Politics
The Iran War began on 7 October
Not even three years ago, paid goons of the Islamic Republic murdered a 13-year-old British girl. They bashed their way into the room in which she had scrabbled for sanctuary with her mother and sister and shot her to death. They then set a fire, reducing the girl to ash. She could only be identified by her dental records. The tyrants in Tehran celebrated. They marshalled their supporters on to the streets to sing and dance over this orgy of violence that entailed the merciless slaying of a British innocent. It’s a ‘turning point in history’, they crowed, as reporters were in the girl’s blackened home, holding their noses against the stench of death.
Her name was Yahel Sharabi. And I intend to say it to every fellow Briton who says the crisis in the Middle East ‘has nothing to do with us’. And to every slack-jawed Labour minister twiddling awkwardly with their ties as one of the great geopolitical emergencies of our time swirls all around them. And to every keffiyeh-smothered smug leftist who is currently painting the Islamic Republic as the innocent victim of an ‘unprovoked war of aggression’. Was the killing and immolation of a British girl not a provocation? Was the murder of her in the arms of her mother and sister – who were also killed – not an act of aggression? Was the slaying that day of a thousand others who were guilty of the same crime as young Yahel – they were Jews – not war?
Yahel was one of 18 British citizens murdered by Hamas and its allies on 7 October 2023. Her sister Noiya, 16, and her mother Lianne, who was born in Bristol, were two others. There was also Aner Shapiro, 22, who ran into a public bomb shelter with 30 others from the Nova music festival. He threw back seven of the grenades that the Hamas fascists hurled in, but was killed by the eighth. There was Nadav Popplewell, 51, spirited into Gaza by Hamas brutes and then killed. And Bernard Cowan, 57, from Glasgow, shot dead in Kibbutz Sufa: the only Scot killed that day. More British citizens were killed on 7 October 2023 than in any terror attack since the ISIS mass shooting at Sousse, Tunisia in 2015.
And their killers were backed by the Islamic Republic. The Iranian regime funded Hamas to the tune of $100million a year. It provided Hamas with weapons tech and logistical support. It had intimate knowledge of Hamas’s fascistic plans for 7 October. It has since held numerous official celebrations of the barbarism of that day. Nothing to do with us? The Iran-backed murder of 18 British citizens, most of them Jews? Perhaps Britain’s handwringers might let us know their threshold for Jew-murder, the point at which the foreign-funded killing of our Jewish compatriots might finally prick their slumbering consciences. Tell us: how many dead British Jews would be the price of your moral concern? Twenty-five? Fifty? A hundred?
This is not to justify what is currently taking place. I am as troubled as so many others are by the events in Iran and the surrounding region. I’m a little like Tulsi Gabbard used to be, before she threw her lot in with the Trumpists: a ‘hawk’ when it comes to going after terrorist outfits that invade our lands or butcher our citizens, but a ‘dove’ when it comes to wars of regime change. History tells us regime-change wars have a nasty habit of unleashing regional instability while stealing the democratic initiative from the liberty-thirsting populace in the regime at hand. If Iran is to be freed from the squatting thugs of the Islamist theocracy, it is only the Iranian people who will do it.
No, this is an attempt to drag some historical context on to the morally barren wasteland of infantile posturing we have borne witness to these past few days. The woke left’s depiction of Iran as the guiltless victim of Western imperialism is an outrageous lie. The crank right’s claim that Israel is the cause of every war in the Middle East – if not the whole world – reeks to the heavens of anti-Semitic ahistoricism. The UK government’s flummoxed nonchalance about the whole thing speaks to how thoroughly the technocratic mind-virus blinds one to truth and morality. This tyrannical regime funded the murder of our Jewish countrymen. Including a child. Does that mean nothing to you?
This started on 7 October. People say it didn’t, but it did. That is the day on which the so-called Axis of Resistance declared war on the Jewish State, and through the Jewish State on the West. That’s the day when Iran’s most brutish proxy – Hamas – sent a 6,000-strong army of jihadists into Israel. They arrived by land, sea and air to rape and murder Jews, including British Jews. It was the next day, 8 October, that Iran’s proxies in Lebanon – Hezbollah – started to rain missiles on northern Israel, causing the internal displacement of 60,000 civilians. They were later joined by Iran’s proxies in Yemen – the Houthis, another avowedly anti-Semitic army – who have fired more than a hundred missiles and drones at the Jewish nation over the past year or so.
