Since the latest release of the Epstein files, a media circus has ensued over the political and business figures connected to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The giddy fervour from some corners has been evident as people work their way through a huge number of files featuring the most powerful and elite people we know.

In a world where sexual violence is much more commonplace than we might like to admit, it is unsurprising that Epstein and his cabal of violent predators are the focus, and not the people they tortured and abused. Academic Harsha Walia had a stark and insightful summary of the situation:

Sexual violence, especially of children, is not an otherwise perverse symptom of elite rule or empire – it is literally at the CENTER of how violence and domination is structured around the world. We cannot keep treating sexual violence as a “private” issue, or as “divisive” to movements, or weaponize it to settle other political scores.

It is how power reverberates and is reproduced.

Sexual violence – especially against children – is not an aberration in our societies. It is not exclusively the preserve of the elite or powerful. It is a function at the very core of neoliberal racial capitalism. Epstein was a well-documented white supremacist and Zionist, and that is at the heart of how he and his fellow paedophiles operated.

So why is it that leftists have spent considerable time and energy since the latest release of the files defending prominent fellow leftists who allied themselves with Epstein?

Epstein files show the misogynist rot within the left

One of the most prominent leftist names mentioned in the files is that of the revered Noam Chomsky. His work has been crucial for leftists, but the academic has long known to have been friends with Epstein. Fellow academic Chris Knight has had pieces claiming to explain the reasons behind the friendship published in both CounterPunch and Novara Media.

The latter publication ran the story with the headline:

There Are Two Noam Chomskys. The One You Love, and the One That Was Friends With Jeffrey Epstein

Along with the tagline:

Not a straightforward guy.

The CounterPunch article and the one posted on Novara are similar versions of effectively the same piece.

In the version published a few days later on Novara, Knight admits:

Emails released last month by the US Department of Justice, however, now make it difficult to respect Chomsky’s views on anything at all.

How generous. By Knight’s own admission:

The emails even reveal that shortly before Epstein’s arrest and death, in July and August 2019, Chomsky was still intending to be interviewed for a documentary that Epstein was making. It seems Chomsky remained loyal to his cherished “friend” right until the end.

Chomsky was a loyal and steadfast friend of Epstein. Epstein was a known serial child rapist, child trafficker, and overseer of one of the most brutal and extensive grooming gangs in modern times. The details of such horrific crimes were an open secret even before the release of the files. Now that the files have been released, Chomsky’s wife has described their close friendship with the dead paedophile as part of “serious errors in judgement.”

Bizarre response

In both pieces, Knight muses on why Chomsky would have associated with Epstein. He makes it clear that Chomsky has a reputation for associating with people he should ostensibly have opposed – CIA directors, war hawks, and other reprehensible people. Knight maintains that:

Chomsky was at no point the perfectly principled radical intellectual admired by so many of his followers. If he had been, he would have resigned from MIT long ago. Yet, had he done so, he would never have come to know the US military establishment from the inside in a way that enabled him to become that establishment’s most knowledgeable and assured critic.

Who needs Chomsky to be perfect? Perfection is a far cry from a close personal friendship with a notorious paedophile and sex trafficker. Chomsky didn’t step down from MIT, or stop associating with rabid Zionists not as some kind of intellectual checkmate, but because he didn’t want to.

Society is far too willing to dismiss the experiences of those living at the sharp end of racial capitalism as ‘identity politics.’ But, we’re supposed to believe Chomsky needed to pal around with some of the most morally bankrupt people for research purposes? Please.

He knew exactly what he was doing. There is no duality or cognitive dissonance in Chomsky’s behaviour. He knew exactly what was doing, and he did it for decades. How could one of the most pre-eminent researchers not know the extent of Epstein’s crimes? Are we supposed to accept that he’s a genius researcher who can’t operate a simple Google search on the background of one of his best friends?

