On Saturday 25 July, a far-right ‘Unite the Clans’ rally saw masked, violent fascists attacking people of colour on the streets of Glasgow. However, Reform MSP Thomas Kerr has since taken to social media to complain about the racist thugs being called Nazis — because obviously that’s the most important issue at hand.

Glasgow police force has reported 15 arrests so far. The charges included hate crimes, assault, carrying an offensive weapon, and breaching the peace. The BBC also reported that the police expected to make more arrests in the coming days:

Ch Supt Emma Croft said the suspects, many of whom were masked, had targeted people for the colour of their skin as a peaceful anti-racism demonstration was held on Glasgow Green.

She said a dedicated team was assessing CCTV, as well as footage and stills from the public, in a bid to identify those responsible for the violence.

If they look like Nazis, and they salute like Nazis…

Kerr’s attempt to deny that the mob were neo-Nazis is obviously pointless, given that they were throwing Nazi salutes throughout. The Scottish branch of Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) posted the pictures to prove it:

Multiple Nazi salutes at the ‘Unite the Clans’ racist & fascist rally in Glasgow yesterday. They deny they are racist as majority of society abhors it. They masquerade as ‘protectors of women’, but only use concerns over women’s safety to scapegoat& build their fascist movement. pic.twitter.com/mUhNHLWP30

— Stand Up to Racism – Scotland (@SUTRScotland) July 26, 2026

The National also quoted attendees stating “I’m a Nazi and I love it”, “it’s wonderful being white” and “I love being white”. SUTR also took the opportunity to remind the public that Unite the Clans has previously admitted to sheltering a suspected child-groomer within its ranks.

Of course, Reform have a vested interest in denying that the marchers were neo-Nazis, given that the far-right party was attending right alongside them. Again, on 27 July, SUTR had the photographic evidence:

Reform UK Scotland have a lot to answer for over the violence in the streets of Glasgow on Sat.
We will not hold our breath waiting for the Reform leaders to take any sort of action over the latest example of an elected representative of the party mingling with violent fascist. pic.twitter.com/6NvwkXEibL

— Stand Up to Racism – Scotland (@SUTRScotland) July 27, 2026

Reform councillor Audrey Dempsey is the elected representative of Springburn and Robroyston ward. She was also a speaker at the rally, pictured above in front of a sign for neo-Nazi group Patriotic Alternative. Dempsey addressed the crowd, asking for votes and pushing her party’s political agenda:

I am begging you all now, we are very close to the point of no return. So I’m asking you… you see what this city is becoming, and you vote for the people who are going to push to stop that.

The National has since confirmed that Reform has not taken action over Dempsey’s attendance or speech at the rally.

‘Scotland is lawless’

On the day of the riot, Scottish Greens co-leader Ross Greer posted to social media, stating that:

For the second time in as many months, Nazis have rioted in Glasgow. They targeted anyone who isn’t white, as well as those daring to stand up to them.

Greer then turned his criticism to Reform MSP Thomas Kerr:

Thomas Kerr claims ‘Scotland is lawless’. Will he condemn the Reform politician who spoke at this ‘rally’ with violent Nazis?

That “Scotland is lawless” comment is a reference to Kerr’s ridiculous video post from 16 July. The far-right politician filmed himself walking around Glasgow, interspersed with footage of groups of young people – many of them brown – standing around. In the accompanying caption, he called the area “lawless Glasgow city centre”.

In response, Kerr posted a statement to social media on 27 July:

The Nazis murdered six million Jews. Politicians who casually label their opponents as Nazis cheapen the Holocaust and undermine the promise of “never again”. Extremist Ross Greer and his fellow Green MSPs should be ashamed of using such disgraceful language.

So it’s unacceptable to call self-identified Nazis ‘Nazis’, but calling a Green MSP an ‘extremist is fine – got it. Kerr continued:

Yesterday’s scenes in Glasgow by a small minority on both sides were absolutely unacceptable. There is no excuse for violence, criminal damage or attacks on Police Scotland officers. They win when you act like that.

