As we’ve reported, masked goon squads have run amok in the US. The scary thing is these aren’t members of some militia or gang – these are agents of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

While these agents have always dealt in violence, Trump has turned them into a full-on Gestapo-style menace. In January, this saw them gun down Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. The response from the American public was incredibly negative, with Trump’s polling now in the toilet.

Despite the murder and negative political outcomes, however, Reform have decided they need to import ICE-style policing to the UK:

If you want concentration camps in the UK, people being grabbed off the streets, or murdered on them, five year olds being separated from their parents and locked up vote reform, but they’re still going to make you poorer https://t.co/KxmOVfDe9J

— Daniel Lismore (@daniellismore) February 23, 2026

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Reform want ICE-style goons

There are many videos of violent ICE goons online, including literal murders:

The little ice agent with the brown beanie and the backpack aggressively escalated the situation. Two handed shoving women, pepper spraying people, wrestling the guy down from behind, hitting him with his can of pepper spray. That wasn’t law enforcement https://t.co/W9VJIoW01s

— ElCaminoCat78 (@JtCatCamino) January 25, 2026

This is what we reported on 3 February:

On 26 January, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents wrestled nurse Alex Pretti to the ground and shot him multiple times in the back. The killing was caught on camera by several bystanders, providing various angles. The Trump regime initially defended the use of lethal force, with key advisor Stephen Miller describing Pretti as an “assassin“. Trump and others around him would later backtrack following massive public backlash.

Is this what we want on UK streets?

Death and mayhem, with government officials running cover for the violent thugs who commit it?

Oh, and Pretti wasn’t actually a migrant, by the way. So even if you are some sicko who would like to see migrants gunned down in the street, be aware that no one will be safe.

Another thing to be aware of is that ICE bolstered its numbers by relaxing its recruitment practices. One whistleblower within the agency said:

This isn’t the department of baking cookies. This is the Department of Homeland Security, where you can be deported from the country.

And we’re now employing people who are not equipped to tie their own shoelaces.

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This whole thing is a complete disaster from beginning to end.

Imagine the angriest loser in your local area, and now imagine him with the authority to crack heads on a whim. This is what ICE looks like in practice.

And as one person pointed out, the thugs below could be the ICE agents of tomorrow:

They’ll be queueing up round the block to join Zia Yusuf’s ICE-style agency if the Manchester Britain’s First march is anything to go by.🤬 #ReformUK https://t.co/pxpdjjTph8 pic.twitter.com/L62SCre87G

— The Rev. Anton Mittens 🌹👮🎓 (@MittensOff) February 23, 2026

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This is what the Guardian wrote about Reform’s upcoming announcement:

Reform UK would create an ICE-style agency dedicated to deporting hundreds of thousands of people, as well as terminating the status of those with indefinite leave to remain (ILR).

The New Statesman’s Oli Dugmore is among those who have spoken out:

ICE/CBP agents have shot 13 people since September.

I do not think we should “recreate ICE” in the UK.

This should be… uncontroversial pic.twitter.com/uBmjWrdkTu

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— Oli Dugmore (@OliDugmore) February 23, 2026

The Green Party have also reacted:

🚨 BREAKING

➡️ REFORM will announce British ICE THUGS would be deployed on UK streets if they get into government

✅ Vote GREEN in Gorton and Denton

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🛑 STOP REFORM https://t.co/X6mwNwUjhk

— Manchester Green Party 🐝 (@McrGreenParty) February 23, 2026

They’re far from the only ones either:

Reform to copy ICE, says Zia Yusuf👇

Because of course there’s nothing more British than Gestapo-style police thugs terrorizing local communities and throwing 5 year-olds and grannies into detainment camps

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It’s actually what a lot of our – British – parents fought against pic.twitter.com/tpsj9lCt59

— Alex Taylor (@AlexTaylorNews) February 23, 2026

Does #Gorton & #Denton want ICE UK agents poking around your neighbourhood?

A vote for @GoodwinMJ is a vote for “where are your papers?”. pic.twitter.com/radWIm6u0J

— Reform Party UK Exposed 🇬🇧 (@reformexposed) February 23, 2026

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Announcements on announcements

Reform have made other announcements today (to be fair, that’s true most days, because Farage is addicted to press conferences):

Reform UK will protect Britain’s Christian heritage.

— Reform UK (@reformparty_uk) February 23, 2026

Britain’s ‘Christian heritage’ has become less important because British people have moved away from religion. You can feel sad about that, but trying to legislate faith is wishful ‘nanny state’ thinking.

