Politics
Britain’s asylum racket is news to no one
The BBC has done the country a genuine service – no laughing at the back. On the front page of the BBC News website today is an investigation into immigration lawyers, who were found to be coaching fraudulent asylum claims, fabricating backstories, inventing persecution, selling identities wholesale to anyone who can pay. This is important journalism, and the team responsible deserves credit for it. Real, old-fashioned, get-your-hands-dirty investigative reporting, of the kind that used to be the BBC’s reason for existing. Congratulations, sincerely, to everyone involved.
Now, can we have a moment of honesty about what this ‘revelation’ actually reveals? Nothing. Nothing whatsoever that anyone paying attention did not already know. This has been going on for decades. Decades during which successive home secretaries of both parties stood at despatch boxes and talked about the integrity of the system, the rigour of the process, the robust safeguards in place, while the asylum industry quietly got on with its work, billing by the hour, gaming by the year, and laughing all the way to the legal aid pot.
The Daily Mail did an undercover investigation in 2023 that was near-identical in its findings. Reporters posing as economic migrants were offered elaborate fabricated backstories – featuring sexual torture, political persecution, support for Khalistani independence – for between £4,000 and £10,000 a time, complete with coached testimony and forged supporting evidence. The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) intervened in three firms within days of publication. Three. Out of how many? The warning notice the SRA issued afterwards conceded that wrongdoing might be ‘more widespread than simply a handful of firms’. Might be. A remarkable understatement for a system operating at industrial scale.
In 2017, the BBC’s own File on Four caught an immigration solicitor on tape advising an undercover journalist how to fabricate a second job, sourcing a bent accountant to certify the fiction. That solicitor fought his way through 17 interlocutory applications, two failed judicial reviews, and an application to the Court of Appeal before being struck off. The system rewarded his defiance with years of delay. As they say, this isn’t a bug. That is the feature.
And then there are the cases that go beyond paperwork fraud into something far more consequential. Abdul Ezedi – remember him? The Afghan national who doused a mother and her two daughters with corrosive chemicals on a south London street in January 2024, then fled through the night, was last seen leaning over Chelsea Bridge, and was subsequently found dead in the Thames. He had arrived illegally in 2016. His first two asylum applications were refused. He was convicted of sexual assault and indecent exposure in 2018 and placed on the sex-offenders register. Then he claimed he had converted to Christianity. A church minister vouched for him. A tribunal judge was persuaded. He was granted asylum in 2020, despite the Home Office’s own assessment that he was ‘using religion for his own ends’, an assessment the judge chose to override.
Then there’s Emad Al Swealmeen, the Islamist who detonated a homemade device outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital on Remembrance Sunday 2021. He had arrived from Iraq in 2014, claimed asylum, was refused, lost his appeals, and then converted to Christianity at Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral five-week Alpha course – complete with a baptism, confirmation and clergy support. Asylum granted. A pastor in south Wales later admitted he had baptised up to 500 asylum seekers in those years, with more than half vanishing after the ceremony, never again setting foot in any church. A curate at Liverpool Cathedral, himself a former refugee, told a reporter plainly: ‘There are many people abusing the system. I’m not ashamed of saying that.’ He was not ashamed. Neither, it seems, were any of the institutions through whose hands these cases passed without consequence.
The Home Office, to its credit in the Ezedi case, had seen through the fraud. The immigration tribunal overruled it. This is a pattern that border officials and even judges have been noting for years. The then independent border watchdog wrote in 2017 that there was ‘considerable evidence’ of last-minute asylum claims designed purely to frustrate deportation. By 2019, the former immigration enforcement chief David Wood was describing a system ‘rife with abuse’ processing thousands of fraudulent applications annually. Nobody resigned. Nobody was charged. The machinery ground on. And now the BBC has found it all over again.
So let us be precise about what needs to happen, because warm words and £15,000 fines for rogue advisers, the government’s response in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act (2025), are not remotely adequate to the scale of what has been operating, openly, for 20 years.
Every individual found to have coached fraudulent asylum claims must be struck off, charged with fraud and conspiracy, and have their assets seized to repay the damage inflicted on the public purse and on the genuine refugees whose cases are crowded out and cheapened by this corruption. This is not a matter for regulatory proceedings conducted at the speed of cold treacle. It is fraud. It must be treated as such.
