Politics
Yemen at the heart of Israel’s push for a military foothold in Somaliland
Israel’s alliance with Somaliland is gathering steam. The settler-state appears is expanding its military footprint in the region and, as diplomatic relations grow closer than ever, Israel seems likely to get what it wants.
On 13 June, Drop Site News reported that in an unprecedented display of support, the Muslim-majority nation witnessed “the public waving of Israeli flags—not in protest, but celebration.”
They added that:
Videos shared on social media from Somaliland’s day of independence on May 18 showed Israelis dancing in the streets of Hargeisa alongside locals, with blue and white stars of David flying beside Somaliland’s red, white, and green tricolor flag.
As the Canary reported on 21 May:
Israel and Somaliland have agreed to open embassies in Jerusalem and Hargeisa. Israel’s influence in the strategic Horn of Africa is growing. And there have been warnings Israel might ethnically cleanse Palestinians out of Palestine and into the country.
Israel was one of the first countries to recognise Somaliland, a breakaway territory of Somalia, in the early 1990s. UN members railed against the move, but the US defended Israel while not recognising Somaliland itself.
The surest sign of deepening ties between the settler-colony and fledgling Somaliland emerged on 18 May when president Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi was presented with:
a fragment of an Iron Dome interceptor—the Israeli air defense system used to intercept rockets and drones fired by Iran and its regional allies—by a visiting Israeli delegation.
Israel’s dirty war with Yemen
Nearby Yemen, across the Gulf of Aden, is seemingly Israel’s principal concern. According to Drop Site, Israel has been eyeing up locations for a military facility:
The base in question would allow Israel a military foothold on a crucial waterway near the Bab al-Mandab Strait—a maritime chokepoint comparable in importance to the Strait of Hormuz for exports from the Red Sea.
The outlet underlined a critical observation by pundits and analysts:
Berbera International Airport as a possible host to an expanded Israeli presence in the territory as part of an emerging alliance that would include Somaliland alongside Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi.
The UAE which is already active in the Sudan civil war, has an agreement at the airport.
Ismail Omar Guelleh, president of nearby Djibouti — home to a major US military base — has described the UAE as Israel’s “vanguard,” while Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud accused Israel of:
taking advantage of the long-standing dispute between Mogadishu and Hargeisa.
Abdullahi visited Israel on 14 June, and posted the following message on X:
For thirty-five years, the people of Somaliland have built a peaceful, democratic, and resilient nation. We asked the world: Do you see us? Israel answered first.
Today, history is being written, and Somaliland stands ready to forge a shared future founded on friendship, cooperation, and mutual respect.
A shared future is one way of putting it; another is ‘neocolonialism’. Somaliland is a key strategic location for Israeli power projection against Yemen. The statelet may also come to be a dumping ground for ethnically cleansed Palestinians.
Somaliland has struck a devil’s bargain with Israel, which, it may come to regret.
Featured image via YouTube / the Canary
By Joe Glenton
Politics
107 MPs call for Special Administration of Thames Water as government blocks rescue deal
107 MPs, including 42 Labour MPs, have signed an open letter to Ofwat and the environment secretary, calling on them to reject the latest deal put forward by Thames Water’s creditors, and bring the private water company into Special Administration.
This comes as environment secretary Emma Reynolds has written to Ofwat to object to the Thames Water creditors’ proposal deal to take over the utility.
Thames Water is on the brink of financial collapse. Thames Water’s creditors have been negotiating with Ofwat to determine the future of the utility since June 2025.
As part of the proposed deal, the creditors want to waive fines until 2030. Pollution, leakage and other performance targets would be suspended or ‘significantly modified’. The creditors also want to raise bills for households beyond the level currently set by Ofwat.
The open letter expresses a concern that allowing Thames Water to set its own rules would create a dangerous precedent for all of England’s privatised water companies. The company caused almost a third of the water sector’s most harmful pollution incidents in 2025.
The letter argues that by taking Thames Water into Special Administration, this government can secure a better deal for the public purse by writing off a greater proportion of the utility’s debt.
We Own It co-ordinated the open letter, which has gained signatures from MPs across political parties, including:
- Jack Rankin, Conservative MP for Windsor.
