Barnsley Greens have told us that “a collapse in the Labour vote” is likely, and that some voters are choosing between the Green Party and Reform.

Reform using misdirection to try and win Barnsley

For 50 years, Labour has run the council, with one man leading it for 30 years. As a former mining area, it played a key role in fuelling the Industrial Revolution. But Margaret Thatcher decimated these working-class areas, setting off an elite offensive that has served the rich at ordinary people’s expense ever since.

Barnsley North MP Dan Jarvis, who has received the backing of dodgy right-wing group Labour Together, is a good example of how the Thatcher era sucked Labour into the elite offensive too. Labour today is fully aware that it’s losing power in Barnsley and similar areas, but it seems to be offering too little too late.

The Thatcherites at Reform UK, meanwhile, have been targeting Barnsley. But as Greens in Barnsley told us, some Reform campaign material has been focusing on racist leader Nigel Farage and divisive national issues rather than on the local concerns that people in Barnsley have.

Barnsley Greens treasurer Tom Heyes said:

Most of the things that they are offering to do aren’t within the scope of the council anyway.

Sophie Parkinson is standing as a candidate in the Darton West ward – where the Greens hope to do well. And she added:

Barnsley Council are never going to, you know, affect the border controls.

She also showed us a Reform leaflet and stressed that:

This has got none of the candidates on it. It’s coming from Nigel Farage.

Most potential Reform voters Heyes has spoken to, he said, seem to be doing so as a “protest vote” against Labour rather than having a firm reason for doing so.

Greens or Reform?

Heyes, meanwhile, explained that on the doorstep:

We’re getting quite a lot of people saying, ‘I don’t want to vote Labour – we want to get this Labour lot out’. Some people even say their vote is between Green or Reform, which I find surprising because of the polar difference between those policies and approaches, but they’re that concerned to change things. They feel like things need to be changed.

Neither the Greens nor Reform have councillors in Barnsley right now. But funding from super-wealthy individuals means Reform may soon change that. With this in mind, Heyes would ask voters:

Why do you think a crypto billionaire based in Thailand gives £9m to Nigel Farage? What’s he going to get in return for that? And if they give that much money, then who is the party working for? Are they working for them or for you?

The Greens, on the other hand, don’t have that billionaire backing. And they’re very much focusing on listening to local people. As Heyes insisted:

When we’re going around to people’s homes, we’re asking them what their concerns and issues are, and we’ve tried to base our campaign around the stuff that people have told us. Obviously, we have our agenda as the Green Party, and we will use those values when we get into power, but in a way that respects the needs and wishes of our local communities.

And he said one common issue for people is “road safety and traffic” because:

There have been a number of serious and fatal accidents in our area in the last few years.

That will be a priority for the Greens, he stressed.

Trevor Mayne is also running in Darton West, and is leading on the party’s road safety policy. Barnsley Greens said this will be:

prioritising stronger pedestrian safety, reducing critical accidents, supporting a new cycling route and promoting a 20-mph speed limit in selected residential areas.

Kabir Nepal, meanwhile, is the final candidate for this ward. And he told us Greens:

will continue to push the council for new equipment where it is needed, in order to ensure that Darton West’s public spaces and parks are usable for our children.

Labour’s impending collapse in Barnsley

Heyes asserted that:

There definitely will be a collapse in the Labour vote…

One of the biggest criticisms is about the amount of debt and the amount of debt interest that the Labour council is having to pay now, because of the money that they’ve borrowed…

He described how Barnsley Council has “spent a lot of money” in Barnsley’s town centre to make it look prettier, with a “new public square” and “some fancy illuminated sculptures”. But away from this focus on image, he said:

a lot of people are feeling that their peripheral areas in the town are not getting a fair crack at the whip.

Industrial decline had a deep impact on Barnsley. Almost a quarter of its areas are “highly deprived“. And it has high levels of people out of work, experiencing poor health, and waiting for social housing. In many ways, Westminster and Labour have left the town behind.

