March 2027 was due to be a milestone in plastic recycling. But the government has confirmed that it’s no longer the date from which councils in England will have to collect items such as bread bags, crisp packets and plastic film.

Instead this rule will come into force on 1 April 2030. The decision could put up to 846,000 tonnes of potential carbon savings at risk.

Bin boffins at BusinessWaste.co.uk have calculated what the three-year delay could mean if flexible plastics continue to go into general waste rather than recycling.

How much flexible plastic does this impact?

The FlexCollect project, which tested flexible plastic collections across ten council areas, estimated that just over 150,000 tonnes of flexible packaging could have been collected from households during 2027.

Using the 150,000 tonnes figure as a baseline, this means that by 2030, the delay could affect over 450,000 tonnes of plastic.

The carbon estimates use WRAP’s CarbonWARM2 figures for plastic film and DEFRA data on England’s municipal residual waste treatment.

Around 71% of this waste goes to energy recovery facilities, while 29% goes to landfill. Applying that split to the 450,000-tonne estimate produces a potential carbon difference of between 734,600 and 845,800 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, compared with recycling.

However, this is just an estimate, as some councils may introduce flexible plastics collections before 2030, and supermarket take-back schemes may also continue. How much plastic is ultimately affected will depend on household participation and whether enough facilities are available to sort and recycle it.

This estimate does show what could be at stake if the delay continues to see flexible plastic thrown into general waste.

Why the delay to collections?

The waste industry has warned that the UK does not yet have enough sorting and recycling capacity to deal with the amount of material that national collections would generate.

In addition, some councils have also raised concerns about the cost of changing collection services and whether they would have reliable places to send the plastic. Collecting more material would achieve little if recycling plants were unable to take it, so the delay gives the government and the waste industry another three years to address the shortfall.

Mark Hall, Simpler Recycling expert at BusinessWaste.co.uk, said:

The delay makes sense if councils cannot be confident that the plastic they collect will actually be recycled. Asking households to separate material only for it to be rejected or burned would quickly damage trust in the system.

But with over three years until the 2030 deadline, the government needs to set annual milestones for new sorting and reprocessing facilities, alongside clear information on where collected material will go to avoid further delays closer to the time.

For this to be effective, businesses also need certainty, as recycling facilities require time and investment, which may be prevented without clear plans. More can also happen in this time: councils that already have suitable recycling facilities shouldn’t be discouraged from introducing collections earlier, and retailers should make their take-back points easier to find and use.

The packaging itself also needs improvement. Manufacturers should use the extra time to simplify designs, remove unnecessary layers and avoid using hard-to-recycle materials. If the material being placed on the market continues to be difficult or uneconomical to process, simply changing the collection date will not solve the issue.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

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The Good Law Project (GLP) has announced its intention to oppose a legal challenge mounted by the vehemently transphobic Bayswater Support Group against the upcoming puberty blocker trial for trans youth healthcare. Trans-led charity Gendered Intelligence will lead the case against Bayswater, should the need arise.

On 27 July, the Good Law Project posted:

The controversial Bayswater Support Group have teamed up with claimants including Keira Bell, whose legal challenge to young trans healthcare in 2020 was overturned on appeal, following an intervention by Good Law Project. In a case funded by a group with links to the far right, they are asking the High Court for permission to challenge the NHS Pathways trial.

Of course, this isn’t the first time the transphobes have tried to stop the puberty blockers trial. Last year, MPs including Kemi Badenoch, Iqbal Mohamed, Rosie Duffield, and Rupert Lowe tried to halt the trial in parliament.

As the Canary reported at the time, the Tory-commissioned Cass Review — itself widely criticised by the medical community for its massive level of bias — called for the trial. Likewise, the leadership of the Pathways trial itself is riddled with anti-trans ideologues.

Ant-Trans Bayswater Support Group

And yet, even this hasn’t been enough to appease the transphobic zealots of the Bayswater Support Group. Regarding the organisation, the Trans Safety Network explained that:

While Bayswater present themselves as a support group for parents, TBIJ’s findings show they operate as a conversion therapy activist organisation with direct links to political campaigning against the rights of trans children and young people.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism also noted that:

Bayswater appears to have successfully lobbied to water down prosecution guidelines for anti-trans domestic abuse.

So, obviously, Bayswater has the best interests of trans kids at heart. The Good Law Project went on to explain:

The claimants suggest that the trial may be unlawful because prescribing puberty blockers to the young people in the trial would fail to safeguard their “rights, safety and wellbeing”. But this isn’t what the evidence suggests – and puberty blockers remain a standard treatment for young trans people across the world.