- Barry Gardiner, Labour MP for Brent West.
- Tim Farron, Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale.
- Hannah Spencer, Green MP for Gorton and Denton.
It also comes as potential Labour leadership candidate Andy Burnham states that public ownership is “what should be done” for Thames Water.
Sophie Conquest, lead campaigner at We Own It, said:
The average water bill in England is now £639. During a cost of living crisis, households have no choice but to pay more and more for a broken service and sewage-filled rivers.
Yet Thames Water wants to be rewarded for its abysmal failure with a regulatory holiday. And they want us to foot the bill.
The government is absolutely right to block this deal. Members of the public, who pay for and depend upon our water system, and the MPs who represent them are clearly opposed to a deal which puts the interests of US hedge funds ahead of billpayers and our environment.
By taking Thames Water into Special Administration, we can slash the debts and give billpayers and the environment a fair deal.
From there, this government must place Thames Water into permanent public ownership.
Special administration of Thames Water must be the beginning of the end of our water system being used as an ATM for faraway shareholders. Under public ownership, we can put billpayers and the environment first.
Featured image via the Canary
By The Canary
Politics
Environment secretary writes to Ofwat calling out Thames Water deal
Thames Water is now even closer to temporary nationalisation after the government objected to a £10bn rescue proposal from its creditors.
Ofwat, the UK water regulator, is also feeling the heat, after Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds penned a letter to the watchdog criticising the lenders’ offering. She warns it would fail both the environment and customers.
‘A holiday from the rules’
Thames Water has teetered on the edge of ruin for several years, at this point. It’s currently buried under £20bn in debt, and has faced record fines for dumping untreated sewage into England’s waterways.
The company will run out of money completely in October, at which point it will enter Special Administration (i.e. government control). Back in January, pollster Survation found that 54% of Thames Water’s customers supported the nationalisation measure, vs just 19% who wanted the company to remain in private hands.
However, London & Valley Water (LVW) — a Frankenstein’s monster of financiers who own Thames Water’s debt-tabled a deal with Ofwat. Now, time is against LVW here. Ofwat would have to put its deal up for three months of public scrutiny, and also obtain the High Court’s sign-off.
Under the current proposal, first set out in June 2025, LVW have offered to erase £9.4bn of Thames Water’s debt. The proposal also included £3.35bn cash and £6.55bn new debt facility before 2030. However, in return, LVW asked for permission to effectively ignore pollution and performance targets.
Understandably, the bogus deal has attracted massive criticism from campaign groups. We Own It, for example, urged MPs to sign an open letter demanding a rejection of the deal. The group stated that:
Thames Water’s creditors want a holiday from the rules, and they want us to pick up the bill.
Ofwat fails consumers
Then, on 15 June, environment secretary Emma Reynolds added the government’s weight to the objections. She wrote to Ofwat, calling the rescue proposal a “weak” response to “15 years of mismanagement and failure”. Likewise, she highlighted that it would place an “undue burden” on Thames Water’s customers.
The government has previously stated outright that it would prefer a “market-based solution” to Special Administration measures. As such, the fact that the environment secretary stepped in to offer criticism is a mark of how truly abysmal this deal really is.
Commenting on the intervention, Reynolds stated that:
I have written to Ofwat to set out my early concerns that the creditors’ proposals don’t do enough to protect consumers and the environment.
In response, LVW made a thinly veiled threat that any other option would result in higher water bills:
All other routes offer significantly worse outcomes for customers and the environment. Our proposals do not anticipate any increase in customer bills beyond those set out by Ofwat.
‘Let us keep dumping sewage or we’ll jack up the prices’ doesn’t exactly sound like good-faith negotiations to us. For context, Thames Water recently hiked bills by a massive 35%, which a vast majority of customers deemed unreasonable.
Ofwat is expected to make a decision on the deal by July at the latest. This is necessary in order to allow time for public scrutiny before Thames Water finally goes bust in October.
As both the public and the government has now urged, it must reject this awful deal and uphold its duty to protect both the environment and the consumers who are being held to ransom by Thames Water and its creditors.
