The BBC’s former Middle East correspondent has described how the broadcaster was a “prime mover” in the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam that helped topple Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. Tim Llewellyn was writing a review, for Electronic Intifada, of Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt’s new book Killing Corbynism: Zionism’s War on Socialism.

Llewellyn says that the BBC generated a “tidal wave of lies and misreporting” on Corbyn’s party and the left in general. He adds that this tidal wave was so large — and so unchallenged by so-called ‘mainstream’ journalists — that it is routinely parroted as fact. Often by those same hacks, despite being entirely made up. The same tactics are now being deployed against Zack Polanski and his Green party.

The scam was “a political, racist libel that made impossible proper debate about foreign affairs running up to two general elections”. And it was driven and funded by Israel and its lobbyists:

Israel and its British-based Fifth Column of propagandists and character assassins helped deliver the party leadership to his deputy, Starmer, now prime minister, an active Zionist and supporter of Israel before and since the start of its genocide against Gaza’s Palestinians after 7 October 2023. …

…The coffers of the pro-Israel lobby are filled by businesses and Zionist organizations here and in Israel.

Advertisement

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its Ministry of Strategic Affairs are at the heart of the successful deception campaign to merge criticism of Israel – or criticism of Zionism as a political movement – with traditional, racist anti-Semitism.

The book lists 60 of these Israeli front organizations, many of them posing as charities. Gordon-Nesbitt selects just nine charities from the Zionist alliance, the best known being the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Campaign Against Antisemitism and UK Lawyers for Israel.

BBC — Manufactured moral panic

Llewellyn recalls a couple of the most notorious moral panics Corbyn’s opponents came up with during his tenure — and dismisses them as “nonsense”:

“Muralgate” emerged in a blog in 2015, which reported that in 2012 Corbyn had objected publicly (on Facebook) to the destruction of a mural painted on a London wall by a leftist street artist. This showed six capitalists sitting at a table borne on the backs of faceless black and brown men. Two of the capitalists were Jewish, Lord Rothschild and Paul Warburg. The Israel machine went into overdrive.

Observer journalist Nick Cohen asked: “Is there a difference in [sic] supporting anti-Semites and being one?” Three years later the mural was resurrected by one of Corbyn’s most virulent parliamentary enemies, the MP Luciana Berger. Pro-Israel organizations called it “blatantly anti-Semitic.”

Advertisement

It was not. It was, plainly, a leftist commentary on the capitalist system. But “Lady” Berger (after losing her seat in the 2019 elections upon quitting the Labour Party as a pre-election attack on Corbyn) is now in the House of Lords and Corbyn is a backbench independent MP, expelled from Labour.

Another egregious case was “Wreathgate.”

Just before the general election of June 2017, the London Sunday Times (owned by Rupert Murdoch) and The Jewish Chronicle, London’s Zionist weekly, published stories saying that in 2014 Corbyn had attended a wreath-laying event in Tunis, former HQ of the Palestine Liberation Organization, for Palestinian terrorists involved in the 1972 Munich Olympic killings of Israeli athletes.

The story was nonsense.

Advertisement

The ceremony was a memorial event for an Israeli air strike on the PLO’s area, in October 1985, which killed as many as 70 Palestinians and 25 Tunisians. This was where and why Corbyn laid his wreath. Such facts never hindered this much-repeated story; and it took its place among the stores of ammunition plundered to assassinate Corbyn during the coming five years.

And he recalls just how extensively the “prime mover” rigged the sham “debate”. Not just in the appalling Panorama mockumentary “Is Labour Antisemitic”, but across the BBC’s output:

The BBC was a prime mover in all this.

I remember many occasions on which a BBC report or discussion would have the Zionist or pro-Zionist accusers repeating false charges on air against Corbyn, nearly all citing his or his party’s “anti-Semitism.” For the required “balance,” Labour apparatchiks, often senior right-wingers – the very people who were the dedicated enemies of Corbyn within Labour – would explain how they were trying to deal with anti-Semitism, admitting thereby that it existed in Labour.

The debate was rigged. Hardly ever did a pro-Corbyn Labour voice get an airing.

Advertisement

Llewellyn is not the only current or former BBC employee to admit that the corporation panders to, or actively collaborates with, Israel and its UK lobbyists. In 2025, over 100 BBC employees wrote publicly and mostly anonymously of the BBC’s terror of offending Israel. But it goes far further than fear-driven compliance. Many senior BBC figures, both in front of and behind the cameras, are ardent supporters of Israel — many of them not Jewish. These affiliations are not disclosed as they parrot Israeli talking points.