Every individual found to have obtained asylum status through fabricated claims should be deported. Without the interminable procession of appeals that the legal aid budget currently subsidises at public expense. They are here fraudulently. Fraud voids the claim. This principle is not complicated, and the Human Rights Act must not continue to function as a permanent veto on removing people who lied their way into the country. We must repeal it and leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
Every charity that has received public money while facilitating, enabling or turning a blind eye to this fraud should have its charitable status stripped and be required to repay every penny of taxpayer funding it received in connection with that work. The charitable sector has too long served as a laundering mechanism, not for money but for moral credibility, allowing organisations engaged in the systematic gaming of the asylum system to present themselves as humanitarian bodies beyond scrutiny or accountability.
There must be a full root-and-branch investigation across the entire immigration-law sector. Not a review. Not a working group. Not a consultation with stakeholders. An investigation, led by people with the powers and the will to follow the evidence wherever it goes – across every firm, every adviser and every associated charity that has been touching this system for the past two decades at least.
The Home Office, under Labour and the Conservatives alike, has been asleep at the wheel for so long that the wheel has rusted solid. Ministers have from time to time stamped their feet, spoken darkly about ‘crooked lawyers’ and ‘industrial-scale abuse’, and then left every mechanism of accountability untouched. The machinery grinds on. The boats keep coming. The briefs keep filing. The legal aid clock keeps ticking. The public keeps paying.
Billy Kember and the other BBC journalists behind this investigation have done their job. Now it is time, long past time, for the state to do its.
Gawain Towler is a commentator and an elected board member of Reform UK. This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on Gawain’s Fainting in Coils Substack.
In the runup to the local elections, we’ve been reporting on the horrorshow that is Reform UK’s campaign. Most of our articles have focused on candidate controversies, and these stories have somehow gotten worse and worse by the day.
For the latest example of this, we present Aaron Lee Taylor:
Taylor has campaigned from Reform’s head office and twice met Nigel Farage, has frequently shared material online that promotes Nazi Germany.https://t.co/om5KugSPN9 — HOPE not hate (@hopenothate) April 14, 2026
NEW: ‘Hitler was right’, says one of Reform’s top activists, Aaron Lee Taylor
That’s Adolf Hitler, by the way.
The worst Hitler.
The worst person full stop, arguably.
Come and join the Reform UK Party
As Hope not Hate have reported:
Aaron Lee Taylor, who volunteered in Reform’s head office and twice met Nigel Farage has frequently shared material online that promotes Nazi Germany.
Here’s an example of the sort of thing he was posting:
This is something Taylor tweeted on 1 November 2025:
If it’s black send it back
If it’s brown shoot it down
If it’s white it’s perfectly alright (to stay in the UK)
These posts were from late last year. Earlier this year, he began volunteering at Reform’s HQ and taking pics with the top brass
Hope not Hate added:
His most recent post in support of Reform was on April 3rd, when he shared an Easter message from the party. We understand that he is now no longer a member of the party. What remains unclear is why Reform appealed to Taylor, an unabashed fan of Hitler.
Yes, very unclear.
We probably shouldn’t be laughing about the UK’s leading political party being up to its elbows in Nazis, but there are two things that could be described as darkly amusing:
- Reform’s laughable vetting process (which they assure us exists).
- The fact that Aaron Lee Taylor is a completely ridiculous figure.
The following image shows Nigel Farage meeting Taylor at the activist’s tanning salon:
That’s right – ultra-racist Aaron Lee Taylor has his own tanning salon.
Saying that, we suppose he’s far from the only orange supremacist in the world:
Does anyone believe Trump‘s BS explanation for posting himself as Jesus Christ?
“Well it wasn’t depicted… It was me, I did post it. And I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross. There is a Red Cross worker there that we support and only the FAKE NEWS could… pic.twitter.com/TwDTvSWnwe — Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) April 13, 2026
Vetting away with it
As Hope not Hate reported, Zia Yusuf said in March that Reform have “the best vetting in the country”. Here’s a picture of Yusuf with Aaron Lee Taylor (tweet taken from Taylor’s Twitter feed):
We’re well aware that Reform’s vetting is non-existent, because we’ve reported the following:
- Reform candidate wants to ‘tear down’ the NHS.