The sleaze and immorality of Keir Starmer‘s government, meanwhile, seems to have tipped things over the edge. As Heyes said:

You can tell from our own membership that a lot of people have left the Labour Party and come and joined the Green Party. That’s probably the biggest chunk of our new members, who have left Labour because Labour has gone so far to the right and has abandoned its historic mission.

Greens in Darton West and beyond are looking to present a hopeful, inclusive alternative to Labour that listens to local people’s concerns. But they will need as much support as they can get to compete with the vast resources of far-right Reform.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

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Donald Trump’s administration has hired 140 new immigration judges to replace the 100 he previously fired. However, many of them have “no relevant experience.”

The Justice Department sought to replace many of the judges hired under Joe Biden with a more “malleable workforce” that will “do what they want without question.”

In total, around 700 immigration judges are handling over three million cases across the US. They work for Trump’s Justice Department — not part of the judicial branch.

They are ultimately responsible for deciding whether undocumented migrants are granted asylum or face deportation.

According to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, the Justice Department pays the recruits between USD 159,951 and USD 207,500 per year. However, two-thirds list “no relevant legal immigration experience” in their biographies.

Only 24% of them have worked for ICE, the immigration courts or for the Department of Homeland Security.

Firing high-ranking officials

It has been reported that when Trump returned to the White House for his second term, many immigration judges quit or retired. This was in addition to more than 100 that the Justice Department fired.

Some of the first to be fired were the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s (EOIR’s) chief judge and three other high-ranking officials. Then, in Hartford, Connecticut, Chicago, San Francisco, New York and other cities, dozens of other judges were fired.

According to the Washington Post, the firings by Trump emerge at a time when the administration is implementing policies making it difficult for immigrants to succeed in court.

It reported that:

Under new orders from the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals, judges have been refusing to grant bond hearings and are dismissing cases at the government’s request so that defendants can be arrested. They are also being advised to grant asylum more sparingly. 

In the last financial year, asylum rejections more than doubled to 82,371. In February 2025, asylum cases granted by judges plummeted to less than 5%, compared to 48% in the same month in 2024 under Biden.

Sketchy characters

The Washington Post reported that Trump’s new hires include:

A divorce lawyer who has vowed to “fight exclusively for the rights of men.” A Minnesota attorney who championed Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Trump administration’s raids in Minneapolis. And a judge who was once lambasted by an appeals court for denying humanitarian protection to a Serbian man because he didn’t look “overtly gay.”

To make matters worse, one of the recruits is Melissa Isaak, a devout anti-feminist.

She alleged in a 2021 speech at an anti-feminist convention that accusations of domestic abuse by men against women and children are “one of the most abused allegations in family court.”

Obviously, domestic violence can come up in immigration court as victims often cite their experience as grounds for seeking asylum.

Isaak was also a defence attorney for three of the 6 January rioters at the US Capitol after Trump lost the election. She later withdrew from two of those cases, federal court records show.

She has also:

represented Alabama Republican Roy Moore in a defamation case after he denied sexual misconduct allegations that derailed his campaign for the Senate. In 2024, Isaak’s law firm posted on Facebook that an $83.3 million jury award to a writer who alleged Trump sexually assaulted her decades earlier was a “travesty of justice.”

Another recruit, Nathan M. Hansen, a Minnesota lawyer, shared a social media post about the “Haitian invasion of Ohio” and promoted far-right conspiracy theories. After Trump’s immigration raids triggered protests in Minneapolis, Hansen asked his social media:

Is there anything we can do to help ICE if we want to?

Muzaffar A. Chishti, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, told the Washington Post:

It sends a message that: Don’t trust these courts

That is not good for the immigrants, it’s not good for the rule of law, and it’s not good for the ultimate integrity and reputation of our court system.

Feature image via 60 Minutes/YouTube

By HG

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VoteClimate is a project that aims to inform voters about the climate policies of political parties and encourage votes for the most climate-friendly candidates. At the upcoming local elections, it’s predicting huge gains for the Greens and Liberal Democrats, winning in around 1,200 constituencies.