The influence of Israel’s supporters and lobbyists has only lessened because of the Gaza genocide. That mass slaughter and Israel’s lies to justify it have increased the public’s awareness of what a racist, murderous ideology Zionism is. But even now, the British government refuses even to allow it to be discussed officially. In its recent ‘report’ on supposed ‘foreign interference’ in UK politics, Israel — the biggest interferer — is not mentioned once.

Featured image via Leon Neal/Getty Images

By Skwawkbox

Source link

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has long been ruffling the feathers of the super-rich — both before and after winning the mayoral seat.

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of Amazon, appears visibly riled as Mamdani pushes for the richest in society to finally pay their fair share.

Coincidentally, NY authorities recently forced Bezos to pay over $9 million in long-unpaid fines, which likely explains both his anger and his increasingly hostile rhetoric toward the concept of wealth taxes.

Nevertheless, Mamdani isn’t afraid to call their cynical agenda of greed to stand up for hard-working people, saying:

we’re hearing from one of the richest men that our world has ever seen about how he and others who make that kind of money shouldn’t have to pay their fair share.

Collins: Bezos said that you could double his taxes and it's not going to help that teacher in Queens.

Mamdani: I know a few teachers in Queens who would beg to differ. And I think that if I was worth as much money as he was, then I would probably say the same thing. 

The fact… pic.twitter.com/gO7E9Dj5CM

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 27, 2026

Advertisement

The super-rich don’t want Mamdani’s wealth tax — what a shocker!

Many Western politicians have often shut down the prospect of wealth taxes, arguing to ordinary people that the richest would just leave and that this would somehow make life even harder for hard-working people.

Bezos’ public — and tasteless — statements to detract from the potential of wealth taxes just go to further underscore who most politicians actually work for. Not the 99.99% increasingly taxed to make ends meet — whilst unable to meet their own household costs — but the 0.01% who continue to avoid tax and use their privilege to influence domestic politics.

However, they only reveal their cynical priorities of power and profits at the expense of the British public. After all, the PAYE system captures ordinary people, and they have no way to avoid the ever-increasing tax burden that falls on their shoulders, unlike the super-rich, who can structure their affairs to reduce or avoid tax.

As a result, Mamdani’s willingness to ‘break the mould’ set by corrupted Western politicians is refreshing and popularly received by the majority of people.

By finally reforming the tax system so that wealth bears more of the burden, Mamdani aims to ease the increasingly heavy burden on hard-working people, who the system repeatedly expects to foot the bill.

Bezos has attempted to hoodwink people in the US in an attempt to seemingly shut down discussion of introducing wealth taxes. Taxes which would be applicable to the only group in society who have seen their astronomical wealth increase exponentially year on year.

Saying anything he can to distract from a wealth tax, Bezos posted on X that tax should be eliminated for the bottom 50%. Subsequently, he attempted to say a wealth tax would have no impact on working people.

A lie quickly exposed by Democrat Bernie Sanders:

Mr. Bezos: Let's have that debate.

Under my 5% billionaires wealth tax, we'd:

-Give $12K to a working family of 4
-Expand Medicare for dental, vision, hearing
-Guarantee universal childcare
-Raise starting teacher pay to $60K

Advertisement

And you'd still be worth $269 billion after taxes. https://t.co/2HhApfcnxe

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) May 21, 2026

Jeff Bezos went on national TV to complain about people villianizing billionaires.

THE VERY NEXT DAY Mamdani forced Amazon to pay $9 million in owed taxes

COMPANIES WILL PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE IF POLITICIANS MADE THEM

— daz (@MetamateDaz) May 27, 2026

Of course, he doesn’t want wealth taxes — but many super-rich DO

Whilst ordinary people find life getting harder year after year, the number of billionaires in the UK have doubled since 2010.

We wrote earlier this month about the harsh realities facing working people as a result of the greed of the wealthiest:

While the number of billionaires has doubled:

• Real wages have stagnated. Real pay grew by 4.5% since 2010 or 0.3% a year.
• The huge numbers in poverty have barely changed, rising to 13.4 million (2024/2025) from 13.0 million (2010/11).
• The number of those in insecure work has exploded, increasing by 800,000 from 2011 to 2024.
• The proportion of the wider workforce in insecure work also went up from 10.7% to 11.7% in the same period.