Yusuf also promised to end the “invasion”:

Zia Yusuf: “We can and will secure our borders and end the invasion.” pic.twitter.com/nnauswb0sP

— Reform UK (@reformparty_uk) February 23, 2026

Where does Yusuf think this sort of rhetoric ends?

It can’t escape him that the talk around immigration has become more extreme year on year. Does he think that will magically end before we get to ‘remigration’ – i.e. the forced deportation of people of colour.

Because make no mistake – prominent figures are talking about remigration now:

Remigration is the only way https://t.co/HB4sxLGKl0

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 1, 2025

Yusuf is also still pretending to be the ‘shadow home secretary’ – something he legally is not. This would be sweet if he was four-years-old, because he’s got a special little podium and everything:

My first speech as Shadow Home Secretary: here’s how Reform will secure our borders, deport illegal migrants and make you feel safe 👇 pic.twitter.com/iRzztOY492

— Zia Yusuf (@ZiaYusufUK) February 23, 2026

At the end of the day, though, none of this will make Britons better off. Reform know this, and so do the billionaires who are backing them.

Featured image via The Canary

The British royal family is already a thoroughly unaccountable institution; but Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has given the world an insight into just how dark this elite world can get. And taxpayers will not be happy to hear how easily he got public money for private massages.

Mountbatten-Windsor consorted with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and allegedly raped Virginia Giuffre on numerous occasions when she was a teenager. Over years of abuse under Epstein and Maxwell’s control, Giuffre thought she “might die a sex slave“.

Mountbatten-Windsor paid millions in royal money to settle a case with Giuffre, despite denying wrongdoing. Giuffre sought to use this money to fight against human trafficking. She died by suicide in 2025.

Andrew is a dodgy royal using public cash for private massages

On 23 February, the BBC reported that:

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor charged taxpayers for massages and excessive travel costs while working as the UK’s trade envoy, whistleblowing retired civil servants have claimed.

A former civil servant told the state broadcaster that he had wanted to refuse Mountbatten-Windsor’s request for payment of “massage services” but that senior staff had overruled him:

I’d said we mustn’t pay it, but we ended up paying it anyway

Mountbatten-Windsor had been working as a trade envoy from 2001 to 2011, with “civil servants and taxpayer funding” supporting his trips abroad. He reportedly met Giuffre for the first time in 2001. And he “spent weeks” around this time at Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion, getting “daily massages“.

The BBC added:

Another source, a former senior Whitehall official, backs up the claim. This former civil servant, who oversaw finances in this area, had seen similar expenses for Andrew’s trips and says he has “absolutely no doubt” about its authenticity.

He explained:

it was like it wasn’t real money, they weren’t spending any of their own money

There was apparently a severe lack of proper recording or vetting of expense requests, amid an environment of excessive deference and little scrutiny.

The first ex-employee suggested that, in hindsight, greater scrutiny of Mountbatten-Windsor’s behaviour could have reined him in. He asserted:

we should have flagged that something was wrong

While there may have been some light resistance, however, the civil service essentially looked away.

Demand accountability

Despite people seeing Mountbatten-Windsor as “a liability” even at the time, this powerful establishment figure kept his role for years. And now, in the age of artificial intelligence, authorities still refuse requests for information about his behaviour as a trade envoy because it would be “too time-consuming” to go through it.

There are now demands for the royal family to, at the very least, bar Mountbatten-Windsor officially from access to the throne. But in spite of everything in the public domain about him and his recent arrest, such a process could still be an excruciatingly distant possibility.

Judging by how long it has taken for Mountbatten-Windsor to lose his royal titles, and how long it’s still taking to lose his path to the throne, there must be more public pressure on the government and monarchy to act.

People like Mountbatten-Windsor and fellow friend of Epstein Peter Mandelson still have immense privilege, unlike the victims and survivors of the disgusting criminal network Epstein ran.

The instinct in establishment circles to ‘protect their own’ (as we can also see in the latest revelations about Mountbatten-Windsor’s expenses) clearly remains. And justice is not yet a reality for all the women whose lives the abusers destroyed.

The general public must demand a proper response from the UK’s rulers. And if the establishment doesn’t allow meaningful accountability and justice, then we must bring that establishment crashing to the ground.

Featured image via the Canary

The US military has supported Mexico’s bloody cartel raid with intelligence from a new joint cartel task force. This fits exactly into Donald Trump’s bid for hemispheric dominance. Or, as one writer has put it, the erratic president’s new strategy for a ‘homeland empire’.