When people describe the Israel-US attack on the theocrats in Tehran as ‘unprovoked’, what they are really saying is that they do not consider the mass murder of Jews to be a provocation. When they call it unwarranted aggression, they’re saying the violent destruction of Jewish life is not something worth getting aggressive about. When they describe Israeli strikes against Tehran as an ‘escalation’, and never used that word for the Tehran-sponsored barbarism inflicted on Israel, they betray their own hyper-paternalistic Third Worldism. They confirm that in their Western-centric worldview, America and Israel are responsible for every earthly ill, while child-like states such as the Islamic Republic merely respond. Or ‘resist’. It’s ‘resistance’ when the Islamic Republic and its proxies kill Jews, but a ‘war crime’ when the Jews and their allies push back. We see you.
Events in Iran speak not to any criminal madness or bloodlust on the part of the American Empire and the Jewish State, but rather to the suicidal lunacy of 7 October. You don’t have to support the current regime-change efforts to recognise that the Iranian regime and its murderous proxies brought this calamity upon themselves. The 7 October attacks will go down as the most self-destructive military adventure of modern times, an act of apocalyptic vanity. Yahya Sinwar, the architect of that grim day, thought he would bring Zionism to its knees and provoke a Nazi-like expulsion of Jews from the Holy Land. Yet now he is dead, his movement of Hamas is decimated, Hezbollah is flagging, and the Iranian backers of their anti-Semitic crusade are under severe pressure.
The Islamic Republic did this to itself. It forgot that killing Jews has consequences now. It isn’t the 1490s or the 1930s. The rape and murder of Jews comes with repercussions these days. That the regime forgot this is somewhat understandable. It is, after all, consumed by cosmic delusions, by an inflated sense of holy importance as the final boss of Jew hatred. The Western left’s neglect of this truth, however, is less forgivable. You would think that woke agitators who love to talk about ‘consequence culture’ would recognise that murdering a thousand Jews might provoke war. Their demonisation of Israel and absolution of the Islamic Republic is not ‘anti-imperialism’ – it is the double racism of seeing the Jewish State as the sole author of violence in the Middle East and ‘brown’ Persians and Arabs as witless, wide-eyed victims.
It is terrible that the people of Gaza suffered so much in the wars of 7 October. It is terrible that Iranian civilians are now suffering in these wars, too. But this era of apocalyptic violence was started not by Israel or America but by the Islamic Republic. What concerns me is that the military suicide committed by Islamists on 7 October is finding its echo in the moral suicide of the West in the same period. Witness the Hamas sympathy on our streets these past two years or the current floundering of our rulers who can’t even bring themselves to say the Islamic Republic is a wicked regime whose Jew hatred, misogyny, homophobia and intolerance run counter to the moral virtues of our own civilisation. If you don’t think the killing of Yahel Sharabi and a thousand other Jews is an act of historic importance, then you have been defeated, too. Iran and its proxies may not have succeeded in destroying the Jewish nation, but they destroyed your soul.
TRIGGER WARNING – Graphic content
The Hunt Saboteur Association (HSA) has exposed the Tiverton Staghounds as a cult of ritualistic killers. Over several months in autumn 2025, undercover sabs went undercover once more and witnessed the hunting and butchery of mature stags. Hunters chased these stunning creatures to exhaustion before ritually carving them up in our national parks. Yes, you read that right, our national parks.
Trail hunting is a myth
The Tiverton Staghounds is one of just three remaining registered stag hunting packs left in the UK. They operate primarily in the valleys of the Exe and Taw and have roots that twist all the way back to the 19th century. They remain a pillar of the West Country’s hunting elite to this day. Whilst the hunt claims to provide a service to the countryside, the reality is they have a long legacy of illegal violence.
The Tiverton Staghounds claim to engage in ‘trail hunting.’ Yet evidence collected by sabs suggests this is a coordinated lie. The HSA witnessed a large vehicle with the obligatory ‘Trail Layer’ signage driving ahead of the hounds. Exhaust fumes destroy any potential scent trail, yet the hunt still use this excuse to maintain legal cover. This is nothing but a cynical and very obvious attempt to provide a legal shield against prosecution.
In reality, sabs witnessed the hunt dragging one of these ‘trails’ along the line a hunted stag had already taken. This disgusting tactic, advised in the infamous ‘Hunting Office’ webinars, allows hunt supporters to film the dogs apparently following a legal scent. This is nothing but an orchestrated performance designed to evade police scrutiny whilst stags are pursued to their deaths.
The HSA investigation revealed that these hunters switch between multiple exemptions per day. Huntsman cycle between ‘trail hunting,’ ‘researching,’ and ‘flushing to gun.’ This allows them to stay one step ahead of a law that is no longer fit for purpose.
Hunt sabs — Ritualistic butchery leaves us open to biosecurity risks
The level of depravity that sabs report having witnessed is fucking staggering and perverse. On Wednesday 8 October 2025, in Bishops Tawton, a mature stag was hunted so viciously its legs gave way to exhaustion. Once dead, the hunt’s lackeys cut off its feet (known as ‘slots’) ready for them to be handed out as sick trophies. Tell me again how this is ‘wildlife management’ and not fucking trophy hunting?