There is no smoke without fire — and this contrast only highlights how it is working people who create wealth as billionaires coin it in whilst the many see their purses tighten.

In the US, which we are often just a few years behind, this issue is even greater with billionaires increasing their wealth by 18% year on year. Having only had 66 billionaires in 1990, the US now has 800. In the UK, that has grown from 9 to 157 in the same time period.

This has meant that the US has been praised as the “clear leader in global wealth creation”. However, a small elite still controls that wealth, while governments and employers keep telling hard-working people and struggling families to tighten their belts, lower their expectations, accept stagnant wages, and abandon hopes of improving their prospects.

Instead, neoliberals force ordinary people to put up and shut up, while the richest increasingly dominate Western politics.

Let the good ones stay — let the greedy leave

It isn’t all of them though, like the greediest billionaires would have you believe. Nearly 80% of millionaires believe that the ultra-wealthy buy their political influence, and they have come together through the Patriotic Millionaires to actually make the case for wealth taxes.

In a recent poll conducted by the group, they found that 3/4 of the UK’s richest are:

far more concerned about doctors and other skilled professionals leaving the UK than wealthy individuals emigrating.

In fact, Phil White, member of Patriotic Millionaires UK, beautifully said:

Millionaires like us know how lucky we are to live in the UK and, as this polling shows, we are more than happy to invest in our country’s future.

It’s also no surprise to see that millionaires value doctors, young people, and business owners more than other millionaires, because people like this are the backbone of our country – they are the real wealth creators.

Therefore, people need to stop listening to greedy, gross billionaires like Jeff Bezos. Instead, they should start electing politicians like Mamdani, who will actually call a spade a spade and pursue real solutions to this neoliberalist manufactured crisis.

Society’s greediest figures will never help solve it — they played an instructive role in creating it in the first place.

Featured image via Spencer Platt/Getty Images

By Maddison Wheeldon

Source link

A flurry of incidents showed that Hindutva activists used Eid to intimidate Muslims in India.

Mosques were asking worshippers to pray in shifts, as authorities issued threats against congregations, Al Jazeera reported.

In one incident, Hindu supremacists attempted to bring a pig into a housing society of Muslim families in Mumbai’s Mira Road, Maktoob Media reported.

Hindutva activists protesting Eid sacrifice plans in Mumbai’s Mira Road attempted to bring a pig into a housing society after opposing the presence of goats kept by Muslim families.https://t.co/DjYldorYXu pic.twitter.com/5FRGpSFUm1

— Maktoob (@MaktoobMedia) May 26, 2026

Advertisement

The Bombay Municipal Corporation removed and relocated the goats owned by the Muslim families, Maktoob added.

Hindutva group carrying a pig to a housing society in Mumbai, where Muslims were preparing to celebrate Eid. Hindutva jokers have turned India to a terrible joke. pic.twitter.com/2yL281tGNt

— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) May 26, 2026

Hindu supremacists, through their antics, had turned India into a “terrible joke,” Professor Ashok Swain posted, sharing a video from Mira Road, Mumbai.

Maktoob Media also reported that local Muslim organizations in Karnataka’s Hassan boycotted buying animals for Eid amid fear of backlash from Hindu supremacists.

Local Muslim organisations in Karnataka’s Hassan announced a boycott of purchasing animals for Eid ul-Adha amid Hindutva intimidation campaigns, triggering anxiety among dairy farmers who warned they would march their cattle to the deputy commissioner’s office if their… pic.twitter.com/zVRpNKzUeK

— Maktoob (@MaktoobMedia) May 27, 2026

Hindutva bulldozer bullying

In Kolkata, a video was posted by Article19 India showing a campaign to run bulldozers on several houses belonging to Muslim families on the eve of Eid. The video claimed that the houses were being bulldozed by local authorities using the pretext that they were illegally built. 

“एक घर है वो भी छीन लोगे तुम लोग, बताना चाहिए क्या गलत है ना कि सीधा बुलडोजर चलाने का नोटिस चिपकाना चाहिए”

बकरीद त्योहार से एन वक्त पहले पश्चिम बंगाल में मुसलमानों के साथ ये सब हो रहा है!

कोलकाता के तोपसिया में अवैध निर्माण बताकर कई घरों पर बुलडोजर चलाने की कवायद शुरु हो गई है pic.twitter.com/v6uO3LktVc

Advertisement

— Article19 India (@Article19_India) May 26, 2026

The bulldozer is a symbol of fascist violence, the South Asia Solidarity Group recently wrote in an op-ed for The Canary.

