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We have received a further reply from the Crown Office.

Alert readers may note that while Wings has repeatedly noted that the misappropriation of the fundraiser money by the SNP could constitute either fraud OR embezzlement (or both), entirely separate to the embezzlement FROM the SNP by Peter Murrell, the Crown Office continues – as its agent John Logue did in a recent BBC interview – to address only the possibility of fraud, which would be by far the more difficult of the two to prove, and to ignore the elephant in the room, which is that no less a personage than the First Minister has already admitted to spending all of the money on a purpose other than that which it was raised for.

The response is therefore plainly unsatisfactory, which we will deal with in our own reply within the next 24 hours, which will again be drafted by counsel. We will of course publish it here once it’s sent, so stay tuned.

Category
analysis, corruption, investigation, scottish politics

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Bosnia salutes their fans after World Cup exit/Alamy

4 min read26 min

Early this morning, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s World Cup journey ended with defeat to the United States. Today, its players begin the journey home.

Yet the most important story was never the result.

Some of these young footballers are the children of survivors of the genocide at Srebrenica. Others come from families that endured the siege of Sarajevo, survived concentration camps or were driven into exile by war.

They represent a generation that exists because their parents and grandparents survived an attempt to destroy both a people and a state.

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For the four weeks of the tournament, they achieved something Bosnia’s political leaders—and much of the international community—have failed to accomplish in almost three decades: they gave Bosnians a reason to believe in their country, in one another and in a shared future.

Since the Dayton Peace Agreement ended the war, Bosnia’s nationalist elites have built an entire political economy around division. They do not solve problems; they manufacture crises. They do not govern; they manipulate. Rather than competing over economic growth, education or the rule of law, they compete over fear. Every election is turned into a referendum on ethnic survival. Every reform is portrayed as an existential threat. Every compromise is denounced as surrender.

For secessionists, the argument goes further. They portray Bosnia and Herzegovina as an artificial state—unworkable, unsustainable and destined eventually to disappear. The country’s political dysfunction is treated not as a problem to solve, but as proof that the state itself cannot succeed.

The tragedy is that too much Western policy has accommodated this narrative rather than challenged it. Obstruction has been rewarded in the name of stability. Secessionist threats have been managed rather than defeated. This national team exposed the bankruptcy of that approach.

Its players came from different cities, different communities and families shaped by war in profoundly different ways. Some were born in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Others were raised in the diaspora because conflict forced their families to flee. Their histories were different. Their shirt was the same.

Nobody asked whether the goalkeeper was Bosniak, Serb or Croat before celebrating a save. Nobody cared which entity a defender came from after a last-ditch tackle. The only qualification that mattered was whether a player could help the team win. Merit replaced ethnic arithmetic, and patronage. Shared purpose replaced manufactured division.

That is how successful teams are built. It is also how successful states are rebuilt.

Football cannot rewrite Bosnia’s constitution. It cannot reform public administration, strengthen the judiciary or stop young people leaving. It cannot dismantle the patronage networks that have hollowed out public life.

But it can expose a lie. The lie is that Bosnia’s citizens are incapable of acting together. The lie is that ethnic division is immutable. The lie is that Bosnia and Herzegovina exists only because outsiders insist upon it. For four weeks, millions of Bosnians disproved all three.

That is why reports that public screenings and celebrations were discouraged in some predominantly Serb municipalities should not be dismissed as isolated incidents. They reveal something more profound. A successful Bosnian national team threatens political movements whose legitimacy depends on denying the existence of a shared Bosnian civic identity. A population united by achievement is harder to manipulate through fear.

The players did not defeat nationalism. They demonstrated that nationalism is a political strategy, not a historical inevitability.

No one should romanticise what happened. Bosnia’s constitutional paralysis remains. Corruption remains. Secessionist rhetoric remains. So does the unresolved legacy of genocide, including its denial and the glorification of convicted war criminals by some political leaders.

