The US has bombed 20 locations in Iran after it shot down an ‘Apache’ helicopter set up for electronic warfare in the Hormuz Strait.

Trump has pulled in the AH-64 Apache from American facilities worldwide for use in attacks on Iran.

US surveillance and attack

The US military had originally claimed that a technical fault caused the crash. The helicopter’s crew survived and was picked up from the sea.

The ‘Longbow’ variant of the apache is set up for surveillance and for support of special forces. Former US special forces officer, Lt Col Antony Aguilar, described it as hard to shoot down and said that similar aircraft had been used a week earlier to attack Iranian civilian vessels.

Trump attacked Iran for successfully defending itself and has described the escalated aggression as “defensive”.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

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Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For more information on his work, visit lordashcroft.com

The ten-year anniversary of the Brexit referendum and the musings of Labour leadership hopefuls have combined to revive the debate over Britain’s relationship with Europe.

Would it help Labour to make rejoining the EU a cornerstone of their next election campaign?

How a ‘rejoin’ campaign could help Labour

A decade on from the referendum, Brexit has a poor reputation. My poll found only 11 per cent of people saying life in Britain in recent years has been better than it would have been if the UK were still a member of the EU, with a majority thinking it has been worse. Given a binary choice between the UK needing to accept that Brexit has failed and should try to rejoin some aspects of the EU, and the UK needing to accept that we have left for good and should make the best of it, the former leads by 16 points. When asked how they would vote in a referendum on rejoining the EU, 53 per cent of people said they would vote to rejoin, as against 30 per cent who said they would vote to stay out. These figures become even more favourable for Labour when broken down by party affiliation, as shown below

Rejoining leads by 82 points among current Labour supporters, 74 points among Greens and 69 points among Lib Dems. Current Reform voters would vote to stay out by a 62-point margin but Conservatives are more closely divided, saying they would vote against rejoining by 52 per cent to 33 per cent. Since the decisive factor at the next election will be which party is most able to consolidate support within its own “bloc” (Labour, the Lib Dems and Greens on the one hand, and the Tories and Reform on the other), making the next election about an issue which unites the left but splits the right could clearly be profitable for Labour.

There are other potential advantages.

Tying Nigel Farage to Brexit may give Labour a more promising line of attack than anything they have found to date. A focus on Brexit could also allow Labour to attribute to the Conservatives some blame for the state of the country and to assert that they have learned nothing from 2024, without needing to resort to the much-derided lines about £22 billion black holes. And with six in ten voters saying the current Labour government is no better or even worse than its predecessor, it would save Labour from having to campaign solely on its record in office. Since most voters agree a referendum would be needed to rejoin the EU, such a policy would allow Labour to promise change without having to explain why they didn’t use their vast majority to bring it about. A rejoin policy would also provide a reason to back Labour beyond a tactical vote to stop Reform, and a sense of purpose whose absence has characterised the government’s first two years.

We can examine this further by reference to our political map.

The chart below shows how people currently plan to vote and who has noticed what about the government so far. Bubble sizes are proportional to the size of the relevant voter group, and the closer bubbles are, the more similar the respective groups of voters. In the party colours, we have the locations of current support for the five largest parties. The ten grey bubbles come from a regular question where we ask respondents to recall, unprompted, things this Labour government has done (whether they agree with them or not). This shows the ten most-noticed acts (as opposed to failures and omissions to do things). We also highlight the people who identified improving relations with Europe as something the government has done so far.

This shows a number of things.

One is that Labour’s message is simply not cutting through much beyond its core support, even in the bottom left quadrant which is historical Labour territory and where the party has shed votes to the Greens. Another is that very few people have noticed the government policy on Europe, and those who have tend to be slightly closer in political outlook to Lib Dem voters rather than Labour voters. Labour proposing rejoining would eclipse the Lib Dem policy on a customs union. It would polarise the electorate in a way the current policy does not.

But it would be noticed.

It is too early to quantify the potential impact on Labour’s electoral prospects if they back rejoining the EU – we don’t know how they will perform in other areas in the coming months and years, or even who the prime minister will be. But there is an arguable case that a rejoin policy would make some of the campaign obstacles and electoral dynamics less unfavourable for Labour. In their current predicament, some chance of a way out may be preferable to no chance at all.

The risks for Labour of a rejoin policy

Admiral Nelson’s maxim that the boldest measures are the safest has some application to 21^st century politics as well as 19^th century naval combat. Election results worldwide suggest that incumbent parties cannot retain office by simply playing it safe (witness the successes of Mark Carney and Anthony Albanese and the failures of Chris Hipkins, Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton). As against that, we have Sir Humphrey’s dictum that “controversial” means “this will lose you votes,” but “courageous” means “this will lose you the election”. What are the risks of Labour nailing its colours to the rejoin mast?

One obvious risk is that public support for rejoining may turn out to be weaker than it first appears, especially once questions of detail emerge.

Testing every potential sticking point in hypothetical negotiations with the EU is clearly not practical, so we asked about three potential conditions which might be attached to the UK’s readmittance: joining the euro, paying a higher membership fee than before Brexit and joining the Schengen area. We also asked people which came closer to their opinion in a forced choice between the UK needing to agree that Brexit has failed and should seek to rejoin some parts of the EU, and the UK needing to accept that the UK has left the EU for good and should try to make the best of it.