It involves both the state and a section of fascist social forces that spearhead and celebrate the violence. JCB remains the primary instrument; the British company is synonymous with home demolitions.

With several Indian states showing rising anti-Muslim rhetoric and restrictions around religious practices, Muslim communities have spent Eid in India in fear.

Featured image via Yawar Nazir/Getty Images

By The Canary

Source link

The Israeli Prison Service is among other Israeli entities added to the UN sexual violence blacklist, The Jerusalem Post (JP) reported on Wednesday.

This development follows a July 2025 report by the UN Secretary-General’s Guterres representative on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, Ynet reported.

The report had stated that:

Since November 2023, Israeli armed and security forces have arrested and detained thousands of Palestinian men, women and children, with a dramatic deterioration in conditions of detention. The United Nations verified 12 incidents of conflict-related sexual violence perpetrated by Israeli armed and security forces, including the Israel Defense Forces, the Israel Prison Service including the “Nachshon” Unit and Keter special forces, the Israel Security Agency (also known as Shin Bet) and the Police Counter-Terrorism Unit (Yamam), in Naqab/Ketziot and Ofer prisons and Etzion detention centre against seven Palestinian men, including one rape; one attempted rape; three incidents of squeezing or pulling detainees’ genitals; and seven incidents of kicking, or beatings to, genitals.

The JP reported that following Hamas’ inclusion in the blacklist, “heavy pressure was exerted on the UN Secretary-General to include Israel on the list as well.”

UN verdict: rife sexual violence

The UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine — Francesca Albanese — has also documented these crimes.

Earlier this year, she released a report called “Torture and genocide,” which showed that various forms of torture have become tools of genocide by Israel against Palestinians. She also warned that the practice extends far beyond prison walls.

She reported that sexual violence against children, women, and men is “rife,” detailing that:

Israeli personnel have committed rape, including gang rape, often involving objects such as iron bars, batons and metal detectors. Detainees are subjected to beatings and electric shocks on their genitals or anus, forcibly and publicly stripped naked, and forcibly and invasively strip-searched in humiliating positions.

Pattern of discrediting international law

In response to this step being taken by the UN, Israel is reportedly cutting ties with UN chief Guterres.

The JP reported that Israel is “freezing” relations with the UN Secretary-General’s Office and has cancelled Patten’s planned visit to Israel.

This is a pattern used by the US and its proxy Israel.

The United States on Wednesday reimposed sanctions on Albanese. The Treasury Department blacklisted her globally, blocking her from using credit cards or banking.

The US had removed the sanctions a week earlier after a federal judge blocked them, citing free-speech violations. But an appeals court issued a stay on that ruling Friday.

US-backed Israeli attempts to discredit UN investigators and the International Criminal Court are part of its thuggery.

Reuters also reported that Trump is estimated to have issued sanctions against nine ICC judges, as well as prosecutors for the court.

The judges and prosecutors were reportedly involved in probes into abuses by US and Israeli forces, it said.

Featured image via David Silverman/Getty Images

By The Canary

Source link

BBC’s Question Time is at it again — this time, the show has put together a homogeneously pro-AI panel for tonight’s special on the environmentally ruinous technology.

Green leader Zack Polanski went so far as to speculate that the entire episode was bought and paid for by the AI lobby. Likewise, journalist Caroline Cadwalladr characterised the show as laundering AI’s image in a similar manner to its performance with Nigel Farage.

Long-time readers will already be familiar with the Canary’s distaste for the national broadcaster’s flagship panel show. Question Time has previously faced allegations of blocking pro-Palestine audience members, mis-labelling panelists to massage right-wing images, and biasing its audiences against the left, to name but a few instances.

So, really, presenting a grab-bag of AI shills and calling it a panel is par for the course.

Could we not get Skynet?

So, who exactly has Question Time dragged up to face a light grilling from Fiona Bruce at 9pm tonight? The show posted:

Joining Fiona on the panel are Darren Jones, Julia Lopez, Mo Gawdat, Laura Gilbert, and Victor Riparbelli

Let’s break that down, shall we?

Darren Jones is the Labour MP for Bristol North West. Whilst he’s been critical of companies like Royal Mail using AI to monitor employees, he’s also been a champion of the technology, particularly in the form of ChatGPT-style large-language models. Oh, and he dismissed worries about job losses, which we’re already seeing.

