DAYS THE BUDGET IS LATE: 51

CROWD CONTROL: State Democrats are aligned on reining in ICE — but there’s sharp disagreements over whether the measures will meaningfully impact the NYPD.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers passed a package of measures this afternoon that seek to curtail federal immigration enforcement agents’ operations in New York.

“Tom Homan can shove it,” Brooklyn state Sen. Andrew Gounardes said at a press conference this morning, referring to the Trump administration’s border czar.

The package aims to restrict the ability of police departments like the NYPD to control crowds while federal officers conduct immigration enforcement actions.

“If ICE or DHS ask a local police department to facilitate their operations — lock down the street, clear out traffic, cordon off an area, put up, ‘do not cross signs,’… those types of actions would no longer be allowed,” Gounardes said of the immigration package.

Also in the agreement: banning masks for federal and local law enforcement and creating a list of “sensitive locations” that ICE won’t be able to enter without a judicial warrant.

The slew of anti-ICE measures are just the latest effort by Democrats in blue states like New York to push back against the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration tactics.

But the push to prohibit local police departments from cooperating with federal immigration authorities is likely to prove messy on the ground — as evidenced by a recent fracas in Brooklyn.

A host of elected allies of Zohran Mamdani pointed fingers at the mayor and police commissioner Jessica Tisch earlier this month when the NYPD took steps to control a crowd of anti-ICE protesters who tried to obstruct federal officers that detained an undocumented man and transported him to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center.

The NYPD says officers were doing their job by responding to 911 calls about disorderly protesters — and they also say these new measures wouldn’t have had any effect on how they operated that evening in front of Wykoff. During those efforts, eight people were arrested due to scuffles with cops and attempts to block the federal officers’ exits. Videos depict a chaotic scene, with the NYPD seen throwing a protester to the ground.

But protesters say the NYPD’s efforts to control the crowd made it so the city’s cops, directly or indirectly, were supporting ICE and clearing a path for their movements.

Brooklyn state Sen. Julia Salazar, a key backer of the immigration measures, insists the new language from the state would’ve stopped the NYPD from interfering with anti-ICE protesters outside the Brooklyn hospital that day.

“Someone was quite violently taken into ICE custody by ICE agents,” Salazar said, recounting the incident. “Then they were taken to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Bushwick, and the police officers from the NYPD facilitated the entry and exit of those officers — which would be prohibited going forward.”

An NYPD spokesperson told Playbook the “legislation will not impact the NYPD because we do not engage in civil immigration enforcement, period.”

The actual language of the bill would bar any “informal agreement” with federal immigration authorities “under which an officer or employee may engage in or assist immigration enforcement, or otherwise may perform a function of an immigration officer.” The dispute over its actual effect prompts questions about the role of local cops to ensure order in the face of anti-ICE demonstrations, especially after similar protests turned deadly in Minnesota.

Mamdani’s spokesperson Dora Pekec said city policy already prohibits coordination between the NYPD and ICE and that “the Mayor supports this piece of legislation and has made clear that he believes ICE has no role in promoting public safety here in New York City.”

Tomorrow Mamdani will release a report – resulting from a February executive order – examining all city interactions with federal immigration enforcement efforts.

At a May 12 event hosted by the Association for a Better New York, Tisch slammed critics who said the NYPD was colluding with ICE at Wyckoff.

“NYPD officers, in the middle of the night, amid chaos outside of their control, did their job professionally and skillfully and made sure events did not spiral into a calamity,” she said. “The critics of the NYPD’s actions — those who would have us stand aside and call cops doing their jobs collusion – have lost sight of the lives at stake.”

The Wyckoff incident prompted rare public criticism of the Mamdani administration from left-leaning lawmakers who held an emergency press conference and wrote a letter decrying the NYPD’s actions that evening.

“They provided security for ICE,” City Council member Sandy Nurse, who represents the area, said of the incident.

In a statement, Hochul spokesperson Jen Goodman said the new law “would not ban local law enforcement from actions like crowd control in the interest of protecting New Yorkers.” — Jason Beeferman

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

POLL-A-PALOOZA: We’ve got the latest snapshots of the city’s most competitive primaries in a trio of surveys from Emerson College Polling for PIX 11 — rare outside polling in these races.