VoteClimate claims its research shows an historic opportunity to elect record numbers of climate-friendly representatives and administrations on 7 May. The Green Party is on the rise and Labour and the Tories are in the polling doldrums. Also, proportional representation can strengthen the climate vote in the Scottish and Welsh elections.

VoteClimate is forecasting huge gains for the Greens and Liberal Democrats, which it rates as the most pro-climate parties. It says tactical votes based on the VoteClimate website’s recommendations will lead to further pro-climate gains.

And this, the organisation believes, will send the strongest possible signal to the main parties that voters want urgent action on climate and nature.

VoteClimate crunches the numbers

The non-profit organisation has reviewed the parties’ climate policies and combined this with opinion polls to provide a pro-climate tactical voting recommendation in every individual election on 7 May.

Based on this analysis, VoteClimate is backing the Greens, the party with the strongest position on climate and nature, in 1,800 seats where they have the best chance of winning.

In a further 800 contests, VoteClimate recommends the Lib Dems, the next-best party for climate, in the seats where they have a better chance of winning than the Greens.

In the proportional representation elections in Scotland and Wales, where every vote counts, VoteClimate urges the largest possible vote for the respective Green parties.

Even more critically, in 240 ‘climate supermarginals’, the Greens or Lib Dems are forecast to win or lose by a majority of fewer than 50 votes. On Hounslow Council, there are nine such supermarginal elections where, in some cases, a handful of votes could make the difference. Similar opportunities exist nationwide, with six supermarginals on the Isle of Wight, five in Suffolk and five in Manchester.

VoteClimate director Ben Horton said:

The climate emergency is accelerating and it’s time our politicians acted like it. At VoteClimate, we offer voters the tools to take action by electing representatives who will make climate a top priority – and to tell the government that climate change is a major election issue for many voters.

We urge anyone who is concerned about climate and nature to use the VoteClimate.uk website to cast the strongest vote in the upcoming election – and to inform their friends and family too.

Voters can type in their postcode to VoteClimate’s local elections hub to see the strongest pro-climate choice for the May elections. And they can hit ‘Join now’ to receive pro-climate voting recommendations by email for future local, devolved and general elections.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

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Disgraced right-wing Labour saboteur Morgan McSweeney testified to MPs of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (FAC) today. Presumably by design, it was mostly like watching paint dry. McSweeney justified himself and MPs failed to really press Keir Starmer’s ‘shadow man’. An opportunity squandered.

But an apparently emboldened McSweeney went a bit too far.

McSweeney: nothing to see with Mandelson and Labour Together

To distance himself and his sabotage and spying outfit from the scandal-riddled Blairite peer and child-rapist fan, he claimed that Peter Mandelson had not liked McSweeney’s Labour Together “at all”. Mandelson was “not a fan” of McSweeney’s project to destroy the left of the party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn. That would be the same Mandelson who said he worked every day to undermine Corbyn.

Right.

But according to the unchallenged parliamentary record, as well as Mandelson’s own history, Mandelson was very much for Labour Together – and even helped McSweeney set it up:

Peter Mandelson had advised Morgan McSweeney on the establishment of that organisation, which had been responsible for breaking electoral law so that it could hide the sources of its funds from the public and from the Labour party. Labour Together then sought to intimidate and smear journalists who revealed that wrongdoing

This eagerness to distance himself and Labour Together from Mandelson isn’t new. The Canary covered it as a broad phenomenon a month ago, in March 2026. And as that coverage identified, Mandelson not only attended Labour Together events, but spoke at them. Yet Labour Together has been deleting the evidence:

Isn’t this strange… Labour Together deleted this post from X showing an LT event at 2023 Labour conference, addressed by Peter Mandelson, @jreynoldsMP and hosted by Josh Simons. This screengrab was taken two weeks ago, so only deleted since then. Would be a shame if it was… pic.twitter.com/PsgwzVF9eH

— The Fraud (@StarmertheFraud) March 25, 2026

Whyever would McSweeney and his sabotage crew caught spying on journalists and spreading totally false antisemitism smears want to distance itself from the Labour-right saboteur who couldn’t stop himself gushing about Jeffrey Epstein even after that monstrous Israeli spy was convicted for the first time of raping a child? What a conundrum – and what a pity (yet not at all surprising) that none of the MPs on the FAC thought to ask.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

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Defence minister Luke Pollard decided to patronise the British public on his visit to the UK’s colonial bases in Cyprus. Cyprus is part of a network of British bases being used as a node in the UK’s role in the attack on Iran.

