Parachuted-in Reform UK by-election candidate Matthew Goodwin’s links to Nazi pseudoscience have been exposed in coverage by Byline Times. The revelation comes hot on the heels of allegations of sexual harassment and reports that Reform boss Nigel Farage is scrambling to distance himself from Goodwin’s record of misogyny.

Goodwin: if it walks like a duck

Goodwin represents Reform this week in the Gorton and Denton by-election created by the ‘retirement’ of its former Labour incumbent. He holds a ‘visiting professorship’ at an academic centre connected to “the front publication for a reconstituted Nazi eugenics foundation”.

Eugenics is a notorious, racist pseudoscience that began in Victorian Britain but was taken up by the Nazis as a way of ‘Aryanising’ the population to remove supposed ‘unworthy’ characteristics. It has never truly fallen out of favour with the far right – and Goodwin has:

actively defended, promoted and cited key figures within the network

of at least five organisations linked to the eugenics movement, including ‘Aporia’. Aporia was exposed in 2024 as the publishing arm of the US far-right, so-called ‘Human Diversity Foundation’, described as a reconstitution of the Nazi ‘Pioneer Foundation’ (PF). Neither organisation has ever renounced their racist origins.

Goodwin holds the ‘visiting professor’ post at the University of Buckingham’s ‘Centre for Heterodox Social Science’ (CHSS). CHSS lists the racist organisations in a section titled “Our Network” and says that all of them are “mission-aligned” with its goals.

As Byline Times notes:

Goodwin has argued that people from Black, Asian and other immigrant backgrounds are not necessarily British. “It takes more than a piece of paper to make somebody ‘British’,” he said in November 2025.

In an interview in June 2025, he described “Englishness” as “an ethnicity that is deeply rooted in a people that can trace their roots back over generations.” The formulation excludes millions of British citizens. He has claimed that women in Britain are having children “much too late” and called for a “negative child benefit tax” for those without children, alongside removing income tax for women with two or more.

Goodwin has also complained that universities are too dominated by “childless women”, which he claimed leads to “politically correct authoritarianism.”

Once a critic of the far right and its abusiveness, Goodwin jumped the fence to join the extremists. Bookies and many polling companies make local plumber and Green candidate Hannah Spencer favourite to win on Thursday, but the Green ‘get out the vote’ operation will be crucial.

Direct form, not just links

Goodwin’s links to so-called ‘race science’ are not just indirect links. In 2019, pseudoscientist Noah Carl was dismissed from a Cambridge University research post after fellow academics signed a letter describing his work as “ethically suspect and… flawed” racism dressed as science. Carl had published his work in another Nazi-funded, white supremacist magazine and the university’s own investigation came to the same conclusion about his claims.

But Goodwin went to bat for the discredited Carl, describing the university’s decision as “mob rule crushing free speech on campus”. The disgraced Carl moved on to become a regular writer for the above-mentioned Aporia, eventually becoming senior editor in 2022. Goodwin then appeared on the magazine’s supremacist podcast – but not to challenge its positions.

Goodwin has quoted white nationalist icon Charles Murray – who attributed inequality to the supposed inferiority of racialised groups and of women – at least three times. Murray claimed that good breeding made the wealthy superior to the inferior genes of those less privileged.

Goodwin has also claimed that science is about to endorse these supposed racial differences that underpin eugenics:

the idea that there are not inherent differences between groups is just going to be completely unsustainable. I mean it already is if you look at the evidence. Over the next 5-10 years it’s just going to look utterly ridiculous as a lot of this research and evidence comes through.

Goodwin did not respond to the publication’s request for comment. Reform – as with the sexual harassment allegations, dismissed them as:

desperate [allegations] bordering on conspiratorial by a discredited outlet attempting to derail a democratic election.

The blighted condition of British politics under Starmer and the fascist Tory/Reform axis he tries to emulate has become so awful that it is a high bar to say that a particular right-winger is unfit to be anywhere near a parliamentary seat. But that proposition applies to Goodwin.

Featured image via the Canary

The Gaza Strip is entering its most dangerous phase since the outbreak of Israel’s genocide, with a tightened blockade, widespread destruction of infrastructure and a worsening shortage of basic services. The suffering is no longer limited to food and medicine shortages, but has extended to water, electricity, health and civil organisation, placing more than two million Palestinians in unprecedented hardship.