The biggest gap: Former City Comptroller Brad Lander, who’s challenging Rep. Dan Goldman, is leading by a whopping 34 points. The survey has Lander with 57 percent support, compared to the incumbent’s 23 percent. One in five likely Democratic primary voters are undecided.

Goldman’s campaign was quick to dispute the results: “This poll is not remotely close to an accurate read of this race,” campaign manager Simone Kanter wrote on X. “The data we’ve seen shows a dead heat after messaging.”

He went on to argue that the survey oversampled college-educated voters and young people, writing that the poll “is assuming an electorate that looks exactly like the once-in-a-generation turnout Mamdani mobilized when he was on the ballot.” (Mamdani has endorsed Lander in the race, which will be a test of the mayor’s political muscle.)

Emily Minster, a spokesperson for Lander’s campaign, said they are “taking nothing for granted.”

A recent internal poll from a pro-Goldman super PAC found the incumbent trailing Lander by 5 points. Goldman has been up on the air for weeks; Lander began advertising today.

The polls showed far tighter races in the other primaries for NY-07 and NY-12, which are being vacated by retiring Reps. Nydia Velázquez and Jerry Nadler, respectively.

In NY-07, state Assemblymember Claire Valdez has 23 percent support, followed by Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso with 21 percent. City Council member Julie Won comes in at 13 percent and public defender Vichal Kumar at 1 percent.

Valdez leads among Hispanic voters and is running about even with Won among Asian voters.

An eye-popping 43 percent of respondents are undecided — giving the campaigns a major opportunity to grow their support.

The race for NY-10 is competitive between state Assemblymembers Micah Lasher and Alex Bores, who come in at 22 percent and 20 percent, respectively. Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg has 11 percent, while anti-Trump commentator George Conway has 10 percent and public health practitioner Nina Schwalbe has 3 percent. Around a third of respondents are undecided.

Recent surveys — nearly all of which have been internal polls — also showed a tight race, with Lasher and Bores toward the front of the pack. Earlier this year, Schlossberg had a slight lead in polls. Heavy outside spending has occurred in recent weeks in favor of Lasher, as well as groups both spending for and against Bores.

Mamdani has a strong approval rating in all three districts: 78 percent approve of him in the 7th, 79 percent in the 10th and 66 percent in the 12th.

The polls were conducted May 16-17 among likely Democratic primary voters. In the 7th, there were 350 respondents and a margin of error of plus-or-minus 5.2 percentage points. In the 10th, there were 450 respondents and a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.6 percentage points. In the 12th, there were 425 respondents and a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.8 percentage points. — Madison Fernandez

NOT THERE: Democrats are feeling good heading into this year’s midterms. But good enough to not donate to battleground Rep. Laura Gillen?

Oath, a donor platform that measures which Democrats it would be most effective to support, shared new recommendations for which candidates should make the cut, our colleagues in D.C. reported this morning. Among those who fall into the do-not-donate category is Gillen, whose Long Island seat that she narrowly flipped in 2024 is widely considered a crucial 2026 contest for control of the House. In a memo, Oath rationalized that Gillen’s seat is “moving into safe Democratic territory” and “does not have a Republican opponent who even raised $100,000.”

However, it’s unclear how much Hempstead Receiver of Taxes Jeanine Driscoll, local Republicans’ candidate of choice, has raised. She entered the race in April — after the second fundraising quarter began — and has not filed a financial report with the Federal Election Commission. Driscoll’s primary opponent, Air Force veteran Marvin Williams, has raised close to $90,000 — most of which was self-funded.

Also adding uncertainty to upcoming elections is a pending case in the Supreme Court that could open the floodgates to massive political spending from the national parties and benefit Republicans.

“Laura Gillen is running in a fiercely competitive Frontline seat,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Riya Vashi said in a statement. “The DCCC is committed to ensuring Laura has the resources and support she needs to win this November.” — Madison Fernandez

From the Capitol

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS: The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has spent months working with other agencies planning for “nightmare scenarios” involving waylaid trains and buses during the World Cup, its executive director said Thursday.

Those plans could come in handy given the history of heat-related problems in the region and a pair of fires that disrupted service in and out of Penn Station in the past week.

