Politics
Basque police brutally beat Palestine activists after they return from Israeli prison
It might have looked like a scene from a prison in so-called ‘Israel’, but the appalling scenes actually unfolded at Bilbao airport. It wasn’t Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) beating peaceful Basque activists, but rather their own police force, the Ertzaintza, who smashed them with batons as they lay helpless on the ground.
More shockingly still, the activists had only just returned from captivity in ‘Israeli’ dungeons. They were participants in the heroic Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), which sought to bring aid to Palestinians starved by Zionists’ grotesque restriction of aid to Gaza. As GSF explain:
When a family member, waiting anxiously in the arrivals terminal, attempted to cross a barrier to embrace their loved ones, the Ertzaintza suddenly and shockingly responded with violence. What should have been a moment of relief and familial comfort after such a harrowing experience was interrupted by even more brutality.
Among those attacked and beaten by the Basque police were individuals who had just recently been discharged from medical facilities to fly home, bearing severe, agonising injuries from their time in israel’s captivity, after being illegally abducted in European international waters. The Ertzaintza’s deployment of force against citizens in acute medical agony represents an unconscionable failure of basic humanity and continued display of systemic and colonial violence.
At least four people, including three flotilla participants, were subsequently arrested by Spanish state paramilitary police and are currently being held at Deusto police station in Bilbao.
Basque police’s deep ties with ‘Israel’
The GSF went on to describe the attack as a “chilling demonstration of interconnected global repression”. They cite the Ertzaintza’s:
deep, historical procurement pipelines, commercial contracts, and tactical training ties with israeli private security firms…
The Basque region is itself still colonised by Spain, and clearly its police force continues to operate with colonial tendencies. In a Substack post, Ahmed Eldin elaborated on the Ertzaintza’s links with the Zionist entity, pointing out:
The Ertzaintza has purchased Israeli technology and equipment for years. Its phone-tapping system comes from Verint Systems, an Israeli company with deep ties to Israeli military intelligence. An Israeli firm, ICTS, has managed security at some of their facilities. They’ve used Israeli body armor, surveillance cameras, and listening devices.
Eldin said:
The Ertzaintza presents itself as a different kind of police force. Created in 1982 as part of Basque autonomy, it’s supposed to be more responsive to local communities, and less like the centralised Spanish national police.
The truth is, the Ertzaintza has a long-standing, multifaceted relationship with Israel that goes far beyond the Spanish government’s official positions on Palestine.
This is similar to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). Another police force supposedly reconfigured to be more accountable to the population they ‘serve’, the PSNI have purchased software and body armour from so-called ‘Israel’.
The Palestine Laboratory
The Zionist entity operates a pipeline of violence and repression that begins with The Palestine Laboratory. Tools used to brutalise and surveil Palestinians are tested on them like human guinea pigs, then imported by repressive powers around the world for use on their own populations.
This is why the line “nobody is free until we’re all free” isn’t merely a slogan – it is a truism. As long as someone is being mistreated anywhere in the world, the methods used to subjugate them represent a danger to everyone else.
The flotilla activists represent a threat not only to so-called ‘Israel’, but to reactionary political ideals across the world. It’s harder to ram into people’s heads the idea of foreigners being unworthy of our help when people are risking their lives travelling thousands of miles to help those they’ve never met. Left-wing activists lionised for their heroism inherently represent a threat to the interests of capital in their home countries.
As Eldin points out:
When Israeli forces sexually assault, torture, and brutalise international activists bringing aid to Gaza, those actions send a clear message to every police force they’ve trained: “This is how you handle people who challenge us. And you should be doing the same.”
The Spanish government, like the Irish government, is not as pro-Palestine as an at-a-glance reading may suggest. In reality, the Irish government voted against sanctioning the Zionist settler-colony, even when its own citizens were being tortured there.
As Eldin points out, the Spanish state also continues to maintain economic ties with the Zionist entity. True solidarity with Palestine means following true Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) policy – severing all ties with so-called ‘Israel’ while it maintains its apartheid, genocidal policies against the Palestinian people.
Featured image via Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
Activists have responded to a new report showing the extent of state and corporate crackdown on protest. And they’ll be discussing the implications at a central London meeting later on Tuesday 26 May.
As Abi Perrin has written for the Canary:
This report focuses on multiple responses to protest it describes as “grossly disproportionate”. This includes harsh sentences and “indiscriminate” use of remand – sending protesters to prison for many months before their cases are heard in court.
The report, Britain’s Political Prisoners, was co-published by researchers at the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice at Queen Mary University of London and Defend Our Juries.
It found that repression especially targeted activists taking direct action against climate breakdown and the destruction of Gaza. Perrin adds:
It details evidence that the UK ministers have been under pressure from both the Israeli government and arms company Elbit to treat Palestine-related protests harshly. It also points to the influence of fossil fuel industry funded think tanks in the crackdown on climate protests.
Key findings from the report show that:
- The average detention period was 28 weeks, equivalent to more than six months.