Julia Lopez is the Tory shadow technology secretary. She’s previously criticised the government for its apparent alignment with an EU act which attempts to regulate AI. Likewise, she’s also criticised Ed Miliband’s environmental protection policies for stifling the growth of AI companies. Noticing a pattern here? 

Mo Gawdat was once the chief business officer for Google X, the company’s pie-in-the-sky research division. On multiple occasions, he’s called for humanity to hand over control of society to AI, claiming “it may actually become our salvation.” This is a technology currently known for being unable to count fingers, by the way. 

Laura Gilbert is the senior director for AI and innovation at the Tony Blair Institute. That’s the same Tony Blair Institute, which took over £250m from Trump-buddy Larry Elison, owner of software company Oracle. 

Last but not least, Victor Riparbelli is co-founder and CEO of SynesthesiaIO. Synesthesia bills itself as “the world’s #1 AI video creation platform”.  

Question Time — ‘Not one critical voice’

Fab, so our balance here ranges between ‘enthusiastic support, with caveats’ to ‘we should crown AI as king of the world’. Oh, and half of them stand to make a bunch of money from widespread AI adoption, too. Fantastic, no notes – the BBC has outdone itself here.

In reaction to the flagrant bias on display, Green leader Zack Polanski called out the Tony Blair Institute’s ties to the AI business:

Oracle’s £250m gift to the Tony Blair Institute appears to buy you an entire Question Time episode.

Likewise, journalist Caroline Cadwalladr pointed out the similarity to Question Time’s past indiscretions:

So you know what @bbcquestiontime did with Farage? They’re now doing it with AI.

This ‘expert’ panel on AI is a disgrace: not one critical voice.

She also highlighted the incredibly leading nature of the questions the show posted in the run-up to its special episode. Question Time asked:

How has AI changed your life? Do you use it to help meet deadlines at work or school?

‘So do you like AI, or do you love it?’ ‘Well, having lost my job to an incompetent robot, I love how much free time I have to spend at home.’

Theft and destruction

Just in case tonight’s Question Time fails to acknowledge the problems with AI, here are just a couple.

Coupled with the threat to workers, AI is also a monumental threat to creatives. Generative AI relies on training from a vast well of data, which companies rarely bother to come by legally. As the Good Law Project explained:

This fake art isn’t just produced by algorithms that are trained with vast amounts of energy and by people paid poverty wages. It also depends on AI giants using creative work and refusing to pay for it. Companies like Meta and OpenAI are hoovering millions of copyright books, songs and films into their AI tools without permission – creative work that the companies admit they would never be able to afford if they were actually paying for it.

Beyond this, widespread AI adoption also comes at a massive cost to the already dying climate. For example, the Yale School of the Environment published research on the amount of energy it takes to power traditional computing vs AI.  It found that:

A.I. use is directly responsible for carbon emissions from non-renewable electricity and for the consumption of millions of gallons of fresh water, and it indirectly boosts impacts from building and maintaining the power-hungry equipment on which A.I. run.

So sure, you might be jobless and thirsty on a boiling earth, but at least you’ll be able to watch an AI video of Homer Simpson making passionate love to Hank Hill.

Let’s see if the Question Time panel gets round to that.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

Source link

A new report has laid out the scale of public funds Stormont is pumping into rip-off private nursing agencies every year, rather than using in-house staff. The standout figures in The Use of Temporary Nursing Staff in Northern Ireland show the Department of Health (DoH) spent £162 million on agency nursing staff in 2024-25, a figure three times the £52 million frittered away in 2018-19.

Authored by the comptroller and auditor general Dorinnia Carville, the report also reveals the scale of the shortfall in overall nursing staff levels. It shows the region has 17,024 “whole time equivalent registered nurses in the HSC [Health and Social Care] system”. This number is 2,195 short of the nurses needed to provide “safe and effective staffing levels”.

The use of staff from private agencies outside the government-run HSC body is an attempt to cope with this shortage. However, as is usually the case with privatisation in public services, the cost of bringing in agency staff is much higher than HSC employing workers directly. A more cost-effective measure for temporary staff is bringing in ‘bank nurses’. These are workers hired directly by Health and Social Care.

Agencies take a cut from every nurse whose services they provide to HSC. In England, this is capped at £4.87 per hour. However, the Department of Health has not secured this kind of deal, meaning:

…fees have ranged from £2 per hour to £15 per hour.

Six Counties’ agency nurses more expensive than those in London

This has dropped somewhat in May 2025 to a maximum of £10 per hour. Carville states that DoH:

…could not provide an explanation of why the variance is so significant.