An unprecedented water crisis in Gaza

At the heart of the deteriorating humanitarian situation, the water crisis is worsening daily. The Gaza Municipality announced that the city has been facing a severe crisis for weeks, after the Israeli ‘Mikrot’ water line was disrupted by military operations in the eastern area known as the ‘yellow zone’.

According to the municipality, more than 85% of the city has been almost completely deprived of water, at a time when it was relying on the ‘Mikrot’ line as its main source during the genocide, after 72 wells were destroyed and the only desalination plant in Sudaniya was put out of service, in addition to the shutdown of the Bir al-Na’ja and al-Safa wells, which were destroyed again.

The daily water needs of Gaza City are around 100,000 cubic metres, while only 12,000 cubic metres are actually available at best, a shortfall of more than 75%. As a result, the per capita share in many areas does not exceed five litres per day, which is far below the minimum humanitarian requirement for survival.

The United Nations estimates that around 1.4 million of the 2.1 million inhabitants live in approximately 1,000 camps for displaced persons, without running water or electricity, which exacerbates health risks due to overcrowding and high temperatures.

Fuel: a faltering lifeline

The water crisis is directly linked to the fuel crisis, as municipalities are unable to operate wells and sewage treatment plants regularly due to a lack of supplies. Although limited quantities of fuel are being brought in, they do not cover operational needs, leading to frequent interruptions in water pumping and the accumulation of sewage in some areas.

Local authorities emphasise that fuel rationing has a direct impact on vital sectors, from hospitals to public sanitation services, exacerbating the health and environmental crisis and putting the service system to severe tests.

Economically, markets have seen significant increases in the prices of some basic commodities as a result of limited supplies and higher transport and coordination costs. Despite a relative improvement in the availability of some products in recent weeks, price fluctuations remain a prominent feature as restrictions continue.

In response, government agencies and the Ministry of Economy have intensified their regulatory campaigns to control markets and prevent monopolies and exploitation of the crisis.

and announced measures against some offending traders in an attempt to protect consumers and ensure fair distribution, especially in light of eroding purchasing power, rising poverty rates, and the dependence of a large segment of the population on aid or irregular sources of income.

Acute shortage of medicines

The issue of medicines and medical supplies remains one of the most sensitive and serious.

Hospitals are suffering from an acute shortage of essential items, including medicines for chronic diseases and antibiotics, as well as surgical and intensive care supplies.Health authorities warn that continued restrictions on the entry of medical supplies threaten the lives of thousands of patients, especially those with cancer, kidney and heart disease.

The weak operational capacity of hospitals amid fuel shortages further exacerbates the fragility of the health sector, which is already on the brink of collapse.*A chronic deficit*Ultimately, restrictions on the entry of aid and essential goods—whether through rationing or complex procedures—remain a key factor in keeping the sector in a chronic deficit.

Between worsening thirst, scarce fuel, volatile prices, and acute shortages of medicines, Gaza’s residents face a daily struggle for survival in one of the most complex humanitarian situations since Israel’s genocide began.

Featured image via the Canary

In Gaza, football was not just a game. It was a space for life and a window of hope for an entire generation. Today, Palestinian sport faces an unprecedented scene of destruction, after Israel’s genocide affected infrastructure, facilities and human resources, amid mounting accusations that international sports institutions have been turning a blind eye to its rights for decades.

This reality opens up four key areas for discussion: the role of the Peace Council, the position of FIFA and international bodies, the controversy over double standards, and the possibility of a return to sportsmanship amid a fragile truce and widespread destruction.

The Peace Council: symbolic support or practical step?

Recent months have seen the announcement of a partnership between the Peace Council and FIFA to rebuild stadiums and academies and develop sports infrastructure in Gaza. Despite the stated ambition, this project faces widespread scepticism given the reality on the ground: a large proportion of facilities and stadiums have been destroyed, and the community is in dire need of basic reconstruction of housing, hospitals and schools before stadiums.

Therefore, many believe that the initiative, while humanitarian in nature, is more of a symbolic gesture than a real reform for Palestinian sport, and may be part of efforts to improve FIFA’s image after sharp international criticism of its inaction towards Israeli violations.