- One in three protesters (34%) were jailed for six months or more.
- One in five (21%) were imprisoned for more than a year.
- In 60% of cases, final sentences were more lenient than the time already spent in custody on remand.
- The most common category of offence leading to imprisonment was contempt of court, accounting for 40% of recorded cases.
- Conspiracy offences accounted for 17% of cases analysed.
Pre-emptive punishment of activists
The report argues that the growing use of contempt of court proceedings and conspiracy charges has enabled courts to impose custodial sentences in ways that can limit access to jury trials and expand pre-emptive forms of punishment.
The analysis also found that Palestine solidarity activists experienced particularly lengthy periods of remand detention, with 60% held for longer than six months before sentencing.
Professor David Whyte of Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice at Queen Mary said:
This report documents a remarkable shift in how protest is being policed and punished in Britain. Our findings show the routine use of remand exceeding statutory time limits.
Exceptionally high levels of contempt proceedings and custodial sentencing in response to acts of civil disobedience and direct action show that the courts are progressively degrading the right to protest.
Tim Crosland of Defend Our Juries said:
This report strips away the illusion that the UK remains committed to democratic principles. It reveals that peaceful protesters are being jailed in ever increasing numbers, under pressure from the oil and arms industries, the Israeli government and their lobbyists.
Most shocking of all is the finding concerning the use of remand. In the majority of cases, final sentences are more lenient than time already spent in custody before people have been convicted of anything. It would be dishonest to present this as anything other than punishment without trial.
Zoë Blackler, founding director of radical events space Kairos, said:
In the face of this clampdown on the right to peaceful protest we need to come together in solidarity and defiance. Kairos exists to inspire imaginative thinking in response to the extreme challenges we face.
We encourage anyone shocked by the imprisonment of climate and anti-war protesters to join us on Tuesday evening in developing a strategic vision for how to resist.
To coincide with the launch of the report, central London events space Kairos is hosting an event at 6.30pm on Tuesday 26 May. It’ll discuss strategic ways forward for the climate and anti-war movements in the light of these revelations.
The event will include a series of short presentations by:
- Professor David Whyte of the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice at Queen Mary University of London.
- Tim Crosland of Defend Our Juries.
- Huda Ammori, lead applicant in the judicial review against the government’s proscription of Palestinian solidarity (via video link).
- Amy Pritchard, previously jailed climate protester.
- Athene Dilke of the Public and Commercial Services Union.
- Guy Zilberman, author of the report.
After the presentations there’ll be an open mic session, supper and discussion.
Journalists can attend a briefing on the report at Kairos, 84 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4TG from 5pm.
Featured image via Dan Kitwood / Getty Images
By The Canary
Our friends at investigative outlet Declassified UK are demanding Brits who served in Israel’s genocidal war machine are held to account. And their new open letter, addressed to home secretary Shabana Mahmood and foreign secretary Yvette Cooper, outlines exactly how to do so.
2000 Brits served in the IOF
The letter was written with International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP). ICJP have fought a long battle against the genocide themselves.
Declassified said on 26 May that many prominent figures had already signed the letter:
Our campaign letter has already been signed by over 60 prominent figures – from lawyers and genocide scholars to military veterans and politicians.
They include human rights lawyer Michael Mansfield, genocide scholar Martin Shaw, former British army general Charlie Herbert, anti-apartheid campaigner Andrew Feinstein, Green party leader Zack Polanski, and the Mother of the House of Commons, Diane Abbott MP.
Declassified reported in February 2026 that over two thousand Brits has served in the Israeli military during the genocide. Yet the UK police announced on 5 May they would not arrest those involved.
The Declassified letter opens:
We, the undersigned, are politicians, lawyers, campaigners, human rights defenders, journalists, and concerned members of the public who believe the public interest is best served by monitoring the entry of British-Israeli dual national citizens into the UK and investigating potential links to war crimes, in cases where they have served in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
Such concerns are well-founded given extensive documentation of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide perpetrated by the IDF since October 2023.
Recommendations for accountability
The document makes two recommendations, firstly:
Implement a disclosure requirement regarding service in the Israeli military, subjecting travellers with Israeli travel documents or arriving from an origin of Tel Aviv airport to potential secondary screening at ports of entry under domestic war crimes inadmissibility rules and/or adjusted visa policies.
Conduct robust, impartial and independent investigations and prosecutions at national or international levels, in compliance with the obligation to ensure accountability for the most serious crimes under international law, to ensure justice for all victims and the prevention of future crimes.
Declassified have repeatedly exposed British collusion with Israel’s genocidaires. This includes spy flights, training military personnel and secretive arms shipments.
The outlet said:
The UK government’s failure to collect data on the movements of potential Israeli war criminals raises serious concerns. Individuals who have returned from fighting in Gaza may now be living alongside us and working in public institutions such as hospitals, the police, and schools.
Nobody wants to live next to a potential war criminal – not least members of the Palestinian community in the UK who have family or friends who have been subjected to war crimes.