Featured image via the Canary
By Grace
Politics
Labour’s authoritarian cabinet would be decimated in an election
The ruling Labour cabinet would face decimation if there was an election today. And if opponents to its left could join forces against the increasingly authoritarian Labour, the UK would stand a much better chance of stopping the far right from entering government and building on Keir Starmer’s legacy of repression.
16 cabinet ministers risk losing their seat if an election was held today
* At time of posting pic.twitter.com/OysjbzSQ1i — Josh Housden (@JoshHousden) June 13, 2026
| Nowcast UK – State of the Cabinet*
June 13, 2026
The good news is that polling shows we have a real chance to throw the vacuous corporate lackeys of Starmer’s cabinet out of power. Labour has:
- Failed to make meaningful improvements to our lives.
- Treated opponents of genocide as terrorists while cracking down on our freedoms to protect Israel.
- Let lobbyists influence our education system to try and silence people’s social conscience.
- Sought to limit the information young people get (possibly to reduce their anti-genocide activism and mass exodus away from Labour).
- Pandered to the far right.
From the Greens to the Lib Dems, and from the SNP and Plaid Cymru to independents, the prediction is that people to the left of Labour will abandon it in massive numbers.
We could be celebrating the losses of awful Labour right-wingers like Rachel Reeves, Steve Reed, Yvette Cooper, and David Lammy. And although Wes Streeting isn’t in the cabinet anymore, we could celebrate his exit too:
Independents can defeat Wes Streeting in Ilford North. pic.twitter.com/EX8VtqC3Et
— Ed Sykes (@OsoSabioUK) June 15, 2026
The bad news, of course, is Reform. Because the far-right party hasn’t just been biting chunks out of the Conservative Party. It has also used its dodgy billionaire money to convince people in neglected working-class communities to ignore its hateful divisiveness and send Labour a message.
If people to the left of Labour manage to coordinate their resistance, though, a Reform-Tory government isn’t inevitable.
Unite the left, and Labour could lose even worse
While the polling shows lots of Labour cabinet members losing their seats, it also shows some who could still remain MPs. Those are James Murray, Keir Starmer, Peter Kyle, Heidi Alexander, Douglas Alexander, Alan Campbell, and Emma Reynolds.
Starmer, however, absolutely can lose. That would just require a deal between independent left-wingers and the Greens to make sure there is no splitting of progressive votes:
Keir Starmer would keep his seat if his opponents on the left were divided. He would lose it if there was a joint campaign to get him out. pic.twitter.com/AxISkTJSIF
— Ed Sykes (@OsoSabioUK) June 15, 2026
Murray could potentially lose Ealing North too, if Greens and Independents can join campaigning forces. There are other areas in London and cities around the country where this may also be the case.
In some places, the Green Party is the strongest opponent to Labour. In Hove and Portslade, for example, it could defeat prominent Labour Friend of Israel Peter Kyle if it benefits from some of the energetic Independent campaigning of 2024.
In Scotland, Douglas Alexander could lose Lothian East to the SNP if Greens could help to tip it over the line. In fact, some kind of anti-Labour deal between the two could throw Labour out of Scotland entirely by taking Edinburgh South too.
With Campbell in Tynemouth, Reynolds in Wycombe, and Heidi Alexander in Swindon South, Reform is currently Labour’s main challenger.
In short, Starmer’s Labour could lose even worse. And left-wingers could benefit from that in some places. But to stop both Reform and Labour, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Different strategies will work in different places, and different parties are more likely to win.
Everyone to the left of Labour needs to find a way to work together asap. And changing our voting system should be a key point to unify us. Because making our electoral system proportional is the best hope for stopping the far right and ending Labour-Tory dominance.
Featured image via the Canary
By Ed Sykes
Politics
In pictures: protesters mount demo for tortured prisoners outside Israeli embassy
Human rights activists have mounted a protest against Israel’s abduction and torture of thousands of Palestinians. And it did so right outside the Israeli embassy last Saturday, 13 June 2026.