Minister for the Arms Trade in Cyprus

The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry (pronounced: Minister for the Arms Trade) posted on X on 28 April during a visit to Cyprus:

Good to speak to our forces in the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus today.

The Iran war is not our war but I’m very proud of the way our UK forces have protected British bases, British citizens and British allies and partners.

Good to speak to our forces in the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus today.

The Iran war is not our war but I’m very proud of the way our UK forces have protected British bases, British citizens and British allies and partners pic.twitter.com/KnUbj3umvN

— Luke Pollard MP (@LukePollard) April 27, 2026

Pollard was echoing the official, ridiculous and widely debunked British position that the UK was only involved in ‘defensive action’.

Here is the truth of it…

Basing agreements with the US

US bombers are attacking Iran from British bases. Pollard’s claim even contradicted his boss at the Ministry of Defence (MOD), defence secretary John Healey. Healey said on 11 April:

Even in this current conflict, the basing permissions that we in the UK have agreed with the US have been invaluable to their military operations.

The key phrase here being “invaluable to their military operations”. The UK is at war with Iran, whether Luke Pollard likes it or not.

Ditto the rubbernecking public who’ve watched Iran-bound bombers leaving RAF Fairford. We corrected the Guardian’s whimsical reporting on that bleak phenomenon here.

RAF Mildenhall and Lakenheath – like Fairford, these are US bases pretending to be British – have also hosted American war machines hitting Iran.

Iran itself also rejects the UK claim it is carrying out ‘defensive’ actions. On 9 April, even the legacy press reported this:

Iran certainly doesn’t agree with the British government’s position that UK bases were only used by the US for defensive rather than offensive missions. Iran’s deputy foreign minister @SKhatibzadeh says some of the bombers which left from UK bases were on missions which led to… pic.twitter.com/paychYXf80

— Emma Murphy (@emmamurphyitv) April 9, 2026

You can read our analysis here. And here is the BBC saying the same:

UK agrees to let US use British bases to strike Iranian sites targeting Strait of Hormuz

Follow live: https://t.co/XUqp5AHwcs

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) March 20, 2026

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Moreover, a former RAF officer and a former senior British diplomat have stated that Iran would correctly view the UK as a belligerent in the US-Israel war against it.

The RAF officer told Declassified UK on 7 April:

Keir Starmer’s insistence that the UK is not involved in the war, and that US aircraft at RAF Fairford are only carrying out defensive missions, is becoming increasingly unsustainable.

You can listen to former UK ambassador to Iran Sir Richard Dalton’s analysis here:

But this is the cut-and-thrust of it.

The reality of the UK’s role in the unprovoked and illegal US/Israel attack on Iran doesn’t change based on what Luke-bloody-Pollard thinks. The obligation of an aggressor in these situations is to stop what they are doing. And if the Starmer government won’t do so, it ought to feel it at the polls at the very least.

Featured image via screengrab

By Joe Glenton

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Former Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls was all over the news on 27 April. This was because he responded to the accusation that he’s a Labour politician by having a meltdown live on air.

Balls argued he can’t be a ‘Labour politician’ because he hasn’t stood as an MP in over a decade. As Greens leader Zack Polanski highlighted, however, Balls was a key Labour figure for years, and he’s married to the current foreign secretary. In other words, he’s a Labour politician by stealth who’s swapped the benches of parliament for the swivel chairs of the newsroom.

Since Balls’s public embarrassment, a clip has reemerged of him talking about Peter Mandelson becoming our ambassador to the US. It’s a clip that demonstrates his thinking is fully aligned with that of the current Labour leadership:

I’m afraid this party needs to die.