But one assumption has become much harder to sustain. If a team made up of young people from families shaped by genocide, siege, displacement and exile can unite around a common purpose and earn success through merit alone, what excuse remains for politicians who have spent thirty years insisting that the country itself cannot function?

The players are going home. Bosnia’s nationalist leaders remain exactly where they have always been. They deserve a political red card. Increasingly, so do those in democratic capitals who continue to indulge them.

For too long, the Internal community has, in the name of “stability”, all but legitimised those who undermine Bosnia and Herzegovina’s constitutional order, normalised secessionist threats and treated political spoilers as indispensable interlocutors rather than as the principal obstacle to a secure, democratic European state.

The lesson of this World Cup is that Bosnia and Herzegovina’s citizens have once again demonstrated that they are ready for a country built on merit, competence and shared citizenship. Bosnia is not held together by international supervision or constitutional engineering. It endures because its people continue to choose it.

ends

For any of you who haven’t caught it yet, my interview from Monday’s BBC Scotcast (which is also available on Spotify).

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Sadly due to a summer scheduling quirk the video version won’t go out on the telly, and seemingly not on the BBC YouTube page either, so you’ll just have to listen to the audio and somehow live without seeing my gorgeous face.

(But it looked like this.)

You may notice the occasional abrupt cut. That’s because 10 minutes were snipped from the recording to fit the show’s timeslot, and they were pretty much the same 10 minutes I’d have cut if I’d been editing it myself, including the bit where I accidentally called Jeffrey Epstein “Brian Epstein”.

(While making the point that Epstein had been jailed but none of his clients had. I hope Peter Murrell doesn’t also commit “suicide” in HMP Dumfries.)

If you’re interested, the other stuff that didn’t make the broadcast discussed:

 – Colin Beattie, and how he manifestly obviously wasn’t allowed to see the books any more than Douglas Chapman was, but was a compliant stooge who could be counted on by Murrell and Sturgeon not to ask any awkward questions. (Relating to Martin Geissler’s question about who the Crown Office could actually prosecute.)

– the SNP’s non-existent track record of actively pursuing a meaningful indy strategy, and what I’d have done instead. (Which is detailed here and here.)

– the fact that Alba failed (relating to the question about why I didn’t get involved in politics myself) because almost the only thing Nicola Sturgeon did competently and effectively during its near-decade in power was trash Alex Salmond’s reputation.

– the mystery of why even now no proper newspapers support independence, even as a purely cynical economic move, despite it being backed by half the population.

– the parallels, in terms of online media doing the job the mainstream press failed to, between Wings coverage of the SNP fundraiser scandal and that of the Rangers tax case, possibly because I made a plucky but ill-advised attempt at pronouncing Phil Mac Giolla Bháin’s name.

(I note in passing that he seems to be the most recent Twitter user to lose his account to a scummy crypto scammer.)

I don’t think any of it got “censored”, I think they just decided that what was left in was better material, and I agree. So there you go.

5 min read19 min

Research by the organisation Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD UK) and PoliticsHome has found that multiple Facebook groups showing support for Rupert Lowe and his Restore Britain party are run by individuals who appear to be based in Asia, with the investigation also finding admins based in the United States.

Some of these groups, which have tens of thousands of members, are later being turned into vessels for selling firesticks, download codes and tech support, with admins changing the group name and picture to suit the new purpose. 

Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan, Analyst and Editorial Manager at ISD UK who uncovered the groups, told PoliticsHome that the phenomenon was “really a continuation of an increasingly common trend we’ve seen: accounts promoting content that is misleading, politically charged or hateful for clicks”.

“There is obviously a particular irony that groups producing anti-Muslim content are run by Muslims themselves, but we are seeing these groups being run globally.”

Venkataramakrishnan said that the politics in these groups is “incidental”, with the groups ultimately just “a vehicle to monetisation”. 