- Reform candidate exposed as a horny nincompoop.
- Another Reform candidate has praised Enoch Powell.
- Reform UK accused of ‘nil vetting’ as another racist candidate exposed.
- Video emerges of Reform’s ‘Nazi salute’ candidate drink driving.
To be fair, ‘non-existent’ is the charitable reading of this nonsense ‘vetting’ process.
The less charitable takeaway would be that this bunch of racists are purposefully enlisting the absolute worst of the worst.
Featured image via Hope not Hate
By Willem Moore
Recently, the Artemis II crew took a trip to the moon and back. The astronauts involved – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, and Christina Koch – were the first to reach the satellite in over 50 years, and spent 10 whole days in space.
A visit to the moon in the age of social media was a beautiful thing. Some people filmed the rocket’s launch from the window of their commercial flight. We got new, beautiful images of the Earth from space.
But while some were touched by the drive, ingenuity, and ambition of the mission, I was left with a more prosaic question: what happens when astronauts need the loo?
How do astronauts poop in space?
Taking a trip to the toilet in a low-gravity environment is no easy feat.
Previous missions, like Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, had no toilets. Astronauts used to tape plastic bags to their buttocks to capture the waste. Then, after a bowel movement, astronauts would seal the bag and knead in a chemical designed to kill bacteria.
This was, it’s safe to say, less than optimal. In the Apollo 10 mission, for instance, one astronaut is recorded as saying, “Give me a napkin quick, there’s a turd floating through the air”.
But the Artemis II rocket, Artemis Orion, was an exception: it had a specially-designed loo as part of its Universal Waste Management System.
This took the form of a cubicle built under the floor of the capsule, though in a video, astronaut Christina Koch explained: “Once you’re in there… you have no idea whether you’re on the floor or which way your head is facing or anything. You could be floor, ceiling, wall, doesn’t matter.”
For that reason, she explained, you need to use the handholds placed in the walls on the sides of the loo. Sometimes, tethers are used too.
The heavily-insulated walls are designed to muffle the incredibly loud sounds of its plumbing, she continued, which uses air flow to divert urine away via a hose and, the BBC reported, has a “special seat with strong suction which pulls [solid matter] into a container, which is sealed”.
Artemis II’s toilet temporarily broke in space
At one point during its flight, NASA said Artemis Orion II’s loo faced issues.
It was no longer able to dump its waste into space, and the astronauts had to rely on a secondary system of plastic containers too.
“I’m proud to call myself the space plumber, I like to say that it is probably the most important piece of equipment on board,” astronaut Christina Koch said at the time.
Donald Trump has threatened to rip up the US-UK trade deal as he launched yet another attack on Keir Starmer.
The US president said the agreement “can always be changed” as relations between the two countries remain in the deep freeze.
Trump has made a series of jibes at the prime minister after Starmer initially refused to let US jets use RAF bases to bomb Iran.
He was again repeated them in an interview with Sky News, as he also condemned the PM’s policies on North Sea oil and immigration.
The president said: “I think I like Starmer, but I think that he’s made a tragic mistake in closing the North Sea oil. You see your energy prices are the highest in the world and I think he’s made a tragic mistake on immigration.
“I love your country and I would love to see it succeed, but if you have bad immigration policies and bad energy policies you have the worst of both. You can’t succeed, it’s not possible.”
He added: “A lot of people ask me what I think of [Starmer’s policies] and I think they’re insane … your country is being invaded.”
Asked who the UK is being invaded by, Trump said: “By illegal immigrants from all over the world, including those from prisons, drug dealers, people from mental institutions. Your country is being invaded.”
Last May, Trump said America and Britain had agreed a “full and comprehensive” trade deal that would “cement the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom for many years to come”.
But the president told Sky News: “We gave them a good trade deal, better than I had to, which can always be changed. We gave them a trade deal that was very good because they’re having a lot of problems.”
His comments come as the UK government tries to agree closer economic ties with the European Union.
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Iran’s national football team plans to participate in the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the US despite ongoing military and political tensions.
