The London Metropolitan Police have been infiltrated by K-Group adherents and their Pakistani supporters, at a rapid pace coincidentally since Sadiq Khan became Mayor of London in 2016.
New Delhi: What may well have turned out to be an attack on the life of External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar outside the premises of the Royal Institute of International Affairs was met by the usual course of token action by the London Metropolitan Police, which is under the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Mayor Khan, who several political watchers in the UK believe may be the frontrunner among those seeking to move into 10 Downing Street, who are biding their time waiting for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to make a misstep on a scale that leads to his exit from 10 Downing Street.
Under the leadership of Tony Blair, the Labour Party eclipsed its Conservative opponents until Blair was pushed into resigning by his impatient challenger, Gordon Brown. In contrast to Blair, Brown was an electoral disaster, losing the national polls to the Conservatives. History may repeat itself in the case of Starmer and Sadiq Khan, especially now that the UK PM has distanced himself from the policy of Tony Blair, who invariably sided with the US in international affairs.
It took a while for the 2003 defeat of Saddam Hussain in Iraq to develop into a disaster, and three years on, the war presently being fought by Ukraine against Russia is similarly proving to be a disaster for several European countries, including Britain. Should Labour lose the next polls, the party which comes to power may not be the Conservatives but the Reform Party, which has just rid itself of its founder, Nigel Farage.
In contrast to Sir Anthony (Blair), Sir Keir (Starmer) has distanced himself considerably from US policy, most visibly on Ukraine since Donald Trump became President on January 20. It is not just unlikely but impossible for Starmer and other European leaders to be able to convince Trump to accept the proposed European peace plan for Ukraine which has the added disadvantage of not being acceptable to Russia.
As for Trump, given the attention that his security choices wish to change from the European focus of Biden to a focus on Asia and the security of the Indo-Pacific, Zelenskyy and his backers have become the collateral damage. In walking away from the policy of Blair, the UK PM has been following the example set by outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who reversed Ostpolitik, the rapprochement with Russia that was the centrepiece of his Social Democratic Party in favour of a line entirely opposed to Russia during the Russia-Ukraine war which began in 2022.
The SPD lost a considerable percentage of votes in the polls which followed, and it is likely that Scholz will shortly be replaced by a broad-based coalition headed by CDU leader Friedrich Merz. It remains to be seen whether Merz will continue with the policy on Ukraine of his predecessor or shift to a stand more in alignment with Trump. Given the economic effects of the Ukraine war on the German economy
In the dust of the Ukraine war, Prime Minister Starmer has continued the policy favoured by Labour leaders Jeremy Corbyn, of cosying up to Pakistan at the expense of India. The lack of any but a token response to the attack by the K-Group (which styles itself the Khalistan movement) on the convoy of External Affairs Minister Jaishankar in London is an illustration of such a policy of wilful inaction by the UK government despite continuing provocations by the K-Group against Indian diplomats.
There is an escalating possibility of such supposedly “peaceful protests” turning violent in the absence of any police action against its perpetrators. The London Metropolitan Police have been infiltrated by K-Group adherents and their Pakistani supporters, at a rapid pace coincidentally since Sadiq Khan became Mayor of London in 2016.
Unfortunately for the UK and concerning for security agencies in India, a significant chunk of the funding for the operations of the K-Group against India is sourced to the narcotics trade. Not all of the money is locally generated. A large volume of such funds gets sent to the UK from offshore channels that have their origins in the South Asian drugs trade centred in Pakistan.
Among the most effective ways to counter disinformation is to disseminate information. Dossiers on members of the K-Group not just in the UK but also in Australia, Canada and the US need to be placed online, so that those involved in acts of terror get exposed. As a consequence, public pressure will grow from within their countries of domicile to take action against the K-Group.
The problem of lack of action against separatist groups promoting acts of violence against the largest democracy in the world needs to be brought to the attention of citizens of the countries where they are domiciled. At the same time, where the UK is concerned, the issue needs to be flagged so as to become a Commonwealth priority.
The recent physical attack on the convoy of External Affairs Minister Jaishankar in London needs to serve as the trigger for India to fast track efforts at public exposure of the role of the K-Group and its backers outside our borders in terror operations against India. Information war is among the ways of combatting terrorist activities that are certain to be repeated, the next time around possibly with much more tragic consequences for the individuals who are the targets of attacks by the K-Group.