Based on these questions, as well as the voting intention in a hypothetical referendum on rejoining the EU, we can divide the population into four categories:

• Strong Rejoiners, who say that they would vote to rejoin, agree that Brexit has failed and would consider at least one of the conditions acceptable
• Hesitant Rejoiners, who say that they would vote to rejoin but either consider all three above conditions unacceptable or agree that the UK needs to accept that it has left the EU for good, or both
• Rejoin Rejecters, who say that they would vote to stay out or are unsure how they would vote, consider all three potential conditions unacceptable and agree that the UK needs to accept that it has left the EU for good
• Others, who do not fall into the above three categories

We could reasonably expect the Strong Rejoiners to vote to rejoin in a referendum and the Rejoin Rejecters to vote against rejoining. Having any expectations about how the hesitant rejoiners would vote is harder. If they perceived the UK as having secured favourable terms, they might come out in favour of rejoin; if the terms seemed unacceptable, they may well break strongly against rejoining.  If we treat the hesitant rejoiners as undecided voters, then the 23-point lead for rejoin in headline referendum voting intention shrinks to six points.

This analysis is necessarily speculative and is certainly not intended as a prediction. But there is a temptation to see such a large lead on a subject as being decisive and thus to believe the result of a referendum is a foregone conclusion. If people have made up their mind about Brexit, that is not the case with rejoining.

A second risk is that, as with Brexit, a campaign around rejoining could divide Labour’s voter base. The chart below shows how the different categories we defined above break down based on current voting intention.

This is the sort of picture which would vindicate a rejoin-centric election campaign. It shows that current Conservative voters are divided on the issue: around a quarter are Strong Rejoiners whereas a slender majority are Rejoin Rejecters. Whichever stance the Conservative leadership took on the issue, at least one of these groups would be disappointed. Conversely, current Labour voters skew heavily towards Strong Rejoiners and are more united on this issue than current Lib Dem or Green voters; they are about as unified in favour of rejoin as Reform voters are in favour of staying out.

However, by 2024 vote the picture is somewhat different and significantly more ominous for Labour:

By 2024 vote, Labour are at least as divided as the Conservatives (and no more united than the Greens or Lib Dems). If a tactical benefit of placing rejoin front and centre of an election campaign is that it helps parties which are united on this issue, the primary beneficiaries going by 2024 vote would be Reform. Current voting intention is a snapshot of a dynamic situation. By the time of the next election, will the profile of opinion on rejoining the EU still look like the breakdown by current voting intention, or revert to something closer to the 2024 breakdown (even if headline voting intention does not change)? In the latter case, making the election about an issue which unites Reform voters but splits the other parties could hand Nigel Farage the keys to Number 10.

But waiting to see how things look in 2028 is not a credible option, largely because of the third risk: relevance.

Successful parties fight elections based on voters’ priorities.

For putting rejoin at the centre of an election campaign to pay political dividends, voters would either need to consider Britain’s relationship with the EU a high priority, or believe that rejoining the EU would enable meaningful improvement on some of their big concerns. Otherwise, the campaign looks irrelevant and out of touch. The last time I asked people to name the three most important issues facing the country, Brexit languished outside the top ten, chosen by just six per cent of voters.

Could things be changing?

Since January 2025, those preferring a closer relationship with the EU rather than the US has risen by nine points to 76 per cent. Even so, it is hard to see EU relations beginning to rival immigration, the NHS or the cost of living in the near future.

The best politicians are, to an extent, able to set the agenda; however, no amount of political skill or leadership ability allows this to be done overnight.

Whatever the issue or policy – be it small boat crossings, net zero, a wealth tax, or Brexit itself – none of these materialised without trace on the British public’s consciousness.  But far from banging the drum for rejoin, Labour have been cautious and equivocal.  How would rejoining improve the NHS, help address concerns over immigration or make the average person better off? If rejoining is to be the centrepiece of a future Labour general election campaign, then Labour need to be making those arguments and be comfortable doing so.

Next is the risk of polarisation.

Andy Burnham cited the division reopening the Brexit debate would cause as a reason for drawing back from advocating an immediate return. Even if this is a fig leaf for saying one thing to the voters of Makerfield and a different thing to the Labour membership, the risk of returning to parliamentary paralysis and government gridlock is real. If sufficient time has passed to warrant reconsidering the 2016 vote, the SNP will leap on this as justification for a re-run of the Scottish independence referendum. Again, this risk is difficult to quantify. Division and polarisation are inevitable consequences of putting rejoin on the political agenda; the question is whether Labour decide the benefits of rejoining outweigh the downsides of reviving the Brexit wars.

The fourth risk to Labour is perhaps the biggest of all.

What if they were to win the election but lose the subsequent referendum?

Their parliamentary coalition would collapse. They would be damned by rejoiners for having failed, and damned by opponents of rejoining for having tried at all. Predictions of long-established parties being finished as political forces are made too lightly in political commentary, but it is no hyperbole to say that if Labour bet everything on rejoin and lose the referendum, the consequences could be existential.

There is a common thread running through these four risks.

Labour voters uniting rather than dividing, EU relations becoming more relevant, people believing that polarisation is a price worth paying for putting the issue on the agenda and rejoin winning a referendum will only happen if the groundwork has been laid. Laying the groundwork will require patience, discipline, strong communication and a lot of political skill – all of which have so far been scarce in this government. If, on the other hand, Labour declares its support for rejoining as a last-minute roll of the dice, these risks will bite harder and the party’s reward could be to turn a very bad election result into a disastrous one.