Business as usual

Knight’s passionate defence of Epstein is an obscene rehabilitation, a loving re-casting of Chomsky as somehow duped, tricked, or seduced. Knight concludes that:

It would be foolish to stop learning from his writings. It would be equally foolish to gloss over his mistakes. Instead of deciding whether to cancel or exalt him as an individual, I suggest we prioritise developing what he advocates, however hypocritically: a revolutionary politics for our times.

Since the latest release of the Epstein files, who exactly has demanded we “stop learning” from Chomsky? In fact, what is actually happening is that people are parsing through a release of files that deliberately exposes and intimidates victims and survivors of Epstein.

The choice is not whether to accept or reject Chomsky, whether to rehabilitate or castigate him. Instead, the choice facing us is a moral one: do we infantilise and clean up Chomsky’s actions, or do we accept that he repeatedly and knowingly chose to not only associate with, but loved a renowned pedophile and sex trafficker?

It is no choice at all.

I was raped as a child. Like many others who have been sexually abused, every time rape is discussed in the media, there are many all too willing to degrade the horror of abuse and defend those around the abusers. As such, the many attempts at rehabilitation of those implicated alongside Epstein in any way, whether Chomsky or anyone else, feel like an attempt to defend the rape that so many of us have had to come to terms with.

Knight – or someone from his team – offered a version of his above articles to the Canary. We immediately recognised that to publish such a thing would not only violate all of our values, it would also denigrate the experiences of victims and survivors. Shame on CounterPunch and Novara for giving a platform to the reprehensible attempt to clean up Chomsky’s image or work.

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Israel’s genocidal occupation military used thermal and thermobaric weapons on civilians in Gaza that ‘evaporated’ thousands of people, according to analysis by Al Jazeera.

Israel evaporated thousands of people

The broadcaster’s investigation, ‘The Rest of the Story’, based on forensic data analysis rather than estimates, found that 2,842 Palestinians were “evaporated” by the mostly US-made weapons. Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal described the “method of elimination” used by rescuers at strike sites. This compared known numbers of people inside a targeted building with their remains recovered afterwards:

If a family tells us there were five people inside, and we only recover three intact bodies, we only classify the remaining two as ‘evaporated’ after an exhaustive search yields nothing but biological traces, citing blood spray or small fragments such as skull fragments.

Basal emphasised that classification occurs only after thorough searches of rubble, hospitals, and morgues produce no identifiable remains. Given Israel’s blockade of bulldozers and other clearance equipment, it is likely that many more such deaths remain unclassified.

Military experts interviewed by Al Jazeera said that the occupation uses thermobaric and thermal weapons to obliterate the population across a wide area. These “vacuum” or “aerosol” bombs disperse a cloud of flammable vapour that is then ignited into an enormous explosion that produces extreme heat and a massive blast wave. Horrifying footage of Israel using such a weapon was captured in 2025:

Shocking

The experts told the station that Israel modifies the bombs it uses to make them even more devastating:

To prolong the burning time, powders of aluminum, magnesium and titanium are added to the chemical mixture…this raises explosion temperatures to between 2,500 and 3,000 degrees Celsius.

Crematoria typically use temperatures of 850-1150 Celsius to incinerate bodies.

Israel has murdered around 700,000 Palestinian civilians in Gaza. This figure has been disputed by Israeli propagandists, but tallies with US president Donald Trump’s statement that around 1.5 million people remain in Gaza that must be removed for his notorious ‘peace’ plan. Gaza’s pre-genocide population was around 2.2-2.3m.

Featured image via the Canary

According to whistleblowers who spoke to Electronic Intifada (EI), press freedom organisation the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) binned its latest ‘Impunity Index’ because Israel was going to top the rankings.

On its ‘About us’ page, the CPJ says that it exists to:

defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal… reports on violations in repressive countries, conflict zones, and established democracies alike… [and] works with other organizations to ensure that justice prevails when journalists are imprisoned or killed.

Or maybe not, in this case.

Press freedom, except when we say

The CPJ Impunity Index has been published annually since 2008 and is a tool regularly used by the United Nations and human rights groups. It assesses the deliberate killing of journalists in which the killers are not punished. Israel already ranked second in the 2024 index, which measured killings in 2023 and covered only three months of its Gaza genocide.