FIFA and Palestinian sport: a long history of turning a blind eye

For decades, FIFA has adopted a policy of passive neutrality towards what Palestinians describe as Israeli occupation violations of Palestinian sport. FIFA has ignored restrictions on the movement of Palestinian players and the targeting of stadiums and sports facilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the imposition of Israeli clubs in settlements at the expense of Palestinian federations.

Even international calls, demonstrations and petitions demanding sanctions or Israel’s exclusion from FIFA have been met with no response. These calls have intensified since the assassination of nearly 1,000 Palestinian athletes, two-thirds of whom were footballers, highlighting the gravity of the violations for which FIFA has not been held accountable.

In contrast, FIFA quickly excluded Russia from international tournaments in 2022 following its war in Ukraine, which, according to the Palestinians, reflects double standards and a real disregard for Palestinian football rights despite the scale of violations that have continued for many years.

Even the International Olympic Committee has not taken any practical action, despite international calls and demonstrations demanding an end to the violations or the imposition of sanctions, reinforcing the Palestinians’ sense of abandonment in terms of protecting the rights of sport in Palestine.

Human losses and a lost generation

The crisis is not limited to infrastructure. The sports sector has lost nearly 1,000 athletes, more than two-thirds of whom are football players. These losses mean the loss of entire generations of talent and the halting of the development of young players, in addition to the profound psychological and social effects on those who survived.

Experts emphasise that the restoration of Palestinian sport requires long-term programmes that include psychological and social rehabilitation, not just the reconstruction of stadiums.

During periods of relative calm, five-a-side tournaments were held in Gaza as a way to restore the sporting spirit, albeit symbolically. These initiatives carried significant moral weight, but their impact remains limited due to the absence of facilities capable of hosting official tournaments, the damage to entire clubs, and the lack of complete security stability.

Furthermore, according to experts’ estimates, the reconstruction of Gaza could take more than five years, which puts Palestinian sport at the bottom of the list of priorities compared to the urgent need for housing and basic services.

Between reality and what is needed – will sport return to Gaza

International sports institutions remain on the defensive, insisting that they operate within complex legal frameworks, but Palestinians consider this silence or passive neutrality to be indirect complicity, especially in the face of decades of ongoing Israeli violations.

The real challenge of reviving Palestinian football is not limited to building new stadiums, but also includes guaranteeing players’ rights, protecting facilities, restoring lost talent, and comprehensive programmes to rehabilitate the sporting community.

The current truce may bring some of the pulse of sport back to Gaza, but Palestinian football faces existential challenges: stadiums have been reduced to rubble, generations have been lost, and sports personnel are psychologically exhausted.

Restoring the game requires genuine international will, a comprehensive long-term plan, and enormous resources to rebuild both human and physical infrastructure. Football in Palestine is not just a game; it is a symbol of resilience and national identity, and its revival requires more than symbolic promises, but a real commitment to restore the rights that have been taken away from Palestinian sport.

Featured image via the Canary

There are still just a handful of decent people in the Labour Party, though few and far between. Alloa and Grangemouth’s union-backed Brian Leishman is one.

Leishman: calling it out

In the Commons on Monday 23 february, Leishman challenged Starmer for his broken promise (one of so, so many) to clean up politics. He then pointed out that the people who scammed Starmer into the Labour top seat and, with the help of Reform, into Number 10 have been exposed as spies and con artists. These miscreants include Starmer’s disgraced now-former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, his disgraced now-former senior adviser and ambassador Peter Mandelson and his disgraced for-now current minister Josh Simons.

And he rounded off by challenging Starmer’s front bench to admit that all this is “some dark shit”:

Leishman was told off by friend-of-Israel speaker Lindsey Hoyle for his choice of word. He offered the required apology for his language, but did not withdraw the question and looked entirely unrepentant about the sentiment.

Leishman had the party whip suspended in July 2025 for publicly criticising Starmer and refusing to vote to harm poor people, then reinstated in November. Given Starmer’s notoriously brittle ego, it may not be long before Mr L is sitting as an independent again – and all the better for it.

Featured image via the Canary

Statements by the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, sparked widespread Arab and Muslim anger after he said he ‘sees no problem’ with Israel taking over the entire Middle East, before later describing his remarks as ‘metaphorical exaggeration.’

Mike Huckabee: quoting scripture for colonialist purposes?

Huckabee’s remarks came during an interview with American media personality Tucker Carlson on Monday, when he was asked about religious texts that refer to ‘the land of Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates.’ He replied, ‘It would be good if they took it all,’ adding that the land ‘was given by God through Abraham to a chosen people’.

