This is a statement from Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance regarding the Undercover Policing Inquiry

Following elation at the progress of the Hillsborough law, victims of spycops were confronted on 16 July with a Home Office ‘consultation’ into the future of the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

We are shocked and surprised by the announcement and deeply concerned that this is an attempt to shut this Inquiry down. We have been requesting a meeting with the Sponsor Department of the Home Office for more than a year and have been stonewalled.

Now, we are presented with this multiple choice survey which clearly demonstrates that they have already considered the options without listening to us. We wish to stress that the delays and costs incurred by the Inquiry to date are entirely the result of applications for secrecy and lack of candour by the state agents taking part.

The timing of this consultation (in the middle of Inquiry hearings and at the start of the Summer break) will exclude many of those affected from being able to properly engage. The options on offer have real implications for how, and whether, the truth gets established, and we are considering the survey carefully.

We are calling on supporters not to fill it in until we have had a chance to respond.

The UCPI has been running since 2015, investigating abuses by undercover officers spanning five decades. One of the most expensive and longest running in British history, it has been hampered by the death of its first Chair and the imminent retirement of its second, with no replacement in sight.

So far it has only considered a single police unit, and is yet to consider some of the most important evidence, relating to abuses that took place under the existing regulatory framework that is supposed to protect us today.

Police actions to disrupt and stall proceedings (using tactics such as ‘Neither Confirm Nor Deny’, making numerous anonymity applications, and demanding extensive redactions of documents) prevented the Inquiry from even starting to hear evidence for the first six years, and continue to cause delays.

We believe that had there been a Hillsborough Law in place when the Inquiry started it would have saved much time and expense.

Since hearings started in 2020, the Inquiry has uncovered evidence of sustained misconduct and corruption. Some of the most important revelations of our time about secret state (and Home Office) interference in our political freedoms.

The constant stream of revelations has caused considerable embarrassment and led to multiple public apologies from the Metropolitan Police. We have no doubt that there are powerful interests who would want it shut down.

However, the Inquiry has yet to consider units such as the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), who employed one of the most notorious officers, Mark Kennedy. Many victims are still waiting for answers, and the Inquiry must properly consider all the evidence before key recommendations can be made.

We call on the Home Office not to hamper the search for truth and justice, and to allow the spycops Inquiry to do the job it was called on to do. We will continue to hold the police and public officials to account.

Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance

Campaigning in partnership with Police Spies Out of Lives, The Monitoring Group, the Blacklist Support Group and the Undercover Research Group.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

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The post What is Keir Starmer’s legacy? appeared first on spiked.

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The post Why Ann Widdecombe’s murder has shaken Britain appeared first on spiked.

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The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has just bombed a funeral in the Nuseirat camp in Gaza.

At least eight people were slaughtered and more than 20 others wounded, though at the time of Mosab Abu Toha’s post, the known death toll was five.

IOF use the Nuseirat camp as a slaughter camp

The Nuseirat refugee camp has repeatedly been the scene of Israeli atrocities. These include the murder of 276 civilians and the wounding of almost 700 during Israel’s US-assisted ‘rescue mission’ in 2024. Four ‘hostages’ were rescued, including Noa Argamani.

Argamani later said she had been in far more danger from Israel than her captors and indeed had been wounded by Israeli bombing.

Featured image via WAFA News Agency

By Skwawkbox

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A retired Church of England vicar and three Christian climate activists have been convicted of aggravated trespass. This is after they dropped a huge banner saying “Don’t Crucify Creation” from the tower of Bath Abbey. They’ve accused church officials of prioritising tourism over planetary breakdown and billions of deaths.

They were part of a national day of action on September 13, 2025, by Christian Climate Action (CCA). The group called on the Church of England to speak out more clearly and persistently about the Climate and Nature Emergency and the existential threat to people and all life on Earth.