The 2025 Index would have put Israel way ahead of any other nation – and, as The Electronic Intifada notes, it would have stayed there for years, spooking CPJ boss Jodie Ginsberg:

Since the Impunity Index usually covers a timeframe of 10 years, Israel would have been ranked near the top, if not number one, for many years to come,” the whistleblowers argue.

They allege that Ginsberg “simply couldn’t afford the heat she would get every year from the board, the pro-Israel donors and from Israel itself and its allies.”

CPJ have denied that pressure from donors and board members played a role in the decision.

Israel has murdered hundreds of journalists in Gaza since the beginning of the genocide, along with – intentionally – more than 700 of their family members. It has also started targeting journalists in Lebanon. This is surely a reason to trumpet its impunity more loudly than ever.

Instead, Israel even gets impunity for its impunity.

Featured image via the Canary

George Pickering is a researcher at the think tank Bright Blue. He holds a doctorate in Economic History from the University of Oxford.

The recent setback to Andy Burnham’s parliamentary ambitions seems to have done little to diminish expectations that he could be the man to finally end the troubled premiership of Keir Starmer.

Even after having been blocked from running in the Gorton and Denton by-election, the Greater Manchester Mayor is still amongst the bookies’ favourites to become the next Labour leader. Indeed, his rejection of Starmer’s offer of a safe Labour seat in 2027 suggests that Burnham still expects to be able to return to Parliament and challenge Starmer long before the next general election.

Burnham offered some clues as to what his agenda as Prime Minister might be in a speech he recently delivered to the IFS and the UCL Policy Lab. There, Burnham appeared to lament Britain’s wince-making national debt, describing the country as “in hock to the bond markets.” This would all be very well if Burnham meant to tackle the debt by the obvious means of restraining government spending. However, proposing spending cuts in any area – except, perhaps, defence – would be unlikely to endear him to the Labour rank-and-file.

Instead, Burnham argued that Britain should follow the example of Manchester’s supposedly miraculous recent economic growth which he attributed to “roll[ing] back the 1980s and [taking] more local public control over the essential drivers of the economy, such as housing, utilities, transport and education.”

However, it is far from clear that “Manchesterism,” as Burnham has called his programme, would really be the miracle cure to Britain’s economic woes. For one thing, it seems probable that the official figures suggesting exceptional productivity growth in Manchester have overestimated the number of new professional jobs in the city, and fail to account for the city’s lack of wage growth, except amongst those benefitting from recent hikes in the minimum wage.

Burnham’s proposals also hardly seem novel enough to be considered their own distinctive programme deserving its own special soubriquet. It is difficult to imagine any centre-left figure who would not echo Burnham’s wearily predictable denouncement of austerity, Brexit, deregulation and privatisation as “the four horsemen of Britain’s apocalypse.” Nor is it clear how increasing state control of housing, utilities, transport and education – hardly bastions of unregulated enterprise – would apply the needed smelling salts to Britain’s torpid private economy.

By far the most objectionable aspect of Burnham’s agenda, however, is the name he has chosen for it. As the Mayor of Greater Manchester must be aware, the name ‘Manchesterism’ is already associated with the rich history of an older political movement hailing from that city, one which embodied principles entirely opposite to Burnham’s own.

Benjamin Disraeli coined the phrase ‘the Manchester School’ in 1848 to describe an influential faction of radical liberals led by two Manchester-based industrialists: Richard Cobden and John Bright. These two men are best remembered today for having founded the Anti-Corn Law League in 1839, which indefatigably lobbied against the most significant protectionist tariffs of their day, the so-called Corn Laws.

