Prostituting yourself to genocide

It is some indication of the sad state of Britain that Starmer is pinning so much on a handful of promises of investment in the UK by US tech firms. [1]

The investment that Starmer is boasting about is “pledges” from US equity and tech firms. (According to Guardian reporting some of it is already double-counted). Promises, and they seem to be no more than promises, of investment include:

£500m from equity firm Blackrock in a data centre [2]
Microsoft £31b in data centres [3]
£90b from a private equity firm Blackstone [4] assuming the Guardian’s reporting is correct [4] – over a decade
£3.9b from the investment firm Prologis [4]
£1.5bn from the tech company Palantir
Google £2b over the next two years [5]

There is also a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding between the US and UK in which they promise to do some joined up working on tech innovation specifically on “joint opportunities of mutual interest in strategic science and technology disciplines, including artificial intelligence (AI), civil nuclear, fusion, and quantum technologies.” It is clear that defence is at the forefront of their minds. For example: “Together, the Participants intend to build powerful quantum machines that transform defence, finance, and healthcare, protect the Participants’ citizens, and create high-skilled jobs. “

The “pledges” of investment do not seem to be specific projects, just general statements of intent. Is anyone going to go back over the records in 10 years time and see if Blackstone really did invest £90b? I doubt it.

While investment which creates jobs should perhaps not be automatically rejected – one can note the alternative view on this. This could be seen as the US buying up the UK’s high-end tech sector. The memorandum also refers to areas of significant strategic significance. So, the UK will be the geo territory on which US finance and corporate interests control development of sensitive tech sectors, both for their own benefit and for supply to the UK’s defence sector. Whoever supplies the investment capital controls the arc of development. This looks like sealing the UK’s Vassal status in the high-end tech and tech defence sectors.

And this, before we mention the unmentionable. Many of these companies which Starmer is so enthusiastically selling the UK to are currently implicated in enabling Israel’s campaign of war crimes in Gaza. (A UN panel recently joined multiple leading NGOs in calling it genocide). [6]

Palantir – involved by their own admission in general support for the Israeli military [7]

Microsoft – provision of cloud computing services [8]

Google – provision of cloud computing services [7]

Blackrock – invests in some of the companies which are directly involved. [7]

It is a sign of the absolute state of disaster that Britain is in, that the sitting Prime Minister is trying to save his faltering government by boasting about a new fire sale, and attendant transfer of control, of key UK, resources, assets and “talent” to unaccountable US private equity and corporate-finance firms, made all the more appalling by the fact that this ties the UK ever deeper into complicity in what the UN is now calling genocide. Some countries care about who invests in their strategic sectors. Not the UK.

Notes

Prostituting yourself to genocide

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