The national team coach, Amir Ghalenoei, told the Iranian news agency, IRNA:
There is currently no reason preventing us from participating. God willing, we will participate.
He added that the Iranian Football Federation is actively continuing preparations, including playing friendly matches in preparation for the tournament.
In the same context, Iran sports minister, Ahmad Doniamali, expressed optimism about the possibility of participation, provided the ceasefire between the warring parties holds.
He said:
The more normal the situation becomes, the more likely participation is.
Doniamali added, in statements carried by IRNA on Monday, that “the more normal the situation becomes, the more likely participation is”, indicating that the decision is linked to political and security stability.
Iran prioritises player and coaching staff safety
In the same context, the national team coach stressed the need to ensure the safety of the players and coaching staff should the tournament be held in the US, given the current circumstances.
These developments coincide with direct negotiations held in Islamabad between Iran and the US at the end of last week, which failed to produce any tangible results.
The final decision regarding participation is expected to be referred to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
US president, Donald Trump, had expressed doubts about Iran’s participation in the World Cup, while reports indicated that FIFA rejected an Iranian proposal to move the team’s matches to Mexico.
Iran’s national team is scheduled to play its group stage matches against Belgium, New Zealand and Egypt in Seattle and Los Angeles.
Featured image via the Gulf Observer
By Alaa Shamali
Democrats running for the Senate posted some massive fundraising hauls in the first quarter.
The most striking number so far came from Texas. James Talarico brought in an eye-popping $27 million over the past three months, his campaign announced Wednesday morning ahead of today’s Federal Election Commission deadline, including $10 million since he won his March 3 primary.
Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff raised more than $14 million in the first quarter, according to his campaign. In North Carolina, former Gov. Roy Cooper raised $13.8 million. In Alaska, former Rep. Mary Peltola brought in $8.9 million, while former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown raised $12.5 million in his comeback bid.
The hauls, several of which set records in their respective states, underscore how Democrats are feeling increasingly bullish about their ability to flip the Senate. While Democrats still face an uphill climb due to the red lean of many states on the Senate map, President Donald Trump’s tanking approval ratings and the unpopularity of the ongoing war in Iran has the party feeling optimistic ahead of the midterms.
Democrats facing competitive primaries did not report as strong numbers, as donors split among several candidates. In Michigan, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow brought in $3 million, slightly ahead of Abdul El-Sayed’s $2.2 million. Rep. Haley Stevens, the third candidate in the race, has not yet revealed her fundraising numbers ahead of the FEC deadline on Wednesday. Iowa’s two Democratic candidates, state Rep. Josh Turek and state Sen. Zach Wahls, each raised $1.1 million in the past quarter.
On 14 April, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) announced that it had submitted its latest attempt at a ‘single-sex spaces’ code of practice to parliament. The news comes a year after the Supreme Court ruled that ‘woman’ is defined by sex-assigned-at-birth under the Equality Act.
Women and equalities minister Bridget Phillipson subsequently announced that she will release the new code in May. Ostensibly, and quite conveniently, the latest delay is intended
The transphobic ‘rights watchdog’ was forced to redraft its previous guidance, which called to ban trans people from both spaces aligned with their gender and, sometimes, their sex.
Given its previous abortive attempts, the EHRC’s latest code looks likely to be another anti-trans shitshow.
EHRC: ‘a narrow set of comments’
On 14 April, EHRC chair Mary-Ann Stephenson announced that:
Progress is being made towards accurate and up-to-date guidance on the Equality Act 2010 being available to service providers, associations and those exercising public functions.
The UK government recently provided us with a narrow set of comments on the draft Code of Practice we submitted in September. Having considered this feedback alongside consultation responses and further legal analysis, we have made adjustments where they help the Code provide legally accurate, practical guidance that is useful to duty bearers.
That “narrow set of comments” presumably related to the ridiculous suggestion that service providers should guess at people’s trans status based on appearance and behavior. This was unworkable for a host of reasons, not least because there’s no legal way to establish whether or not an individual is trans.
Following the EHRC’s announcement, women and equalities minister Bridget Phillipson said:
This government has always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex. The Supreme Court’s ruling last year brought clarity for women and service providers such as hospitals and refuges, and made clear that protections for trans people remain in the Equality Act.