Coming soon: ‘How should the Conservatives respond to a rejoin campaign?’ Full data tables at LordAshcroftPolls.com

The post Lord Ashcroft: Should Labour promise a ‘rejoin’ referendum? appeared first on Conservative Home.

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GMB, Unison and Unite have penned a joint letter to education secretary Bridget Phillipson MP. It expresses:

profound concern regarding the current direction and lack of meaningful progress within the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB).

Together the unions represent more than 500,000 school workers. General secretaries Gary Smith, Andrea Egan and Sharon Graham warn against the ‘continued expansion of academisation’. And they say unless things change:

we will have no option but to escalate our response publicly and industrially.

The letter to the education secretary says:

The joint trade unions campaigned extensively over many years to re-establish the SSSNB.

We did so in good faith because we knew it was our best and long overdue opportunity to address the deep-rooted inequalities, fragmentation, and inconsistency experienced by school support staff across England.

However, the pace and substance of negotiations to date are now placing that confidence at serious risk.

At the recent SSSNB Working Group meeting on 20 May 2026, it was extremely disappointing to be informed that the remit for the SSSNB in its first year would be very limited.

The continued expansion of academy trust structures, in the absence of a coherent national framework for school support staff, risks accelerating workforce fragmentation.

GMB, UNISON and UNITE remain committed to constructive engagement and would strongly prefer to resolve these issues through meaningful progress and genuine partnership with government.

However, the current trajectory is rapidly exhausting the goodwill that existed when the SSSNB was re-established.

Should meaningful progress continue to be absent, we will have no option but to escalate our response publicly and industrially, including at upcoming conferences over the summer period.

We are therefore urging government to treat this moment with the seriousness it requires and to work with us urgently to restore confidence in the process before further damage is done.

Featured image via Ian Forsyth / Getty Images

By The Canary

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Students from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) have published a document criticising the university’s greenwashing of corporate capitalism at LSE Festival 2026.

The document, seen by the Canary, takes aim at how the university’s stated ethos diverges from its material investments and corporate practices. This alternative programme was compiled by LSE Students for Justice in Palestine.

It comes in response to LSE’s school-wide festival, beginning 15 June, which will gather economists, academics, policy ministers, journalists, and scientists to speak about the climate crisis, green finance, and ecological governance.

However, student and staff activist researchers in 2024 and 2025 revealed how LSE’s own investment practices contradict its charitable goals and ESG standards.

This year, students write:

…while the institution performs planetary concern on its stages, it holds more than £86 million in investments across the very industries responsible for the climate catastrophe.

As you attend this festival, remember that LSE does not put its money where its mouth is.

LSE’s money isn’t where its mouth is

In May 2024, LSESU’s Palestine Society published Assets in Apartheid, a forensic analysis of LSE’s multi-million pound endowment. In June 2025, it published Stakes in Settler Colonialism, a 228-page update.

The reports’ cumulative findings are clear. LSE holds more than £86 million in companies profiting from the extraction and/or distribution of fossil fuels, including BP (£2.05 million ), Enel (£1.98 million), and Shell (£1.11 million).

Its investment advisor, JP Morgan Chase, is the world’s most prolific financier of fossil fuels, according to the 2025 Banking on Climate Chaos: Fossil Fuel Finance Report. This is who LSE trusts with its money.

Beyond fossil fuels, LSE has investments worth over £71 million in companies profiting from the manufacture and/or proliferation of arms as well as the funding of nuclear weapons.

The university also has at least £72 million in companies profiting from the genocide in Gaza. Those companies are:

• Supplying the Israeli military operating in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)
• Involved in illegal settlement activities
• Funding the occupation of Palestine

The report explains that:

These are not abstract figures. Every barrel pumped, every missile shipped, and every settlement financed by a company in this portfolio is a decision that LSE’s Finance and Estates Committee has taken, and refuses to reverse.

The students at LSE allege that for the university, “money is more important than lives”.

The university is happily staging a festival about saving the planet while bankrolling its destruction. In doing so, it uses the spectacle of concern to obscure its own material role in ecological breakdown and genocide.

Polluters are the programme

LSE has organised various high-profile speakers, all with loft speech titles, but the students aren’t convinced.

Mon 15 June

The Politics of Climate Change

This is a panel on the “green backlash” and climate rollbacks in recent years. However, students say:

LSE is its own case study: students voted for divestment in 2024, and again in 2026. Management declined to act both times.

The panels are included, but not limited to, ‘Political Economy Analysis for Accelerating the Green Transition,’ ‘How the Right Laws Can Save the Planet,’ and ‘Can We Tackle Climate Change Without Deepening Inequality?’

And, the report authors promise to tackle the problem of opposition from management:

LSE’s administration and its own student body are divided by exactly this failure of cooperation. 89% of students voted for divestment. Management refused. Cooperation, apparently, means something different when the institution is on one side and its students on the other.

Gross institutional hypocrisy on BP

As the students state:

Oil and education don’t mix.

They’re keen to underscore the complicity of BP, to whom LSE directs many millions of pounds. BP is complicit in both ecocide and the Gaza genocide.

LSE has been here before. In 1988, following a two-week student occupation of Connaught House, LSE divested from all 26 of its holdings in companies complicit in South African apartheid, a stake worth £3 million that included investments in BP. It has been done, and can be done again.

However, two years later, in 1990, LSE accepted £1.25 million from BP to establish the BP Centennial Professorship Scheme, designed, in LSE’s own words, to “contribute to the internal education programme of BP and to develop contacts between the School and BP”.