The White House confirmed it backed the bloody raid which killed cartel boss Nemesio ‘El Mencho’ Oseguera Cervantes. Cervantes was killed by Mexican government forces on 22 February. He was head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). The attack triggered a further wave of violence across the country.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said:

The United States provided intelligence support to the Mexican government in order to assist with an operation in Tapalpa, Jalisco, Mexico, in which Nemesio ‘El Mencho’ Oseguera Cervantes, an infamous drug lord and leader within the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, was eliminated.

But apart from this admission details are thin. However, it’s understood that the Department of War’s Arizona-based Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel (JIATF-CC) supported the operation with intelligence. JIATF-CC was founded by executive order in January 2025:

to coordinate all U.S. government resources deployed to or supporting the efforts in the [U.S. Northern Command] area of responsibility to identify, disrupt and dismantle cartel operations along the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Security website The Watch reported:

Approximately 10,000 active-duty troops were mobilized to bolster those efforts and provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to other U.S. agencies, including the Customs and Border Protection agency.

Like Trump’s internal immigration crackdown using paramilitary thugs, this is another merger of policing with warfighting.

Merging defence and law enforcement

The military and law enforcement are traditionally seen as separate. This is an oversimplification in the post-9/11 world, but under Trump that two have merged even more quickly.

Historian Nikhil Pal Singh warned in a recent piece for Equator:

familiar analytical frameworks which rely on the distinction between foreign and domestic realms, normality and legality, policing and war, cannot provide the ‘world picture’ we need to grasp what’s happening here.

Instead, Trump:

conflates immigrants, drugs and free trade as sources of weakness coming from outside, “poisoning the blood of our country”.

Trump has married:

the archaic geopolitics of a settler empire to the modern legal frameworks devised by his liberal predecessors.

Singh adds:

What distinguishes his latest regime is its effort to reimagine and remake the borders of American state power, collapsing the foreign and the domestic in a single domain of impunity: call it ‘Homeland Empire’.

Civilisational and supremacist

The Trump administration has laid this approach out in its own words in its National Security Strategy (NSS) published in November 2025. It speaks in supremacist, civilisational terms, reading as much like a Joe Rogan interview as a major policy document:

The era of mass migration must end. Border security is the primary element of national security.

The NSS wilfully conflates migration with drug trafficking, spying and more besides:

We must protect our country from invasion, not just from unchecked migration but from cross-border threats such as terrorism, drugs, espionage, and human trafficking.

A border controlled by the will of the American people as implemented by their government is fundamental to the survival of the United States as a sovereign republic.

Trump’s Caracas kidnap of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on 3 January figures here. US figures often conflated the war on drugs with the War on Terror in the build-up to the raid. The US even drew on decades-old rhetoric about Al Qaeda to justify its violence.

Trump’s Mexico threats

On his first day back in office in January 2025 Trump designated Mexican cartels as terror organisations. In November 2025, the US government said it was preparing CIA personnel and special forces troops to strike cartels inside Mexico.

Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said in November:

He (Trump) has suggested it on various occasions or he has said, ‘we offer you a United States military intervention in Mexico, whatever you need to fight the criminal groups.

But I have told him on every occasion that we can collaborate, that they can help us with information they have, but that we operate in our territory, that we do not accept any intervention by a foreign government.

It seems Mexico, already embattled over relationship with Cuba, has settled on intelligence sharing with the US.

Few will weep over the death of a cartel leader, least of all ordinary Mexicans. Some figures say 300,000 people have died in Mexico in cartel-linked killings since 2025. But Trump’s ongoing practice of merging policing and the military and using them against a range of vaguely defined regional and global enemies is a way of reshaping the US and the region according to his whims.

Featured image via the Canary

A mob of dozens of far-right thugs attacked a defenceless Brown man in Manchester on Saturday 21 February, for no other reason than the colour of his skin. Witnesses said that the attackers chanted “F*** A***h” after the man asked what their protest was about.

Police arrested the victim.

Neo-Nazis on the streets of Manchester

The mobs were also seen performing Nazi salutes and demanding ‘forced remigration’ of Black and brown people – and attacking other locals unfortunate enough to be caught in their path. At the same time, a large contingent of police protected the racists from counter-demonstrators.

Police were then filmed arresting and handcuffing the victim:

The incident follows the pattern of previous far-right attacks in Manchester, like the 2024 attack on a lone Black man, in which police reacted to the attack by pinning down and arresting the victim.

The Greater Manchester Police force’s own figures show huge levels of racism in its policing tactics, yet it has failed to acknowledge the issue despite repeated investigations reaching conclusions of structural and institutional racism.

Fascist impunity continues in the UK.

Featured image via the Canary

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