Lowe, the MP for Great Yarmouth, has built a huge following on Facebook compared to other political party leaders. The Restore Britain leader currently has 1.3m followers on the platform. He also has a significant following on X, where, as PoliticsHome recently reported, he has made tens of thousands of pounds since being elected in 2024.

One group uncovered by the investigation, called ‘Rupert lowe [sic] fans’, which was set up in February 2026, is run by Mahiya Mim, Rifaat Alamin and Eliana Maya. 

According to their Facebook profiles, Maya is based in New York, while Alamin is based in Sylhet, Bangladesh. Mim does not specify her location but claims to have attended school in Bangladesh. In an added twist, Mim and Alamin appear to be married. 

Both Mim and Alamin have been admins for the group since the date it was created, while Maya became an admin two days later. 

The posts made on the group range from nostalgic British posts about former high street retailer Woolworths to pictures of women in the burqa, asking: “Do you agree that these should be banned?” 

Posts on ‘Rupert lowe fans’ also encourage engagement, posing questions such as “should Muslims be banned from all public office in the UK” and “who do you trust more to lead Britain?” with a picture of Lowe and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage included. The pages also post “relatable” British culture references, such as asking whether local bank branches should be reopened. 

While the group has amassed more than 28,000 members, the admins have been recently attempting to push members towards what they call their “new group”, ‘Restore Britain & Rupert lowe [sic] for PM’, which currently has just over 6,000 members and was created in April. 

Another similar group called ‘Restore Britain – Rupert lowe [sic] for PM’, which has more than 19,000 followers, was set up in March. 

At the time of writing, the admins of this Facebook group are listed as Sheren Dmax, who is based in Birmingham, and Arsala Rauf, who is based in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. As none of the individuals were admins from the group’s inception, it can be presumed they are not the creators.

It is unclear whether the accounts or groups are managing to monetise from the platform, but the income could be coming from elsewhere.

While many of these groups continue to purport to be Rupert Lowe or Restore Britain fan bases, some have been completely changed, with the groups instead becoming advertisements or selling pages for Amazon Firesticks.

Venkataramakrishnan also found evidence of Clarkson’s Farm fan groups being set up and later pivoting to promoting firesticks and tech support.

One Facebook group, which has more than 4,000 members, was created on 4 March 2026 and was originally called ‘Restore Britain Rupert lowe [sic] for pm’. In April, the name was changed to ‘Downloader Codes 2026’.

Originally, the group was politics-focused, including posts about British political party leaders and issues like border control, as well as offensive content like hateful posts about Muslims. However, on 13 April, the group name was changed by Itx Saddam. According to his Facebook page, Saddam lives in Islamabad, Pakistan. 

When the group name and picture changed, there was very little pushback from members, apart from Andy Milne, who wrote “FUCK OFF YOU PR1CK, NOT GHE GROUP I FVCKIN JOINED!! [sic]”

While the group claims to be based in the UK, the group is run by Shan Arsal, who is based in Karachi, Pakistan, according to his Facebook profile.

Other listed admins include Fabian Rahlmann (whose location is unknown), Adrian Wystub (who is based in the UK), Adam Chester (based in New York), and Babar Ali (based in Lahore, Pakistan).

Venkataramakrishnan told PoliticsHome: “One part of that is advertising revenue, but these groups are obviously trying to maximise how much money they can get. Promoting questionable goods is just one expansion of that; another likely one is targeting commenters with scams.

“This again just shows how there is a complete disconnect from the impact that these groups have both on those being targeted with hate and the accounts being drawn in – they’re all just avenues to making cash.”

Victoire Rio, executive director of technology charity What To Fix, told PoliticsHome: “We regularly see people ‘hijack’ political issues to ‘warm up’ Facebook pages and groups. This can be a good way to build a targeted following – in this particular case, Brits. There is also a vast resale industry for digital assets, so it’s also possible that these groups are being warmed up for resale.”