Under this scheme, LSE lends BP the grammar of sustainability, development, and progress. This is the precise language BP uses to greenwash its complicity in climate breakdown whilst the planet burns.

The report authors explain that:

Greenwashing is the practice of deploying the language of environmental responsibility to obscure the reality of environmental harm. It does not require lying. It requires only that the performance of concern be loud enough, and public enough, to crowd out scrutiny of the underlying conduct.

In June 2024, the LSE Student Union held a referendum on divestment from fossil fuels and arms producers. With record turnout, 89% of students voted in favour. In February 2026, the referendum was renewed with similarly overwhelming support.

Both times, LSE management declined to listen to its student body, citing “fiduciary duties”. But, the students allege fiduciary duty is not the neutral, technical constraint that management presents it as. It is a choice about whose interests count and over what timescale.

How to actually save the planet

Students have listed a number of suggestions for LSE to take up:

1. Full divestment from all holdings in fossil fuel companies, and from the asset managers and advisors financing their expansion.

2. Immediate divestment from all companies identified in Assets in Apartheid and Stakes in Settler Colonialism as complicit in crimes against the Palestinian people.

3. Full transparency of LSE’s portfolio. Easy access to view how much money is invested and in which companies.

4. Democratic oversight of the endowment. Students and staff must have binding participation in investment decisions.

5. End the BP Centennial Professorship and all partnerships with BP and other fossil fuel giants.

Until these demands are met, every “How to Save the Planet” panel is an alibi for inaction.

Featured image via the Canary

By Cameron Baillie

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In football, a goalkeeper does not always need to lift the trophy to secure his place in World Cup history. Some have built their legacy by enduring on the world’s biggest football stage, whilst others have forged their legend by keeping a clean sheet against their opponents.

Throughout the history of the World Cup, two distinct paths to immortality have emerged among goalkeepers; the first is measured by the number of matches a goalkeeper has played, and the second by the number of clean sheets he has kept.

World Cup: Hugo Lloris sits top of record books

Over the course of four World Cup appearances, Frenchman Hugo Lloris has become a symbol of consistency and reliability. The goalkeeper, who led his country to the 2018 title and the 2022 final, has become the most-capped goalkeeper in the tournament’s history with 20 appearances.

Lloris’s achievement was no mean feat, as he surpassed names that have been synonymous with World Cup history for decades, foremost among them Germany’s Manuel Neuer (19 appearances), followed by Sepp Maier and Taffarel (18 appearances each).

These figures reflect a value distinct from tournaments and titles; they tell the story of a goalkeeper who has managed to maintain his place among the elite for many years, across successive generations of players and managers.

Goalkeepers with the most World Cup appearances

• Hugo Lloris – France – 20 matches
• Manuel Neuer – Germany – 19 appearances
• Sepp Maier – West Germany – 18 appearances
• Taffarel – Brazil – 18 appearances
• Fabien Barthez – France – 17 appearances
• Peter Shilton – England – 17 appearances
• Iker Casillas – Spain – 17 appearances
• Fernando Muslera – Uruguay – 16 appearances
• Thibaut Courtois – Belgium – 15 appearances
• Gilmar – Brazil – 14 appearances
• Emerson Leão – Brazil – 14 appearances
• Jan Youngbloed – Netherlands – 12 matches

Barthez and Shelton: The kings of clean sheets

Whilst Lloris may have won the battle of endurance, France’s Fabien Barthez and England’s Peter Shilton share the top spot on the list of goalkeepers with the most clean sheets.

Both kept 10 clean sheets at the World Cup, the highest tally in the tournament’s history, setting the standard for resilience under pressure in the biggest competitions.

Just behind the duo is Dutchman Jan Jongbloed, with eight clean sheets from just 12 matches – the best success rate among top goalkeepers – alongside prominent names such as Taffarel, Sepp Maier, Emerson Leão and Hugo Lloris.

Clean sheets are not merely a defensive statistic; they often represent the difference between an early exit and progression to the knockout stages, which explains why most of those with such records feature among the greatest goalkeepers in the history of the game.

Goalkeepers with the most clean sheets

• Fabien Barthez – France – 17 matches – 10 clean sheets
• Peter Shilton – England – 17 matches – 10 clean sheets
• Jan Jongbloed – Netherlands – 12 matches – 8 clean sheets
• Emerson Liao – Brazil – 14 matches – 8 clean sheets
• Sepp Maier – West Germany – 18 matches – 8 clean sheets
• Taffarel – Brazil – 18 matches – 8 clean sheets
• Hugo Lloris – France – 20 matches – 8 clean sheets
• Gilmar – Brazil – 14 matches – 7 clean sheets
• Thibaut Courtois – Belgium – 15 matches – 7 clean sheets
• Fernando Muslera – Uruguay – 16 appearances – 7 clean sheets
• Iker Casillas – Spain – 17 matches – 7 clean sheets
• Manuel Neuer – Germany – 19 matches – 7 clean sheets

Two sides to goalkeeping greatness

Although the criteria differ, some names have managed to combine both. Hugo Lloris not only holds the record for the number of appearances, but also ranks among the goalkeepers with the most clean sheets. The same applies to Manuel Neuer, Tavaril and Sepp Maier.

Whilst the record of appearances tells the story of staying at the top, the list of clean sheets tells the story of the ability to keep the dream alive. Between these two stories lies the legacy of the goalkeepers who have left their mark on World Cup history — not through the goals they scored, but through the goals they prevented.