On top of that, the UK itself still considers puberty blockers safe enough to administer to cis children who are going through precocious puberty. The rules are just different for trans kids.

Of course, that’s before we get to the fact that suicides spiked among trans youth immediately after the government issued its near-total ban on hormones and puberty blockers for young trans people. It’s almost as if the NHS used to issue that medication for a fucking reason, isn’t it?

Healthcare decisions for healthcare professionals

The Good Law Project stated:

If the High Court allows this challenge to go forward, Good Law Project will support the trans youth charity, Gendered Intelligence, with an application to intervene – defending the rights of young trans people who should be able to access puberty-blocking treatment. Important decisions about gender-affirming care should be made by young people and their clinicians. Not by politicians or activists who fight against trans rights.

Healthcare decisions should be made by healthcare professionals? What a world that would be.

Featured image via the Canary / Unsplash

By Grace

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Actor and abuser Johnny Depp is attempting to ‘return to Hollywood’ with a terrible-looking remake of A Christmas Carol.

It was announced at San Diego Comic-Con that Ebenezer, a new film based on Dickens’ Christmas cautionary tale, would be coming to theatres on 13 November. In the starring role is the aforementioned abuser.

And it’s truly all about him and his valiant return to Hollywood, but let’s not talk about why he’s been missing for so long.

First trailer for ‘EBENEZER’, a new film based on ‘A Christmas Carol’ starring Johnny Depp.

In theaters on November 13. pic.twitter.com/9MrsOuxoBX

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— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) July 24, 2026

Amidst sprawling shots of an American’s vision of Victorian London, the trailer announces:

He brought us Jack Sparrow, Edward Scissorhands and The Mad Hatter.

This Thanksgiving the Master of Misfits returns

Master of Misfits is a funny way to say ‘man who raped and fantasised about setting his wife on fire’, but okay.

https://t.co/bjyzjFckEo pic.twitter.com/5OM49cA88u

— kenzie xcx (@kenzie__xcx) July 23, 2026

Johnny Depp is a wifebeater

In 2020, a British judge ruled that The Sun newspaper’s assessment of Depp as a wifebeater was ‘substantially true’. The washed-up abuser sued the paper for a 2018 headline that read:

Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be ‘genuinely happy’ casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?

During the trial, Depp’s ex-partner Amber Heard and her lawyer presented 14 incidents of domestic violence between 2013 and 2016. These included incidents of rape, physical and psychological abuse. The judge drew particular attention to three incidents in which he said Depp had put Heard ‘in fear for her life’.

As part of the trial, reams of evidence was read aloud, Such as text messages exchanged between Depp and actor Paul Bettany where they discussed burning, drowning and having sex with Heard’s corpse.

In one incident highlighted by the judge, Depp was physically and verbally abusive towards Heard. During this incident, he injured his finger and admitted to scrawling messages in blood.  During the trial, Depp accused Heard of injuring his finger, but the judge did not accept this.

The judge said:

It is a sign of the depth of his rage that he admitted scrawling graffiti in blood from his injured finger and then, when that was insufficient, dipping his badly injured finger in paint and continuing to write messages and other things

I accept her evidence of the nature of the assaults he committed against her. They must have been terrifying.

Depp then sued Heard for defamation in 2022 after a 2018 op-ed published in the Washington Post detailed Depp’s abuse against her. The article was about how the entertainment industry protects famous abusers. She did not mention Depp by name.

She wrote:

I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out. […] I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.

What was clear from this case was how off the unanimous online support for Depp and vicious hatred for Heard was. It’s no secret that male famous abusers are always protected and believed. but this was off the charts. 

An engineered hate campaign against Heard

On the podcast Who Trolled Amber Heard, Alexi Mostrous uncovered how fake pro-Depp accounts flooded social media ahead of the defamation trial.

The podcast analysed over a million pro-Depp tweets and found that over 50% of them were either from bots or paid trolls. They then found a small network which prior to the campaign, posted hundreds of now-deleted tweets in Arabic praising the Saudi regime.

As the BBC said:

Depp has visited Saudi on several occasions and is a personal friend of Mohammed Bin Salman, the country’s ruler. Saudi has also financed the actor’s two most recent films – Jeanne du Barry and Modi. And Saudi Arabia has a long history of using bots to manipulate social discourse.

There is, of course, no evidence that Depp and his team were involved in any of this and they denied any connection. Though the number of Saudi accounts was small, they could’ve had a big impact as part of a wider campaign.