Not least for the people it’s meant to look out for. https://t.co/IIslCItQ0e

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) April 27, 2026

Oh dear, Ed Balls

In the clip above, Ed Balls says:

Peter Mandelson is the kind of person who can use that sort of British allure, his past experience, his way with people.

When Balls said this, Mandelson’s “past experience” included being forced to resign in disgrace from government on two separate occasions. His “way with people” included being friends with Jeffrey Epstein – the 21st century’s most notorious paedophile.

Balls also said:

I would think Peter is – unusually – in these times – the kind of person you’d want to be your ambassador.

When journalists and politicians were saying this, what they meant was: ‘Mandelson and Trump were good pals with the same paedophile, so they should get along like a house on fire‘.

Balls also said:

And, you know, sources close to Peter have obviously been working hard to make sure he gets the job. Let’s hope he does.

The fact that sources close to Peter were “working hard to make sure he gets the job” has now become a national scandal, as we’ve reported. Today, that saw Starmer’s ex-chief of staff Morgan McSweeney doing his best to defend the indefensible:

WATCH: Morgan McSweeney makes the understatement of the century.

I made a "serious mistake" by recommending Peter Mandelson for the US Ambassador job. pic.twitter.com/2NSVprLthS

— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) April 28, 2026

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And there are still more connections to discuss too.

It’s a big club

In the clip at the top, Ed Balls is talking to podcast co-host George Osborne. Osborne was the actual chancellor when Balls was the shadow; he was also Starmer’s top pick for the ambassador position they eventually gave to Mandelson:

How on earth do you reconcile the PM constantly highlighting the immeasurable damage done to the country by austerity with that very same PM wanting to reward the man single-handedly responsible for it with a plum government job?

— Ben Kentish (@BenKentish) April 28, 2026

So Labour and the Tories are in bed together, and all of them are in bed with the media. Because let’s not forget; George Osborne also had a late-stage career in journalism. After being booted out of office, he became the editor of the London Evening Standard. He held this position despite being a sitting MP.

Unbelievable, right?

And yet this sort of thing is widely accepted in the British establishment.

Featured image via The Canary

By Willem Moore

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Christian Turner is the man who replaced the disgraced Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the US. He’s proven less controversial than his predecessor, but that may be about to change:

WATCH: In leaked comments, the UK’s ambassador to the US predicted Labour MPs will oust Keir Starmer as Prime Minister after the local elections

[@FT] pic.twitter.com/X0hTw4GNt8

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) April 28, 2026

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Turner is likely going to attract even stronger criticism too, because he also said:

I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States — and that is probably Israel.

While this is obviously the case, the idea that a UK ambassador to the US would admit this is wild.

Starmergeddon – once again, thanks to a UK ambassador

The recording of Turner was made in February. As reported by the FT, Turner was still settling into his role, and was talking to a group of students.

While we agree with most of what Turner is recorded as saying, it is – shall we say – unconventional that a senior diplomat would be so forthcoming with a group of young adults.

Speaking about Starmer, Turner said:

To get to a threshold where you remove a prime minister from the Labour Party, according to Labour Party rules… is really quite hard.

80 MPs have to sign a letter in public, which is like signing your death warrant. It’s much harder than for Tories. So I think that is still quite difficult.

And Keir personally is – as you know – he’s a stubborn guy. He’s never lost a fight he’s in. And so I think Keir saying “I’m quitting” is quite a high bar.

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This last point is a moment of disagreement for us, because we still remember Starmer’s many u-turns.

Turner continued:

So probably the moment I would look to is the May elections. If Labour does very badly in the May elections, I suspect the party will move to get over that threshold and remove him. It seems to be the conventional thinking.  If they do okay, he might carry on going.

We’re pretty confident they won’t do okay at this point. We’re pretty confident that they won’t do ‘badly’, either; they’re going to do much worse than that:

Projected net changes for local elections:

Ref +1,437
Grn +926
Lib +327
Con -627
Lab -1,738

Median estimate via @Moreincommon_, April '26 pic.twitter.com/OFxPMxmoUV

— Stats for Lefties (@LeftieStats) April 21, 2026

Turner also said:

For me – that’s just me as a citizen, speculating – because I have to serve with whomever is there.