Featured image via Agustin Cuevas/ Getty Images

By Alaa Shamali

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Tommy Robinson has, once again, been promoting the far-right uprisings spreading across the UK. He tweeted:

The whole of the United Kingdom is hitting the streets tonight at 7pm following yet another invader attack on our people.

It's time pic.twitter.com/tscckc9ceK

— Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) June 9, 2026

Tommy Robinson: from Russia with hate

Following Robinson’s calls to rise up, riots erupted in Belfast. The city was earlier the scene of an attempted murder involving a Sudanese man. And once again, we saw the right cynically using a horrific crime to drive racial tensions:

Crime is now being viewed through an entirely racialised lens – but only when the perpetrators aren't white.

When Chas Corrigan stabbed a Saudi student to death, or Paul Doyle mowed down Liverpool fans, white people didn't have to fear being a target of collective retaliation.

— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) June 10, 2026

Robinson revelled in the violent acts which followed his call to action:

Belfast is out. pic.twitter.com/nHZ7GURRRA

— Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) June 9, 2026

Belfast is burning.

Britain's politicians have failed us all. pic.twitter.com/MDqnFKoQCB

— Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) June 9, 2026

Roads blocked by burning vehicles in Northern Ireland. pic.twitter.com/N2MXRnHerI

— Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) June 9, 2026

Suspected HMO's are being burned out across Northern Ireland following the attempted beheading of a man by a Sudanese invader last night. pic.twitter.com/JTMYkBuSl7

— Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) June 9, 2026

As the sun goes down over Northern Ireland, homes and vehicles burn in Belfast. pic.twitter.com/68lGMT9f6Q

— Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) June 9, 2026

Robinson has claimed refugees pose a risk to British women. Meanwhile, he’s telling us the solution to this is to elect the notorious rapist Conor McGregor:

Lead your people Conor.

It's the only way https://t.co/mUdcXrCCQH

— Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) June 9, 2026

A mockery

Robinson mocked the Black residents of Belfast whose houses were burned down:

https://t.co/UxNXqDKwjL pic.twitter.com/eZcZblhCIb

— Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) June 10, 2026

In the above, Robinson is referencing the killing of Henry Nowak. On 2 June, the Canary’s Rose Cocker reported on another far-right agitator – Nigel Farage – who used the murder of Nowak to push for “pure, cold rage” – a call that white rioters took up. As Cocker reported, murderer Vickrum Digwa:

wrongfully claimed that he had been the victim of a racialised assault, and responding officers attempted to arrest Nowak as he lay dying. Body-cam footage shows Nowak pleading with officers that he had been stabbed, and he couldn’t breathe. At one point, an officer replied “I don’t think you have, mate.”

Henry Nowak’s parents stated clearly that they didn’t want their son’s murder to be used to stir up hatred and division. Instead, they called for knife crime to be treated as a national emergency.

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By suggesting all people of colour should be blamed for the Henry Nowak case, Robinson is promoting ‘collective punishment‘ – an act which is considered to be a war crime and a grave violation of human rights.

This is not normal.

Men like Robinson are dragging us back to the pre-WWII status quo, and we cannot allow them to succeed.

The Musk connection

On 9 June, we reported that Robinson was in Russia. Notably, Robinson met with Elon Musk’s father, Errol. As Elon despises his father and has very thin skin, we predicted this would lead to a split between Elon and Robinson. As it turns out, however, it seems Elon cares more about pushing hatred than avoiding humiliation:

Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!! https://t.co/73GDcLLFwv

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2026

We say ‘avoiding humiliation’ because Errol Musk is a man who Elon himself describes as “evil”. Despite this, he passively watched on as his tormentor hung out with his minion. Errol is also a man who married his own stepdaughter – Elon’s stepsister – and who allegedly abused several of the Tesla billionaire’s siblings.

Musk is a powerful ally for the British far-right to have, anyway. He’s been pushing their message for years at this point, and surprise, surprise; we now have yearly white riots erupting off the words of social media Goebbels like Robinson.

They're itching for a civil war. A forieng billionaire is trying to use a thug to start it. pic.twitter.com/WsuV8455Wx

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) June 9, 2026

Pogroms

These white riots weren’t just displays of street violence, either. As Robert Freeman reported for the Canary:

Racist thugs have carried out a wave of pogroms in Belfast and nearby towns, setting fire to homes belonging to people of colour. The rioters also attacked businesses that they thought were the property of ‘foreigners’, ignited vehicles, and blocked roads.

A pastor helping those in houses targeted tonight in Belfast says people were being put out of their homes “because they're black”

He says members of his church “who have been with us for 20 years..had their house attacked, windows smashed, houses beside them burned” pic.twitter.com/nYwrVPx8Aa

— Taj Ali (@Taj_Ali1) June 9, 2026

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For those who are unfamiliar, a ‘pogrom‘ is “an act of organized cruel behaviour or killing that is done to a large group of people because of their race or religion” (Cambridge Dictionary). The word is most commonly applied to the waves of violence against European Jews in the 20th century, with the most famous example being the Nazi’s Kristallnacht.

Now, we’re once again seeing pogroms in the Western hemisphere; most often against Muslims, but increasingly affecting anyone whose skin tone doesn’t reflect that of far-right rabble rousers like Tommy Robinson.

Just home from dealing with the consequences of tonight's lawlessness.

Perhaps some of the English right wing influencers and local politicians enthusing about these protests would explain to children I met why they have no beds to sleep in tonight.