Absurdly, this means HSC has been paying higher sums per hour than the NHS does for nurses working in Central London. As the report outlines:

In most of England, this rate is capped at £24.06 per hour while in inner London, which pays the highest rates for agency nurses in England, the comparable rate is capped at £28.87 per hour.

The highest rate paid for agency nurses for night, and Saturday shifts is £36.10 per hour in inner London which is still lower than the £36.86 average hourly rate for Band 5 nurses working standard day shifts in Northern Ireland.

The figures go even higher in some cases. For “Sunday and Bank Holiday shifts” in the Six Counties, some nurses receive £52.10 per hour. In the case of Inner London, the figure is £43.32. Nobody ought to begrudge skilled workers being well-paid for essential work. The issue is the agencies acting as rent-seeking middlemen, hoovering up inflated profits.

Payments dwarfed the agency spend figures for Scotland and Wales, despite those countries’ larger populations. The DoH forked out that £162 million sum in 2024-25, versus £57 million and £79 million for Scotland and Wales respectively during the same period.

Surely for all this spending we’re getting better results, though? Well, you may be shocked to know, that just as with rail, water, buses and any other privatised service, the public not only pays more, but they get worse results. Carville explains how:

…research shows a connection between a high usage of agency nurses with increased patient mortality rates, less work being completed by nursing staff, reduced patient safety levels and lower patient satisfaction.

The comptroller and auditor general also cites an October 2022 statement from then-minister of health Robin Swann acknowledging that use of agencies:

…was not a cost-effective use of taxpayers’ money, and could lead to a lack of workforce continuity, with the potential to undermine patient safety.

Nursing — neoliberalism working as intended

Staff often end up in agencies or leave the profession entirely due to the dire conditions in the public health system generally. These ultimately stem from Tory austerity policies throughout the 2010s that also hit Stormont’s finances. Carville highlights a 2024-25 Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) survey which found:

…24 per cent of those surveyed left their roles in the profession due to physical and mental health combined with burnout and exhaustion.

It also showed that:

Just 28 per cent of leavers would promote the profession – with 51
per cent considering themselves active detractors of the profession.

The report said higher agency pay rates:

…caused core staff shortages and an increased dependency on more costly agency staffing.

This is neoliberalism working as intended. Use austerity policies to defund services until the staff crack, and the service breaks. Staff leave their roles for private sector equivalents or quit entirely. Patients gravitate towards private options too. You now have an inflated private sector which the public option must rely on to meet its obligations. More money therefore flows into private coffers, and the literal death spiral littered with deceased patients continues until ultimately public health care is gone entirely.

Carville provides six recommendations for hopefully heading off that dire outcome. Notably, she suggests that:

The Department of Health should consider actions taken in other jurisdictions in the UK to reduce reliance and spend on agency nursing staff and ensure learning is built into future strategies.

Other proposals include introduction of targets to reduce agency usage, and working out how to better retain HSC staff. Addressing the broader dysfunction within Westminster and Stormont was perhaps beyond her remit.

The non-existence of a functioning executive in the Six Counties between 2017-2020 and 2022-2024 prevented major decisions on health care being made. Tory pandemic mismanagement placed a crushing burden on nurses, driving many away. Yet more fundamental is the capitalist system in which oligarchs buy off politicians and ensure austerity policies that crush the ordinary person. Health care is one of the most grave casualties, as this report lays bare.

Featured image via Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

By Robert Freeman

Source link

As we’ve reported, Reform’s Makerfield by-election candidate has some predictably rancid opinions. At the same time, he’s said some things which may surprise you – specifically that he voted against Brexit and backed freedom of movement.

Getting back to Reform’s comfort zone, we’ve now learned Kenyon supported Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Crimea back when it was held by Ukraine:

Reform’s Makerfield candidate under fire for resurfaced Russia Crimea commentshttps://t.co/8OskgxazIl

— Reform Party UK Exposed (@reformexposed) May 28, 2026

Reform and imperialism

Kenyon made his comments in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, which was then governed by Ukraine. Although the international community mostly recognises Crimea as being part of Ukraine, it’s currently held by Russia.

Kenyon said:

I agree totally, Russia are well within their rights to do what they have done, as we did with the Falklands.

He said this in response to an online forum thread which described the invasion as “democracy in action”. This is more than a little worrying, because Kenyon is seeking to become a politician in a democracy. Should we assume this means Kenyon will support the UK annexing its neighbours?