Hunters then performed what sabs described as ‘satanic rites,’ and this is nothing short of inhuman. They sliced open the stag’s abdomen to allow the hounds to feast on the intestines directly from the carcass. Not only is this vile, with it happening on open grazing land, they are creating a massive biosecurity risk.
Raw biological matter left in fields where livestock graze exposes our wildlife to bovine tuberculosis. The hunting community often claim to be the guardians of the countryside, yet they’re actively spreading dangerous disease through these vile, archaic rituals.
No refuge for any wildlife
Even designated nature reserves offer no sanctuary from the Tiverton Staghounds. Sabs caught this uncaring hunt operating on Devon Wildlife Trust land. This area is supposed to be a safe haven for all wildlife, yet sabs have seen the hunt’s supporters scream to drive a young stag away from safety and into the jaws of the hounds.
This ‘turning’ of this stunning creature ensured he could find no refuge. He was chased for miles before being downed at Nomansland. The fact that these mounted pricks on horseback feel entitled to invade our conservation lands shows just how above the law they believe they are.
On another visit, sabs saw a mature stag killed in Cadleigh. After an agonising chase, the hunters dragged the animal by the antlers and hung him off the back of a quadbike. One final indignity for a creature murdered in cold blood.
Hunt sabs — Witness the end of hunting
The HSA has made it clear that a simple ban on ‘trail hunting’ isn’t going to stop these wankers. They are committed and bloodthirsty extremists who will simply switch to another loophole to cover their arses. The current legislation is a leaky sieve that allows the carnage of these bloodsports to pour through.
Only a total ban on all forms of hunting with hounds will fix this. The HSA has proposed a comprehensive set of reforms based on 60 years of sabotaging the hunt. These proposals include a ‘reckless clause’ to stop hunters from claiming illegal kills were accidents. And that means all animals, not just stags.
The evidence is now undeniable. The Tiverton Staghounds are not following the law, they’re fucking mocking it. The government must now decide if it will continue look the other way or finally grow a fucking backbone and shut down these countryside criminals for good?
Featured image via the author
German chancellor Friedrich Merz went off script on Sunday, when he bluntly stated that Berlin would not be governed by international law when considering its response to the war in Iran. Merz said: ‘International-law classifications will have little effect on [the war] – especially if they remain largely without consequence.’ He even noted that, with respect to the Iranian regime, ‘extensive packages of sanctions have had little effect over the years and decades’.
His conversion has been swift. It was only in January that Merz, addressing EU lawmakers, said that Europe had been able to experience ‘something of the joy of self-respect’ in defending the international rules-based order, notably against US president Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland.
Here in the UK, however, the Labour government remains stuck in the legalistic bind that Merz has decided to break free of. Prime minister Keir Starmer, responding to Trump’s criticisms over Britain’s stance on Iran, said on Tuesday that he ‘will not commit our military personnel to unlawful action’. Darren Jones, chief secretary to the prime minister, appeared on the BBC yesterday to discuss the government’s position on the US and Israeli strikes. He said that there was no ‘legal basis’ for the UK becoming involved. Labour MPs have echoed this line. Emily Thornberry called the strikes ‘ill-advised and illegal’, which made it sound like she was discussing a tax-dodging scheme rather than a major world conflict.
It has now become de rigueur to call Starmer out for his legal cretinism. A writer for the Sun called him a ‘timid lawyer who is more attached to the enforcement of globalist judicial codes than the protection of our civilisation’. Writing in the Telegraph, Oxford theology professor Nigel Biggar said Starmer’s ‘blind obedience to international law’ has been a ‘boon to the world’s monsters’.
This criticism is understandable. Prioritising international law over the national interest has been a defining feature of Starmer’s government, long before the strikes on Iran. It is, arguably, the only feature of his government. This obsession was starkly illustrated by his decision to gift the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, a decision which appears to have been determined by a non-binding ruling of the International Court of Justice in 2019. In the words of Starmer’s attorney general, close friend and fellow international lawyer, Lord Hermer, the Chagos deal represented Labour’s promise to put international law at ‘the heart’ of its foreign policy. To everyone else, Starmer was relinquishing a vital strategic asset to a suspect country, while paying tens of billions of pounds for the pleasure.
However, reading the recent criticism, you might think that Starmer is unusual in his deference to international law as a substitute for political judgment. That would be a mistake. Only on Saturday, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen called on ‘all parties to exercise maximum restraint, to protect civilians, and to fully respect international law’. French president Emmanuel Macron agreed. He said he ‘cannot approve’ of the American-Israeli strikes because they were ‘outside of international law’.