Israeli politicians under investigation for war crimes
Declassified reminded the two ministers that senior Israeli politicians like Benyamin Netanyahu were under investigation for war crimes. And that:
the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found “plausible” evidence that genocide has taken place in Gaza, and the UN Commission of Inquiry (UN COI) concluded that “Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza strip” and that “the Israeli authorities have committed the crime against humanity of extermination in the Gaza Strip”.
The authors added:
In light of the opinions of the ICC, the ICJ and the UN COI, the UK government must immediately implement the above measures in order to ensure sufficient scrutiny of IDF soldiers returning to the UK, in the interests of international and domestic law, transparency, and public safety.
The police refusal to pursue potential war criminals, coupled with British government collusion with Israel, are an abject disgrace. The current inaction speaks to the degree to which Palestinian life is disregarded. That might be acceptable to the UK establishment, but it is not acceptable to the Canary, Declassified and many others. Add your name to the letter here.
Featured image via Joel Carillet / Getty Images
By Joe Glenton
UK temperatures this week have hit 34.8℃ – by far the highest ever recorded in May. Whilst this made for an enjoyable bank holiday for some, the way we talk about heatwaves often misses the true extent of the danger and who is most at risk from it. As climate impacts intensify, we remain unprepared for the extreme heat that lies ahead.
Heat warnings
Europe is heating up particularly fast as the climate crisis accelerates. Temperatures here are rising more than twice as quickly as the global average. And whilst the overall temperature increases may look small, they have a massive impact on how often and how severely we experience extreme heat.
A stable climate is now a thing of the past, and this month’s erratic UK weather is an example of how this can play out: May started off warmer than average, experienced a cool period, then launched into the record-obliterating heatwave we are now witnessing.
The impacts of heatwaves across this continent are already devastating, with over 60,000 heat-related deaths estimated in 2024 and severe impacts on our ability to grow food.
Professor Hannah Cloke of the University of Reading explains why the current unseasonable heat is so dangerous to food production:
A prolonged spell of heat and dry weather at this stage of the growing season brings real concern. Many crops are at a critical point of development and sustained high temperatures, combined with a lack of rainfall, can cause stress, reduce yields and in some cases cause irreversible damage.
This can be disastrous for farmers, and filters through to all of us through food shortages and price inflation: climate impacts are already thought to be the biggest driver of rising food bills in the UK.
Extreme heat and injustice
Most of us will have experienced the unpleasant effects of dehydration, exhaustion or irritability when we have been unable to – or have chosen not to – avoid the heat. But for many in the UK, the impacts go far beyond discomfort. Health conditions and disabilities make people significantly more vulnerable.
Both mental and physical health factor here, as psychiatric registrar Dr Amelia Cussans told me:
Extreme heat impacts upon both the body and the mind. People living with mental health conditions often experience worsening symptoms during heatwaves. Many people will also experience a worsening of side effects from their psychiatric medications, which in turn interferes with the body’s ability to regulate temperature.
The effects can be extremely serious, as Dr Cussans explains:
This makes everyday coping much harder. During heat waves, A&Es see a spike in mental health-related admissions. Sadly, there is also a documented rise in suicides.
Whether it’s because your home isn’t built to deal with the heat or you have little choice but to work in sweltering conditions, extreme heat disproportionately harms people with the least access to cool spaces. Hence heatwaves both expose and deepen inequalities in wealth and power.
The global injustice is stark, with the most catastrophic heat impacts hitting the countries least responsible for driving them. For anyone recuperating from heatstroke or disrupted sleep after the bank holiday, it might be especially sobering to imagine how the blistering 50℃ heatwaves across West Africa and the Indian subcontinent must feel.
Connecting the dots
The enormity of the threats posed by heatwaves is not reflected in how we generally talk about them. Media coverage rarely references how much worse they’ll become, how poorly prepared the UK is, nor the inequalities at play. Even where health risks and climate warnings are part of the story, images of happy people flocking to the beach (or of dogs wearing sunglasses) can undermine these messages.
We need a media, and a wider culture, that connects the dots. For as long as we focus on simply reporting – or even enjoying – heatwaves without putting them in the context of climate breakdown, we can only expect them to become even more frequent, even more deadly and even more unfair.
Featured image via Ritesh Shukla/Getty Images
By Abi Perrin
On 13 May, we reported that Nigel Farage was suing Reform UK defector Ben Habib. He’s doing so because Habib accused Farage of conspiring with Boris Johnson and an offshore crypto billionaire to rig the 2019 election. Now, Chris Harborne – the billionaire in question – has also announced his intent to sue Habib:
Remember when Ben Habib claimed that Christopher Harborne gave £1M each to Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage to help Boris get elected & persuade Nigel to stand down in 2019, then challenged him to sue?