According to a Reform spokesperson, we should not, because they told the Telegraph:

at no point did [Kenyon]… explicitly support or endorse Russia’s actions in Crimea.

For clarity, we’re going to repeat what he said in its entirety:

I agree totally, Russia are well within their rights to do what they have done, as we did with the Falklands.

Seems pretty explicit to us, if we’re being honest!

Reform also said Kenyon was:

fully opposed to Russia’s illegal and brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Do we need to repeat Kenyon’s own words again?

Reform’s ties to Russia

Reform has a pretty dodgy track record when it comes to Russian sympathies. As Skwawkbox reported for the Canary:

Former Reform UK in Wales leader Nathan Gill has today been sentenced to ten and a half years in prison after admitting taking bribes to make positive statements about Russia.

The judge in the case told Gill upon sentencing:

When you say what someone has paid you to say, you are not speaking with sincerity. If it was your genuine opinion, you would not need to be paid for saying it.

Allowing money to corrupt your moral compass constitutes a grave betrayal of the trust vested in you by the electorate.

Farage initially tried to suggest he barely knew Gill; he eventually admitted they were close. Later yet, it would turn out Farage also knew the bribers:

We know Kremlin agent of influence Nadia Sass considered Nigel Farage her ‘good friend’…because she told us.

She cultivated far right political leaders & her social media was key part of her tradecraft.

New in @thenerve_news today are the details
4/https://t.co/bDzxdxRVO6 pic.twitter.com/Yzvp7jP5uy

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) October 18, 2025

Advertisement

Geopolitics

While it’s true UK politicians use Russia as an excuse for sabre rattling, it’s also undeniable that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was an act of imperialism akin to the West’s actions in the Middle East. Another obvious fact is that Reform politicians don’t respect Vladimir Putin because they see him as a bulwark against Western hegemony; they respect him because he’s a murderous crook and bully.

Kenyon might ‘explicitly’ oppose the invasion of Ukraine now, but we’re not convinced that will remain the case should he form part of a Reform government.

Featured image via Andrew Harnik (Getty Images)

By Willem Moore

Source link

The post ‘Populism is the engine of democracy’ appeared first on spiked.

Source link

The allegedly Labour government has issued its response to the 16,000 signature petition calling for a Media Sovereignty Act. And it shows total contempt for ordinary people alongside pathetic submission to media billionaires.

The Media Sovereignty Act’s five measures:

• Ban foreign media ownership.
• Ban the concentration of UK national media ownership by one person or corporation.
• Fund independent and local media with a Social Media Levy.
• Require national media to be under the remit of the statutory regulator.
• Require dark-money-funded thinktanks that are covered by the media to declare donations in real time.

The government stuck two fingers up at all five of the measures in the proposed Act. Instead it:

• Rejected any restrictions on foreign billionaires buying up all of the UK’s media.
• Refused to back reform of the current massive concentration of UK media ownership in a tiny group of largely offshore-based media billionaires.
• Refused to back a Social Media Levy, as they have in Australia. This would recoup some of the £10s of billions being siphoned abroad from UK news producers’ former advertising revenues by the three US social media tech corporations and use the proceeds to fund UK local and independent media.
• Backed the current ludicrous system whereby these foreign media billionaires ‘self-regulate’ their UK media corporations, rather than requiring them to join the post-Leveson press regulator Impress.
• Rejected the proposal to ban foreign oil corporations and billionaires from secretly funding dark-money-funded UK thinktanks that corrupt the UK government’s policy-making process.

The Media Sovereignty Act campaign director, Donnachadh McCarthy, said:

It has been one of Britain’s worst-kept secrets that the Labour and Tory Parties place the wishes of the UK’s media billionaires over the wishes of the people.

But it is hugely important that our petition has finally forced the Labour government to admit as much.

Co-director Caspar Hughes said:

You cannot have a free and fair democracy if almost all our media is dominated by the tiny 0.01%. This response means that ending media billionaireism must be a top issue in the coming Makerfield bye-election.

We need a free and fair press in the UK, free from billionaire capture.

He added:

This extraordinary admission by the Labour government that they are on the side of the media billionaires trashing our democracy spurs us to move forward with the campaign.

We will press on to get the 100,000 signatures that will finally trigger a parliamentary debate on the biggest political issue of our time.

We will now take the campaign out to the country, asking trade unions, NGO’s, student unions, branches of political parties, etc., to endorse this crucial campaign to rescue our broken democracy from the media billionaires destroying it.