Those responsible should face the full force of the law.

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Given that people very much did act “like that”, “they” presumably did win. However, we’re not expecting rhetorical brilliance from Reform here. Kerr finished off:

But let’s stop pretending peaceful protest is the problem. It isn’t. Peaceful protest is a fundamental democratic right, especially when governments repeatedly ignore legitimate public concerns and dismiss those raising them. People have every right to stand up, speak out and make their voices heard. Peacefully.

Instead of smearing political opponents with lazy slurs, the political establishment should start listening to the people they were elected to serve.

Work with us, not against us.

Nazis and their Reform-aligned friends

Again, this was a violent riot, not a peaceful protest. The rioters specifically targeted Black and brown people in the street.

Likewise, ‘Nazi’ isn’t a lazy slur. Kerr could have found this out quite easily by “listening to the people [he] was elected to serve” when they called themselves Nazis. Alternatively, if the speakers happened to be out of earshot, he could have just watched the Nazi salutes.

As SUTR so kindly demonstrated, the people that Reform are working with, not against, are bigots and white supremacists. Far from condemning councillor Audrey Dempsey for speaking at the rally, Reform chose to quibble over whether it’s OK to call the rioters ‘Nazis’.

Reform are showing us, quite plainly, who they are, and who their friends are.

Featured image via Billy Knox / X / Stand Up to Racism – Scotland

By Grace

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Disability welfare cuts and immigration pledges are part of the same odious project — two sides of the same coin — weaponised by the by the Labour-led government to oppress migrant and disabled communities.

The problem is that disability rights arguments are failing to recognise shared experiences of oppression for the disabled and migrant community. This plays right into the hands of the government.

This under the radar benefits cut reminds us why disability justice must centre migrants’ rights

Labour’s racist, ableist anti-immigration ‘compromise’

With the government now under the steer of former Manchester Mayor and Blairite Andy Burnham, the new prime minister has wasted little time signalling that his premiership will not break from some of the party’s most performatively cruel policy plans.

Some of the cabinet hanger-ons, like home secretary Shabana Mahmood and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) boss Pat McFadden, already show the new head of government gearing up to deliver on more of the same. Only now, it’s under the veneer of his artfully constructed ‘progressive’ persona.

The public already got a hint of what this might look like for Mahmood’s hostile immigration reforms. Notably, the government could exempt migrant care workers and those who arrived since 2021 from its plans to double the time it takes to obtain indefinite leave to remain.

For the xenophobic fascists to the right of the party, these plans were of course not racist enough. For the liberal fascists (marginally) more left inside the party, these might just hit the goldilocks zone of ‘not too racist’. And as such, they’ll vote it through the Commons.

What’s clear is that its immigration reforms will immiserate the lives of migrant communities across the UK. Disabled migrants particularly will face the desolate and deplorable reality that the state safety net will not support them.

These are racist hostile environment policies – and at the same time – these are also ableist and disablist welfare cuts.

Migrant and disabled communities are fighting the same war

The system vilifies and excludes disabled people and migrants using much of the same necrocapitalist rhetoric. Therefore, for disabled migrants at the dual end of this, and subject to further marginalisations. The state works overtime to mark them as expendable.

What Labour’s compromise options — and its vicious anti-immigration reforms more broadly — boil down to is that migrant belonging is conditional on their utility to capitalist production. In other words; their citizenship, security, and permanence in the UK.

It’s evident in every reference Labour’s proposals make to economic ‘contribution’. Incidentally, there are no fewer than 72 references to that in its earned settlement plans. Each ‘deserving’ category of migrant it singles out for its racist, classist conception of the ‘good immigrant’, namely, those with higher English proficiency, higher earners, and those in senior positions of public service, makes this abundantly clear. It’s apparent in the way it’s now also considering exempting migrant care workers from its doubling of ILR.