The Corn Laws, which restricted the importation of all cereal grains, had been enacted in 1815 in a transparent attempt to boost the agricultural incomes of the old, aristocratic ‘landed interest’. The effect of these regulations was to raise food prices to unbearable heights and to burden British businesses with higher wage bills and restricted options for trade. When the Irish Potato Famine exposed the full effects of these restrictions on the importation of food, the Manchester Liberals finally persuaded Sir Robert Peel to abolish the Corn Laws in 1846, laying the foundations for the explosive growth of the British economy in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Nor was Manchesterism a single-issue coalition. Cobden, Bright and their followers were principled liberals, inspired by the writings of Adam Smith and Frédéric Bastiat. They were outspoken not only in their advocacy of free trade abroad, but also of free markets at home, free speech, and limited government in general; ideas anathema to most modern centre-leftists such as Burnham, and indeed to many of the policymakers of all parties who can claim credit for the state of Britain today, 180 years after the abolition of the Corn Laws.

If Andy Burnham sincerely wished to revitalise Britain’s economy, rather than merely managing its continued decline, he would do well to emulate the true Manchesterism of Cobden and Bright, rather than merely appropriating its name for his own uninspiring agenda.

Just 51.9% of British Muslims say they strongly feel they belong in the UK. This marks a dramatic fall from the 93% reported in a 2016 Ipsos MORI survey. The new figures come from one of the largest ever socio-economic studies of British Muslims.

British Muslims feeling increasingly unsafe

A respondent to the Muslim Census survey said:

This is my country but I am told I’m not welcome. I fear for my family and friends who are Muslim.

The findings, titled The Crisis of Belonging, were published by Muslim Census survey in partnership with Islamic Relief UK and the National Zakat Foundation. They reveal a community grappling with rising Islamophobia, political hostility, and a growing sense of alienation. And this is the case even among those born and raised in Britain:

I was born and educated in the UK, I have over 20 years experience as a qualified solicitor. I have seen attitudes towards Muslims deteriorate dramatically and this has been on a steady decline in the last few years.

Respondents repeatedly describe a country that feels increasingly hostile. They cite media, political rhetoric, and the rise of the far right as driving feelings of fear, exclusion, and insecurity. Many say they no longer feel safe identifying as Muslim in public:

I grew up with racism and Islamophobia back in the 80s. Then life felt good. I felt part of the fabric of society. My contributions felt valued and impactful. Now I do not admit to being from the UK, because the UK government and many people in power and the media make me feel unwanted and less than. Instead I say I’m from Liverpool. The only place in the UK I do feel part of and valued within.

Others speak openly of considering emigration or having a “Plan B” should conditions worsen:

I was born here but no longer feel safe here as a Muslim and am looking to move abroad if I can.

One person said:

I was born and brought up here and have lived a mainstream British life… I have always felt totally British. I feel less so in this decade and do daydream about a Plan B elsewhere.

Another described:

We are seriously considering our plans to leave the UK should a more right-wing government come into power.

Financial hardship

Alongside this erosion of belonging, the census survey of 4,800 British Muslims exposes widespread but largely hidden financial hardship. This often gets masked by misleading income figures and compounded by stigma around seeking help.

The research reveals:

• 29.4% struggled to pay at least one household bill in the past year.
• 43% relied on borrowing, including credit cards or family loans, to meet the cost of living.
• 1 in 12 missed meals due to financial difficulty, including 6% of full-time workers.
• Among Black African Muslims, 1 in 5 report going hungry in the past year.

Despite such documented hardship, the uptake of support is strikingly low:

• 63% of those who went hungry did not use food banks this past year.
• When people sought help, they turned first to family or local councils, with just 4.2% using Zakat organisations.
• Only 2% of respondents requested Zakat or emergency charitable support in the past year.

Zakat is a compulsory act of worship in Islam, one of the five pillars of the faith. It requires Muslims who possess wealth above a certain threshold (called the Nisab) to donate a portion (typically 2.5%) of their qualifying wealth to those eligible to receive it.

The survey identifies lack of awareness and discomfort from respondents in asking for help as major barriers to accessing support. And yet, whilst poverty and a need for support is widespread, generosity remains exceptionally high. 80.7% of respondents still paid their Zakat this past year.

