Phillipson posted a short update on her personal website titled:

“Good to meet with Andy Burnham”.

Keir Starmer had only been Prime Minister for three months.

Now, just two years later, Burnham has ousted Starmer and Phillipson is Labour Party chair."

— Jody McIntyre
(well worth following on twitter and substack)

In a report attempting to influence UK foreign policy before the Israeli legislative elections, Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) states that a boycott of West Bank Settlements would be counterproductive as it would lead to a boycott of Israeli goods generally.

"First, a boycott of all trade with settlements is practically and politically impossible. It would impact all Israeli businesses operating in the settlement blocs, as well as East Jerusalem and the Old City, where major Israeli businesses like Bank Hapoalim and Teva operate, and where the tourism sector is critical for Israeli and Palestinian workers. There is a risk that international financial actors overcomply with sanctions nominally targeting settlements, adversely affecting Israelis living within the state’s borders. A settlement boycott would thus become a de facto boycott of all of Israel. This will rightly be perceived within the UK Jewish community as a further example of the government singling out and targeting Israel for punitive action and harsh rhetoric."

The report also insists that older "settlement blocs" should become part of the occupying state and blames the Jordanian government for their existence.

In October 2021, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released 11.9 million confidential documents — the result of 600 journalists working across 117 countries for nearly two years before a single word went public

They called it the Pandora Papers

It was bigger, more precise, and more devastating than the Panama Papers

Within months, the world moved on

This post exists so it does not

King Abdullah II of Jordan ruled a country receiving $1.72 billion in American foreign aid while his people ranked among the poorest in the Middle East

Simultaneously he was secretly assembling a $100 million real estate empire — fourteen luxury mansions in Malibu, Washington DC, and London — all hidden behind offshore shell companies so his name appeared nowhere

Tony Blair spent ten years as Prime Minister telling a generation that the system was fair and equal

Then he and his wife purchased a £6.45 million London building through a British Virgin Islands company, legally avoiding £312,000 in stamp duty that every ordinary British homebuyer pays with no alternatives

His office called it a technical tax matter

Andrej Babiš ran the loudest anti-corruption campaign in Czech political history — his entire brand built on being different, being clean, being trustworthy

While those advertisements played on television, he was secretly routing $22 million through offshore companies in Monaco and the British Virgin Islands to purchase a private luxury château in the south of France

Never declared

Never disclosed

He was never prosecuted

He still owns it

After 150 media organizations published simultaneously across the world, governments issued statements about transparency

Committees were formed

Reports were commissioned

Blair returned to his speaking circuit

King Abdullah kept receiving foreign aid

Nobody went to prison

The offshore companies, the shell structures, the hidden registrations — none of this exists by accident

It was all built deliberately by the exact people who stand on television and tell you that everyone plays by the same rules

11.9 million documents

600 journalists

117 countries

Zero prosecutions

They were not hiding from criminals or enemies

They were hiding from you — the person whose taxes fund the governments they run and whose vote gives them the legitimacy to keep running it

The Pandora Papers did not reveal a broken system

It revealed a system working exactly as the people who built it always intended — and the most dangerous thing you can do is forget that you read this

Everything you just read is documented and verified — sources in the first comment below