Well, Harborne has accepted the challenge and is now suing Ben Habib. pic.twitter.com/Xgq4815eDv
— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) May 25, 2026
Reform sue-K
Habib was once the co-deputy leader of Reform. When he left, he made it clear that his problem with Reform was Farage and how he runs the party:
Advance UK is a democratic movement. Members endorse our mission, not the other way around. No censorship. No cronyism. Just serious, open politics. pic.twitter.com/lItBkNsKBz
— Ben Habib (@BackBrexitBen) August 9, 2025
It’s worth noting that Habib has the same awful opinions as Farage; he just doesn’t like being micromanaged by him.
The comments from Habib, which landed him in trouble, are as follows:
I have never said this publicly before, but … now that we’ve discovered five million quid went to Farage in 2024, I am obliged to disclose the million quid, which I believe went to Farage in late 2022 as well. And that smacks to me of a deal.
The 2019 general election was sewn up between Nigel Farage, Christopher Harborne and Boris Johnson. And it was a monetary deal. That’s how I see it.
Farage responded:
My lawyers have formally written to Ben Habib.
They demanded an immediate apology and public retraction for the baseless allegations he made today.
I do not take legal action often. But I will not accept slander & politically motivated smears after winning a national election.
While some have reported Habib said Harborne gave Farage and Johnson £1m each in 2019, Habib actually said these payments came later. He did, however, describe 2019 as a “monetary deal”. And this is important, because Reform UK (then the Brexit Party) stood down to give Johnson and the Tories a better shot at winning.
Habib has responded to the latest legal case by stating:
No one can bully me.
Foreign interference
Christopher Harborne – the man now suing Habib – is a longtime funder of Farage. This recently attracted headlines because we learned Farage had accepted a £5m ‘gift’ from the man – allegedly to pay for his security – which Farage neglected to declare:
Christopher is the Thai-based billionaire who gave Nigel Farage £5 million to fund his security. pic.twitter.com/0BgC41qRna — The Mercian (@TheMercianNews) May 25, 2026
NEW: Christopher Harborne is suing Advance UK leader Ben Habib for defamation.
This is all causing problems for Farage, with the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire highlighting the following (paraphrased by Alonso Gurmendi):
1) Farage says he won’t run
2) crypto billionaire pays him £5mill
3) Farage U-turns and runs
4) Farage hides the donation
5) Farage announces if he wins the election he will slash capital gains tax for crypto firms
The BBC has since said Farage is ducking them. This is a shocking turn of events, because Farage was previously the most-interviewed man in British politics. He was also holding regular press conferences. Now, Farage is mostly appearing via pre-recorded videos like the following:
The optics say it all: Farage, a public school boy in cords and tweed, fresh from receiving £5m from another public school boy, nodding along as Kenyon argues that Britain’s real problem is teenagers who cannot be hired on the minimum wage. https://t.co/gA42bUhOKE
— Dr Iain Overton (@iainoverton) May 23, 2026
Excuses
Farage’s most recent excuse is claiming the Russians hacked his phone. According to him, only four people knew about the £5m gift. The problem is no one cares how the info got out, and Farage has failed to provide evidence for this alleged hack.
On the same day he said no one can bully him, Habib shared the following message from podcaster David Henry Headley:
Nigel, you’re missing the point.
I don’t care who hacked your phone. The real story is that you’ll happily take money from almost anyone.
Spare us the “man of the people” routine.
You’re a grifter, and people can see it.
Farage and Harborne can sue Habib if they like, but in doing so they’re going to draw more attention to the suspicious £5m gift. And as Maddison Wheeldon reported for the Canary:
Nigel Farage could finally face his comeuppance as the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner launches one investigation, while a further probe may follow after a complaint from the Conservatives.
Following reports and widespread coverage of Farage taking a ‘gift’ of £5m from foreign-based crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne, which he failed to declare, the commissioner is now finally investigating the Reform UK leader for breaching the code of conduct.
In other words, we encourage both men to launch as many legal cases as they can.
Featured image via Ryan Jenkinson (Getty Images) / Christopher Furlong (Getty Images)
By Willem Moore
The Green Party has rejected calls to step aside in the Makerfield by-election to make way for Labour’s Andy Burnham.
The Times reported on Sunday that senior Green figures signed a statement calling for colleagues to consider not splitting the left-wing vote in the crunch by-election.
The Greater Manchester mayor, Burnham, is hoping to challenge Keir Starmer’s leadership if he manages to win over the constituency.
In a statement – also signed by former Green leader Jonathan Bartley – party figures told current leader Zack Polanski: “In all reality this is not a seat Greens can win.
“It will be a straight fight between Labour and Reform. But it’s no ordinary by-election. Labour’s candidate, Andy Burnham, is looking to return to Westminster to lead in parliament.”
The letter said the Greens should consider doing a deal with Burnham if he pledges to put proportional representation in Labour’s next general election manifesto – if he becomes the next party leader.
However, the party told HuffPost UK it has no intentions of stepping aside for the Greater Manchester mayor, as it unveiled its new candidate, Sarah Wakefield.