That “based on biological sex” bit is a bare-faced lie. In fact, the Labour Manifesto previously pledged to make it easier to legally change one’s sex. The party quietly abandoned this promise because of pressure from the far right.
‘Getting it right’
Philipson continued:
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is the independent equality regulator and ensures compliance with the Equality Act 2010. Their Code of Practice on Services, Public Functions and Associations covers all nine protected characteristics and the steps service providers should take to comply with the law. We share the EHRC’s commitment to ensuring duty bearers have accurate and up-to-date guidance on the Equality Act 2010 including in the light of the recent Court rulings.
Those “recent court rulings” include a decision that it is still discriminatory to ban trans people from single-sex facilities aligned with their gender. The fact that the EHRC got this so badly wrong is also proof that Philipson’s claim that the original anti-trans ruling brought “clarity” is another lie.
The women’s minister concluded by adding that:
The government received the updated draft on 13 April. The Code will apply across Great Britain and as we are currently in the pre-election period for the devolved administrations, we are unable to make further announcements on this matter at this time. However, we are taking urgent action to meet our intention of laying the Code in May and as soon as practicable after the election period, for Parliamentary scrutiny.
We are getting it right, showing leadership by implementing the clarity the Supreme Court ruling delivers.
Before an election, ministers observe a ‘period of sensitivity‘. For the Scottish election, this began on 26 March. During this time, MPs should “carefully consider” any primary legislation relating to the devolved government. Further than this:
For Scotland and Wales it is not possible for the respective executives to seek their legislature’s consent for provisions in UK Government Bills that require Legislative Consent Motions during the election period as the legislatures will either be in recess or dissolved.
This is significant because the new code will have to be laid before parliament for 40 days before it becomes law. However, both MPs and Lords can prevent this by passing a motion to reject it.
Laughable claims of ‘clarity’
Beyond the stipulations of the period of sensitivity, the delay is highly convenient in a purely political sense. Namely, whatever Philipson actually comes out with, it’s likely to see her torn to shreds.
The deeply bigoted anti-trans pressure groups will be outraged that they’re not seeing the full bathroom ban they felt was coming. Meanwhile, queer and trans rights groups have been vocal about the fact that Philipson cannot possibly ‘get it right’, as she put it.
Alex Parmar-Yee, of the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, put it plainly:
The only workable solution is to protect the norm of trans-inclusive provision across the country, in line with international human rights standards and Labour’s own promises to the trans community.
Likewise, trans advocacy and education group TransActual stated that:
Bridget Phillipson’s claim that the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of sex in the Equality Act delivered ‘clarity’ is laughable. The ruling a year ago led to mass confusion, inspired disjointed and discriminatory policies, and created a workers rights crisis for trans people by causing trans people to be outed at work, with some prevented from doing their job at all. The ruling and the draft Code of Practice both inspired institutional and vigilante harassment of cis and trans people based on their perceived gender.
Jess O’Thomson, trans rights lead at the Good Law Project, said:
The EHRC has been gaslighting us for a year, insisting publicly and repeatedly that their legal analysis was unimpeachable. Now it’s clear that they got the law wrong, and they’ve been told to fix the guidance they tried to force through last year. It shouldn’t have taken this long for the EHRC to do its job.
For now, trans communities are faced with yet another long wait. The Commons will return after the State Opening of Parliament on 13 May. It will then break for recess on 21 May.
We don’t know what Philipson and the EHRC’s latest attempt will bring. Until the code is finally published, our place in society remains balanced on a knife edge.
Featured image via the Canary
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If you’re remotely interested in lip tints, listen up – because I’d bet my bottom dollar that I’ve found your new favourite.
K-beauty brand Laneige launched its Juice Pop Box Lip Tints in the UK in March, to a decent amount of fanfare online.
Well, I’m here to tell you that the hype is very much warranted.
I tried the shade Mocha Remix, a semi-sheer plummy brown. While at first it goes on quite thinly, looking a bit like a wine-stain (only more chic), if you layer it up, it soon builds to a much deeper colour.
This is ideal for me, since it means I can wear it differently depending on my mood.