Advertisement

Featured image via Getty Images

By The Canary

Source link

A group of 26 Labour MPs — along with Diane Abbott, now an independent — have reported Reform UK for breaching the 2010 Equality Act through their repeated Islamophobia.

Predictably, Islamophobic Reform chief whip Lee Anderson, whom the complaint named specifically, responded with:

Guess what? There is no such thing as Islamaphobia. [sic]

‘Growing Islamophobia problem’

Afzal Khan, the MP leading the complaint, said that:

Reform UK have consistently failed to tackle their growing Islamophobia problem.

The 26 politicians who joined Khan in his letter to the Equalities and Human Rights Council (EHRC) included Clive Lewis, Ian Byrne and Bell Ribeiro-Addy. The complaint stated that:

Over the last few years, we have seen a number of Reform UK politicians and members make comments that are clearly racist and discriminate against ethnic minorities, and in particular, Muslims.

Of course, the group also had plenty of examples to choose from in order to back up their claim. In particular, they cited party leader Nigel Farage’s nakedly Islamophobic call to ban groups of Muslims from praying in public. His comments followed London mayor Sadiq Khan attending an Iftar event in Trafalgar Square.

The letter also added that:

The prevalence of racism within Reform UK does not exist in a vacuum and has real-world consequences for the millions of British Muslims in our country.

Farage & co.

Along with Farage, the letter also mentioned Reform MPs Sarah Pochin, Suella Braverman, and Lee Anderson. For a start, Pochin used parliamentary questions to call for a ban on the burqa. Meanwhile, in an article for the Telegraph, Braverman claimed that:

The truth is that the Islamists, the extremists and the antisemites are in charge now.

Reacting to that same article on GB News, Anderson said:

I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they’ve got control of Khan and they’ve got control of London, and they’ve got control of Starmer as well.

Anderson also added that:

People are just turning up in their thousands, and doing anything they want, and they are laughing at our police. This stems with Khan, he’s actually given our capital city away to his mates.

So yes, those three seem pretty unambiguously Islamophobic to us — and that’s naming just one example each.

‘It’s a made up word’

Of course, you can never point out a right-winger’s racism without them doubling down. In response to the complaint, Anderson posted:

I’m named in this letter.

I stand by every word.

Advertisement

Guess what? There is no such thing as Islamaphobia. [sic]

It’s a made up word spouted out by educated idiots in Parliament who are scared of losing their seats.

Which is odd, because just two years ago, following his suspension from the Tory party for his Islamophobic comments on GB News, Anderson posted:

I will continue to support the Government’s efforts to call out extremism in all its forms – be that anti-semitism or islamophobia. [sic]

So, just about the only consistent things about Anderson are his refusal to learn how to spell ‘Islamophobia,’ and his bigotry. You see, the Reform chief whip is a rare and remarkable figure. He’s actually been suspended for racism from not just the Tories but also Labour.

Anderson started his political career as a Labour councillor for the Ashfield district in 2015. However, in 2018 he was suspended by the local Labour branch for using boulders to block a Traveller group from setting up a camp.

He then defected to the Tories, before being kicked out of the party for his Islamophobia. However, following his defection to Reform, Anderson has maintained the line that “Islamophobia is a made-up word”.

Discrimination? Never heard of it…

Responding to the Khan and co’s complaint, a Reform UK spokesperson said:

We stand by our comments. We will not be intimidated.

Of course they won’t be intimidated. These bigots fully believe that they have the right to say whatever vile thing they want – and especially about Muslims.

Anderson demonstrated, in perfect microcosm, his party’s attitude towards all forms of discrimination. Islamophobia, racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism etc. are the far-right party’s raison d’etre – because those words help to call them out on their bigotry, they instead attempt to define and censor them away.

In fact, Braverman’s first act as Reform’s play-pretend ‘shadow cabinet’ education, skills and equalities spokesperson was to announce that she’d rip up the 2010 Equality Act. The Tory dropout claimed that she wanted to get rid of the:

divisive notion of protected characteristics.

Ingenious – Reform can’t be punished for its naked discrimination if it eliminates the laws against discrimination. These people are dangers to Muslims, they’re dangers to any minoritised individual, and they’re dangers to the very concept of our shared human rights.

Best of luck and more power to Afzal Khan and his complaint. It’s long past time Reform MPs faced any consequence for their hate speech.

Featured image via Leon Neal / Getty Images

By Alex/Rose Cocker

Source link