New Jersey Transit’s backup plan for waylaid trains is a fleet of buses to carry fans. But those buses also break down in the heat and will need to get through the Port Authority’s tunnels to reach MetLife Stadium where eight World Cup matches will be played. So the Port Authority is working on a backup plan for the backup plan, including freeing up lanes in the Lincoln Tunnel that normally go in one direction to go in another.

“It’s going to be July, it’s going to be hot, on any given day we have bus break downs because the engine gets too hot,” Port Authority head Kathryn Garcia told reporters following a board meeting today. “We need to be able to be very flexible.”

Port Authority Chair Kevin O’Toole said during the hottest day last week he was behind a bus that broke down in the Lincoln Tunnel. Within five minutes a tow truck was there and another bus came to pick up the passengers.

“We are going to anticipate certain breakdowns and hopefully we can do our best to accommodate the public,” he said. — Ry Rivard

FROM CITY HALL

NOTHING IN LIFE IS FREE: Mamdani announced a deal today to provide 1,000 World Cup tickets to New Yorkers at $50 a pop.

The mayor unveiled his discount ticket scheme this morning at a beer garden in Harlem, rattling off teams, players and moments from World Cups of yore before getting to the meat of his announcement.

“We’re so excited, frankly, because we know that there are so many New Yorkers who thought that there was no way they could afford to go to this tournament, and now there is that glimpse of an opportunity,” the mayor said.

But New Jersey Democrats were having none of it. They attacked FIFA – soccer’s global governing body – for the discounted tickets, which are only available to New York residents, even though the matches are being played in the Garden State.

“This publicity stunt does nothing to address the cost of tickets,” New Jersey Democratic Reps. Nellie Pou and Frank Pallone said in a joint statement.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s spokesperson, Stephen Sigmund, said “FIFA not caring about costs for New Jersey residents isn’t new.”

FIFA said the agreement was between the local host committee and the mayor’s office, and that FIFA was only involved in ensuring the tickets went to fans who genuinely planned to attend rather than sell tickets.

New York and New Jersey officials have repeatedly sparred over how to run the upcoming tournament, despite being co-hosts. Most of that dust up to date has been over dueling bus and train services to get fans to matches. — Ry Rivard and Joe Anuta 

In Other News

— SUITED UP: Mamdani’s top lawyer, Ramzi Kaseem, brings a history of suing the NYPD and defending high-profile civil liberties cases to City Hall. (The New York Times)

— ICED OUT: A Manhattan parking garage removed federal vehicles after protesters alleged they were being used by immigration enforcement agents. (Gothamist)

— SHEIK UP: The Mamdani administration distanced itself from the views of an Islamic leader who has cast doubts on basic facts about the Holocaust. The mayor has met with the controversial figure at least three times since January 2025. (Washington Free Beacon)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.

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Independents are the main opposition to Labour in the London borough of Newham, and have just accused the local Greens of entering “into an unholy alliance” with Labour. The Newham Greens, which will now chair the council, have denied this and said “all 3 groups” will be “power sharing” in the borough.

Newham Independents “refused to work” with Labour

One of the candidates for Newham Independents Party who defeated Labour in the Little Ilford ward was Tahir Mirza. And he spoke to the Canary about what happened at the annual council meeting on 20 May.

Mirza suggested that the tanking of Labour’s vote in Newham in the election was a result of the serious concern local people had about the party’s performance and direction of travel under Keir Starmer in particular. He said that, with Labour too small to run the council, the ruling party had to seek an understanding with its opponents:

But obviously we refused to work with them, because we got a vote from the people on the basis that we are not going to be Labour version 2. We have different pledges, and people voted against Labour. They voted for us and the Greens.

He added:

We have only one aim – to serve our voters, to serve our residents. They’ve been suffering for a long, long time – 60 years of Labour rule. Labour had never seen any kind of opposition in this borough. But this is the first time ever. So they are desperate. But we are firm in our own stand. We cannot ally with Labour.

A deal had been on the table between independents and Greens, Mirza explained, but:

there was a last-minute deal [the Greens] struck with Labour, or maybe Labour struck the deal with the Greens when they saw that we were not going to the Labour camp. I’m afraid, they choose to shake hands with those people who’ve got blood on their hands.