And this economic contribution refrain is one disabled people in the UK will be painfully familiar with. Labour has constructed its whole programme of sweeping disability benefit cuts around the idea of economic contribution and support only for ‘deserving’ disabled claimants. Of course, it’s the DWP that gets to define what that ‘deserving’ looks like. And with its grim history of benefit cut deaths, austerity and profitability will trump disabled people’s lives and dignity.

Unsurprisingly, this rhetoric is emerging from all the same establishment circles that close ranks around profit. It’s a back scratching ecosystem of DWP policy advisors, right-wing think tanks, and the cesspit corporate media.

The point being, disabled people and migrants are fighting the same oppressors. They’re battling the same capitalist system and the same weapons they use to marginalise and disenfranchise.

Falling into the contribution trap

But while it might be the right-wing, this Labour government, that are punching down on both communities, the disability rights movement (and the left more broadly) must also be careful not to unintentionally capitulate to its framing around migrant rights issues.

Take Labour’s potential ‘compromise’ around care workers. Notably, Mahmood has reportedly weighed up exempting over 600,000 migrant care workers from its ten-year ILR wait.

It’s common for people on the left to cite care workers and NHS workers to rebut right-wing anti-migrant bigotry. But in doing so, it ties migrant worthiness to economic value and usefulness to capitalist production. It justifies the political class exploiting certain categories of migrants that ‘contribute’ economically through tax or otherwise in capital-enabling socially reproductive work.

And social care can be one area disabled people’s rights and migrants’ rights can intersect. Closures or restrictions on visas for care workers have been an instance where successive governments’ attempts to restrict freedom of movement have had repercussions for both communities.

Enhancing the credibility of the system

However, when disabled people push back against these, it must not be in a way that subordinates migrants’ rights to disabled people’s needs. Articulating migrant care workers’ necessity for disabled care users must include challenging the systems that devalue and exploit migrants. Otherwise, it puts migrant rights and personhood second to disabled people’s.

Without calling for migrant rights above and beyond what exists, it merely advocates for maintaining visa schemes that commodify Black and brown bodies in a racialised hierarchy of labour that mirrors colonial systems and racist colonial stereotypes of labour.

These permit entry to the UK on precarious migration statuses. In particular, these are statuses that exploit Global South and Eastern European workers. It pushes them to do the undervalued, low-paid, gruelling physical labour and socially reproductive work. And at the same time, these visa arrangements deny them full access to the colonial ‘core’. Or, in other words, ILR and citizenship.

Disability rights scholars Rebecca Yeo and Robel Afeworki Abay have described how, often, the purpose of Home Office “action to reduce restrictions” in the asylum system is to:

enhance the credibility of the system.

So as the Labour government float these possible exemptions, the disability rights community must not lend it any legitimacy. It’s not enough alone to advocate for migrant care worker visas that plug the gaps in a broken care system. Because meeting disabled people’s care needs cannot come at the cost of marginalised migrant lives.

Entertaining anything less than a full dismantling of the disabling, extractive, and deadly hostile environment would betray everything the disability rights movement is meant to stand for.

Featured image via the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

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AI minister Kanishka Narayan is sitting alongside secretaries of state Jonathan Reynolds and Alex Norris in Andy Burnham’s new Cabinet (Alamy)

4 min read1 hr

Britain has spent the past two years positioning itself as a global leader in AI safety, but it must now prepare for the possibility that even the creators of the most advanced AI systems cannot reliably control them.

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For decades, screenwriters and authors have spun tales of uncontrollable AI let loose upon the world to wreak havoc. For decades, audiences have taken comfort that it was fiction. Unfortunately, we are entering an era where science fiction meets science fact, and the Andy Burnham government must face this new reality. 