Its staying power is seriously impressive – you can couple a few layers of it, eat a good meal, and forget about it for hours before you notice your lip colour hasn’t budged.
Unlike lots of other lip products I’ve tried in my time, you can apply it on the go without looking with total ease.
Aidan trying the Laniege tip tint
And what’s more, it feels super nourishing on the lips, thanks to the ‘Water-Oil Remix Technology’, polypeptide, and ceramides boosting the tint’s moisturising and firming formula.
My only minor critique is that, after spending most of the day wearing it, the colour tends to sink into the natural creases in my lips, and I like to add a quick layer of some clear lip balm to even things out again.
But all in all, between the lovely shade, the tint’s versatility, and how very easy it is to use, it’s an ideal option for everyday wear.
At £20, it’s not the most budget-friendly buy in the entire world, but it’s very far from the most expensive too.
Further to that, in my humble opinion, it’s worth every penny.
Unison’s general secretary called out the “broken” NHS funding review body and backed striking workers as part of a barnstorming welcome speech on the opening day of its annual health conference.
Speaking at the 2026 National Health Care Service Group Conference on Monday, Andrea Egan issued a call for international solidarity with racialised, LGBTQ+ and disabled colleagues, migrant workers and Palestinians under siege in Gaza.
Beyond this, she also warned the Labour government that “futile attempts to imitate the far-right must end”.
“There will be no out-Reforming of Reform,” Egan added.
Unison boss to NHS: ‘The whole country depends on you’
Beginning her welcome, Egan distinguished herself from some of her (*cough* more right-wing) predecessors as the “first lay member” to lead Unison. However, she quickly moved on to one of the event’s top priorities: NHS pay.
No politician denies that the whole country depends on you. That everyone turns to health workers in our moments of need. That the NHS turns on endless hours of self-sacrifice.
Yet your terms and conditions are still under attack.
Staff are our health service. To invest in you is to invest in the NHS. The notion we can restore our healthcare system without restoring your pay is nonsense. That’s why we have been unequivocal with the government: 3.3% is simply not good enough.
Egan blamed the “broken” Pay Review Body for the “insulting” 3.3% offer to NHS workers. Unison has already called out the offer as a real-terms pay cut that fails to keep up with the cost of living.
The general secretary added:
A united message to the government from Unison’s health conference should be: start treating NHS staff with the respect they deserve. And that means restoring pay. It means investing in workforce expansion. And it means picking morale up off the floor.
Do I smell a dig at Labour’s actively anti-union, pro-privatisation excuse for a healthcare secretary? Why, I think I do!
Egan slams Labour’s lack of progression
On that note, Egan also got in a swipe at the “no-longer new” Labour Party more generally.
Notably, Labour expelled Egan from the party back in 2022 for sharing ‘Socialist Appeal’ posts. As such, her palpable disappointment is more than understandable.
With Labour in power we hoped for a break with the failed ideas of the past. We were promised ‘the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation’ for public services…Well, where is it?
There are still far too many private healthcare vultures swooping down on our services, profiteering, extracting value – not delivering for patients or the public. Allowing that to continue is a political choice. A deeply irrational one at that.
Unison’s research has shown that, over the next few years, over 20,000 NHS jobs are under threat across England. The antidote to this peril, according to Egan, is proper public funding:
Our NHS can only be rebuilt on the foundation stone of its socialist-first principles, not by harking back to the failed, corrupt schemes of the mid-2000s.
How many more crumbling buildings and patients in corridors do we need to see before politicians stop spreading myths about inefficiencies and start getting serious about investment?
And, in light of those socialist-first principles, she also praised the health workers who’ve recently staged strikes. Egan acknowledged that industrial action isn’t taken “easily or lightly” when workers are “deeply committed” to their patients.
Anyone seeing another jab at Streeting or is it just me?
‘Stop the attacks on migrant workers’
Egan then pivoted to another conference priority: the rights of migrant workers. She urged members to get involved in the union’s fair visa campaign day of action on 24 April, and added:
I have taken our Unison message to Parliament, and directly to the Prime Minister in 10 Downing Street: stop the attacks on migrant workers. Now.
Our pressure, which began with migrant members organising a massive lobby of Parliament themselves late last year, is working. More and more MPs are realising what catastrophic damage the Home Office proposals would do to our public services and are speaking out against them.