He’s not sure what happened, but said:

There must be something deep behind the closed door, which we don’t know of. I think only time will tell. We’ll see how it goes.

Independents and Greens had previously had a “brilliant working relationship” before the election, he asserted, but:

the trust deficit now is being built up between us

Newham Greens claim they’re breaking Labour’s ‘stage management’ of meetings

A Green statement insisted that:

The committee allocations sees all 3 groups power sharing representing the democracy of the election…

Power sharing requires that someone is prepared to put their personal desires aside to set a better precedent, the green group have done this.

It highlighted in particular the hope that Labour will now release the information about where the council invests money. Green councillor and new pensions committee chair Ibrahim Alom stressed that:

Residents have a right to know how the council invests their money… I do not believe our pension fund should be invested in companies complicit in genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, or climate destruction, and I am committed to pushing for a more ethical and transparent approach to investment.

Fellow Green councillor Joe Hudson-Small, meanwhile, said:

Greens have chair of council – for the first time in history our meetings won’t be stage-managed by Labour – we will treat all councillors equally and guard against executive overreach. NIP [Newham Independents Party] have chair of overview and scrutiny, probably the most powerful role besides the Labour mayor

He added:

Together Greens and NIP chair all the scrutiny committees. We also chair pensions and most other committees – and between Greens and NIP, we have a majority on every single committee.

And he denied that Labour getting “vice chair of council” meant embracing an alliance with the party.

Labour only remains on the council by the skin of its teeth

The local election was clearly a direct face-off between the Greens and Newham Independents to see who was in the best position to defeat Labour.

In some places, Independents were stronger, and in others Greens were. The former ended up with 24 councillors, and the latter with 16. Newham Greens’ consistent claim to be “Newham’s second party” was wrong by quite some way, even if the party was aiming for second place.

The division to the left of Labour, meanwhile, often allowed the ruling party to come up through the middle.

For example, there were numerous wards in Newham where Labour would not have won any councillors if there had been an agreement between Independents and Greens. A joint mayoral candidate, meanwhile, would have overwhelmingly defeated Labour. In reality, Labour was very lucky to win 26 councillors and the mayoral race.

At a time where a far-right party has just dominated the local elections, the time for testing the waters is clearly over. Our putrid electoral system means opponents of Reform, Labour, and the Tories must come together and cooperate, even if that’s only with the aim of changing this system. If they don’t, genocide–backing fascists will win.

Featured image via GreenPartyNewham

By Ed Sykes

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After World War Two, US authorities changed the name of the Department of War to the Department of Defence. In September 2025, the Donald Trump administration changed it back. As elsewhere, President Trump abandoned propaganda niceties as he made brute realities explicit.

The US state is a war machine, ruthlessly enforcing global capitalism while leaving endless death and destruction in its wake. At the helm sits FOX host-turned-Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, an unrepentant bigot adorned with far-right Crusader tattoos and notorious for his chants to “Kill All Muslims.” Hegseth was recruited to the military back when Matt Kennard was first warning about the radicalisation of enlisted privates.

US — ‘The message to service members was clear: you have free rein to commit war crimes’

That such a character now commands the world’s most powerful military is neither a fluke nor an aberration. It shows how thoroughly Trumpism has obliterated the firewalls of acceptability and normalized the extreme. The extremist growths Kennard documented a decade ago have metastasized and taken over our governing institutions, as the likes of Hegseth and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller now occupy the highest political echelons.

Weeks after the Pentagon got its new name, Hegseth instructed senior commanders at the Marines training base in Quantico that they should no longer follow the US military’s “stupid” rules of engagement but instead pursue “maximum lethality” by taking the gloves off. When considered alongside Trump’s first-term pardons for so many convicted war criminals, the message to service members was clear: you have free rein to commit war crimes.

‘Trump declared war on the “organised left”’

Trump’s presidential predecessor, Joe Biden, had timidly called for “evaluat[ing]” counter-extremism policy after so many veterans and military personnel had been documented participating in the anti-democratic riots of January 6, 2023. Trump issued all participants with a blanket pardon. Then, after the September 2025 assassination of the far-right campaigner Charlie Kirk, Trump declared war on the “organized left” while declaring that he “couldn’t care less” about right-wing extremists, who, he alleged, are only considered radical “because they don’t want to see crime.”

At Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, the prospective defense secretary said he was determined to refocus away from alleged “extremism” in the ranks and insinuated that any attempt to address dangerous ideologies within the military was a liberal witch hunt. Such rhetoric didn’t just stoke racism, zealotry, and violence — it was an open invitation for neo-Nazis to enlist in the American Empire’s New Crusades. In his first directives as defence secretary, Hegseth targeted Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, banned trans service members, and imposed new constraints to purge Black troops: all measures designed to enthuse and recruit from a reactionary base.

US — ‘The bipartisan neoliberal order that incubated the far right’

As Kennard shows, it was the bipartisan neoliberal order that incubated the far right; the failures of Tony Blair and Barack Obama paved the way for figures like Trump and Nigel Farage. Matt Kennard’s decades-long investigations into US empire and its criminal collaborators anticipated the present slide toward global authoritarianism — where genocide is the policy and opposition to it the crime; where unchecked corporate power pillages and pollutes every last drop of the planet’s precious resources; and where 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck even as $1.5 trillion in tax dollars are robbed by the Pentagon every year.

‘We haven’t the luxury of remaining atomised’

Trump 2.0 is ratcheting up the brazen corruption, naked colonialism, and overt militarization of society. Each news cycle brings more eviscerations of environmental protections and civil rights. As political censorship tightens, it is unclear whether the first amendment still protects adversarial journalism or whether the feds will soon come knocking at my door. Matt has reason to worry, too. His colleagues in the UK have been raided for airing the same truths he publishes regularly.

From Latin America to Palestine, Matt’s crucial reporting has proven the grim thesis that the imperial status quo means death for far too many, and that the lunatics steering it are driving off a cliff. This book is a prescient warning we may be too late to heed. As wars rage and the Earth bakes, we haven’t the luxury of remaining atomized in our discrete causes or identities. We must come together to construct a shared internationalist vision for a habitable future, built for the many and scaled to win.

This is Abby Martin’s foreword to Matt Kennard’s book Irregular Army: How the US Military Recruited
Neo-Nazis, Gang Members, and Criminals. We are republishing it with Kennard’s permission.

Featured image via Orbooks

By The Canary

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he wants to end his campaign on a “positive” note. Sen. John Cornyn, however, is prepared to go down fighting.

Paxton said Thursday he’s pulling his negative ads against Cornyn in the final days ahead of their bruising GOP primary for Texas’ Senate seat. The move reveals that the MAGA warrior, bolstered by President Donald Trump’s endorsement, is confident in his ability to clinch the Republican nomination.

But Cornyn, who’s facing an uphill battle to keep his seat, responded that he will keep his own attacks coming, leaning into Paxton’s long trail of personal and political scandals.

In a race that’s been defined by personal shots, the latest online dustup between the two underscores the difficult path forward for the Texas GOP after next week’s runoff election. The Paxton-Cornyn matchup has deepened divisions between the MAGA and establishment wings of the GOP, and the fighting between the two camps has gotten so ugly that some Republicans are fearful it will dampen turnout in the midterms, hurt down-ticket Republicans — and possibly cost them the seat.

Paxton’s announcement came after Texas GOP Chair Abraham George, a fellow conservative hardliner, asked the candidates to move beyond their feud out of consideration of the fight ahead to keep the seat red. The attorney general, who has gone after Cornyn for being too old to continue serving in Congress, wrote on X that his campaign has “already changed our TV ad traffic starting today to ensure our campaign ends on a positive note and that we can focus on beating the leftist lunatic in the fall,” referring to Democratic nominee James Talarico.

He called on Cornyn “to do the same for the good of our party. A Super PAC supporting Paxton, Lone Star Liberty, also announced Tuesday it was pulling its own negative ads.

Cornyn respondedin a post on X that Paxton is “desperate to avoid accountability” — and laid out exactly how bruising his ads will remain, saying the campaign needs a few more days to make sure voters know “that you plea bargained with a child sex offender, offering them only one day in prison and no sex offender registry as a favor” to a donor. He was referring to a recent report by the Texas Tribune on a plea deal Paxton offered to a man facing sexual abuse charges.