Huckabee, who was appointed ambassador in April 2025, is known for his controversial statements, including his repeated assertion that ‘there is no such thing as a Palestinian,’ and his suggestion that a Palestinian state be established in Jordan or parts of Sinai, arguing that ‘there is a lot of Arab and Islamic land, while there is only one small Israel.’

In the recent interview, Huckabee rejected the idea of invoking the Palestinians’ genetic ties to the land, saying that ‘the ruins and stones speak for themselves,’ referring to what he calls archaeological discoveries in ‘Judea and Samaria’ (the West Bank) as, in his words, ‘the only deed of ownership.’

The text cited by Carlson and confirmed by Huckabee appears in Genesis 15 and speaks of a divine covenant with the prophet Abraham granting his descendants a land stretching ‘from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.’ According to this interpretation, the geographical area referred to includes all of historic Palestine, as well as Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and parts of Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, which would mean a radical change in the map of the Middle East.

The US ambassador did not rule out the scenario of future military expansion, saying that if Israel were attacked by countries in the region and ‘won that war and took that land, that would be a completely different discussion.’

Wide geographical scope

The proposal approved by Huckabee, according to the common geographical interpretation of the text, is not limited to historic Palestine, but extends to include:

• Jordan

• Lebanon

• Syria

• Large parts of Egypt

• Iraq

• Saudi Arabia

This means, in practical terms, redrawing the map of the Middle East and swallowing up existing sovereign states.

The ‘Greater Israel’ movement

Huckabee’s statements come in the context of the rise of a movement within the Israeli government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu that embraces the vision of ‘Greater Israel.’ Netanyahu said in August 2025 that he was ‘strongly attached’ to this vision.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is also one of the most prominent advocates of this approach, having previously stated that Israel’s future ‘is expansion to Damascus’ and that it ‘must extend to include Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.’

On the ground, Palestinian and international parties accuse Israel of accelerating the pace of ‘de facto annexation’ in the West Bank by expanding settlements and transferring powers to Israeli civil authorities, thereby undermining the two-state solution and the 1967 borders.

Arab and Islamic condemnations

According to Red Canary, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation condemned Huckabee’s statements, describing them as ‘dangerous and irresponsible,’ asserting that they are based on ‘false historical and ideological claims’ and violate the sovereignty of states and the United Nations Charter.Huckabee

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry also stressed that ‘Israel has no sovereignty over Palestinian or other Arab territories,’ rejecting any attempts to annex the West Bank or separate it from the Gaza Strip.

For its part, the Saudi Foreign Ministry considered the US ambassador’s statements to be ‘disregard for the distinguished relations’ between the countries of the region and Washington, warning of their repercussions on regional security and peace. Jordan, Oman, Iraq and Kuwait condemned the statements, considering them to be an infringement on the sovereignty of states and a violation of international law.

The Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council also expressed his rejection of these statements, describing them as irresponsible and unprecedented.

Palestinian objection to Mike Huckabee’s comments

On the Palestinian side, the Foreign Ministry considered Huckabee’s statements to be ‘an explicit call for an attack on the sovereignty of states’ and contrary to historical facts and international law, affirming that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip are occupied Palestinian territories.

For its part, Hamas said that the statements reflect a ‘colonial mentality’ and constitute support for projects of hegemony and annexation, calling for Arab and Islamic positions that go beyond condemnation.

These developments reignite the debate over the future of the conflict in the region and the limits of political and religious discourse in addressing issues of sovereignty and occupation, amid warnings that such statements could fuel tensions and deepen polarisation in the Middle East.

Featured image via the Canary

Keir Starmer has promised an ethics investigation into his front-bencher Josh Simons’ now-exposed responsibility for the hard-right ‘Labour Together’ sabotage group’s spying on journalists. The promise was exposed as (yet another Starmer) scam almost as soon as it was uttered. The icing on the cake is that the person who exposed it was… Josh Simons.