As part and parcel of standing up for migrant workers, Unison is actively opposing Reform UK, such as through the Responding to Reform network.
Egan said:
Reform want to take away our rights, turn back the clock on equality, and parcel up our public services for their old pals in the square mile. We in Unison will not let it happen.
And, quite rightly, that includes the Farage-alike clowns in Labour:
We are also making clear to this Labour government that futile attempts to imitate the far-right must end. There will be no out-Reforming of Reform.
We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
‘I came to transform it’
Egan reiterated Unison’s opposition to the US-Israeli war on Iran. Thus far, the illegal war has targeted at least 23 healthcare facilities in a matter of weeks.
Then she gave a shout out to the campaign of solidarity with Ukrainian healthcare workers, before moving to Palestine.
I want to acknowledge the Palestinian healthcare workers, almost two thousand of whom have been killed in Israel’s genocide. Medical Aid for Palestinians estimated last year that three healthcare workers were being murdered by Israel in Gaza every single day.
Finally, Egan ended with a note of solidarity and hope for change.
I did not come into this role to maintain the status quo; I came to transform it. I came into this role on a vote to be your voice. But comrades, I cannot do this alone. So today I ask you one question: are you ready to be part of the change and to be part of this journey?
The union is me, the union is you, the union is us. Together we can build a union that truly reflects the strength, resilience and leadership of our movement, a union that fights hard for justice and a union that wins.
I know we at the Canary have a (sometimes well-deserved) reputation as jaded cynics, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t sound like we might have a principled socialist at the head of the UK’s largest union again.
Featured image via Unison
On 15 April, the BBC published an investigation into a “shadow industry of law firms and advisers… charging thousands of pounds to help migrants pretend to be gay in order to stay in the UK”. As ever, the focus of the investigation misses the point. Namely, that hostile immigration policies force people to take increasingly desperate measures.
Legal advisers help migrants pose as gay to get asylum, undercover BBC investigation finds https://t.co/33ujvSDzRk
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) April 15, 2026
BBC isn’t asking the right questions
Demonstrating that the ‘gay cover’ is being used because people are out of options, one of the advisers told the BBC investigator:
Listen to me. There is nobody who is real. There is only one way out in order to live here now and that is the very method everyone is adopting.
The adviser in question charged £2,500 for their services, so they’re clearly profiting from the situation. Whenever you clamp down on safe and legal options, however, you create avenues for this sort of activity.
A point of comparison is with the smuggling networks who help refugees and migrants reach the UK. As the Green Party wrote in a policy paper on the matter:
If safe routes existed, people would take them. Instead, we have taken away their ability to arrive within permissible routes and thus force them to take more and more dangerous routes. Not only are we causing these risks and ensuring the growth of smuggling networks
The BBC could ask ‘why are we making this country increasingly hostile towards people who want to come here and contribute?‘
Instead, the British media has internalised the idea that the environment must become more and more hostile, and that when this inevitably leads to workarounds, we must all pretend to be shocked.
Anyway, it’s always good to remember:
fixing our asylum system to one that works better for everybody is perfectly possible — Zoe Gardner (@ZoeJardiniere) April 14, 2026
https://t.co/C2zJXZY9ay
The UK’s deporter-in-chief, meanwhile, used the story as an excuse to talk tough:
Anyone abusing protections for people fleeing persecution over gender or sexual orientation is beyond contempt.
Let me be clear: try to defraud the British people to enter or remain in the UK and your asylum claim will be refused, your support cut off, and you will find yourself…
— Shabana Mahmood MP (@ShabanaMahmood) April 15, 2026
When you purposefully build a cruel system, you can’t be surprised when people do what they can to protect themselves.
Narratives
The BBC investigation further adds to the narrative that refugees are duplicitous. As the investigation shows, however, these people are being led into making decisions based on the idea that it’s the only option they have.
If you want people to behave honestly, you need an honest and transparent system. Instead, we have one which forces people to jump through hoops – not because there’s merit to doing so, but because Labour and the Tories decided it would hold Nigel Farage at bay.