Utterly disgusted.

— Matthew O'Toole (@MatthewOToole2) June 10, 2026

And make no mistake, Robinson is directly dehumanising the people who now face mob violence. Here he is describing foreign people as “savages”:

Stop importing the fuckers then, send them back!!!

Stop dumping these third world savages into our communities!!!

Enough of your performative politics you wanker!!!#EnoughIsEnough@Keir_Starmer https://t.co/GW34YHAOHa

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— Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) June 9, 2026

And here he was saying the same thing a few months ago:

Independent journalist @ActivePatriotUK has been arrested for social media posts AGAIN!

The nation is literally being invaded by third world savages and the police are going after those who expose it!
pic.twitter.com/2TMLm6tXY1

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— Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) March 28, 2026

It’s not condoning the actions of the alleged attempted-murderer to say we shouldn’t be referring to entire groups of people as “savages”.

After all, if we were to collectively denigrate groups for the actions of individuals, the scenes in Belfast would suggest all white people are ‘savages’, wouldn’t they?

Featured image via Mario Tama (Getty Images) / Charles McQuillan (Getty Images)

By Willem Moore

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MP Rebecca Long Bailey recently spoke at the conference for the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union and delivered a fierce rebuke to what the Labour Party has become under Keir Starmer.

Referring to the murkiness of Peter Mandelson’s appointment, and the way in which the party has forgotten working class people, Long-Bailey insisted the party must remember and revive its trade union values.

Her calls coincide with millionaire Nigel Farage telling unions to “ditch Labour” and affiliate with his party which only truly seeks to benefit its vested interests — the super-rich.

These are the highlights from her address…

Long-Bailey’s wish is ‘more compassion, more courage, more unity’

During her conference speech, Long-Bailey discussed the struggle which ordinary people are living in, and how vulnerable our communities are to divisive parties like Farage’s racist Reform UK.

She said:

We’re in really unstable and worrying political times, and we’re gathering in a moment that demands so much from all of us.

More compassion, more courage and more unity because in difficult economic times — when families are struggling to get by, when wages are stagnant, rents are soaring and people are anxious about their futures — it’s our communities who feel the strain most sharply.

And in those moments of hardship the far right tries to seep into the cracks of society, whispering division, sowing hatred, pushing the poisonous idea that one group of people’s misfortune is somehow caused by another group’s existence. And we’ve been here before and we understand that racism and division don’t come from strength — they come from fear and manipulation.

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The far-right feeds on despair, they feed on insecurity and on the deliberate neglect of working-class communities by those who hold power and wealth. And they’re trying to pit neighbour against neighbour, worker against worker, British-born against migrant, white against Black — while the real culprits of inequality, those who are extracting wealth from our labour and our public services, go unchallenged.

Public’s faith in Labour ‘shaken’

Long-Bailey then delivered a sharp criticism of what Starmer’s Labour has become under his woeful leadership.

The Labour MP said:

And you know, the very bulwark against it, the party that was created to challenge wealth and power and to hand it to our community needs — well, it’s lost its way. And I was at the local election count in Salford not so long ago.

Salford’s group, we were lucky that we were only one-third of seats up. But those one-third of seats were completely wiped out. I think we kept about two Labour seats out of all of them.

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And I watched good people lose that should never have lost. Councillors who spent years fighting for their communities. Men and women who answered calls late at night from frightened residents, who battled for food banks, youth services, warm spaces and housing support, whilst Westminster barely even noticed that places like ours existed. People who worked themselves into exhaustion because they actually believed that public service still meant something.

And it wasn’t them who failed our communities. It wasn’t our local councillors who made pensioners freeze in the winter by cutting the winter fuel allowance. It wasn’t our local councillors who kept the cruel two-child cap and suspended MPs like me for voting to scrap it while children were going hungry. And it wasn’t our local councillors who talked about cutting support for disabled people who were already struggling to survive.

And whilst the party might have thankfully u-turned on all of these stupid and devastating policy decisions that no Labour government should have ever made, the damage was already done. And it was compounded by scandals in Westminster, people accepting free stuff left, right and centre, all the murky business about Peter Mandelson, and people’s faith in the Labour Party and what we actually stood for was shaken.

‘Labour in Westminster abandoned them first’

Long-Bailey pointed to how the party has forgotten its political tradition of fighting for the working class.

She said:

Our communities aren’t just some piece on the Westminster chessboard to be moved about by rich and powerful people. We know that it’s the woman working every hour she can and still lying awake wondering how she’s going to pay the bills. It’s the pensioners who spent 40 or 50 years working their hearts out and now sit wrapped in blankets because eating’s become a luxury.

It’s the lad in a warehouse breaking his back while billionaires are making more money than they are ever going to see in a lifetime. And it’s our community battered by cuts, poverty and neglect and are still somehow finding the strength to look after one another when they know politics has failed them.

Our communities are proud communities, they’re generous communities, working class communities with dignity and resilience running through their veins and they were crying out for a Labour government at the top to fight for them. From what I saw all those weeks ago, it was pain, it was anger and it was the same question asked time and time again: what does Labour actually stand for? And that’s why people turned away. Not because they abandoned Labour values, but because they felt that Labour in Westminster abandoned them first.

Without Labour, ‘what comes next could be very dark’

Stating that Labour is more scared of “upsetting billionaires and newspaper editors than actually looking after our working-class communities”, Long-Bailey says Labour has lost its soul.