ChatGPT creator OpenAI recently admitted that their AI systems autonomously hacked a different company – the first known instance of an AI system doing so. The AI systems in question were being tested and looked for ways to cheat. They escaped the test environment, reached the open internet, then hacked into the AI startup Hugging Face to steal the information they needed. OpenAI described this as an “unprecedented cyber incident”, and it is a stark reminder of the threats posed by AI systems. But without action this will just be the first of many incidents, and AI will learn and become even more dangerous.

To protect our critical national infrastructure from the threats posed by autonomous AI, I proposed a ‘kill-switch’ amendment to the Cybersecurity and Resilience Bill, which I would encourage the House of Lords to take forward this autumn.

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I was pleased to see that US lawmakers are considering similar powers to proactively shut down dangerous AI following this autonomous hack. This kill switch power is necessary in an evolving threat landscape, but it is not without its limits. We must address the deeper problem: What do we do about superintelligent AI systems that would be, by their developers’ own admission, smarter and more capable than our top safety engineers and national security apparatus?  

Mitigating the threat from superintelligence must be treated as a national security priority

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Superintelligent AI systems would pose a serious national security threat owing to their capacity to evade human oversight and control. Nobel Prize winners, leading AI scientists, and even the CEOs of AI companies have repeatedly warned that this technology represents an extinction risk, yet companies are recklessly racing to develop superintelligence.  

If a superintelligent AI is built using anything resembling today’s technical methods, nobody will control it once it exists. It will resist shutdown, self-improve, and self-replicate. Such a system would not be a weapon a country could possess and wield, but a threat actor in its own right: a danger to the country that built it, as much as to the rest of the world. This is an international security problem demanding an international solution. 

This is why in September, I am tabling a bill to prohibit the development of superintelligent AI on UK soil and pursue an international agreement to prohibit its development globally. 

Britain is well-positioned to lead this effort. We hosted the first global AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, and built the world’s first AI Security Institute. Even Geoffrey Irving, who until recently served as Chief Scientific Officer at AISI, has said that the best plan is not to build superintelligent AI yet, and “the world should try hard to realise that plan”. My bill gives legs to this plan. 

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I am aware this may not, on its own, deliver an international agreement. But it will compel the government to reckon with the threats on our doorstep. With AI policy now elevated to the Cabinet table under the new government, mitigating the threat from superintelligence must be treated as a national security priority. Next year, the United Kingdom will chair the G20, and AI safety and regulation must form part of our presidency. The more we delay international talks, the greater the threat that we can’t control AI will grow. 

I have joined a coalition of over 125 parliamentarians recognising superintelligence as a global and national security threat and supporting ControlAI’s call for binding regulations on the most powerful AI. It is time to recognise superintelligent AI as the national security threat that it is while we still have time to act. This is an early warning shot; we may not get many more.

 

Alex Sobel is the Labour/Co-operative MP for Leeds Central and Headingley

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The rapid expansion of generative AI technology has been tremendously worrying for many. There are good reasons for this too, whether it be the threat to jobs, the environmental impact of data centres, or the fact that AI barons keep suggesting their technology may one day kill us all.

In response to this, the Greens’ Greater Manchester mayor candidate Geraldine Coggins is calling for “an end to the folly of rushing headlong into AI development without public debate and environmental protections”.

Environmental impacts

Coggins said:

The world is on fire. A quarter of a million people have been evacuated from the paths of wildfires in Spain and France, and a major incident was declared in the Cairngorms as flames threatened Aviemore.

In my own front room in Trafford, I can smell the acrid smoke from wildfires on the moors.

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The UK has experienced a significant number of wildfires in recent weeks, with Greens leader Zack Polanski also commenting on the issue:

The climate crisis is not a distant threat.

It's here. And it's happening now.

And our Fire Brigade on the frontline of it are asking for help. https://t.co/Nl8GV79S1k

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— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) July 14, 2026

Coggins continued:

On the doorstep, I am being told that people worry about AI and the consequences for their jobs, while musicians and creative artists warn of having their work stolen. People fear AI’s impact on the environment and the threat it brings of ‘going rogue’ and starting wars.