Appeals to international law have long been the default response of European leaders to international conflict, most recently following the invasion of Ukraine and, prior to that, military action in Syria. Merz now claiming that international law ‘should not protect Iran’ marks a departure for Germany, but it is so far an exception to the rule.
The truth is that the application of international law is, and always has been, political. International lawyer Natasha Hausdorff has defended the strikes on the basis that they are lawful, given that Iran and Israel have been in ‘armed conflict’ for decades. Others argue that the strikes were ‘unlawful’ because Iran did not pose the kind of immediate threat that would have justified pre-emptive military action. The supposed legality of military action is always shaped by political interests and differing interpretations of the conflict in question. This is what blind appeals to international law from European leaders always miss, whether from Starmer or others across the continent.
Starmer is a legalist. His appeals to international law show he has little clue how to govern in the national interest. But he is hardly alone in this regard. For too long, the invocation of ‘international law’ has masked the kind of empty foreign policy favoured by Europe’s leaders.
Merz’s Damascene conversion will mean little unless it encourages other European governments to act decisively in defence of their own interests. Keir Starmer is unlikely to be the only technocrat in Europe unfit for that task.
Luke Gittos is a spiked columnist and author. His most recent book is Human Rights – Illusory Freedom: Why We Should Repeal the Human Rights Act, which is published by Zero Books. Order it here.
Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell will lead a protest on Thursday 5 March. It’s to mark the opening of the first London branch of US fast food giant Chick-fil-A.
The picket will take place at 10am outside the restaurant at 90 Eden Street, Kingston upon Thames, KT1 1JD. Campaigners are challenging the company over its past funding of organisations that oppose LGBTQ+ equality.
The protest organisers have repeatedly attempted to engage Chick-fil-A in dialogue.
Tatchell said:
We have been unable to secure assurances that Chick-fil-A will not in future fund homophobic organisations that campaign against LGBT+ human rights. Every letter and request for a meeting has been ignored.
Our protest calls on Chick-fil-A to publicly commit to ending all financial support for organisations promoting discrimination. Until we have that commitment, consumers should boycott Chick-fil-A.
Chick-fil-A funding hate
Tatchell added:
Chick-fil-A’s US charitable arm has donated millions to organisations that oppose same-sex marriage, promote so-called conversion therapy, and campaign against laws to protect LGBT+ people from discrimination.
These include donations to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Focus on the Family and the National Christian Charitable Foundation. Groups that have campaigned against the US Equality Act and continue to promote discriminatory homophobic laws and policies.
Tatchell said the Foundation had sought dialogue with the company prior to the protest:
We have repeatedly written to Chick-fil-A’s US headquarters and to the UK firm that handles its public relations, Lexington Communications. We asked Chick-fil-A to give assurances that it will not fund individuals, organisations and campaigns that oppose LGBT+ human rights. They have refused to give any assurances.
The Peter Tatchell Foundation again urges Chick-fil-A to renounce all funding of anti-LGBT+ organisations.
Chick-fil-A’s funding of bigotry is out of step with British values. We urge consumers to boycott their restaurants. There should be no place in the UK for a business that uses its profits to fund prejudice.
The protest is the latest action by the Peter Tatchell Foundation calling on the company to commit to LGBT+ equality as it expands into the UK market.
Featured image via the Peter Tatchell Foundation
This was just two months ago. (Longer version here.) ? And we’ll bet you anything you like he’s already wishing he hadn’t said it. Because a recent study suggested that Swinney might just achieve the impossible task he set for himself, and if he does then he’s REALLY screwed. Now, we don’t actually think that’ll […]
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Anti-extremism campaign group Hope Not Hate just released its latest State of Hate report. The annual review details far-right activity in the UK over the previous year. And, quite predictably, things are not looking good for opponents of fascism and the extremist right.
State of Hate deals with the many facets of far-right activity, from anti-migrant and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment to race science and conspiracy theorists. However, among details on Elon Musk’s election meddling and rising ethnonationalism, one stat really stood out.
The majority of Reform UK members now support the forcing or incentivising non-white British citizens to leave the UK.
It’s easy to read that sentence without letting it sink in. It’s talking about a desire to rid the UK of Black and brown British people, specifically because of the colour of their skin.
That’s open, plain-as-day white supremacy and ethnonationalism. And it’s a belief held by the majority of members of a now-mainstream UK political party.
Reform bring white supremacy in the mainstream
Ethnonationalism is an extreme position. Even amongst dedicated leftists, people reading that statistic might be tempted to look for a ‘soft’ interpretation. ‘We know Reform members oppose immigration – maybe it’s that (xenophobic) motivation behind the statistic, rather than race?’