Rebuilding trust and belonging

As chief executive of the National Zakat Foundation, Dr Sohail Hanif has real clarity on the challenging circumstances facing British Muslims:

I travel across the country every week and meet people from many different backgrounds, faiths, and walks of life. What’s clear in the 2026 Muslim Census survey is a shared sense of uncertainty and a feeling that trust between communities has weakened in recent years.

This isn’t something felt just by Muslims, but across communities more broadly. Rebuilding trust and strengthening British Muslims’ sense of belonging in the UK will take time and effort, but it’s essential if communities are to feel connected, confident, and hopeful about the future.

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The Muslim Census survey signals a growing recognition across the sector that data must drive decision-making and that understanding the realities of British Muslims is not just an academic exercise, but a prerequisite for effective charitable intervention, community support, and advocacy.

The survey concludes that British Muslims are not a community in crisis. Rather, the community is experiencing hidden need, masked by misleading income figures and divisive narratives in the media and British politics.

Featured image via the Canary

Dementia risk reduced by 40% for those who regularly read and write

Jim Ratcliffe is a rank hypocrite who abandoned the UK to stash billions offshore. The co-owner of Manchester United football club moved his tax residence to Monaco during the Covid pandemic to dodge an estimated £4bn in tax. He now lives as a tax exile whilst claiming the UK is ‘colonised’ by immigrants.

A billionaire who moved his tax residence to Monaco during the pandemic so he didn’t have to give his money to hospitals, schools, and public services?

Spare me. https://t.co/gN5KEckEPm

— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) February 11, 2026

Oi Ratcliffe – you can’t complain about a system you don’t pay into

Complaining about the 9 million people on benefits is a bit rich coming from a guy who enjoys the benefits of the UK system but doesn’t pay into it.

His move to the the French Riviera in September 2020 was heralded by his time screaming about the benefits of Brexit. He possibly moved because we forced him to pay £110m in tax in 2019.

You might be surprised to find out that Jim Ratcliffe was one of them.
Weird that, innit. pic.twitter.com/4hvrIm7yix

— Simon Gosden. Esq. #fbpe 3.5% 🇪🇺🐟🇬🇧🏴‍☠️🦠💙 (@g_gosden) February 12, 2026

By moving his assets and his residency, the slimy knight of the realm ensured that his wealth stays in his pockets. Untold millions remain with one single man, rather than going back into the UK and funding essential services such as schools and hospitals. This didn’t stop Ratcliffe from telling Sky News that the UK is “costing too much money”.

Manchester United fans all over the UK have called out the club’s owner for being an absolute tool:

Millionaire, “I am not a racist BUT, wankers” living in Dubai to avoid tax, defending a billionaire wanker living in Monaco to avoid paying tax, and who is making numbers up to make racist comments

I am sorry @ManUtd but Ratcliffe’s comments shame our club. It’s not who we are pic.twitter.com/REyMKS5BHr

— Cantona & Best (@bestcanton7) February 12, 2026

The club has now distanced itself from Ratcliffe’s position:

BREAKING: Manchester United very politely chucking their owner under a large bus. https://t.co/6QzmFbZjm4

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) February 12, 2026

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Ratcliffe also claimed the UK population has surged to from 58 million to 70 million since 2020. This, he said, is due to immigration.

Ratcliffe is presumably better at counting his money than this.

His bizarre claim that the UK population grew by 12m between 2020 and 2025 is a fourfold exaggeration. His starting point, that our population was 58m in 2020 is out by 25 years. His claim that 9 million people are… pic.twitter.com/SYrJkCTvL5

— Dale Vince (@DaleVince) February 12, 2026

This is a blatant and racist lie. The Office for National Statistics confirms the population was 67.1 million in 2020. It had risen to 69.5 million by late 2025.

Pay up or shut up

Ratcliffe needs to concentrate less on immigration into the UK and more about his own shit. This man pays absolutely zero into the UK economy. He’s moved all of his cash offshore, so why is he commenting on the country costing too much?