On the jobs front, there is less reason to be worried than there was a few years ago. This is because companies which have invested in AI have struggled to show any Return on Investment (RoI) from the technology.

Companies abandon AI as prices skyrocket

This situation was worsened when the AI companies dramatically increased their prices earlier this year because they could no longer afford to subsidise the expensive tech with artificially low subscription offers.

People are certainly using AI to replace creative work, whether it be uploading soulless AI music to Spotify or authorless AI literature to Amazon. As comedian Stavros Halkias said:

How did f*cking computers become the thing… that does art? And humans are the ones in f*cking Amazon warehouses? Like, shouldn’t the robots be working so we can paint?

Coggins is also correct to highlight that unpredictable AI tech is being used by global militaries and defence contractors. This is despite AI companies making claims like the following:

JUST IN: OpenAI reportedly caught an AI agent leaving “notes” to future versions of itself on how to escape internal constraints.

— Polymarket (@Polymarket) July 25, 2026

There’s every chance OpenAI made the above up to make their tech seem more dangerous – and therefore more valuable – than it actually is (the claim they’re making was a plotline in the sci-fi drama Person of Interest, after all). Regardless of whether it’s true, however, it seems like we’d be prudent to assume it might be, and to take these companies’ toys away from them.

AI: who benefits?

Coggins continued:

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has brought AI around the Cabinet table with a dedicated Minister to promote its use. They need to focus on how AI is regulated and who benefits from it.

As the region’s first Green Mayor, I will work to end to the folly of rushing headlong into AI development without public debate and environmental protections.

I will not allow our water-deprived peat moors or people’s drinking water to be threatened by AI’s rapacious drive for profits. This is what I mean by my campaign pledge to take back Greater Manchester from Big Money.

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We’ve reported on the threat to the British water supply before, notably here:

Starmer’s ‘systemic planning failure’ on AI data centres puts UK water reserves at dire risk

As we reported:

The Government Digital Sustainability Alliance (GDSA) was established to provide guidance on how we can achieve “digital transformation” without putting sustainability targets at risk. In aid of this, they published a report titled Water use in AI and Data Centres.

As the report highlights, we were already facing significant water scarcity, and AI data centres will only worsen this issue. What we don’t know is how much worse they’ll make it, because tech companies don’t have to report, monitor, or estimate how much water they use.

We’ll repeat this, because it’s actually a little difficult to believe when you first hear it: AI data centres do not have to report, monitor, or estimate how much water they use.

Determining the future

Coggins concluded:

I will establish a Mayor’s Commission made up of the public, business and wildlife and nature organisations to determine the future of AI in Greater Manchester. It will examine the evidence and make recommendations on how we protect people and plant from the excesses of AI, including its threatening over use of water.

Coggins is absolutely right to be raising these issues. And while she can’t make national decisions, the local campaigns against data centres in the US have proven to be a significant factor in the evolving debate on AI:

The backlash to artificial intelligence and its infrastructure will only grow in the coming months and years. Coggins is ahead of the curve on this front, and we hope more politicians to take this issue to heart.

Featured image via the Canary

By Willem Moore

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The Labour government is floating another vicious programme of sweeping cuts to disabled people’s welfare.

However, the public could be forgiven for not knowing about these because nowhere in the media or wider sociopolitical disability discourse is anyone talking about them like this is what they are.

Notably, while the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has meted out devastating cuts to Universal Credit’s health element, and gears up to once again target personal independence payments (PIP), it has also been colluding with the Home Office to strip hundreds of thousands of migrants of access to welfare. This includes those very same disability benefits.

The lack of recognition that these hostile environment plans represent welfare cuts exposes a glaring gap in discussions around disabled people’s rights. Crucially, it brings into focus the gaping hole in disability justice communities’ acknowledgment that migrants’ rights are disability rights — and that these are inextricable.