State of Hate specifies that, among Reform party members:
Over half (54%) think non-white British citizens born abroad should be forcibly removed or encouraged to leave, compared to 24% if the citizens are white.
One in five (22%) think non-white British citizens whose parents were born in the UK should be forcibly removed or encouraged to leave, compared to just 7% if they are white.
To put that another way, over half of Reform members want UK citizens who weren’t born here out of the country. 30% of Reform members think that only if the individual in question is Black or brown.
Likewise, a startling number of Reform members still want to drive out second-generation citizens. And again, 15% of party members think that if, and only if, that citizen is Black or brown.
Farage, Lowe and Robinson
Beyond this, State of Hate also reported on the electoral chances of Reform, and how its rivals on the far right affected its chances. In particular, it highlighted that:
Two thirds of Reform UK party members have a positive view of Rupert Lowe, who recently launched his rival Restore Britain party, and 61% like Tommy Robinson.
The fact that most Reformers also love the even-further-right Rupert Lowe is hardly a surprise. Reform has been hemorrhaging its councillors to the new extremist ‘party’ for weeks now.
Likewise, after seeing the 150,000-strong ‘Unite the Kingdom’ hate march last year, the racist party’s support for Robinson isn’t exactly a shock. However, the support for the hate march was disgustingly high across society as a whole:
Our most recent polling shows worrying levels of support for Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom movement amongst the general public; 26% of the public view the Unite the Kingdom rally positively, rising to almost 50% among men aged 25-34.
In 2025, we tracked 251 anti-migrant protests. Whilst many protestors were hardened far-right activists with histories of violence, others were local people with no formal connections to the broader movement.
White supremacy has always festered within the heart of the UK. We are a nation built on the violent subjugation of Black and brown people, fuelled by the persistent belief that whiteness is a significant factor of Britishness.
Whilst that ideology has inflected a huge proportion of our politics, it often took the form of dog-whistle allusions and half-voiced sentiment.
Now, however, that mask has slipped. White ethnonationalism is increasingly overt, bold, and mainstream. It’s supporters make up the majority of the UK’s most popular political party.
We must recognise this racist bile for what it is. It is our duty to call it out, and to eliminate it from our communities and our politics.
This is not how fascism begins – we’re long past that point now.
Featured image via the Canary
The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) latest figures show that Universal Credit (UC) sanctions have hit record highs under Labour.
DWP UC sanctions highest ever under labour
The DWP recently released the figures for benefit sanctions up to October 2025. And they do not paint a pretty picture for Labour.
Before Labour came into power, the highest monthly number of sanctions happened in January 2024, when it it reached 57,276.
But since Labour were elected, it’s shot up – reaching over 60,000 three times. In October 2024 61,601 claimants were sanctioned. This rose even higher in January 2025 to 64,886. Then finally in October 2025, it hit 63,025. As these are the latest figures we have, it could’ve gone up even further in the last five months.
The most shocking thing about the staggering almost 65,000 in January 2025 is that it had dropped significantly the month before. In December 2024 the amount of sanctions was just around 24,000. So for it to go up by almost three times in just a month is horrific. The January 2025 figure is the highest rate of Universal Credit sanctions ever.
Universal Credit claimants punished
Sanctions happen when a claimant fails to meet arbitrary rules set out by the DWP. These can involve missing or being late for appointments at the Jobcentre or not accepting a job offer. But they can even punish you if they don’t like your reason for not leaving your last job.
In the period from November 2024 to October 2025, 566,490 people were sanctioned for “Failure to Attend or Participate in a Mandatory Interview”. To be clear this can also include if you’re running late. so if the bus was late you can lose your benefits. This equated to 90% of all sanctions.
A further 31,210 were sanctioned for “availability to work”, or to translate, they refused to accept the first crappy low-paying job the DWP offered them. And 9,530 were punished for “reason for leaving previous employment”.
This seems like an absurd and cruel category to include when everyone has different reasons for leaving a job and DWP rules are often strict and don’t allow for nuance. This is something anyone who’s ever applied for PIP knows all too well.
As the Canary previously reported, Universal Credit sanctions are so cruel that claimants are treated worse than criminals. The Sanctionable Failures report from Public Law Project found that sanctions are almost double the average court fine, and they’re effectively fined at 9 times the amount someone convicted of a crime is.
Racism in the DWP
As with most things, race also plays a big part here. Whilst 70% of sanctioned claimants were white, the amount from each group sanctioned stays about the same or higher. White claimants had a sanction rate of 6% while Black/African/Caribbean/Black British claimants had a sanction rate of 6.2%. People of mixed/ multiple ethnicities had a sanction rate of 7.4%. Asian/Asian British claimants had a slightly lower rate at 4.6%.