Cornyn and his allies have poured millions into brutal, personal ads trying to defeat Paxton — and they’ve had a lot of material to work with. Paxton has faced an impeachment attempt by the state legislature, ethics complaints from his staff and a federal securities fraud investigation. He’s currently going through a divorce that his wife filed for on “biblical grounds.”

Republicans are increasingly concerned that a Paxton nomination would put the seat in jeopardy, given his significant personal and political baggage, and bracing to spend upwards of $100 million to bail him out in the general election. Cornyn finished narrowly ahead of Paxton in the March primary, but the Trump endorsement puts Paxton in a strong position to overcome that deficit.

“We are going to continue to tell the truth about Paxton,” Cornyn said in another post. “He’s escaped accountability for too long. Judgment day is coming.”

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The BBC and various ‘news’ outlets are today trumpeting the ‘breaking’ news that the late queen pushed for her second son Andrew‘s appointment as UK trade envoy. Well duh.

The then-monarch needed something useful for her ‘spare part’ son to do as his military career came to an end. Andrew had been close to serial child-rapist and Israeli spy Jeffrey Epstein since the early 1990s. His tendencies were known well before that, with his ‘Randy Andy” nickname dating back decades earlier. Giving him a cushy job getting massages on the public purse to keep him out of the domestic view was a no-brainer.

The queen and her nepo baby

At the same time as she was nepotising for him, Epstein was trafficking the child Virginia Giuffre to Andrew. Andrew was also meeting Epstein’s procurer Ghislaine Maxwell — in the queen’s official Balmoral residence.

They all knew.

Andrew’s mother had protected him for decades. Of course they knew, just as the BBC knew about Jimmy Savile and obviously covered for him but we’re not supposed to believe that either. They’re not that stupid. They just think we are.

We’re supposed to treat these ‘revelations’ as if they’re new, now that the royal family has decided to throw Andrew under the bus to protect the family from the Epstein scandal. The queen is dead and as far beyond consequences — at least from outraged humans — as is Savile.

Pointing the finger at a corpse and a dead man walking might just deflect attention from the current incumbent. It might distract people enough to stop them thinking about why we need a family fattening its inherited and stolen wealth at the expense of the rest of us.

Or that’s what they hope. They think we’re that stupid. Let’s hope not enough of us are.

Featured image via Chris Jackson/Getty Images

By Skwawkbox

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The Gulf Cooperation Council has been accelerating its crackdown on Shia Muslims, but this was no barrier in the UK signing a historic multi-billion-pound trade deal with the bloc, becoming the first G7 nation to do so.

The UK, which has backed the US/Israel’s war of choice on Iran, is celebrating the trade pact with another US ally — the GCC states, which consist of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

The Financial Times reported that the:

UK has drawn praise from Gulf states” for its role in helping defend them against Iranian attacks, with British Typhoon fighter jets used to “intercept missiles and drones fired as they have flown missions over Qatar, the UAE and Bahrain.

UK exports of cereals, cheddar cheese, chocolate, and butter are just a few of the goods expected to become tariff-free, supporting British industry to grow, the UK government said. The deal is expected to boost the UK economy by an estimated £3.7 billion every year.

Blind eye to repression of Shia Muslims

The deal comes as Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) governments are carrying out repression of increasing scale and severity.

Bahrain recently revoked the nationality of dozens of people accused of “glorifying or sympathising with hostile Iranian acts.”

Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, Director of Advocacy at Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), posted on X, condemning the deal, adding that:

The deal comes as Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) governments are carrying out repression of increasing scale and severity.

Much of this repression has been directed specifically at Shia Muslims in Bahrain.

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UAE’s crackdown under cover of ‘Iran-linked terror’

Last month, Mint News Press reported that the UAE has launched a crackdown on Shia Muslims under the cover of “Iran-linked terror” claims.

In April 2026, UAE authorities announced the arrest of 27 individuals, describing them as members of a “Shia terrorist group” allegedly linked to Tehran. However, none of the detainees appear to be facing formal terrorism charges. Instead, they are accused of spreading “misleading ideas,” maintaining “foreign allegiances,” and forming a secret organisation — “vague” allegations that critics say are often used to justify political repression.

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The UAE has also been accused of deporting thousands of Pakistani Shia Muslims during the Iran war, though profiling of the minority community started much earlier — according to the Middle East Eye (MEE).