This reporting will also place further suspicion on LGBTQ+ asylum seekers. Speaking on this, the Peter Tatchell Foundation said:
The Home Office must not allow fraudulent claims to weaken its resolve to give asylum to LGBTs who have suffered, or are at risk of, arrest, imprisonment, torture and the failure of police in their home countries to protect them from mob violence and attempted murder.
Safeguarding the integrity of the asylum system is essential to maintaining public trust and, most importantly, to ensuring that real victims of homophobic persecution are not overlooked or refused a safe haven
Reactivity
Under Keir Starmer, Labour’s immigration policy has been reactive. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been reactive to the needs of refugees or to the prosperity of the country; it’s been reactive to the politics of Reform UK.
Dancing to Farage’s tune has prove to be disastrous for Labour’s polling. Hopefully they wise up to that reality soon, and they don’t simply double down on creating a hostile environment that serves as a breeding ground for problems.
Featured image via BBC
By Willem Moore
Politics
The House | “Too many stunning pieces to describe”: Baroness Young reviews ‘Nigerian Modernism’
1955: ‘The Durbar of Eid-ul-Fitr, Kano, Nigeria’ by Ben Enwonwu. (c) Ben Enwonwu Foundation. Private Collection
4 min read
Filled with exquisite works, this Tate Modern exhibition offers refreshingly well-rounded representations of African women and a vital lesson in Nigerian cultural expression
So many of these artworks are outstanding that I spent longer than expected wandering though the gallery. Ben Enwonwu’s works made an immediate impact on me, as I’d not seen much of his work in real life before. The breadth of Enwonwu’s artistry is staggering: beautiful portraits in oils; delicate sculptures in bronze and wood; surprising commissions (to me, at any rate) include a sculpture of Queen Elizabeth in the 1950s and seven linked wooden sculptures commissioned by the Daily Mirror in 1960.
This exhibition contains too many stunning pieces to describe here: artists spanning eras from pre- to post-independence from colonial rule are represented, and I found this aspect immensely enjoyable. Carved sculptures using wood and metal, paintings, photography, satirical cartoons, textile patterns and pottery are all given space to breathe. Ample contextual notes give a sense of the sources of inspiration – and key Nigerian and African diaspora artists and thinkers are linked to other African diaspora intellectual and political movements, such as Négritude. Online notes, accessed via a QR code, further augment the exhibition’s description of the artwork.
Engagement with European modern artistic practice is evidenced in several artists’ work and, unsurprisingly, that cultural dialogue is woven across the Black Atlantic to feed into and derive inspiration from the African-American Harlem Renaissance and Blues Aesthetic, Pan Africanism and Négritude.
Image: (c) Obiora Udechukwu. Hood Museum of Art
Most closely associated with the Senegalese politician and poet Léopold Senghor, Négritude speaks to Africa’s own response to the rapidly evolving modern, post-imperial world, incorporating traditional cultural forms denigrated during colonial rule. In addition to referencing Senghor, several of the artworks evoke contemporary cinematic developments in Afro-Futurism. Some of Enwonwu’s paintings could easily have been the inspirational source of the costumes and movement sequences in the Oscar-winning films Black Panther and Sinners.
African women have traditionally been the object of the male gaze in ways that differ from how European women have been viewed and represented: it’s only relatively recently that African women have been recognised as having agency and been represented as something more than the stereotypical, tourist-friendly, carved wooden ‘tribal woman’. Here, though, we see women as artists, skilled makers and crafts people, dedicated to both traditional ways of working and embracing the modern.
One example stood out for me: Ladi Kwali’s pots, so exquisitely formed and decorated – all by hand. There’s a photograph of her making a pot outdoors on a sunny day, during her tour of the USA, as students look on, enthralled.
There’s still a tendency to underestimate African art and artists – their skills and achievements, their intellectual and cultural connectedness. The lack of knowledge of the post-Second World War context of this period – and the rich Nigerian cultural expression that emerged before and during the course of it – is still not generally known.
This exhibition is an enticing glimpse of the relationship between art, culture and politics from a continent bursting with creative talent, historically and in the present day.
Baroness Young of Hornsey is a Crossbench peer
Nigerian Modernism
Curated by: Osei Bonsu and Bilal Akkouche
Venue :Tate Modern – until 10 May 2026
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