In contrast, she argued that the party’s soul came from a working class movement that “demanded dignity and justice in a system that was rigged against them…to confront wealth and power, not sit comfortably beside it.”

Like many across the country, she believes Labour has abandoned much of that tradition, creating a political vacuum that parties such as Reform and the Green Party have moved to fill. Nevertheless, she remains convinced that the party can still recover and reconnect with its roots.

She said:

But despite everything they’re still searching for hope. They’re still desperate for the national party to stand for the very things that all of us do in this union and those values don’t come from dividing working people against each other because the real divide in this country isn’t between ordinary people — it’s between those who struggle to survive and those who profit from that struggle, and Labour should have the courage to say that again because Britain needs a movement with fire in its heart once more.

It’s got to have a movement that will rebuild council housing, rebuild industry, rebuild broken community — a movement that will redistribute wealth and power instead of allowing it to pool endlessly at the top. It is a movement that will stand shoulder to shoulder with our communities and say we will fight for you.

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***

And what happened at that local election, it wasn’t just a bad night for Labour, it was existential. It was a siren call that if the Labour Party does not regain its soul and represent the very people it was created to serve, then put simply, it will cease to exist. And what comes next could be very, very dark. Hundreds of years of struggle and fight could be gone overnight. And that’s how pivotal this moment in history is.

Long-Bailey reaffirmed her earlier comments that the prime minister must go. She called for a timetable for transition and a new leader who will rebuild the Labour Party to properly represent working class communities who “deserve dignity, security, hope and a future worth believing in”.

Burnham: Not perfect but ‘better than where we are’

She then touched on Andy Burnham’s leadership bid, stating that he isn’t as left wing as she would like, but that she reckons he’s better than Starmer.

He’s done a really good job as Greater Manchester mayor. He seems to be quite popular on the doors in our community and, while he’s not as left as I would like him to be, he’s definitely better than where we are at the moment. And I think if he worked with every group in the party, and brought the left in on the ideas that we’ve been championing for so long, I think it could be hugely positive.

Immigration is not to blame for everything

Speaking about the bad actors seeking to scapegoat marginalised groups, the Salford MP criticised Labour for poor communication.

She said the party hasn’t been clearly explaining that the issues facing communities aren’t “due to immigration”.

It’s been caused by an economic model that’s been controlled by very powerful people who don’t have the interest about working past communities at heart for over 40 years.

What’s needed for change is a prime minister with “real trade union, working class values at their very heart”. A Labour leader who sounds and speaks like us, and with both feet in the “real world”.

…we’ve got to have somebody that sees outside of Westminster and actually understands what real people and real families are going through.

Featured image via Christopher Furlong/ Getty Image

By Maddison Wheeldon

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The Prime Minister said those responsible for the violence and disorder would “feel the full force of the law”. (Alamy)

2 min read21 min

Keir Starmer has said that rioters who set fire to homes and cars in Belfast on Tuesday night targeted people because of their background, warning that he will not “tolerate it”.

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He added that there is “no justification” for people “who encouraged it, online or elsewhere”.

The violent unrest in Northern Ireland on Tuesday night came after a man was charged with attempted murder in Belfast following a knife attack in the city, with footage of the attack shared widely on social media. 

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said yesterday that the alleged attacker was of Sudanese descent and in his 30s. On Wednesday, he was named as Hadi Alodid. He is appearing in court this morning, accused of attempted murder. The court has heard that the victim, who remains in hospital, has lost his left eye as a result of the attack.

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Footage showed rioters setting fire to vehicles and houses in Belfast on Tuesday night, which Northern Irish First Minister Michelle O’Neill condemned as “outright thuggery”. There were reports of masked groups targeting homes lived in by non-white residents.

In a statement this morning, Starmer said those responsible for the disorder overnight would “feel the full force of the law”. 

“The scenes in Belfast last night were shocking and completely unacceptable. There is no justification for the violence and disorder that we saw threatening our communities, nor for those who encouraged it, online or elsewhere,” he said.

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The PM added: “It is clear that people were targeted last night because of their background and I will not tolerate it.

“Those responsible will feel the full force of the law. I’ve spoken to the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland to convey my thanks to them and the frontline emergency services for their bravery in keeping people safe.

“I’ve also spoken to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (Emma-Little Pengelly) to discuss the ongoing situation. Appealing for calm must be the priority, and that is what I urge now. We must let the police get on with their work.”

 

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If you’ve logged on to Twitter over the past few days, there’s one thing you’ve definitely seen, and that’s an image of Nigel Farage beating the governor of the Bank of England:

As it turns out, these deepfakes are being used to lure Farage fans into some sort of crypto scam. And the reason these scammers are using Farage as a lure is no doubt because the Reform leader has promoted crypto himself.

And this guy says he’s looking out for his supporters!

Farage de-bankered

If you’ve seen one image of Farage beating the Bank of England’s Andrew Bailey, you’ve seen several:

pic.twitter.com/b8lN9H4fwm

— MR B.E (@British_Enjoyer) June 9, 2026

The above image – in which Farage has a shooter – proclaims that “Britain needs to see this”. This suggests there was a live broadcast of Question Time in which the Reform leader pulled a gun on another guest, and that this somehow slipped under the radar.

In another image, things got so serious that America had to send one of their police officers over:

pic.twitter.com/Mcu3uM5KnP

— MR B.E (@British_Enjoyer) June 9, 2026

At this point, it’s almost like collecting Pokémon cards. And while the majority of the Pokémon in question are evolutions of Nigel Farage, there is now some variety:

Relieved to see a bit of variation from the meme accountshttps://t.co/n3Frfbvo2q

— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) June 9, 2026

We personally haven’t seen one of the rare/shiny Ed Milibands, but good luck catching them all.