Disability is attacked under immigration reforms

It was mid-July when Times home affairs editor, Matt Dathan, broke his ‘exclusive’, setting the stage for Labour’s callous immigration reforms.

Under disgraceful plans Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood published for consultation in November, and which closed in February, the Labour government wanted to increase the time migrants spend in immigration limbo before being eligible to apply for permanent residence.

Government mouthpiece Dathan, who was blatantly spoon-fed the scoop directly from a Home Office source,  laid out the prospective ‘compromise’ option.

Specifically, the report detailed how the Labour government is weighing up exemptions to its plans for certain groups of migrants. In particular, people who arrived in the UK post-2021 would be exempt from its manoeuvres to double the time it takes to qualify for indefinite leave to remain (ILR).

The proposal sits amid a wider programme of anti-immigration reforms.

As the Times reported, over 80 Labour MPs have called on Burnham to scrap Mahmood’s shameful policies. The ‘compromise’ option would therefore be one way that the newly-minted prime minister could persuade prospective rebel MPs to back the broader catalogue of reforms.

But if Labour follow through on any version of these vile plans, they will represent nothing short of catastrophic welfare cuts.

Where was the disability rights community?

The story went viral enough that X made it one of the day’s news explainers. It lingered about the site for the next couple of days.

However, since then, the news seems to have prompted zero fanfare from disability rights groups. Among the most prominent disability rights charities, and Deaf and disabled people’s organisations (DDPOs),  there was tumbleweed.

On X, it appears not one even reposted Green Party leader Zack Polanski’s rebuttal of Labour’s callous proposals. This is despite it garnering over 600 reposts and more than 2.3 million views (at the time of writing).

Yet, it’s abundantly clear that these immigration policies will hit disabled migrants the hardest. So where has the disability rights community been on these de facto sweeping benefit cuts?

Who does the disability rights movement represent?

DDPOs and disability rights charities have run longstanding campaigns against cuts to PIP, Universal Credit, Access to Work, and Motability. Explore any of their social media accounts and you’ll see a consistent stream of opposition to Labour’s shameless welfare policies.

Disability and benefits-focused outlets have run countless stories on these too.

The simple fact of the matter is, migrants, siloed by the state immigration system into different categories of citizenship ‘deservingness’, are members of the disabled community. That seems like an obvious thing to say but when it comes to conversations around what constitutes immediate disability justice battlegrounds, the fight against the hostile immigration system isn’t usually among the first disability rights groups put forward.

There are some likely reasons for this and it largely revolves around who the disability rights movement includes, and more to the point, who it excludes.

Black disability justice activist Dara Baldwin’s seminal novel To Be a Problem: A Black Woman’s Survival in the Racist Disability Rights Movement maps the racism inside the disability rights movement in the US. In this, Baldwin underscores how the predominantly white make-up of disability non-profits, especially where leadership was concerned, has meant that groups have failed to incorporate issues that impact multi-marginalised disabled people.

Of course, the PIP cuts will likely impact multi-marginalised — in particular, disabled people — the hardest. But there’s no moving away from the fact that, because it affects what will invariably be the largely white membership of these groups, they have prioritised this issue.

In other words, the PIP cuts are enough of a white disabled people’s problem that they get attention and focus.

When disability and migrant rights groups collaborate

None of this is to say that DDPOs and disability rights non-profits have entirely ignored migrants in their advocacy and activism. They haven’t.

Groups like Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and Direct Action Network for Disabled People (DAN) have long stood in solidarity with migrant members of the disabled community.

In the UK today, DDPOs and even some disability charities have been engaging in coalition building with migrants’ rights groups. For instance, multiple DDPOs like DPAC, WinVisible, and non-profits such as Disability Rights UK and Inclusion London, among others, are members of the Disability and Migration Network (DAMN).

The coalition includes migrants’ rights groups like Migrants’ Rights Network, Migrants Organise, and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI).