Until he pays his share, he will continue to consciously deprive UK services such as the NHS of much needed money, driving people further into poverty for the sake of his own personal wealth.

It’s not immigrants that are the problem.

Featured image via The Canary

The political and media establishment are clearly desperate to put a spanner in the Green Party’s massive surge since the election of current leader Zack Polanski. The part’s firm stance against Zionism has become central to this. And the establishment’s latest scramble to smear Greens for opposing Israel’s genocidal settler-colonial project in Palestine seems unlikely to be successful.

Green Party “Zionism is Racism” motion attracts smears

There have historically been different strains of Zionism — the Jewish nationalist movement behind the colonisation of Israel. But the dominant form today is a supremacist extremism that empowers racism, apartheid, and genocide. Zionism is not Judaism, no matter how much Israel’s leaders and cheerleaders want to blur the line.

Now, Green members are campaigning for a spring conference motion that seeks to acknowledge that “Zionism is Racism” and declare the party as “an Anti-Zionist Party.” They also seek a rejection of cynical attempts to “equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism” in order “to silence legitimate criticism” of Israel.

The motion is fundamentally about equality, freedom, and democracy. And if it passes, author Matt Kennard says:

This will be a watershed moment in British politics.

Israel’s genocide in the occupied Palestinian territory of Gaza has fuelled a growing movement to end the apartheid state’s crimes once and for all. And pro-Israel shills know full well that the Greens, under the leadership of a Jewish leader who stands in solidarity with Palestine, are helping to mainstream criticism of Israeli colonialism.

As a result, the smears are intensifying:

Green Party will likely vote to be first major UK political party that is anti-Zionist at its Spring Conference (Motion A105)

This will be a watershed moment in British politics

So the subversion steps up. This absurd article is the beginning

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Anti-Zionism is anti-fascism pic.twitter.com/oP9PfM0X0L

— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) February 12, 2026

Thanks to strong progressive positions, the Green Party has quickly grown to over 190,000 members in recent months. And it has taken clear positions in support of Palestine under Polanski, like calling for the proscription of Israel’s occupation forces as a terrorist group.

But the party was previously more timid on Palestinian rights. And clearly there are some members still sympathetic to Israeli colonialism. Because one member has now told the historically racist Daily Mail (of all papers) that they reported fellow members to “counter-terrorism police” over the new motion on Zionism.

Green councillor Andrée Frieze, meanwhile, joined with others to criticise the “tone of, and language in, the motion“. But while pro-Israel voices might dislike it, it represents pretty basic progressive positions on Israeli colonialism:

Lubna Speitan—Palestinian Green Party member and a member of the Greens For Palestine Steering Group—has proposed this important motion for the Spring Conference.

I endorse all of it. It should all be Green Party policy. Basic stuff for a progressive party.

Motion A105:…

— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) January 26, 2026

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Some observers believe this will be a real test for the Greens. But recent positions suggest that the majority of members will indeed lean into even stronger positions that meaningfully challenge Israeli war criminals and their cheerleaders.

Smears feed off timidity

Today, there are still attempts from pro-Israel propagandists to smear anti-genocide campaigners as antisemites. And such voices routinely claim that seeking accountability and consequences for Israel’s genocidal mass extermination of Gaza’s population is somehow “hateful”.

But the widespread pro-Israel smears against the left during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party were a learning moment. If you give propagandists an inch, they’ll take a mile. So the best way to challenge them is to call out their bullshit clearly and immediately.

No religious discrimination is ever acceptable. But that’s not what criticism of Israel is about. It’s political, not religious. And the vast majority of Green members have already shown their awareness of that, moving the party to strong positions on the Palestinian people’s right to existence, freedom, and democracy.

The smears will not end. But as long as Greens lean into unapologetic support for human rights and opposition to Zionist racism, the smears will fail. And when the smears fail, the chances of finally holding Israeli war criminals and their cheerleaders to account will increase.

Featured image via the Canary