Protest at the Israeli embassy
The Red Ribbons campaign aims to make sure that the illegally detained, tortured – and often raped – overwhelmingly civilian detainees are not forgotten. Their protest at the Israeli embassy was photographed by activist cameraman BetterThanReal, who kindly provided them to the Canary. It included a bloodied re-enactment with activists representing some of the huge number of bound and abused prisoners held indefinitely in Israeli torture camps:
Protesters also drew attention to the ongoing, 18-month imprisonment and torture of Gaza medical director Dr Hussam Abu Safiya and to the plight of women and children held as hostages by Israel:
Palestinian prisoners and their families told TRT World earlier this month some of the horrors they faced while detained without charge:
Double standard
Around ten thousand Palestinians are currently held in these camps facing sexual torture, rape and even the use of dogs to rape. Western governments and media fanned a moral panic over a couple of hundred Israeli prisoners of war in Gaza who were well treated and faced more danger from their own side. But thousands of tortured and raped Palestinians barely registers as the west colludes in Israel’s racist, terrorist colonial project.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
Politics
Sinister Labour MP wants to ‘finish the job’ on assisted dying
The Labour MP who has launched another attempt to rush assisted dying through parliament has urged the Lords to ‘finish the job’. Labour MP for Rochester and Strood Laura Edwards is attempting to push assisted dying through parliament again using dirty tricks.
BREAKING: The Assisted Dying Bill will be reintroduced to Parliament next week by Labour MP Lauren Edwards pic.twitter.com/uzvJm5mIoR
— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) June 14, 2026
Dirty tricks again on assisted dying
Under the Parliament Act, if the same bill is passed by MPs in two consecutive parliamentary sessions, peers have no power to stop it. While Lords can suggest amendments, there’s also no requirement for the Commons to pass them.
And here’s the worst part: if the Lords don’t agree to pass the bill and it gets talked out by the end of the parliamentary session, it becomes law by default.
The original Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, was voted through by MPs after Kim Leadbeater used every weapon she could to stop those concerned about coercion and disabled people voicing opposition. At every turn Leadbeater painted opposition as anti-choice, as opposed to disabled people terrified for our community.
It then went to the Lords, where those for the assisted dying bill, including media shills, tried to tear down those attempting to bring amendments.
In the Lords, so many Peers wanted to speak that the debate had to be spread over two days, with two-thirds of speakers being against the bill. It progressed to committee stage, where the corrupt committee restricted evidence.
After that it went back to the lords, where Falconer casually said that both pregnant people and poor people would be allowed assisted deaths. The bill eventually ran out of time, as so many peers wanted to scrutinise it, which again was criticised.
Lauren Edwards is as bloodthirsty as Leadbeater
Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Edwards said she was ‘playing by the rules’ and asking the Lords to do the same regarding the assisted dying bill.
She said:
Laws passed in the House of Commons are then refined by the House of Lords, but they don’t have the opportunity to block them.
It’s perfectly reasonable for us to ask the House of Lords to finish the job.
To be clear, this is a law that would usher in state-supported euthanisation for disabled people. If I were attempting to be an architect for this, I probably wouldn’t have used a phrase that makes me sound like a blood thirsty ghoul, but you do you, Lauren.
Furthermore, it’s not really ‘playing fair’ if you’re taking away the other team’s powers, is it?
By using this loophole, Edwards has to use the exact same assisted dying bill Leadbeater introduced, which means there would be no protection for anyone vulnerable from being coerced into it. As Labour MP Ashley Dalton pointed out, we can’t expect the ‘for’ side to be open to commons amendments either, as they rejected them all last time
Dalton replied to a tweet suggesting MPs use this as a new opportunity to ‘fix it rather than criticise it’ with:
Commons Committee tried, but almost all amendments were rejected by the proponents of the bill. The proponents even brought 77 amendments themselves to the Lords it was in such a bad state when it left the Common. Remains to be seen if they incorporate any of these in the new bill.
Edwards hasn’t listened
It seems that Edwards cockily thinks she can rely on the Commons to vote for the same assisted dying bill twice. However, MPs have had over a year to realise they were rushed into a terrible decision. That while many people support assisted dying in theory, anyone who looks at the bill can see how flawed and lacking in safeguards it is.