She was elected as the councillor for Deansgate in the local elections earlier this month.
A Green Party spokesperson said: “We have announced a superb candidate in Sarah Wakefield and will be campaigning to take the fight to Reform and challenge their dangerous politics, including plans to sell off the NHS.
“We will continue to ask which version of Andy Burnham is going to show up.
“U-turns on fiscal rules, settled immigration status, Proportional Representation and public ownership suggest he’s not leaning in the direction we’d like to see.”
Asked if there was a chance for any kind of agreement with Labour over Makerfield, a party source said: “None.”
The party’s last by-election candidate Chris Kennedy stood down after less than 12 hours over family reasons.
Shortly after that news broke, The Times reported Kennedy had previously shared social media posts describing an attack on Jewish ambulances in north London as a “false flag” operation.
An Instagram video described the attack as “total bullshit to keep the false flag flying” and included an image where parts of the word “Jewish” had been blacked out.
A Survation poll for The Sunday Times put the Greens in fifth place in the Makerfield by-election, on just 3%.
Burnham was ahead of 43% while Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon was on 40%.
Restore Britain’s Rebecca Shepherd trailed behind on 7%, while the Lib Dems sit on 4% and the Tories’ Michael Winstanley on just 2%.
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On 29 May, Edward Fitzalan-Howard – the Duke of Norfolk – will host Reform UK donors for lunch at Arundel Castle. Because, you know, nothing says ‘man of the people’ like hobnobbing with the aristocracy in your Duke mate’s 11th-century family fort.
Of course, Fitzalan-Howard isn’t the only member of the UK’s aristos who’s been getting pally with Farage of late. Strap in, folks – we’re taking a quick tour of Britain’s ‘noble-born’ bigots, and there’s more double-barreled names than you can shake a stick at.
Farage’s host, the Duke of Norfolk
Fitzalan-Howard himself fits in great alongside the rest of Reform’s assorted, undeserving toffs. He’s an unaffiliated crossbench peer, and one of the last generation to inherit a seat in the Lords.
In spite of the UK (finally) having eliminated hereditary peerages, Fitzalan-Howard won a concession to keep his ceremonial role because he’s useful for organising the bigwigs’ parties. However, he no longer gets to sit in the House of Lords. (We shed a tear, we really do.)
In response to questioning by the Financial Times, Fitzalan-Howard insisted that he’s not a Reform supporter. In fact, he’s also hosting a party for the Tories in June, with the stated aim of drawing attention to insect collapse and other environmental causes.
He told the Financial Times that, in the news outlet’s phrasing, he’d:
be interested in supporting any party that championed protection of nature.
We guess Fitzalan-Howard must have missed Reform’s climate-change denialism and support for fracking. That’s before we get to the party’s repeated attacks on the global effort to limit carbon emissions to ‘Net Zero’. Do you think maybe his castle doesn’t take newspaper deliveries?
In any case, Farage is scheduled to speak at the luncheon at Arundel on 29 May. Let’s hope he doesn’t mention plans to scrap EU-legacy protections for the UK’s fragile ecosystem, hey?
A who’s whom of Reform donors
OK, so that’s Fitzalan-Howard out the way. What about the rest of the gentry who’re keeping Farage in their families’ pockets?
First up, Fiona Cottrell is the daughter of the third Baron Manton. She’s donated £750,000 to Reform over the last couple of years.
Oh, and her son, ‘Posh George’ Cottrell, happens to be Farage’s far-right-hand man. As to the the exact nature of his work as a political aide, one Reform staffer told the Spectator that:
There is one rule: don’t ask what George does.
Not that this really matters, given that Posh George is:
ever-present, well-connected and willing to spend large amounts of money.
Next up, Frederick Hatton Fermor-Hesketh – of the Hesketh baronetcy, don’t you know – gave Farage’s party £11,500 last October.
Likewise, Robin Birley – son of Lady Annabel Goldsmith, nee Vane-Tempest-Stewart – donated £25,000 to Reform. He also puts on events for the far-right party at one of his Mayfair clubs.
Last but not least, Claudia Caroline Harmsworth – the Viscountess Rothermere – handed Reform some £50,000. Harmsworth’s husband, Jonathan Harold Esmond Vere Harmsworth, owns the Daily Mail, the i Newspaper, and the Metro. Nothing to see there, we’re sure.
Voice of which people, exactly?
Christ, try saying those names five times fast. Include their titles too, if you fancy a real challenge.
Reform UK loves to sell itself as the ‘voice of the people’. Well, they’re certainly the voice of some people – particularly, it seems, if they have claims to a baronetcy, a lordship, maybe even a castle or two.
But Farage poses with a pint and a cigarette in the pub, so he’s definitely on the side of the ordinary worker, right?
Featured image via Getty Images / Traveladventure
It’s bloody hot. It’s half-term. And for many, that means it’s holiday season.
However, 2026 fliers might want to check some details before arriving at their airports. It’s not just that multiple airlines have issued advice following new EES checks, or that some routes may have changed following ballooning jet fuel costs.