The DWP uses the relative likelihoods method to determine racial disparities in datasets. Using this they can estimate that black/African/Caribbean/Black British people were 3% more likely than White claimants to be sanctioned in November 2025. According to the DWP, Asian/Asian British people were 23% less likely to be sanctioned than white claimants.
The group most likely to be sanctioned compared to white claimants was people of mixed or multiple ethnicities. They were 24% more likely to be sanctioned than white people.
However, previously released data paints an even bleaker picture. The Canary’s Hannah Sharland found in September 2024 that:
Black universal credit claimants were 58% more likely to be sanctioned than white claimants, mixed ethnic groups were 72% more likely and Asians 5% more likely
So not only is it a racist hellhole, but they’re also using underhanded methods to fluff the numbers.
DWP even worse under Labour
The Labour-run DWP has faced much criticism lately, but all they’ve really proven is how they’re even worse for poor and disabled people then the Tories ever were.
At a time when the DWP is pushing more people into work that ever, we must up the scrutiny over how many people they are unfairly punishing. Benefit claimants are already up against it with the constant benefits hate in the press, without all the hoops they have to jump through just to survive.
Featured image via the Canary
Prominent lobby group UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has been pushing hard to stifle criticism of the Zionist settler-colonial state’s crimes. And this has included trying to get the Open University (OU) to erase the term “ancient Palestine” for potentially triggering supporters of Israel. But academics have been fighting back.
Open University management flip-flops over Israel lobby campaign
The OU quickly folded under pressure from UKLFI. The university’s Palestine Solidarity Group exposed via a Freedom of Information (FOI) request that Adrienne Scullion, head of the Arts and Social Science faculty, had promised the lobby group:
We will not use the term ‘ancient Palestine’ in any future course materials, and we will explain and contextualise its use in existing materials for current learners
Following reports and UKLFI boasting, however, hundreds of academics signed an open letter challenging the OU’s pledge. And the controversy attracted greater public scrutiny of the institution:
#AcademicFreedom | We have written to The @OpenUniversity to express our profound concern about the university’s response to a letter from the UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) regarding the use of the term ‘#ancientPalestine.’
Read our letter: https://t.co/nr2AHIbjDu 1/3 pic.twitter.com/RA7GFdcjju— BRISMES (@OfficialBrismes) February 26, 2026
I imagine @owenjonesjourno‘s recent Guardian column went some way to effecting that U-turn pic.twitter.com/hG1jCSm6o6
— Rivkah Brown (@rivkahbrown) March 3, 2026
‘@OpenUniversity lecturer @LuxMea said the idea this is “a late-coming or illegitimate term” is a “Zionist lie, aimed at the erasure of Palestinians”@jeremycorbyn told @novaramedia an agreement to stop using the term amounted to “anti-Palestinian racism”’https://t.co/AK4CDsFDMD
— OU Palestine Solidarity Group (@OUPalestine) March 3, 2026
Censorship
As Novara Media reported, this seems to have had an impact. A spokesperson for the OU told the outlet that academics can use their professional judgement and:
are free to use the term ‘ancient Palestine’ where scholarly appropriate in teaching and learning materials.
Novara said Scullion’s “contextual note”, according to the OU, only referred to “one current module within Arts and Social Sciences”. This wouldn’t explain the “broad wording” of the pledge to UKLFI, though. For one staff member, there’s a “clear contradiction” with the OU’s new claims, which:
do not constitute a reasonable interpretation of the letter from 18 December
Indeed, according to legal experts, the OU’s apparent commitments to UKLFI could represent a breach of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 (HEFSA). This binds universities to prevent “undue pressures” on staff and students that could threaten academic freedom and freedom of speech.
UK institutions and pro-Israel groups have been systematically targeting supporters of Palestine with different types of repression, with a particular focus on “students, academics and teachers”. The new Index of Repression outlines almost a thousand such cases between 2019 and 2025. And UKLFI has played a prominent role:
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) appears 128 times in our database leading to institutional action against Palestine solidarity in schools, workplaces, universities and beyond. And this is only what we were able to verify.
Anti-Palestinian repression in Britain is not accidental.… pic.twitter.com/2agZuqG4Ff
— European Legal Support Center (ELSC) (@elsclegal) February 24, 2026
Defend academic freedom
The OU branch of the University and College Union (UCU) has insisted that the institution’s actions have made it:
complicit in a politically motivated attempt to erase Palestine from history.
It has also argued that it sets a precedent for more future attacks on academic freedom.