One things for sure, disabled people have another fight on our hands. But Labour should already know we will not quietly let them kill us.
Featured image via the Canary
Politics
Brighton fascists try to fake respectability, whilst hiding the extreme violent reality
Brighton stood up against far-right intimidation on 13 June 2026 as thousands of anti-fascists massively outnumbered a South East Patriots march. The Carnival Against Fascism mobilisation was stunning to see, and blocked the racist scumbags at every single turn.
Wandering around with the far-right, I observed an obvious disconnect between the far-right’s public branding and the unfiltered racism of its members. In short, brighton proved its resilience and commitment to standing up to hate.
The performance of innocence
The South East Patriots tried so hard to project a respectable public image for the cameras. I struggled to get myself into their crowd, as policemen had blocked off the four main streets. But they didn’t cover the tiny side streets. Wandering into a street packed with leering men, a sea of flags, and empty beer cans was nothing new. But the banner “Calling people racist when they don’t agree with you is getting really boring” was.

Sh*t like that reeks of desperation. Away from the cameras, the language quickly became that of the most disgusting white supremacy. Let’s be honest, fascists love throwing out slurs and the crowd in Brighton was no different. But watching a young teen calling someone a “sand rat” whilst laughing with his dad hit home.
The dehumanisation of Black and Brown people permeates the entire movement. They can claim what they want through their banners. However, the language these thugs dispense daily, in person, confirms their deep-seated racial hatred towards people they don’t even know.
When Black and Brown people consistently warn us that these marches threaten their entire existence, we need to listen, because it’s getting worse in Brighton especially.
Under the lying banners
The aggression is never just verbal. Speaking to one of them, he took a sip of his Peroni, looked me dead in the eye, and said something that shocked me so much, it nearly blew my cover. He pointed across the police line at the thousands of anti-fascists stood in opposition, picked one lad stood at the front and said:
“I swear, if I had cancer, I’d take a gun and shoot every one of them on the other side, starting with that Black c**t”
This is the very real danger of the modern far-right. They don’t want a political debate. They want a war and view that anyone who isn’t white is a target for eradication.
The crowd also actively weaponised the teeny space they occupied. One woman openly boasted about carrying a large supply of stink bombs. She dropped a bunch of them whilst wandering through the Antifa crowd, handing them out for people to throw over the police line. It was silly of her to offer me over half as they got binned.
“Hyper-masculinity” and hostility
The demographic makeup of the fascist assembly was, unsurprisingly, overwhelmingly male. You know, the typical lads, above the age of thirty with bald heads and shit lion tattoos. Out of around 300 fash there, I saw less than 30 women. This gender imbalance matches wider research by Hope Not Hate which shows far-right spaces rely on this weird hyper-masculine posturing. Aggression, dominance and an inability to listen, you know the type. Clearly, brighton’s experience reflects disturbing national trends.

During the violent far-right riots in Ballymena, 36% of the men arrested had previously been reported for domestic abuse. And 41% of those nicked during wider riots had prior domestic abuse records. So if they’re willing to beat their partners, what the hell can they do to people they don’t know?
The few women present in Brighton were paraded at the front. One woman draped in a flag shouted into a megaphone to lead the chants at one point. The far-right use their women as a shield to appear less threatening, even while the males around them project intense physical aggression.
This aggression targets anyone who doesn’t play ball. The amount of times they screamed at me to take off my mask got boring. They completely fail to see those protecting their health or privacy through face coverings. They view masks as nothing more a marker of infiltration.
Ruined march exposes two-tier policing
Their weird street posturing quickly broke down as Antifa blockades derailed their schedule. We turned their march into a slow, sluggish crawl as they were rightly cut off at every turn. Must have been upsetting, listening to FatBoy Slim play a secret DJ set, whilst being trapped under a bridge.
But whilst our community stalled the thugs, the police response exposed a dark double-standard. Officers handled the far-right with kid gloves, matching their aggression with little more than shouting and the occasional shove.

But anti-racism protesters were met with outright aggression. After being rumbled by Nick Tenconi’s security team, I was forced to leg-it and rejoin our side for safety.