MEE also reported that Indian Shia organisations, including the All India Shia Personal Law Board, have raised concerns regarding the detention and treatment of Indian Shias by authorities in several Gulf countries, particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

The UK and the GCC are partners united by complicity. Both support the US-Israel war on Iran. Both turn a blind eye to the repression of Shia Muslims.

Featured image via Chris Jackson/Getty Images

By Nandita Lal

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2 min read18 May

Keir Starmer has insisted he will “100 per cent” support Andy Burnham in the upcoming Makerfield by-election, which is shaping up to be a straight contest between Labour and Reform UK.

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In a visit to Labour HQ, the Prime Minister said he would offer his full backing to whoever the candidate is.

Labour’s ruling body will draw up a shortlist of people this week and local members will vote on Thursday. However, it is widely expected that Burnham, the Manchester mayor, will be selected after the NEC said it would not block his candidacy.

Starmer told activists on Monday the last 10 days had “not been easy” for the party and the local election results had demonstrated that the public had not felt the fruits of a Labour government quickly enough.

The Prime Minister said: “We need to build up the urgency of what we do. We need a bit more hope in there. And we need to remember at all times what we are here to do. We were elected to government to serve the people of this country.

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“And I remind myself every day that in July 2024 millions of people voted for us to come into government, to get on with the job, to govern, and to bring about the change that they want.

“So I am focused on the job that I was asked to do, which is to serve my country and to carry out my duties as Prime Minister of this country. Delivering for the very many people who voted us into office, who are saying, ‘just get on with it, get on with the job, get on with the change that I need to see in my life’.

“And that is what I am going to be doing.”

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Starmer said the Makerfield by-election was a straight fight between Nigel Farage’s party and Labour, and that he wanted every Labour member and person associated with the party to support Burnham.

“A Labour candidate to beat Reform. That is the fight that we are in.”

Burnham was blocked from standing as a candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election in February. The Prime Minister said it could have triggered a Manchester mayoral by-election, which would have cost the public at least £4million.

Burnham, who has previously served as a cabinet minister, is seen as a potential leadership challenger to Starmer if he wins the by-election. He is currently the bookmakers’ favourite to replace Starmer as prime minister and Labour leader.  

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Illustration by Tracy Worrall

4 min read18 May

Lessons in political science. This week: The Mo Salah effect

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What did you think when you heard that Mo Salah was leaving Liverpool? Me, I wondered what it meant for the parasocial contact hypothesis.

Before you conclude I need to get out more, let me explain.

The idea that personal contact with people who are different – ‘out-groups’ in the lingo – can change attitudes has a long heritage; the ‘parasocial contact hypothesis’ is that indirect, mediated, contact – with celebrities, television characters and so on – has a similar effect.

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Salah joined Liverpool in 2017, for what was then a club record fee. He helped them win the Champions League in 2019 and the Premier League in 2020. And in 2021, a fascinating paper published in the American Political Science Review examined the effect that having an elite player with what it called “conspicuous Islamic identity” had on Liverpool fans – and whether it reduced levels of Islamophobia.

In this case, it seems it does. After Salah’s arrival, researchers found that Liverpool fans became less likely to send anti-Muslim tweets when compared to other fans, at about half the expected rate. They also found levels of hate crime in Merseyside dropped by 16 per cent, again when compared to the expected rate. The authors concluded that “positive exposure to out-group celebrities can spark real-world behaviour changes in prejudice”.

Up to a point, at least. Because as I have said occasionally in this column before: size matters.

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Take, for example, the third part of the study, in which researchers compared responses from Liverpool fans who were explicitly reminded of Salah’s religion with those who are not. The study tested three different views of Islam. In two cases, the differences were not statistically significant. In the third, when asked whether they thought Islam was compatible with British values, the primed respondents were more positive, and by an amount that was statistically significant, up by five percentage points.

To be fair, we might not expect great differences here. If the whole justification for studying responses to someone is that their identity is conspicuous, pretty much everyone should be primed already. But still, even that five per cent increase only gets you to 23 per cent. In other words, even after he’d helped them win all that silverware, the vast majority of respondents to the survey still thought Islam wasn’t compatible with British values. It’ll take a few more Salahs before that changes; and there is – in the words of the song – only one.