Recently, a flight was diverted after a passenger reported a charging power bank in another flier’s bag, too (we’ve written before about why that’s a problem, as well as how to tell if your portable chargers are compliant).
So what about other devices, like handheld electric fans?
We thought we’d ask the experts.
Can I bring an electric fan onto my flight?
HuffPost UK asked Helen North, Head of Dangerous Goods at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, whether all handheld electric fans can come on board.
“Portable electric fans may contain lithium batteries, so they should be carried in the cabin, not packed in your checked bag,” she said.
“Keeping battery-powered items with you will make your flight safer for you and the other passengers you’re flying with.”
Lithium batteries are the same kind of batteries that devices like smart bags and power banks use.
They’re not usually allowed in the hold of planes (i.e., checked luggage).
That’s because they can short-circuit and catch fire, which can be especially disastrous in an unattended baggage space.
Generally, the Civil Aviation Authority said, lithium batteries should be carried as hand luggage.
And they added, “if carried as checked baggage, the devices must be completely switched off (not in sleep or hibernation mode) if the batteries exceed:
- for lithium metal batteries, a lithium content of 0.3 g per device; or
- for lithium-ion batteries, a Watt-hour rating of 2.7 Wh per device.”
Any other advice?
Yes. Most airlines won’t let you bring more than two power banks onto a plane, and you can’t use them to charge another device while you’re flying.
They generally aren’t allowed in the hold because of lithium battery limits.
Additionally, lithium batteries over 100Wh and under 160Wh will need to be cleared by your specific airline (those over 160Wh can’t come on board).
If you can’t find this, you can work it out from the milliampere-hour (mAh), ampere-hour (Ah), and/or nominal voltage (V).
Once you find these, the UK Civil Aviation Authority said: “You can arrive at the number of watt-hours your battery provides if you know the battery’s nominal voltage (V) and capacity in ampere-hours (Ah) using this calculation: Ah x V = Wh”.
The British establishment, we are assured, is entirely comfortable with democracy. Should Reform UK win the next General Election, it will be welcomed with open arms by the civil service, the public-sector unions, the teaching profession, the senior judiciary, the cultural establishment, the third sector, the arts and the unelected House of Lords. Everything will proceed with the smooth courtesy that marks the peaceful transfer of power in a mature democracy…
Of course, if you believe any of that, then I have a bridge available, if anyone is interested.
What actually confronts a Nigel Farage-led government is the most comprehensive mobilisation of institutional resistance that any incoming administration has faced in British peacetime politics. This is not a matter of inference or speculation. The resistance is not hidden. It is loud, organised and proud of itself.
Consider the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents nearly 200,000 civil servants. Last week, delegates at the PCS annual conference voted to put £3million a year towards a war chest to fight a potential Reform UK government. General secretary Fran Heathcote warned delegates they would ‘need every penny’, backing a motion to double its budget surplus to 10 per cent of members’ subscription fees, ring-fenced until at least the end of 2029.
Pause on that. A union representing the state’s own administrators is formally preparing to resist a government that has not yet been elected, on the grounds explicitly that it disapproves of its politics. A further motion, which the conference ran out of time to vote on, called for a comprehensive ‘Industrial Defence Strategy‘ specifically designed to counter a hostile Reform government, expressing fears of a ‘culture war aimed at demoralising public servants’.
Reform’s Danny Kruger, who has been doing the most serious thinking about civil-service reform from any frontbencher in living memory, responded with appropriate directness: striking on grounds of political objection to an elected government would be illegal, and those civil servants who do so would soon find they have no jobs to return to. He is right, and right to say it loudly.
But the scale of the provocation matters as much as the response. We are witnessing something that constitutional theorists prefer to discuss in careful academic prose. Dr Ben Yong, in a lecture at UCL last year, gave voice to views held in certain Whitehall circles: that the civil service might have duties to ‘the continuity of the state’ separate from its duty to support incumbent governments. Officials, he suggested, might legitimately engage in ‘guerrilla government’, including bureaucratic shirking, leaking and whistleblowing, if they disapprove of an incoming administration. This is the doctrine of the permanent government asserting its primacy over the elected one. It is profoundly unconstitutional. It is also, I am afraid, all too predictable.
Then there are the schools. The National Education Union’s annual conference passed a motion describing Reform UK as a ‘racist and far-right party’ and agreed that the union’s political fund should be used to campaign against Reform candidates at elections. The NEU’s general secretary, Daniel Kebede, warned that Reform would make education a ‘hostile place’ for many children, and suggested that the party’s ‘divisive messages’ were already ‘playing into the classroom’. The union has also introduced ‘anti-fascist’ training sessions for its members, with Reform UK in mind.