As the BBC continued:

While we don’t know if any of the social media activity affected the US Depp vs Heard trial, we do know that the jury wasn’t sequestered, meaning they could technically read what was being said about the case on the internet.

The trial itself was treated more like a Johnny Depp fan event than a serious legal trial. Fans showed up with posters and the trial was even live-streamed.

Depp was eventually awarded $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages from Heard. However, the punitive damages charges were reduced to $350,000 due to a limit imposed by Virginia state law. Heard was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages after countersuing Depp, however, the media and social trolls against Heard meant the case was seen as a win for Depp.

This all added up to Depp still being a beloved actor instead of a wifebeater (which he is(.

Depp is attempting to rehab his career, but he’s still an abuser

Alongside the trailer dropping, SDCC held a pop-up Scrooge and Marley shop where Depp appeared in costume. Instead of being pelted with tomatoes and booed, he was welcomed like a hero with crowds of cheering fans.

Following the announcement, fans flooded social media with support for Depp and abusing Heard again, which is undoubtedly what Depp and his team wanted. This film and the marketing around it is so obviously a desperate attempt to bring Depp back into the public’s adoration.

But they’re going to have to work harder than a shitty remake of a film we’ve seen a million times to undo what this vile man did.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

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On 29 July 2026, the High Court will decide whether to grant permission for a judicial review of Bexley Council’s decision to approve Peabody’s plans to redevelop the Lesnes Estate. The brutalist development is better known as the ‘Clockwork Orange’ estate, and sits in Thamesmead, south-east London.

Adam Turk is a Lesnes resident and social tenant of Peabody Housing Association. He has brought the legal challenge with support from the Public Interest Law Centre (PILC). The estate gained recognition after appearing in the cult 1971 film A Clockwork Orange.

Turk has campaigned for tenants’ rights on the estate for several years and continues to oppose the proposed demolition. The PILC has supported tenants in resisting the demolition for several years. Preserving the estate is not only essential to protecting residents’ homes but also to reducing avoidable environmental harm.

The planning application fails to account adequately for the greenhouse gas emissions that would result from demolition and redevelopment. This is despite the availability of lower-carbon alternatives such as refurbishment or retrofitting. In light of the government’s plan to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, retrofitting or refurbishment should be the first port of call over demolition.

The Lesnes legal challenge

Bexley Council’s planning officers resolved to grant Peabody’s planning application in October 2022. And they granted permission on 23 December 2025.

The proposed judicial review focuses on how Bexley Council assessed Peabody’s planning application.

The planning application required an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), supported by an Environmental Statement. Under established planning practice, known as the Rochdale envelope, an EIA must assess the likely environmental impacts across the full range of development that could be built under the planning permission. This must include assessing the worst-case scenario within the maximum development parameters.

Turk argues that Peabody failed to assess the realistic worst-case greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, it calculated emissions based on a single illustrative masterplan submitted with the outline application, rather than the maximum development parameters permitted.

Legal grounds

The challenge is based on two grounds:

• First, Turk argues that the council failed to apply the Rochdale approach because it didn’t assess greenhouse gas emissions using the full Rochdale envelope.
• Second, he argues that the officer’s report materially misled the planning committee. It gave little attention to greenhouse gas emissions and did not explain that it hadn’t assessed them using the required Rochdale approach.

Turk argues that the council could have reached a materially different outcome, had it assessed the greenhouse gas impacts correctly using the Rochdale envelope.

If the High Court grants permission for the judicial review to proceed, the case could have significant implications for the future of the Lesnes Estate redevelopment. And it could affect how local authorities assess the environmental impacts of major developments more generally.

Campaigners hope that less environmentally harmful measures, such as refurbishment or retrofitting, will be considered more thoroughly in estate redevelopments.

Too often, people’s homes are treated as expendable in the pursuit of profit. The PILC stands alongside tenants on estates like Lesnes, supporting communities as they challenge major developers.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Scotland is lawless’

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

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

Greer then turned his criticism to Reform MSP Thomas Kerr:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Those responsible should face the full force of the law.

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

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

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

Work with us, not against us.

Nazis and their Reform-aligned friends

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

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

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

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

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

By Grace

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Migrant and disabled communities are fighting the same war

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

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

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

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

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

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

Falling into the contribution trap

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

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

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

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

Enhancing the credibility of the system

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

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

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

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

enhance the credibility of the system.

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

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

Featured image via the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

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

4 min read1 hr

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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