David Cameron and Boris Johnson | Image courtesy of: BBC/Zinc Television

3 min read4 min

“Ten years ago! God! Amazing!” Nigel Farage MP at the opening of the BBC’s celebration of the Brexit referendum. And he’s right. It was, this June, a decade ago that we took one of the most consequential decisions of our generation, which was followed by years of hectic debate.

The BBC has done an excellent job, bringing together senior commentators and participants in that hectic battle back in 2026. Unlike many documentaries, Brexit: A Very British Civil War avoids the temptation to editorialise – it’s more a collection of first-hand accounts, brought together to build a clear narrative of a confusing campaign.

But for someone in the trenches of the campaign (on, as it turned out, the losing side), this provides a clear gathering of ideas. Like the British Tommy who, caught in a foxhole during the Battle of the Somme, has an extraordinary first-hand experience, it is only with the help of historians that we know what collectively happened. And that is what the BBC has successfully achieved.

For those of us involved, it sheds some light on a few myths and reveals some unknown elements. Boris has been much mocked for his two articles – one for remain, one for leave – rather unfairly, I always thought. But Boris Johnson’s honesty over his indecision is enlightening. It seems he really was battling with the question of which side to support.

Similarly, it was fascinating to listen to Jeremy Corbyn’s arguments that the free-market economy should not be trusted to deliver prosperity from inside the EU, relying more on state investment to generate growth rather than EU bodies.

But for me, it was, and always has been, a case of who had the best campaign.

There is no doubt about it, a programme like this can be just a little triggering

George Osborne argues that the debate fell into two simple camps. Remain was economic; leave was immigration. But I think it was even simpler than that, and the programmes make the point.

Dominic Cummings – love him or hate him – is a brilliant campaigner. Those of us backing remain banged on about the economic arguments – how much it would cost each person, what would happen to our economy, how being outside the customs union would damage trade with our closest trading partner. So, while remain made these complicated points, leave shouted “Take Back Control” a thousand times. And when remain raised this with the broadcasters at the time, they explained they were giving each side equal airtime. And the three-word-slogan tactic was to revisit us all a few years later, with an election campaign in 2019 calling to “Get Brexit Done”.

There is no doubt about it, a programme like this can be just a little triggering. Some of us – especially those on the government benches through 2016 up to early 2020 – still bear the scars, a touch of PTSD, and a desire to put it all behind us. And I imagine the BBC will have a series of 10-year anniversary programmes – Theresa May’s time in office, Boris’ rise to power. There’s a lot to go on, and the final quote from Boris suggests more to come: “It wasn’t our job to have a plan.”

But it was also a delight to see old footage of colleagues, especially Boris with his hair in order. Who knew he owned a comb?

Mark Garnier is Conservative MP for Wyre Forest

Brexit: A Very British Civil War

Narrated by: Laura Haddock

Directed by: Max Stern & Olivia Bernhardt Brogan

Broadcaster: BBC iPlayer

Jonathan Portes analyses how increasingly strict immigration policies may have impacted the overall economc contribution of migrants in the UK. He argues that if the objective is to maximise economic contribution, the UK system may now be ‘too selective’.

All advanced economies have “selective” immigration policies. Unless a country closes itself off to immigration entirely, or has fully open borders, this is inevitable. And politicians and economists generally agree that one important criterion on which policies should be based is that of economic contribution – that is, giving some preference to those who are likely to contribute positively to the host country’s economy. This is rarely the only criterion – others, such as legal and moral obligation to refugees, the ability of families to reunite across borders, and so on – also matter. And it can be measured in different ways – earnings, current or prospective, likelihood of making a positive fiscal contribution, skills or qualifications that are seen as particularly likely to be beneficial, and so on. But all systems use one or more such measures.