Some questioned if the Faragalanche is a sign that Elon Musk’s advertising platform is struggling to attract serious clients:

All the ads in my Twitter feed are just AI images of Nigel Farage getting into fights on the set of Question Time.

This platform has to be losing so much money. pic.twitter.com/PhUj5yn3LV

— Tom Nicholas | Watch SLOW NEWS DAY on Nebula! (@Tom_Nicholas) June 9, 2026

Ironically, as the BBC highlighted:

Many of the adverts viewed by the BBC were posted by X user accounts with blue ticks – a symbol indicating a subscription to the platform’s Premium tier.

Platform owner Elon Musk previously touted changes to the verification badge as “the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over” after buying Twitter.

You can laugh at how ridiculous these images are, but the fact that there are so many demonstrates they’re working. People are clicking these. But what are they clicking themselves into?

Age of the Scam

According to the BBC:

By hovering over the links for some of the original posts used in the adverts, the BBC was able to identify that many of them would direct people to sites promoting AI cryptocurrency trading schemes or apps.

Hang on a minute, aren’t AI crypto schemes good? Because we seem to remember Nigel Farage promoting them?

I will be speaking at @TheBitcoinConf from 10pm UK time.

One-in-four 18 to 34 years olds own crypto.

Reform will take them seriously. https://t.co/LgyJdZ6FFe

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— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) May 29, 2025

“Take them seriously”, he said, as his wealthy backers rubbed their hands together. And lest we forget, Farage took £5m from a foreign-based crypto billionaire, and has been ducking media scrutiny since we learned of this:

Later this week it will have been 50 days since @Nigel_Farage last held a press conference.

Given he's had so long to get his story straight, @annaturley is calling on Farage to answer 50 key questions about his secret £5 million "gift". It's time he finally came clean. pic.twitter.com/G6ol6ZtiL7

— Labour Press (@labourpress) June 7, 2026

Here he is in April promoting the crypto scheme of former Tory chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng – the man who delivered the disastrous mini-budget:

BREAKING: Nigel Farage has purchased £2m of Bitcoin for Stack BTC – becoming the first sitting MP and the first UK political party leader in history to publicly buy Bitcoin.

A landmark moment for Bitcoin in British politics.$STAK @Nigel_Farage @blockchain @kwasi_stackbtc… pic.twitter.com/O614kKe5TN

— Stack BTC (@stackbtc_) April 13, 2026

No, Kwasi: your company gave Farage a sweetheart deal. A bonus he can exercise in just two years. Ordinary shareholders don't have this.

The penny-share nature of your firm means Farage is already ~£200k up (+93%). With crypto, hype creates value. https://t.co/maRks88jMO https://t.co/5v9a9j7m5K

— Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) April 13, 2026

Aren’t Reform supposed to be an antidote to the failed Tories?

People say that cryptocurrencies have no actual use. They say that because they’re too volatile to use as – you know – currency. Saying they’re ‘useless’, however, ignores two clear use cases:

1. Purchasing contraband outside the ordinary financial system.
2. Scams.

On the latter, Morgan Stanley writes:

• Scammers target cryptocurrency because transfers are fast and typically irreversible.

• Americans lose billions of dollars to crypto scammers each year, often through “too good to be true” tactics like doubling your investments, fake giveaways or job-fee scams.

While the above relates to Americans, don’t worry; Farage and his ilk are determined to import all of America’s ills. And for a sign of what that will look like should Farage take power, just look at what his buddy Trump has been up to:

The $TRUMP meme coin is one of four crypto projects that have turned into a financial jackpot for the president's family and a very bad bet for buyers. https://t.co/mg2JIJvnem

— HuffPost (@HuffPost) June 9, 2026

The Official Trump Meme Coin has now lost 98% of its value.
Elected officials should not be issuing, promoting, and profiting from speculative financial assets.
This should be illegal. pic.twitter.com/Bd1JV57SnI

— Peter Mallouk (@PeterMallouk) June 9, 2026

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Since taking office last year, the Trump family has amassed a staggering $2.3 billion fortune from crypto deals alone.

Any crypto legislation needs to stop the massive conflict of interests posed by Donald Trump and his family’s crypto ventures. pic.twitter.com/agarS1SuPV

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 9, 2026

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Cattle

Here’s what Farage said about the ads, as reported by the BBC:

Speaking to broadcasters during a visit to Grangemouth on Tuesday, [Farage] added that he did not know “whether to laugh or whether to be angry” about the fake ads.

“The trouble is it’s an AI fake but it looks real in every way, and people know that the governor and I have had our disagreements over things over the years,” he said.

You’ll notice he didn’t go into detail about what the ads were pushing. He couldn’t; if he did, he’d be drawing attention to the fact that crypto is the biggest scam since snake oil.

In all likelihood, the people who are falling for these scams are doing so because they’ve bought into Farage’s shtick. This means many of them are the sort of people who deserve to get ripped off. It’s a problem for Farage, anyway, because the thing they’re getting ripped off by is the thing he’s telling them to invest in.

The question is this: is it a problem because they’re getting ripped off? Or is it a problem because they’re getting ripped off without Farage himself profiting?

Featured image via Paul Reid (Getty Images)

By Willem Moore

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