Josh Simons: whoops

Josh Simons accidentally sent details of what Starmer is actually doing to a general WhatsApp group for Labour MPs – from which they were promptly leaked. While Starmer’s public front was to open a “formal investigation”, what he was actually doing was reassuring Simons that he had nothing to worry about and that the ‘investigations’ would reach a foregone conclusion:

Josh Simons, the Labour minister facing calls to be sacked over his alleged role in a smear campaign against journalists, appears to have accidentally sent details of his case to a Labour MPs’ group chat, including that he had been reassured by a senior Labour figure that the investigation into him has concluded he didn’t break the ministerial code, and that Keir Starmer will ask his ethics adviser to conduct a “fast” further probe into the matter.

A leaked message hastily deleted from a group chat showed Simons, a Cabinet Office minister and former director of Labour Together, apparently sharing details of the investigation into him. The message included the information that the Prime Minister will ask “Laurie” – Laurie Magnus, Starmer’s Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards – to “look into” his case, but that the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team “did find I had not broken the code”.

Large order of whitewash to Number 10? Apparently, but now Simons himself has spilled it all over his boss’s (probably donated) posh shoes – the taste of which the incompetent Starmer is surely by now intimately acquainted with.

Featured image via the Canary

The far-right is growing, and I don’t mean slowly. I mean, they are in fucking overdrive. With Rupert Lowe announcing his new ‘Restore Britain’ bullshit, I’m seeing a wave of absolute horrors coming out of the woodwork. Not just your average, run-of-the-mill racist who has had too much GB News shoved down their neck. These are a new wave, bolstered by Lowe’s unapologetic racism and misogyny, and they are fucking dangerous.

And how does it appear the left is countering it? With static rallies and tired speeches.

Britain First brought the far right out en masse

I stood in the rain on Saturday, 21 February, and watched the future of the North of England curdle.

I wasn’t at the Stand Up to Racism (SUTR) rally at Piccadilly Gardens, thank God. Come on, if you’ve been to one SUTR demo, you’ve been to them all. They’re all the same. Static, stagnant speeches of unity and hope to a crowd that already agrees. Possibly a little sing-song. They’re cute, and I admit that they have their place, but times have changed, and if our tactics don’t change with it, we are failing as a movement.

Being undercover that day, I had embedded myself deep within the Britain First rally. From the first ten men trying to brawl each other at the start, all the way to Paul Golding’s pathetic, rain-soaked sign off, I saw a movement which is no longer ‘misguided.’

The usual faces were there, the nanas who can’t afford the basics and the mothers drip-fed a rhetoric of fear from Facebook AI slop. But they’re just the shields that hide something a lot more sinister. At least a third of the crowd that I saw that day were hardcore fascists.

And that scared me.

The blood and obsession

These men are rough, drunk and itching for a fight. They use asylum hotels as a mask for pure. unadulterated racism and they don’t even hide it anymore. As I wandered through the masses of Union Jacks (and there were fucking loads) I heard men talking about burning hotels to the ground with people inside them. Laughing about shooting literal children in the channel for sport.

And they seem to actually crave violence. They want a fight and they made it very clear when the mask slipped at the march. They didn’t give a fuck about hiding their racism whenever a person of colour just happened to walk by. It wasn’t just angry words, they openly attacked people there and then.

And we can no longer counter this movement when we are half a mile away, singing kumbaya and preaching to the like-minded about unity. I’m looking at you, Stand Up to Racism.

The SUTR monopoly is failing

Whilst these hardcore fascists are getting up and mobilising, causing chaos and intimidating innocent people all across the country, SUTR is falling woefully short. As an organisation it is failing our movement.

That day in Manchester you had a large crowd of like-minded people, half a mile away listening to Jeremy Corbyn. It was stationary. It was safe. It was sanctioned. And, ultimately, it was absolutely useless.

SUTR has a stranglehold on the UK protest movement and this monopoly on protest is hollowing out our resistance. I am a part of a SUTR WhatsApp ‘discussion’ group and it’s a fucking graveyard. That’s because we have been told we are not allowed to talk about anything unless is it SUTR related and it is positive discussion around it. Admins who do not live in the local area kick out seasoned comrades for nothing more than questioning techniques and offering alternatives.

What the fuck is a movement if we cannot even speak to local activists? If we can’t offer criticism and alternatives to grow? What the fuck has SUTR become other than shadowy, bureaucratic and downright authoritarian if that’s how they treat activists on a local level?

Activists are screaming for change, or even just to be heard, and it’s falling on deaf ears. The organisation seems to treat the movement as brand to be protected, rather than a force to be deployed.