✉️FOI request exposed commitments to UK Lawyers for Israel to caveat & limit use of the term ‘ancient Palestine’ in learning materials
Makes OU complicit in a politically motivated attempt to erase Palestine from history
+ sets precedent for further attacks on ac freedom
3/6
— Open University UCU (@oubucu) March 3, 2026
It wants the OU to launch an independent inquiry into what happened, and for the university to:
retract all commitments made to UKLFI.
And our @UCU branch encourages academic and academic-related colleagues to sign this open letter
The @OpenUniversity must defend academic freedom
— Open University UCU (@oubucu) March 3, 2026
This is not the first time UKLFI has tried to shut down solidarity with Palestine. And it won’t be the last. But if enough people raise their voices in defence of academic freedom, we can at the very least make the group’s mission a hell of a lot harder.
Featured image via the Canary
The following is a statement from the women’s strike assembly:
Statement
London, UK – Sunday 8 March – We, the women’s strike assembly – an independent collective comprised of various migrant, socialist, decolonial, abolitionist and autonomous activists and organisations – will be taking to the streets once more this year on 8 March 2026.
As a collective, we have been taking action on 8 March annually since 2018 to celebrate, grieve and struggle against patriarchy, imperialism and fascism as they manifest in the form of further militarisation, attacks on our trans and migrant siblings and silence in the face of the global drive to war.
As a collective who rejects liberal and reactionary feminisms, we learn from and laud all those who have taken action alongside us and in the same spirit of liberation around the world, from the global women’s strike in 2000, the women’s revolution in Rojava to the various anti-femicide movements across Abya Yala.
The threat of fascism
In 2026, the biggest enemy for women’s liberation is the threat of fascism and the rise of the far-right on our streets, as well as the neoliberal Labour Party stooping to racist politics in order to appeal to the ruling class who benefit from dividing the working classes in the first place. Additionally, the Labour government are actively harming immigrants through furthering earned settlement policies and building a hostile environment which harms women by exacerbating crises in care, housing, cost of living, and childcare.
With regards to the dimension of fascism on the street: in the last year, we have witnessed fascists advancing their movements into local communities in the name of ‘women’s rights and safety’. Alongside this, imperial feminisms upholding racist narratives that migrants come to the country to ‘rape and abuse’ *our* women and children have been strengthened by reactionary groups like the Pink Ladies to give the impression that the fascist movement has found legitimacy amongst women.
As anti-fascist feminists, we say fuck this colonialist nationalist agenda. NO to borders. Migration is life and NO one is illegal.
Details of the demonstration
Date and Time: 3pm, Sunday 8 March
Route: The march will commence at Russell Square and end at Soho Square, London
Why we strike
We are striking as a feminist wing of a working-class movement, that is to say a movement which represents poor and disenfranchised people and takes action in line with their liberation against the system which defines politics as committees of the rich few against the many. We are striking as the Epstein files expose the threads of a corrupt global elite that enjoys total impunity, showing the complicity between the British Monarchy, the billionaires club, the financiers, politicians from all parties, with an international ring of p*dophiles, sexual traffickers and abusers.
Furthermore, we are striking as in British society, around 4 million children are living in poverty and 382,000 people are homeless in England alone- with black women and single mothers affected disproportionately. We strike because these contradictions are not matters of bad administration or policy but rather a result of a system that is unequal by design. So we strike as conscious objectors to such a bloodthirsty system, which has been vying for the approval of women for years through ‘girlboss’ rhetoric, demanding that women be involved in this cycle of oppression.
We reject the currents of reactionary feminism which seek to divide our experiences of gender and womanhood to biology. We are striking alongside our trans siblings, because their lives are under constant attack. The UK Supreme Court ruling saying “sex” is exclusive to biological / assigned at birth sex is nothing but another colonial heritage perpetuated and in the name of “women’s rights and safety”. We reject terfism and mandatory cisness, we define who we are.
We strike in transnational solidarity with the people of Palestine, Rojava, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Haiti and Congo. We strike against the femi-genocide in Palestine which is deliberately targeting mothers who give birth to, feed and raise children, and are the primary carers of families and communities. Imperialism continues to kill people en masse for power and profit. This is a global system, not a set of policies. As a result, we are a global network of anti-colonial feminists. ALL EMPIRES MUST FALL!
We strike because we don’t just want rights. We understand they can be useful, but they are CRUMBS in a system based on exploitation, extraction and colonisation of our bodies, our labour, our lands, our nature, and the planet. We want justice and we want liberation – because feminist justice is incomplete without land justice, disability justice, housing justice, food justice, and care justice.
We strike because we want to create communities that enact ways of organising life and relating to one another that are not based on abuse, oppression, accumulation, or punitivism. We’re seeking worlds otherwise, we want to abolish the systems that enable oppression and create freedom through new systems of care and the leadership of the oppressed. Justice does not call for reform, but for feminist projects of total collective transformations. Justice is about imagining and working towards worlds of interconnectedness and care as foundational principles for organising life. It is about sharing the labour of sustaining life – human and non-human. Justice is about a life beyond individual choices within a broken system, and instead about collective care.