The activists are:

• Rev Bill White, 71, a retired vicar from Macclesfield, Cheshire.
• Emma Ireland, 41, a mental health worker from Bristol.
• Stephen Pritchard, 66, a former parish councillor from Radstock, Somerset.
• Kate Chesterman, 60, a retired university worker from Hythe, Kent.

They said they acted out of necessity as experts predict two billion deaths due to climate change by 2050.

The four occupied the tower for the launch of CCA’s Stop Crucifying Creation vision booklet. It urges the Church to speak out, take radical nonviolent action like Jesus, cease harming the planet, and support people through the realities of climate breakdown.

The group hung a huge banner from the top, sat down and asked to speak to the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Michael Beasley, to seek his support for the campaign.

But Bath Abbey officials called police who threatened to carry the activists down a narrow spiral staircase to evict them. The four walked down the steps to prevent injury to either the police, or themselves.

They were arrested and charged with aggravated trespass and obstruction. Bath Abbey tour guide Beth Carter said the action disrupted public tower tours for the rest of the day.

Christian supporters at court

Scores of supporters were outside court and in the public gallery during the two-day trial at Bristol Magistrates on 16-17 July.

After the verdict, three members of CCA, James Grote, Deborah Wilde and Sue Hampton, stood and unfurled a ‘Don’t Crucify Creation’ banner in the public gallery. The judge left but Hampton spoke in prayer, saying:

Justice is love in action and that’s what these four people have shown.

The three protesters were not detained but allowed to leave court with the banner.

A report by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and climate scientists from the University of Exeter, Planetary Solvency: Finding Our Balance with Nature, predicts more than two billion people will die as a result of global trajectories of 2°C of global warming by 2050.

The defendants said the response from church leaders in calling the police showed they cared more about making money from tower tours than the impending deaths of billions due to climate breakdown.

Chesterman told the court:

If the best the church can do is prioritise tourism over its own followers attempting to bring the seriousness of the situation to their attention, then there’s something wrong with their religion.

Stephen Pritchard said:

If Jesus were alive today he would turn over the tables in the gift shop at Bath Abbey and be charged with aggravated trespass.

Chesterman, giving her defence, said:

The church has the sacred obligation to sound the alarm and they are absolutely not doing that. That’s why we went up the tower – because we couldn’t get the church to listen.

We didn’t just do this out of the blue. We did this after many, many attempts to engage with the Church, and churches up and down the country.

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What would the effect be if the church made more actions on climate change? With the resources the church has available, the influence it has, it could affect large numbers of people – and changing public opinion is key to influencing Government policy.

It could rewild a third of its land, which it has been asked to do. It has a platform where it could speak and speak and speak again. It could highlight the plight of the dying people all around the world, so people here would take it [the Climate Emergency] more seriously.

District judge Nicholas Wattam did not accept their defence of necessity. He fined each of the defendants £200 and ordered them to pay £700 in court costs and victim surcharge.

Outside court, White said:

Early in 2025, a reliable source concluded that between one billion and four billion people will die as a direct result of climate change – the actual numbers depending on what we do and how quickly we do it.

The Church of England has a five-fold mission to tell, teach, tend, transform and treasure. How can we claim to tend to the needs of the disadvantaged if we’re silent about the Climate Emergency?

How can we claim to transform unjust structures if we don’t use our position to speak the truth about the multi-national fossil fuel companies, and about their supporting financial institutions?

During CCA’s day of action, similar protests took place at Canterbury, York, Winchester, Westminster Abbey, Durham and Southwark cathedrals. But there were no other arrests and protesters were welcome at Canterbury and able to speak at a service in Winchester.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have just published a new teaching document, Hope for All Creation: A theological response to the environmental crisis, which presents action on climate change as a key part of Christianity. The Archbishops say:

To be prophetic in speech and action on these issues — locally, nationally, and globally — is to live out this faith and hope. It is an essential part of following Jesus and sharing the Gospel today.

You can find Christian Climate Action’s vision document Stop Crucifying Creation here.

Featured image via Christian Climate Action

By The Canary

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