Through DAMN, these groups have come together to fight both the hostile welfare and immigration systems.

In 2025, they hosted a Disability and Migration Justice conference. This unpacked the similarities of experiences of marginalisation for disabled people and migrants in the UK today.

Then, in March 2026, Praxis, a migrants’ rights charity and member of DAMN, organised a mass lobby against the government’s earned settlement plans. Multiple disability rights groups attended.

Acts of solidarity vs intersectional disability rights issue

DAMN also published a statement against the government’s immigration plans and have encouraged the public to contact their MPs. Doing this acknowledges that the disabled community needs to step up on migrants’ rights.

However, there’s still a sense that migrants’ rights issues are separate from disability rights concerns rather than overlapping.

Compared to the energy and resources these groups have directed towards other attacks on disabled people’s rights, they still treat the hostile environment as a peripheral, solidarity-based issue.

These welfare cuts are a constant talking point across their social media and websites. The same cannot be said of these immigration-reforms-come-welfare cuts.

Silent on the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act

Of course, Labour’s latest hostile environment plans are an expansion on the shameful immigration policies that already exist. It’s not the first time the disability rights community has failed to centre the migrant disabled community.

DAMN founder and academic Rebecca Yeo, and sociologist Robel Abay Afeworki, have highlighted how disability charities and DDPOs were silent when Tony Blair’s New Labour government waved through the racist 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act. The Act codified in law that some migrants would have ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’, which is as it sounds.

It bars certain migrants (including asylum seekers) from accessing certain benefits and denies them access to local authority housing.

Not only did this mean that disabled migrants would have no access to the welfare safety net, but removing that support is in itself, a disabling act. It left disabled migrants without vital resources to navigate a structurally ableist and disablist society.

In withdrawing those resources, it prevents migrants (both disabled and non-disabled) meeting even their basic essential needs. It pushes them into poverty, homelessness, and deteriorating health. The result, on top of all this, was physical and mental disablement for many migrants navigating an abusive system.

Migrants’ rights are disabled people’s rights

Disability rights groups haven’t stayed silent this time. However, the government’s latest attack on migrants requires more than solidarity. This moment demands recognition that the immigration system itself is a key disability rights front.

Labour’s current proposals — from racist, ableist welfare cuts to ramping up the disabling hostile environment — will now be the community’s biggest test of its commitment to collective liberation.

Featured image via the Meteor

By Hannah Sharland

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Now that Keir Starmer has gone, the much anticipated ‘Burnham Bounce’ seems to have materialised. If Andy Burnham can keep this momentum going for Labour, it will be bad news for Reform UK and the Green Party.

BREAKING | Labour surge to poll LEAD (!)

Lab: 28% ( +4 )
Ref: 24% ( -2 )
Con: 22% ( – )
Lib: 12% ( +1 )
Grn: 8% ( -3 )

{ Seats }
Lab: 246
Con: 128
Ref: 115
Lib: 72
Nat: 59
Grn: 8

Poll: More in Common, 24-27 Jul (+/- vs 22 Jul) pic.twitter.com/AkKoPyIlQf

— Stats for Lefties (@LeftieStats) July 27, 2026

Labour turns a corner

The above poll is from More in Common. For reference, this was where their polling had Labour in May — just  weeks after Starmer’s government suffered the disastrous local elections:

Reform UK extend their lead to 10 points in this week’s voting intention, as Labour drop back 3 points.