This perspective has informed the UK policy debate before and after Brexit: the coalition government’s desire to reduce migration while attracting the “brightest and the best”, Vote Leave’s promise of a “skill-based points system”, the post-Brexit migration system that equalised conditions for EU and non-EU origin migrants while setting earnings and skills thresholds, and the decisions by both the Sunak government and the current one to substantially tighten these thresholds while barring entry entirely in some occupations, particularly care work, where most workers are relatively low-paid.

In particular, the story of the post-Brexit period would seem very clear. In the face of post-pandemic labour shortages, and in an attempt to mitigate the negative impacts of Brexit, the system for non-EU migrants was radically liberalised – that is, it became significantly less selective – in 2021. As a consequence, numbers soared, with particularly strong growth among less well-paid migrants, especially in care. More recently, partly as a result of political backlash, policy was tightened substantially in 2024 and 2025 and numbers arriving, especially to work, fell sharply.

Given these changes in selectivity operated primarily through salary thresholds, the obvious implication is that new non-EU migrants arriving after 2021, but before 2024, should have had substantially lower earnings than those arriving either before 2021 (under the pre-Brexit system) or after 2024 (after the substantial rise in salary thresholds that was introduced then).  There is just one problem. The data says otherwise.

Using HMRC data, we can track the earnings of migrants by the year in which they entered the UK employee workforce. As the above narrative suggests, there was indeed a sharp rise in new entrants from 2021, and a more gradual fall from 2023 to 2025. However, we see no evidence at all that earnings were lower during this period of lower selectivity. Indeed, quite the opposite. The median earnings of non-EU migrants who entered the employee workforce in 2018 attained parity with the whole workforce in three years; for those who entered in 2022 and 2023, it took only two years, a slight but visible improvement.

And what about those who entered in 2024, after the tightening? So far they seem to be tracking the 2018 cohort rather than the later ones. And those who entered in 2025 have extremely low earnings compared to any of their predecessors, although we cannot attach too much weight to the first year figure, which may be dominated by students working part-time. Broader labour market conditions, which seem to have disadvantaged new entrants to the labour market across the board, may also have played a part here.

In other words, the 2021 move to lower selectivity and much higher numbers does not appear to have reduced either initial earnings or early years earnings progression among new non-EU migrants, if anything the opposite; outcomes did not worsen, but may have improved. And the very sharp reversal, designed to increase selectivity, appears, although any conclusions must be very tentative at this stage, to have coincided with a substantial worsening of labour market outcomes – precisely the opposite of what might have been expected and what policy was intended to achieve.

What is the explanation? First, it is important to note that increasing the selectivity of ’economic’ routes may well, paradoxically, reduce the selectivity of the migration system overall. By definition, those coming on work visas are likely to be in full-time work, and, even under a relatively liberal system, most will be on average or higher earnings; by contrast, those coming through other routes – family, refugee routes or asylum – often will not be in work, especially at first, and may often be on low earnings. So reducing work flows may increase the average earnings of work migrants, but may reduce the average earnings of new migrants overall (and indeed the overall workforce).

This seems very likely to be part of the explanation here –  while care workers and others in middle-skilled occupations excluded by recent policy changes are not generally highly paid, they and their dependants are not (especially if they work full-time, as most do) at the lower end of the earnings distribution either for new migrants or for the population as a whole.

Second, even within economic migration routes, tightening the rules, supposedly to favour the “brightest and the best” may in fact deter them. As is often observed, we can choose migrants, but they also need to choose us – and those who are most likely to be economically beneficial have the most choice. As thresholds, fees and bureaucratic burdens rise – and policy changes signal a more hostile environment towards immigration and immigrants more generally – these workers may substitute toward alternative destinations, even if they remain formally eligible.

Does this mean that there is no point trying to select migrants on economic grounds? No – as noted above, some selectivity is inevitable, and at some point, lowering requirements will indeed reduce average outcomes. But it suggests that, if the objective is to maximise economic contribution, the UK system may now be ‘too selective’: a liberal and flexible system towards economic migration routes is likely to produce better results overall than one whose primary aim is to limit eligibility to a very narrow set of potential migrants.

