Leading the charge

Keir Starmer has drawn a line in the sand by declaring Britain will recognise the state of Palestine by September.

Teresa Thornhill, a lawyer and campaigner for the Grieving for Gaza protest group, welcomes the move but worries that Israel won't be curbed. She was at the entrance to Downing Street on Tuesday demanding recognition now.

“An awful lot of people will be dead by September,” she told The National during a protest at the gates of Downing Street. “It would send a very strong message to [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his cronies, which is desperately needed.”

While Israel would be “outraged”, she argued that “the stronger the message the better”. She said the action should also include a 100 per cent arms embargo, “because people are dying”.

Ms Thornhill was among several observers who were lifted by US President Donald Trump’s apparent change of position on Gaza after being “shocked by some pictures he’s seen of starving children”. Standing beside Mr Starmer in Scotland, he said he was not getting involved with the UK statehood decision.

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators were assembled, beating wooden spoons against empty metal pans as a symbol of Gaza’s starvation.

Sanctions galore

The image below unravels a good chunk of a financial empire built on the black market for Iranian oil. A complex and shadowy operation run by Salim Ahmed Said is revealed in detail by the US Treasury, but closer to this newsletter is a prime asset located in West London.

In a street leading to the Natural History Museum on Exhibition Road is the Gainsborough Hotel. An employee, who asked for his identity and that of the firm not to be revealed, confirmed the handsome townhouse was related to Mr Said’s empire when The National visited.

He replied that he was “very surprised” when told both the companies have been placed under sanctions by the US.

“We were not aware that he was involved in the oil business, only hotels,” he said. “We’re not aware of any sanctions.”

At the heart of his sanctions-busting enterprise is the oil terminal at the port of Khor Al Zubayr in southern Iraq, where a company he owns, VS Oil, manages six oil storage tanks.

In a bid to avoid sanctions on its oil exports imposed by the US, Iran uses a network of oil tankers whose ownership is deliberately obscured.

This shadow fleet, as it has come to be known, enables the regime to transport its oil for black market sales. One of the links thrown up in this oil network was with Sa'id Al Jamal. In turn Mr Al Jamal directed Syrian national Abdul Jalil Mallah to facilitate transactions worth millions of dollars to Swaid and Sons, a Yemeni exchange house associated with the Houthis.

Jonathan Powell Pt II

The entrance to the Syrian embassy in London remains littered with cardboard boxes, almost a month after Foreign Secretary David Lammy declared the UK had re-established diplomatic relations in Damascus.

Moisture drips over the cracked paint above the door and a plant left in the window of the first floor when the building in Belgrave Square was abandoned in 2012 has long since dried out.

Frustration is rising with the UK's cautious approach to the new transitional government in Damascus. Mr Lammy made his first official visit to the capital this month to meet the country's President Ahmad Al Shara.

The restoration of formal diplomatic relations this summer has not yet borne fruit in Belgrave Square. Weeks later an exchange of ambassadors has not happened.

Questions remain about who could serve as the channel for communication between the UK government and Mr Al Shaibani, as Damascus seeks to re-establish its embassy in London.

There are concerns that the UK government has become too reliant on back-channel diplomacy. At this point those question turn to National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell's former outfit Inter Mediate.