At one point, me and a friend were walking casually towards a police line when the copper instantly withdrew his baton. This heavy handed approach from the state made one thing very clear — the police reserve their violent intimidation tactics for people opposing fascism.
Brighton, you did everyone proud on Saturday. The incredible show of love and solidarity was one of the most stunning I have seen. But the far-right demonstration showed me that this love isn’t enough.
As the far-right grow more desperate, we must be prepared and equipped to prevent this behaviour from spiralling.
Featured images via AntifaBot
By Antifabot
Politics
Israel propagandists seize on Iran deal to push deeper India-Israel links
Finally, Indian PM Narendra Modi’s “blind devotion” to Israel is being questioned. However, Israel propagandists like Eylon Levy, The Times of Israel, and Jewish Insider are pushing deeper links to Israel.
In India, Jairam Ramesh, Congress Party’s spokesperson, welcomed the unrestricted reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which would bring relief to India. But he also cautioned that deeper economic challenges remain unresolved.
And, in a demonstration of staunch opposition, the Congress Party have also said that Modi should reconsider his “blind devotion and unconditional support” for Israel. And the party have also accused Modi of not representing India’s national interests, and demanded a more balanced approach.
Pakistan’s role as a mediator is being seen in India as a “monumental failure” of Modi’s foreign policy, for a country that pioneered the non-aligned movement.
India lost its moral guardrails; its outrageous pro-America/Israel stand on UN resolutions would have given Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru sleepless nights even in the tranquil heavens. India thought it would earn brownie points for being part of Trump’s tutored school choir. Trump instead saw India as an easy pushover. Enter Pakistan. The rest is history.
Zionist pitch for deeper India-Israel ties
Meanwhile, Eylon Levy, a former spokesperson for Israel, posted on X that India should deepen its military and economic ties with Israel and abandon its “unsustainable” neutrality in the face of the Iran deal, which he called a “disaster for India.”
It is no accident that India’s right-wing are fervent supporters of Israel, united as they are by Islamophobia. The fact the Iran deal elevates Pakistan also threatens the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) trade corridor, and endangers Indian workers in the Gulf.
The Times of Israel and Jewish Insider are both supporting what they call “India, Israel, and the UAE: The New Power Triangle in the Middle East.”
Jewish Insider said that “alignments” between Israel, the UAE, and India had created new opportunities for cooperation, citing the May defence pact between India and the UAE.
View this post on Instagram
The Times of Israel frames India as a country that engages with Iran through forums like BRICS while also expanding defense and economic cooperation with Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv. It discusses IMEC as an opportunity facing challenges amid regional tensions.
Indian seafarers killed by the USA
The death of Indian seafarers in US attacks on commercial ships navigating through the Strait of Hormuz has sparked outrage across India’s political spectrum, with all opposition parties condemning the “dastardly attack” and accusing the US of acting like a “gangster trying to impose its hegemony over the entire world.”
The five left parties – Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist (Liberation), All India Forward Bloc, Revolutionary Socialist Party – have issued the following joint statement: pic.twitter.com/QHvUqMl73C
— CPI (M) (@cpimspeak) June 15, 2026
In a joint statement, CPI(M), CPI, CPI (ML), and others demanded that the Modi government ensure proper compensation to the families of the slain seafarers and pursue all diplomatic means to punish those responsible, while calling on the people of India to protest against US aggression.
They call Modi’s government “junior partner” to the US, failing in its duty to protect Indian citizens, and reneging on India’s longstanding tradition of an independent foreign policy.
Congress’s Rahul Gandhi called Modi an “obedient servant” and “compromised” by foreign powers.
Compromised PM के राज में एक भारतीय होने का मतलब दुर्गति है।
विदेशी ताकत हमारे नागरिकों को मारती है। हमारी सरकार एक आज्ञाकारी नौकर की तरह चुप-चाप आदेश मान लेती है – और हमारे नागरिक सड़ने के लिए छोड़ दिए जाते हैं।
इस भारतीय को घर लाइए। अभी। https://t.co/WE7Y69wHZt
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 14, 2026
The Guardian also reported that the “seemingly blase” response from the US government to the killing of the sailors has been the cause of great consternation in India.