[The data in this blog is taken from my work with Ben Brindle and Madeleine Sumption of Migration Observatory, published here. The opinions expressed here are my own.]

By Professor Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Department of Political Economy, King’s College London.

Credit: Adobe Stock

Earlier this year, nexfibre agreed to acquire Netomnia, one of the UK’s largest alternative network providers. With planned investment of £3.5bn in full-fibre infrastructure, we are set to establish the first genuine wholesale competitor capable of challenging BT Openreach at national scale.

The decision regulators reach on this transaction will determine whether Britain’s broadband future is defined by vigorous, sustainable competition or continuation of the status quo of monopoly-style dominance. It’s a clear choice.

Openreach still dominates the full-fibre market

Despite a decade of alternative-network (“altnet”) build-out, Openreach retains overwhelming market power. Its expansive footprint, retail relationships and deep balance sheet allow it to set terms that shape the entire sector. Many altnets remain geographically fragmented and financially fragile, limiting their ability to exert sustained, nationwide pressure on the incumbent.

These concerns are echoed in the latest Assembly Research report on the UK full‑fibre market, which warns that Openreach’s grip “risks replicating copper-era monopolies in the fibre age”. Unless a challenger with comparable scale and reach emerges, the UK risks compounding the Openreach dominance that has long constrained innovation and consumer choice. nexfibre’s mission is to change this.

Testing the limits of regulation

Openreach’s latest pricing tactics are testing the boundaries of Ofcom’s Telecoms Access Review (TAR) and are at odds with the government’s aim of promoting long‑term competition, investment and growth in the fibre market.

While headline price cuts may appear attractive for consumers in the short term, these are infact deep and targeted wholesale discounts, which make it uneconomic for rivals to scale. If allowed to proceed, it would entrench BT Openreach’s monopolistic position.

Sustainable competition depends on a level playing field. Ofcom scrutiny, and decisive action, is essential to ensure the market will mature to become sustainably competitive, enabling it to deliver investment, innovation and lower prices over the long term.

Building a national wholesale challenger

The combination of nexfibre’s network, Netomnia, and 2.1 million Virgin Media O2 premises which will also be upgraded to full fibre by nexfibre, will create a scaled, financially secure challenger to BT Openreach, with a full fibre footprint of around 8 million premises by the end of 2027.

When combined with the growing fibre footprint of Virgin Media O2, the two networks will collectively reach 20 million premises and give internet service providers a highly attractive wholesale alternative to the incumbent.

It is a bellwether transaction and will deliver three essential outcomes.

First, it will unlock £3.5bn of new investment at a time when capital for standalone altnets is increasingly scarce.

Second, it will create a financially secure wholesale platform covering millions of premises nationwide, giving internet service providers a meaningful alternative to Openreach.

Third, it will accelerate the full-fibre rollout while supporting AI adoption, cloud services and the productivity gains a modern economy demands.

The latter is a point that I made at the New Statesman Politics Live Conference earlier this week.

The UK is searching for growth, backing AI adoption, and our government is increasingly digitising. nexfibre is a next generation network provider, delivering the latest XGS-PON technology to premises across the country, ensuring Britain is connected – and prepared for the next stage of digital growth. But the full fibre market, which underpins the investment and growth we need, is often taken for granted.

Full fibre is essential growth infrastructure – and we need to make sure the conditions are there to support it – and fast. Every day of delay reinforces the incumbent’s advantage and slows the progress of genuine competition.

Britain’s choice

The UK faces a clear decision. We can allow dominance to deepen and maintain the monopolistic status quo that is holding our country back. Or we can equip the UK with a credible wholesale challenger and a sustainable competitive framework for the full-fibre era.

Britain’s broadband moment is here. Let’s seize it.