So it’s a glowing recommendation from Keir’s man in Washington then.

And the controversial comments don’t stop there.

Special relationship

As reported by the FT:

During a question-and-answer session, Turner said he disliked the phrase “special relationship” to describe Anglo-American ties, complaining that it was “quite nostalgic, it’s quite backwards-looking, and it has a lot of baggage about it”.

He added: “I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States — and that is probably Israel.”

The comments were made in the weeks running up to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran that began the current conflict in the Middle East.

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We know that the government didn’t properly vet Mandelson; we’re beginning to suspect they didn’t vet Turner either.

He’s absolutely correct in what he’s said, but there’s no way Starmer would have hired this guy if he knew the man would be spitting truths like this in the lair of the Great Satan.

To be completely fair, Turner hasn’t given up on the ‘special’ rhetoric, telling the students:

There is a deep history and affinity between us. Particularly on defence and security, we are intertwined.

And also:

The relationship will carry on, if you want, being ‘special’, but I think it’s going to have to be different.

So not ‘special’ as in ‘good’ then.

Scandalopalypse

Turner dipped his toes in other hot waters too – this time the Epstein scandal. As reported by the FT:

Turner answered questions about the Epstein scandal and the contrast in how it had played out on either side of the Atlantic.

He said it appeared to him “extraordinary” that the scandal over the convicted sex offender had “brought down a senior member of the royal family [Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor], a British ambassador to Washington, potentially the prime minister, and yet here in the US, it really hasn’t touched anybody

Again, Turner is absolutely correct.

Again, it’s wild he’s the one saying it.

These comments are so shocking because the key US politician embroiled in the Epstein scandal is president Donald Trump. If Keir Starmer knew his ambassador to the US would be asking how Teflon Don wriggled out of it again, he would have deployed James Bond to retire the guy.

And as a reminder, this was in a question and answer session with students.

Students!

Just imagine the sort of things Turner is saying at functions when he’s got a couple of piss-weak American beers in him.

Private comments from the UK ambassador

In response to the leaked comments, a spokesperson from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said:

These were private, informal comments made to a group of UK sixth-form students visiting the US in early February. They are certainly not any reflection of the UK government’s position.

This is a problem then, isn’t it, because Turner’s job is to represent the government’s position in the US.

He had one job!

The FT approached Turner for comment too, but he didn’t get back to them. Given his previous comments, we can’t wait to see what he comes back with.

Featured image via The Canary

By Willem Moore

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Environment campaigners have thrown a spanner into the NatWest bank’s annual general meeting over its “climate backtracking”. The ShareAction group and others have demanded protest votes against bank chair Rick Haythornthwaite at the meeting in Edinburgh today, 28 April 2026.

Natwest AGM disrupted

Campaigners say that the board must be held accountable for the bank loosening restrictions on lending to fossil fuel companies and its decision to abandon decarbonisation targets. The call has been backed by some of the bank’s major investors, including the Anglican church, which says it will oppose board members’ reappointment.

The financial scale of support for the move is significant. A ShareAction letter to the AGM demanding a meeting with bank bosses has been signed by investors holding over a billion pounds in value. These include the church, the Greater Manchester Pension Fund and investment management companies. A separate letter signed by seventy climate experts demanding a reversal of the damaging decisions is also being presented.

NatWest has changed its rules to permit lending to oil and gas companies that hold most of its assets abroad and has abandoned its commitment to only lend to companies that are ‘credibly’ transitioning to non-fossil fuels and transparently reporting on their climate impact. The bank made this move despite noting in its own 2024 company report that the lack of transparency was a major factor affecting its own ability to make proper decisions. Its 2025 report also boasted of the bank’s “new Environmental & Social (E&S) Energy Supply Sectors Risk Acceptance Criteria”.

NatWest also dropped targets limiting lending involving harmful building materials.

In 2025, NatWest awarded its chief executive a 33% pay increase, to £6.6m a year. It has also removed caps on executive bonuses.

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By Skwawkbox

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