Modi and Trump are expected to meet during the current G-7 summit in France. Will US/Israel axis propagandists have won or not – time will tell.
Featured image via the Canary
By The Canary
Politics
Disabled kids who get DLA not disabled enough for PIP
The number of disabled children who are kicked off benefits when they are reassessed as an adult has doubled in two years.
Under the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) rules, children get disability living allowance (DLA) until they are 16. Instead of just automatically moving on to Personal Independence Payment (PIP), they then have to reapply.
It should be a straightforward process, but because PIP is a needlessly cruel system, many find it harder to qualify for.
Disabled kids suddenly not disabled at 16
Information service, Benefits and Work, examined the statistics on moving from Child DLA to PIP on DWP StatXplore. Its team found that between 2023 and 2025, the rate of failure doubled.
From August to October 2023, 11% of claimants who had received DLA failed the assessment to get PIP. But for the same quarter in 2025, the failure rate had jumped to 23%.
Those are the most recent stats available, so the situation could be much worse by now.
Not only that, but success rates where the claimant gets more money with PIP than they did from DLA have also fallen.
Between August and October 2023, 69% of claimants saw an increase in their award from moving to PIP. But in the same quarter in 2025, this increase rate was 54%.
So, despite there being no changes to the PIP assessment yet, it’s clearly already a ridiculous system to qualify for, if there’s such a discrepancy between children getting DLA and over-16s getting PIP. A young person’s disabilities don’t magically disappear on their 16th birthday.
Higher poverty rates
It’s especially worrying to see that so many disabled young people are left without support once they turn 16, when you consider how many disabled children live in poverty.
The children’s charity Variety found that 21,000 disabled children live in temporary accommodation. This equates to one out of every eight children facing homelessness.
It’s also important to consider that temporary accommodation often cannot meet the needs of disabled people.
Temporary accommodation is supposed to be a short-term fix, but Variety found that, on average, disabled children spend six to 10 months in temporary housing. Some cases exceeded six years.
Whilst there have been no policy changes since 2023, there has been a sustained campaign by the Tories and then Labour to demonise benefits claimants.
These latest statistics evidence another way that the DWP is trying to make life harder for people with disabilities.
Featured image via cottonbro studio
Politics
Reform councillors suggest they’d vote for Jimmy Saville
Two of Reform’s Wigan councillors have been pictured with a sign that reads “I would rather vote for Jimmy Saville than Labour”. The problem with that statement is it implies the people standing by it would vote for Jimmy Saville. The problem with that is the fact that Saville was a notorious paedophile:
Reform UK’s #Makerfield campaign team for @RobKenyonReform, including 2 Wigan councillors Gemma Painter and Lilian Rogers.
Photo ops with Jimmy Saville jokes.
Sick.@reformparty_uk and Kenyon, anything to say? Share this, make sure everyone in Makerfield sees it. pic.twitter.com/GHT3TFWCHj
— Reform Party UK Exposed
(@reformexposed) June 15, 2026
Reform ignore crimes of Jimmy Saville
Here at the Canary, we’ve been as critical of Starmer as anyone. Arguably, we’ve been more critical, because we’ve been pointing out his flaws and deceptions since before he became Labour leader.
As bad as Starmer is, he’s clearly not worse than Jimmy f*cking Saville. You could argue that Starmer’s position as PM gives him a greater ability to cause damage, but that argument falls down when you’re saying you’d vote for Saville to replace him.
While Saville has once again become something of a joke, this man was a serious offender. 450 people accused him of sexual abuse. 82% of the victims were female; 80% of them were children. Saville used his position as a children’s entertainer to get away with this, as well as his connections within the media and charity sectors. He was a plague on this country, and no one should forget that.
Reform politicians have tried to paint themselves as the party which will tackle ‘grooming gangs’. Farage and his underlings told us the other parties don’t take the issue seriously, and yet here they are laughing about the most prolific sexual abuser of the past century.