The NEU has nearly half a million members. Those members teach every child in England. The voting data collected by Teacher Tapp tells you something important about the political monoculture involved. In 2024, 62 per cent of teachers said they would vote Labour, with nine per cent for the Liberal Democrats and a mere three per cent Conservative. In the actual 2024 General Election, only two per cent of teachers voted Reform. We are entrusting the formation of the next generation to a workforce that is, as a matter of statistical fact, overwhelmingly hostile to the political movement that leads every national opinion poll.
One should be careful here. Teachers are entitled to their political views like anyone else, and the vast majority are professionals who, whatever they think privately, do their jobs conscientiously. But when the union that speaks for them votes to use its political fund to campaign against a specific party, the line between private conviction and institutional action has been definitively crossed. Kebede has already claimed that ‘Austerity Labour is paving the way for a Reform government’, a statement that reveals his understanding of the NEU as a political actor rather than a professional body.
Extend the view and the picture darkens further. Unison – representing public-sector workers across local government, health, education and the emergency services – has mobilised over 1,000 activists in its ‘Responding to Reform UK’ network, sharing resources, conducting conversations with colleagues and campaigning publicly. The arts establishment, from the subsidised theatre to the publicly funded gallery, from the Booker longlist to the museum profession, is uniformly and vocally hostile. Leading academics at the institutions training our teachers, doctors, lawyers and civil servants treat Reform as an embarrassment to be managed rather than a democratic phenomenon to be engaged with. The third sector – that vast archipelago of charities, pressure groups and advocacy organisations substantially funded by the very state it exists to lobby – is already writing its position papers. Even some prominent sporting figures have felt it necessary to discover political passions that coincide, with remarkable consistency, with those of the institutions that fund and platform them.
This, broadly, is what I prefer to call not the Blob, which is a useful shorthand but lacks precision, but the Stables: the accumulated detritus of decades of institutional capture, comprehensive and self-reinforcing, every bit as formidable as anything Augeas managed. The task of reforming this is akin to a labour of Hercules, requiring a river diverted at its source and a willingness to accept that things will smell considerably worse before they improve.
And then there is the House of Lords. This is a chamber now composed exclusively of appointed loyalists and the accumulated obligations of successive prime ministers. In December 2025 alone, Starmer appointed 25 new Labour peers, alongside five Liberal Democrats and three Conservatives. Reform, meanwhile, despite receiving over four million votes at the 2024 election and leading the polls for months since then, has zero representation in the upper house. Farage wrote to Starmer describing the situation as a ‘democratic disparity’. The Conservative leader in the Lords, Lord True, called for Reform peers to be appointed as ‘a sensible constitutional principle’. Starmer declined. The Liberal Democrats, who received a slightly lower vote share than Reform in 2024, have 73 peers. The DUP, with a fraction of Reform’s national support, has six peers. Even the Greens have two.
Let us be plain about what this means in practice. If Reform wins the next election, it will face an upper chamber packed with the appointees of its predecessors, with no members of its own, and with the capacity to obstruct every bill it wishes to pass. The Salisbury Convention, which holds that the Lords should not block manifesto commitments, may or may not hold in a chamber that is collectively committed to the view that Reform represents an existential threat to the values of public life. The Parliament Acts remain available, but they are slow, cumbersome and politically costly to deploy. The king could be asked to create hundreds of new Reform peers, as Lloyd George threatened in 1911: that avenue exists, but it constitutes a constitutional crisis of the first order.
Every member of a Reform government, from cabinet minister to parliamentary private secretary, needs to understand before they take office that the opposition he or she will face is not Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, comfortably confined to its green benches and bound by parliamentary convention. It is dispersed through every government department, every classroom, every committee room, every subsidised arts venue, every quango boardroom, every unelected chamber that has been carefully prepared to second-guess the choices of the electorate.
Kipling had the precepts for such a moment. Whether you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. Whether you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting, too. Whether you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same.
If Reform wins the next election, it remains to be determined whether the institutions that exist to serve the people will honour that verdict or whether the stables will outlast the will to clean them. The stakes are Britain’s future. They cannot be understated.
Gawain Towler is a commentator and an elected board member of Reform UK. His Substack is Fainting in Coils.
Sarah Pochin has been caught in a humiliating slip-up after accidentally promoting Reform UK’s right-wing rivals.
The Runcorn and Helsby MP was discussing the Makerfield by-election which is set to be a two-horse race between Reform UK and Labour.
It’s a seismic contest as Labour candidate, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, intends to topple Keir Starmer as prime minister if he wins the seat.
One early poll from Survation for the Sunday Times found Burnham is on track to win with 43% of the vote, while Reform candidate Robert Kenyon will win 40%.
A further 7% of the vote looks like it will go towards Restore Britain, a splinter right-wing group led by ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe.
That has sparked speculation that the right-wing vote will be split when the Makerfield electorate head to the ballot box.
So it was unfortunate that Pochin had a bit of Freudian slip when she told TALK: “There’s so much going on with this by-election, it’s probably the most important by-election in British history almost, that we’re part of.
“And yes, it is a two-horse race between Restore – I’m sorry! Oh god!