REF UK 30% (+1)
LAB 20% (-3)
CON 19% (+1)
GREEN 13% (+3)
LIB DEM 12% (-1)
OTH 3% (nc)
SNP 3% (nc)

N = 2111 | Fieldwork 22-25/5 | Changes w/ 18/5 pic.twitter.com/58WJP5JrAV

— Luke Tryl (@LukeTryl) May 27, 2026

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Speaking of the local elections, this was how things went for Labour:

BREAKING: Final Local Election Results 2026

Seats / councils

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RFM: 1453 (+1451) / 14 (+14)
LAB: 1068 (-1496) / 28 (-38)
LDM: 844 (+155) / 15 (+1)
CON: 801 (-563) / 9 (-6)
GRN: 587 (+441) / 5 (+5)
OTH: 245 (+43) / 1 (+1)
RES: 36 (-31)

64 NOC councils (+23)

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) May 9, 2026

And this was how things went for Labour earlier in the year in the Gorton & Denton by-election:

BREAKING: The Green Party has won the Gorton and Denton by-election from Labour

GRN: 14,980 (+10,170)
REF: 10,578 (+5,436)
LAB: 9,364 (-9,191)
CON: 706 (-2,182)
LD: 653 (-746)

Changes w/ 2024

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) February 27, 2026

Clearly, things were not going well for Labour under Starmer. The question was whether the party’s fortunes would improve under another leader.

While we still have doubts about the long-term viability of the Burnham project, it’s obvious he’s doing enough to win back voters right now. He’s also doing it at a time when Reform UK and Nigel Farage are facing multiple ongoing scandals, including:

• Multiple investigations into a £5m ‘gift’ Farage received from a crypto billionaire
• Accusations Farage is shilling for crypto on behalf of his donors
• Questions over three houses Farage seemingly failed to declare
• Failure to declare financial support from convicted fraudster Posh George in the run-up to the 2024 election

Our problems with Reform go well beyond the financial issues too. This is a far-right party that has normalised anti-migrant hatred among a significant portion of the electorate. Reform proved so successful on this front that Starmer’s Home Office began copying Farage’s homework, with Burnham continuing that trend.

Burnham’s problems go deeper than this too, as we’ve reported:

• Burnham backs ‘conditional’ welfare support in first PM interview
• Burnham’s ‘new’ cabinet packed with friends of genocide
• Useless Burnham has sacked off renationalisation

It also seems clear that the moderate tinkering Burnham is proposing won’t notably change people’s lives. This will ultimately be a problem because people’s quality of life has dropped significantly over the past few years, and unless that reverses, people will continue to rebel against the government of the day.

Contrary to all this, Burnham could potentially find a project that wins enough support to secure another election. The much-needed National Care Service he’s currently hinting at could be such a project. It could also be another of his many U-turns.

2029

The More in Common poll isn’t the only one showing a Burnham Bounce (or a Reform recession). Check out this from YouGov:

NEW | Labour / Reform tied

Lab: 22% ( +1 )
Ref: 22% ( -1 )
Con: 21% ( +1 )
Grn: 13% ( – )
Lib: 11% ( -3 )

{ Seats }
Lab: 162
Con: 158
Ref: 142
Lib: 71
Nat: 59
Grn: 24

Poll: YouGov, 26-27 July (+/- vs 23 July) pic.twitter.com/w4Vqri3dKO

— Stats for Lefties (@LeftieStats) July 27, 2026

For reference, this was where YouGov had the parties after the local elections:

POLL | Reform surges to 11pt lead

Ref: 28% (+3)
Con: 17% (-)
Grn: 16% (+1)
Lab: 16% (-2)
Lib: 13% (-1)

{ Seats }
Ref: 333
Lib: 85
Grn: 73
Con: 53
SNP: 46
Lab: 20
Plaid: 11

Poll: @YouGov, 10-11 May (+/- vs 5 May) pic.twitter.com/dUXtyp1md8

— Stats for Lefties (@LeftieStats) May 12, 2026

You can’t read too much into any given poll and pollsters can’t predict the future. What they can do, however, is demonstrate the shifting fortunes of the political parties. And clearly, in this moment, people are drifting away from Reform and the Greens and over to Labour.

We’ve got doubts about Burnham’s ability to maintain this, but if he can pull off the National Care Service, he could certainly last far longer than his predecessor.

Featured image via the Canary

By Willem Moore

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