All in all, our demands this year, just like every year, we seek to take action as the general crisis of imperialism affects women and marginalised communities the most. We shall take the streets in order to expose and raise awareness of this fact.
When women stop, the world stops.
Featured image via Instagram / falatinamericans
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) mouthpiece Natasha Hausdorff is one of the Israel lobby lawfare group‘s better known faces. She has been accused by a Jewish critic of defending “pure freaking evil” for her insistence that Israel is not committing genocide and war crimes in Gaza. And she is suing right-wing host Piers Morgan for a 2025 interview in which he gave her a torrid time for it.
Piers Morgan announcement
Morgan has announced the suit, though the “particulars of claim” detailing what grounds she thinks she has for legal action have not yet been released. Morgan said he is looking forward to testing his words in court:
BREAKING: I am being sued by @Hausdorffmedia from @UKLFI . I welcome the opportunity for an open court test of Ms Hausdorff’s defence of the Israeli Govt’s claims about its actions in Gaza, not least because it continues to bar journalists from reporting freely there. pic.twitter.com/sC5otInAEk
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) March 4, 2026
The suit relates to a June 2025 interview in which Morgan – who at first refused to accept Israel’s genocide but eventually woke up – called “bullshit” on Hausdorff’s relentless and cold-eyed denialism. The interview lasts an hour, but a short taster is available for those who want it.
Ironically – and no doubt tellingly of the Israel lobby’s inability to understand how it comes across – the clip was posted by Hausdorff herself. It seems she felt it made her look good – and the victim, as Israel always must be. But Piers Morgan himself picked it up in a repost, saying he had had “more convivial chats with serial killers” than with the Israel apologist:
UPDATE: I bumped into Natasha at a party last night, and she wasn’t in the mood for hearing anything, let alone the truth. In fact, I’ve had more convivial chats with serial killers, before she stomped off.
Stop playing the victim, Ms Hausdorff, it’s very silly for any lawyer. https://t.co/Z70Pzb6mwL— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) June 20, 2025
Hausdorff, a barrister, filed her defamation on 23 February. As an interesting aside, she has been accused of “screaming” at far-right campaigner Charlie Kirk in a fraught Israel lobby meeting that attempted to bring Kirk back into the pro-Israel fold shortly before he was publicly murdered. Kirk had told friends he was ending his support for Israel. Hausdorff blocked Jewish journalist Max Blumenthal after he reported the allegation:
Natasha doesn’t want to discuss this pic.twitter.com/B9DGiqJFyp
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) September 16, 2025
McCarthyite foreign interest group
UKLFI, whose name makes clear it serves the interests of a foreign power, has attacked everything from a display of plates painted by Palestinian children to Netflix — is well known for its attempts to suppress pro-Palestinian speech and solidarity, particularly in the NHS and in the media-cultural sector.
It recently intimidated a gallery owner into ending a smash-hit art show and browbeat the resignation of a university museum director for daring to host a display by technical experts who exposed Israeli lies during the genocide.
Despite being thoroughly discredited, the genocide-shielding group UK Lawyers for Israel still managed to persuade the General Medical Council to pursue a lawfare-style antisemitism complaint against Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah.
The surgeon has incensed Israel’s apologists by…
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) March 2, 2026
Along with its fellow apartheid apologist group, the so-called ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’ (CAA), UKLFI has fallen foul of regulators. CAA has been subjected to regulatory action for its political smears and was humiliated in court for false accusations against comedian Reginald D. Hunter. UKLFI is currently being investigated for vexatious threats.
Forced apology
Hausdorff is represented by the notorious Mark Lewis, who has been censured for wishing death on a Corbyn supporter. Lewis’s advice played a major role in the decision of Pete Newbon, a director of the misnamed ‘Labour against Antisemitism’, to sue Jewish national treasure Michael Rosen for Rosen’s condemnation of Newbon’s bastardisation of a Rosen book to attack then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Lewis also advised Newbon and two other Israel supporters in their ruinous defence against James Wilson, whom they had endangered with vile public lies. Newbon died by suicide before the case concluded; his co-defendants were ordered to pay massive damages to Wilson. Newbon’s widow has said that he had kept the legal actions “secret” and recently said he had lied to her about dropping the cases. She subsequently sacked Lewis.
Lewis was heavily criticised by a judge, and subsequently forced to apologise, for misleading the court in the case. Emails between him and barrister Gavin Millar showed Lewis discussing how much money he hoped to squeeze out of Wilson by keeping the case going.
Featured image via the Canary
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