“Between Reform and, oh god,” she laughed. “I’ll be sacked for saying that! Reform and Labour, that’s of no doubt.”
Reform UK declined to comment when approached on the rise of Restore.
Pochin’s comments come during a troublesome time for Reform UK.
Party leader Nigel Farage is currently facing scrutiny for failing to declare a £5 million donation from a crypto billionaire shortly before running for parliament.
He has denied any allegations of wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, the party’s home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf started a row with Reform’s Treasury spokesperson Robert Jenrick on X over their deportation policies.
Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
As a foster carer, one of the first instructions we’re given in training is that we must not, under any circumstances, agree to collude in secrets with the children we care for. If a child I’m looking after asks me to keep a secret, I tell him or her gently that surprises are nice things to share, but secrets don’t keep us safe.
Yet when one of us accepts a new placement and the ‘boy’ joining the family has stubble, chest hair and a six-pack, we’re supposed to nod along. We’re supposed to accept that this physically mature, testosterone-fuelled young man is just 14. We’re not supposed to worry that he very likely comes from a culture that has vastly different attitudes to young women and girls to our own. Instead, we’re meant to simply ask, ‘How was your day at school?’. Any diversion from the script would likely be met with retraining, perhaps even disciplinary action. In other words, we are being asked to collude in a lie.
We sit there at the regular social events we organise so that the children can meet others in the same situation – a summer fair with a magician for entertainment, a barbecue with face-painting – and none of us dares pass comment that the lad on the bouncy castle looks like he might actually be someone’s dad. It’s only when the social workers are safely out of earshot that we might raise an eyebrow and whisper that the young man in question really shouldn’t be on a family placement, spending his mornings on a seat next to Year Nine girls.
I have no idea whether the 14-year-old Iranian placed in foster care in Bedfordshire last June after arriving via small boat was in fact that age, or whether he was merely claiming to be a minor to access the softer end of the system. What I do know is that three months after landing, he raped a 14-year-old girl, and then bragged about it on social media. The victim and her attacker went to the same school. He was convicted in January and, in March, he was spared jail. He was instead sentenced to a youth-rehabilitation order on the condition that he ‘learn about consent’.
We have a serious problem on our hands. On the weekend, GB News reported that 10 ‘child migrants’ under the care of the Kent County Council who were set to be sent to foster homes were, in fact, adults. An earlier investigation, also by GB News, revealed that thousands of illegal immigrants have lied about their age in order to be classified as ‘unaccompanied minors’. Even when local councils try to raise objections about the supposed age of migrants, they are often undermined by the courts.
Foster care in England is stretched to breaking point. As of the end of March 2025, there were 6,540 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) in the system, a decrease on the previous year, but still sharply up from the 5,080 in 2020. Unaccompanied minors make up eight per cent of the total looked-after population of 81,770, and two-thirds of those children are in foster care. Ninety-four per cent of UASC are male and most are older teenagers. Thirty-eight per cent are placed in foster families, one per cent in children’s homes, the rest in supported accommodation. Some older UASC are housed in hotels with social-worker oversight, and local authorities are breaking at the seams.
Meanwhile, the number of fostering households keeps falling, down seven per cent since 2021. Some might say foster carers have a choice as to whether to accept these placements. In theory, we do. But in practice, experienced carers are expected to take their turn on the emergency rota, providing 24/7 care so that when a distraught child is lifted from his or her bed at midnight by someone in uniform, there is somewhere safe to land. I’ve taken many children in those exact circumstances. Most of us are only too happy to help. But we have also been caught out, accepting placements that feel far too complex for a family home because, if you’re on the rota, you’re not allowed to say no.
Desperate social workers sometimes do what they can to game the system. I’ve refused a placement because a child’s needs simply wouldn’t fit with the other children in my house, only for a child with an identical profile to appear at 5pm on a Friday, when the emergency rota kicks in.
I became a foster carer because I wanted to help as many vulnerable children as possible. Increasingly, however, it feels as though we’re throwing the net ever wider, stretching finite resources to breaking point. There is something beautiful about a country with the compassion to wrap a stranger’s child in a blanket and offer them sanctuary. But there is a world of difference between taking in a terrified five-year-old and extending that same welcome to a strapping male who may be several years older than he claims.
The state has a duty of care to the children it removes from their birth families, to the girls across the country who have a right to feel safe at school, and to the foster carers who are burning out under the weight of unreasonable demands. The state does not have a duty of care to look after men who have arrived in Britain illegally and then claim to be children. Pretending otherwise isn’t compassionate, and we need to stop keeping secrets and say so.
We carers will keep opening our homes and hearts, listening out for the midnight knock on the door. But we shouldn’t have to pretend that every ‘14-year-old’ who arrives in Britain illegally is the same as the broken little boy who needs a mug of cocoa, a warm bath and a bedtime story.
Allowing young men into foster homes is betraying the goodwill and compassion of carers. We need another solution.
Rosie Lewis is a foster carer and writer. Read her Substack here.
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