And another pic.twitter.com/r5HNSZlFP9
— Reform Party UK Exposed
(@reformexposed) June 15, 2026
“Reform Will Fix It’
This isn’t the only time that Reform has shown an unusual interest in Saville. In March this year, the party decided to borrow the dead paedophile’s ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ catchphrase:
— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) March 28, 2026
WATCH: Nigel Farage is repeatedly heckled at the launch of Reform UK's London local election campaign pic.twitter.com/QCshvLKvU0
Even some of their far-right supporters took issue with this, which is presumably why they’d later drop the catchphrase:
Reform will 'fix it's a bit Jimmy Saville esque if you ask me, but they are putting out the right message. https://t.co/Gz5HozCc3o
— ARAMINTA

(@Glasvirgin) March 26, 2026
Reform’s cynicism around abuse doesn’t end there either. As we’ve reported:
- Grooming gang victims demanded an apology from Farage after he spread lies about them.
- Farage said it would be wrong to ban Twitter even though its AI was at the time producing Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM).
There’s also this:
A man is judged by the company he keeps. pic.twitter.com/vOZLwzKTje
— Reform Party UK Exposed
(@reformexposed) October 28, 2025
If you’re unfamiliar with Andrew Tate, here’s a video of him explaining the techniques he used to traffic women:
Here he admits in more detail to tricking women, giving them the false impression of love, and using a "bottom bitch" for manipulation for the sole purpose of putting them in front of a camera and making money off of them.
Deception and exploitation. This is human trafficking. pic.twitter.com/XtS6uU2E5g
— Ridvan Aydemir | Apostate Prophet (@ApostateProphet) June 23, 2023
Unsurprising
Given all of the above, it’s not surprising that a Reform supporter would rather vote for Saville than Starmer. If anything, it seems like some people who support Farage just wouldn’t have a problem with Saville full stop.
These are not people who take abuse seriously, and as time goes on, that couldn’t be more obvious.
Featured image via Twitter
By Willem Moore
Politics
PSC’s Jamal demands apology from Board of Deputies
Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) director Ben Jamal has demanded an apology and retraction from Israel lobby group Board of Deputies (BOD) for its smears against anti-apartheid protesters. The BOD (like the Met Police) had attacked Jewish activists protesting outside a London synagogue hosting the sale of stolen Palestinian land — a reference to Israel’s illegal settlements — but the BOD brazenly denied the event was selling stolen land.
Marketing stolen land
But it was selling stolen land. This is a fact that even corporate state media has now been forced to acknowledge. This should surprise no one paying attention.
Moreover, Israeli settlers have even been marketing land in southern Lebanon. This is land that Israel doesn’t control yet.
But for the ‘mainstream media’ to admit it, however unwillingly, is conclusive. Prioritising the feelings of Israel’s supporters as usual, the BOD claimed to be “deeply disturbed” at the “wholly unjustified” protests. It also demanded tough action from police against protesters:

Don’t hold your breath
But the BOD has not, at the time of writing, retracted its smears or even deleted its post. It has certainly not apologised for smearing protesters who were entirely in the right. So Jamal has tagged in the BOD directly. This is to ensure it has no excuse for not being aware of the fact its falsehood has been exposed. Additionally, he quoted the BOD’s smear and called for an immediate retraction and apology:
It is now verified that the event was marketing properties in illegal settlements. I presume you will now be retracting this statement, apologising, and condemning the synagogue for hosting the event. https://t.co/VOMnmgRmG9
— Ben Jamal (@BenJamal48) June 15, 2026
Skwawkbox hopes that Mr Jamal is not holding his breath. The BOD found time to welcome the Court of Appeals’ decision to undermine UK human and civil rights by upholding the Starmer regime’s ban on Palestine Action. However, it didn’t find time to address its own dishonesty on the Israel land sale. This is no surprise. The BOD says it exists to promote Israel. Yet politicians and ‘mainstream’ media organisations treat it as though it represents all British Jews. Nevertheless, many of whom oppose Israel and its crimes — rather than Israel.
And many of those politicians and media outlets, along with other Israel lobby groups, have spent the weekend attacking the protesters for ‘targeting Jews’. It’s now beyond honest dispute that the protesters were opposing yet more land-theft by the coloniser ethno-state.
Just don’t hold your breath waiting for Israel’s supporters to acknowledge it.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
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