Lessons from the North’s fight against the far right

We know what works, because we have fucking done it. On 27 October 2025, when UKIP and their egg-looking leader Nick Tenconi tried to march in Newcastle, a splinter group of antifascists refused to stay with SUTR at their stationary protest.

Activist blocked routes, kettled the crowd and generally ruined the energy of the event, causing many of the marchers to fuck off early. The day was a success because we met them where they were, not where police and SUTR told us to stand.

And SUTR couldn’t hijack that one, even though they tried to take the credit. They are happy to count heads in a park, whilst the far-right are smashing skulls on the pavement. And that needs to change.

This monopoly needs to end or those people behind the scenes of SUTR need to fucking listen. We are no longer happy to sit and watch violent racists take over our streets and threaten vulnerable minoritised groups.

Stand Up to Racism, listen to us or prepare for something else to rise and resist the far-right.

Featured image via the Canary

A care leaver has designed a booklet to help other young people leaving the system.

Shannon Budd, 24, created a booklet to help children in the care community understand their rights.

As it stands, the current care system often leaves young people in limbo when they age out of foster care. Shannon wants to change this.

She told the Canary that Social workers and others working in the sector are usually the ones holding all the information. Of course, this means young people can feel powerless.

Social workers usually store documentation, paperwork, and other items that may be important to young people once they leave the system in inaccessible ways. This makes it hard for anyone without social work training to access or even understand.

Shannon says that care leavers deserve easy access to this information.

Stark statistics

In total, around 81,770 children are in care in England.

One in four leaves care on their 18th birthday, and one in three who leave care will become homeless within two years.

Moreover, four in 10 care leavers aged 19 – 21 weren’t employed, in education, or training in 2024/25. That’s three times the rate for people who haven’t experienced care.

Similarly,  only 15% of care leavers go on to higher education by the age of 19, compared to 47% of people without care experience.

Additionally, care-leavers are at higher risk of developing mental health problems than their non-care-experienced peers. A lack of support can make this even more complicated to navigate. To make matters worse, a third of care leavers do not know how to access mental health support. Many also report feeling alone or isolated after leaving care.

Shannon said:

My book includes numbers and contact information for Mental health charities that young people or care leavers could call instead of calling social workers and personal advisors who are not legally trained to handle them types of situations, and quite frankly don’t have a lot of time.

All of these statistics suggest a support gap, meaning young people leaving care are missing out on opportunities to further their education or careers, as well as on stable housing.

Become, a charity supporting and campaigning for children in care and young care leavers, said that:

Too many young people are expected to leave care before they feel ready, just at a time when they need stability the most. They don’t have the support networks other young people can take for granted. In a survey of care leavers, Ofsted found that more than a third felt they left care too soon.

Making a difference for a care leaver

Of course, no two people leaving care are the same, meaning support should never look exactly the same. However, the system is in crisis.

Currently, more money is being spent on children’s residential care than on early intervention services. These would prevent children from ever needing to go into care.

The number of children’s homes has also reached a record high, with Ofsted opening nearly 900 investigations into unregistered homes.

But with so much talk about money and funding, the children at the centre of the care system are often forgotten.

Shannon told the Canary:

the care community need to recognise that we’re just children with complex lived experiences, and not all cases and children handle things in the same manner

We need a better system

In creating the workbook, Shannon also wants to show younger children in the care system that they can be successful.

I want to – through my own work path & life story – bring awareness to the problems that I and so many other children have faced while being in the care system.

I want to try to make a success of myself and show others that you can be somebody and beat the statistics we are usually faced with.

Shannon has already taken the booklet to her local council, she said:

They thought it was absolutely brilliant. Especially the pathway plan I created for young people and care-leavers, as it gives the chance for young people to work alongside their personal advisors and social workers.

She added that:

all it takes is one person believing in you for a young person to become a success.

Featured image via Shannon Budd

On 23 February, Zia Yusuf gave his first speech in his new role as Reform UK’s home affairs spokesman. Along with unveiling deepening US-style Christofascism, he also proudly revealed details of plans to increase his party’s already vile immigrant-bashing and Islamophobia to new heights.

This included a proposal to create a UK ‘Deportation Command’ modelled on the US ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agency. This agency would conduct ‘Operation Restoring Justice’, which would involve detaining ‘illegal’ immigrants in pre-fab structures before rapidly deporting them.