There are also two obvious follow-on questions. What about Liverpool’s (ahem) patchier form in some of the following seasons? A study of the Israeli football team in 2020, for example, found that when the national team were winning, the Arab players in the team were praised – but that didn’t last when things went south. To what extent do we think this effect is dependent upon performance? And second, and perhaps most important, will any effect survive Salah’s departure? The only person to have thrice been crowned PFA Players’ Player of the Year has his last game for Liverpool later this month. How long-lasting do we think any parasocial contact effect will be?

You want more Liverpool? Try Florian Foos and Daniel Bischof’s study of the effect that the boycott of the Sun had on attitudes towards the EU; they estimate the leave vote there to be around eight to nine percentage points lower as a result. Or David Jeffery’s book on the transformation of the Conservatives fortunes in the city. In the 1968 local elections, the Conservatives won almost 80 per cent of council seats; today, zero. A book examining what causes dramatic changes in local government fortunes sounds topical. 

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A Alrababa’h et al, Can Exposure to Celebrities Reduce Prejudice? The Effect of Mohamed Salah on Islamophobic Behaviors and Attitudes, American Political Science Review (2021); F Foos and D Bischof, Tabloid Media Campaigns and Public Opinion: Quasi-Experimental Evidence on Euroscepticism in England. American Political Science Review (2022); D Jeffery, Whatever Happened To Tory Liverpool (2023)

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Image by: PA Images / Alamy

3 min read18 May

Dave Clements has written a lucid examination of the impact of unnecessary SEND diagnoses on both children and the education system

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Dave Clements’ book is lucid, well-informed and honest, highlighting a plethora of problems in the SEND system that many in education are reluctant to acknowledge. It is also is a deep cry of parental pain: the author has skin in the game.

As he lays out, the recent explosion in SEND is not about physical disability or cognitive impairment. Instead it is overwhelmingly about children like Clements’s son, diagnosed with one or more conditions of autism, ADHD and other disorders linked to behavioural problems.

Clements shows that some (not all) of this come from overdiagnosis. He does not mention the highly influential 2013 American DSM-5 definition of autism, which lowered the diagnostic bar substantially. One participating psychiatrist has apologised for his part, saying the wider definition is contributing to “massive, careless over-diagnosis of autism”. The book discusses how unnecessary diagnoses can affect children, reducing their agency and self-belief as well as lowering others’ expectations of them. And it recognises the problems when services are overwhelmed by demand from children who may not need or benefit from them, at the expense of those who really do need them.

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It is easier for the state to be kind than to be honest

He bravely tackles parenting: some children’s very real problems may not be intrinsic to the child but about poor parenting, without the boundaries and certainties that children need to develop healthily. But our reluctance to stigmatise makes it easier to label children without naming the likely cause.

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And equally bravely, he tackles the perverse incentives in the education, benefits and welfare systems. A SEND label can unlock extra help at school and other accommodations and dispensations: a reader and scribe and extra time for tests and exams, and may entitle the family to extra benefits. A rational parent will fight to keep this even if a child no longer needs the package.

Clements describes the burdens this creates for schools, but omits the evidential gap: we know little about what (beyond coherent and well-sequenced curriculum, well taught in an orderly classroom) is effective for different types of SEND, and almost nothing about what represents good value to the public purse – there is no NICE for SEND.

Spending more money on a child will not necessarily improve their experience or outcomes. But parents desperately want to believe that something can be done, and it is easier for the state to be kind than to be honest. This may explain why we already spend £15bn a year – more than £500 from every household – on high needs SEND and children’s disability living allowance, with no real idea of what difference this spending makes.

The tragedy is that the current system was created with good intentions, by governments of all colours. Statutory entitlements for SEND (and social care) were never expected to bankrupt local authorities and starve them of resources for other functions. But even bad law is difficult to unpick. The current government has already essentially ducked with its SEND white paper, which will create more workload in schools and, probably, more dissatisfied parents believing their children are being short-changed. Time to think again.

Baroness Spielman: Conservative peer and former Ofsted chief inspector

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The Crisis in the Classroom: How the needs explosion is destroying education

By: Dave Clements

Publisher: Luath Press

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The post ‘We must break the spell of trans’ appeared first on spiked.

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