Yusuf also voiced ambitions to institute a visa ban against six Muslim-majority countries. Likewise, he would also refocus the already hideously Islamophobic ‘Prevent’ counter-terrorism scheme against Muslims in the UK.

ICE in the UK under Reform

Reform’s Yusuf gave his speech at a Dover press conference, with party leader Nigel Farage at his side. There, he described migrants arriving on small boats as “an invasion” numbering:

more than stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.

The far right really love mentioning D-Day, don’t they? Funny how they neglect to mention that those small boats are the fault of Farage and his disastrous Brexit.

The home affairs spokesperson told BBC Breakfast that Reform planned to spend £2bn on its deportation scheme. This would include creating the ICE-alike Deportation Command:

to track down, detain and deport all illegal migrants in the UK.

We will embark on mass deportations using chartered flights with five departures every single day.

To guarantee success an RAF plane will be on standby in the event of mechanical issues. These flights will not be delayed.

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Because nothing says ‘we’re definitely not fascist’ like proposals to get the military involved in deportations. Likewise, the fact that Reform are still hellbent on instituting a British ICE after seeing the heinous crimes, abuses and murders carried out by Trump’s Gestapo almost beggars belief. Almost.

‘A sadistic vision’

On top of this, Yusuf also unveiled plans to impose a visa ban on six different countries. These included Pakistan, Eritrea, Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan – all of which just happen to have majority-Muslim populations.

Yusuf claimed that the policy was intended as a sanction against countries which don’t accept the return citizens deported from the UK. We’re sure it’s just a coincidence that, once again, Trump put out several almost-identical policies. 

The home affairs spokesman claimed that Pakistan had the “highest overstay rates of any country”, but “routinely refused” to accept deportations. He said:

In order that we issue visas I think it’s very, very reasonable that we say you should take back the citizens of your country that have overstayed in our country and are here illegally and are a drain, in many cases, on resources in this country.

In reaction, Dora-Olivia Vicol – CEO of the Work Rights Centre – said:

We have watched in horror as ICE attacked migrant communities and citizens in the US – yet this is what Reform wants to base their immigration policies on?

This is a sadistic vision of UK families and communities being ripped apart, money being wasted, and the government turning against its own people.

Cancelling the immigration status of people who have settled and built their entire lives here would not only be callous but actively hurt our economy and public services. People who hold ILR are our partners, neighbours, friends, teachers, NHS workers, and include high tax contributors.

There is absolutely no reason to terminate their status other than for Reform’s own self-serving goals of division and chaos.

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These are proposals designed purely to grab headlines and stoke anger.

They are cruel, economically self-defeating, and offer no solutions to the real problems facing people in Britain: poverty and exploitative work.

Prevent: just ignore the right-wing

And, on top off all this, Yusuf also stated that Reform would task Prevent, part of the UK’s anti-terrorism scheme, to re-focus on Islamist extremism. The Times reported that this would include a requirement for police to raid the home of anyone referred to Prevent three times.

Likewise, Reform would also reallocate Prevent’s resources to ensure that three-quarters of its budget is spent on tackling Islamic extremism. This would mimic the makeup of MI5’s caseload.

It also just so happens that the reallocation would necessitate a decrease in Prevent’s attention on extreme right-wing terrorism. In November 2025, the Guardian reported that the number of far-right extremists reported to Prevent was greater than any other source:

In total, 8,778 referrals were made because of suspicions of extremist radicalisation in the year to March 2025, 27% more than the previous year and the highest number of referrals in a single year since records began 10 years ago.

Of the 8,769 referrals where the type of concern is specified, 21%, or 1,798 cases, were due to “extreme rightwing concerns”; 10%, or 870, were referrals connected to Islamist ideology; and 56%, or 4,917, were for individuals judged to have no identified ideology.

So we have a far-right political party heavily invested in making sure that growing right-wing terrorism doesn’t get investigated. That seems awfully convenient, doesn’t it? And, given that all Reform have to motivate voters is the vague threat of Islamist terrorists, they’re likewise invested in inflating the investigation of Muslims.

Reform’s policies are built on the fear of the other – the fear of Islam, the fear of immigrants. They are dedicated stoking the fires of public hatred, because they thrive on that same division. Beyond that, their politics are as empty and hollow as the conmen like Yusuf who stand up and spout it.

Featured image via the Canary