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The Israel lobby, its political allies and its media actors have been pushing a farcical narrative that last week’s acquittal of six anti-genocide activists from the Filton 24 was unsafe. The supposed ‘reason’ for this unsafe verdict was ‘jury-tampering’. The supposed jury-tampering? Placards near the court that reminded jurors of their legal right to ignore the trial’s biased judge and acquit.

Filton acquittal to be challenged?

It’s nonsense, and recent legal precedent shows it’s nonsense. But nonetheless, the Crown Prosecution Service has announced that it will seek a retrial of the six who dared to defeat its first attempt to criminalise and imprison them for trying to stop Israel’s Gaza genocide.

It’s nonsense because this is not the first time the UK government has tried it – and it was laughed out of court. The dying Sunak government tried to prosecute pensioner Trudi Warner for holding up a placard outside the trial of climate activists. The placard read:

Jurors, you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience.

The government’s barrister Aidan Eardley KC told the judge that the prosecution needed to go ahead “to maintain public confidence” in the independence of the jury system. He added that if Warner wasn’t punished for holding up the sign, actions to remind juries of their rights were “likely to propagate”.

The judge threw the prosecution case out of court, saying it was ridiculous to prosecute someone for reminding someone else of their legal rights. He also pointed out that the same reminder is on a placard on a wall inside the Old Bailey courthouse (emphasis added):

Overall, in my judgment, the claim is based on a mischaracterisation of what Ms Warner did that morning and a failure to recognise that what her placard said outside the court reflects essentially what is regularly read on the Old Bailey plaque by jurors, and what our highest courts recognise as part of our constitutional landscape.

Holding up a sign reminding juries of their right to acquit is not just legal. It is a right that “our highest courts recognise as part of our constitutional landscape”.

If it’s legal, it can’t be jury-tampering – because jury-tampering is a crime. Case closed, except for the tame corporate media like Murdoch’s Times.

Show trials

But the reason that the Israel lobby in and out of Parliament and the CPS is trying to have it ruled as jury-tampering is that jury-tampering is one of the grounds that allows people to be prosecuted for an alleged offence despite being found not guilty. And the lobby – from Number 10 down – is desperate to get a conviction, both to cement Palestine Action as ‘terrorists’ and to deter future resistance to genocide. Canary CEO Steve Topple did an explainer video on how the double-jeopardy exception works:

Based on legal precedent, the government/lobby (same difference) case is bollocks. But will the judge deciding whether to grant a re-trial care?

Featured image via the Canary

Anas Sarwar has called for Keir Starmer to resign as Prime Minister (Alamy)

3 min read49 min

Sarwar made the intervention in a press conference on Monday afternoon, in the latest blow to Starmer’s premiership.

PoliticsHome understands that Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan could follow Sarwar in calling for Starmer to step down.

Speaking at an unscheduled press conference on Monday afternoon, Sarwar said: “The distraction needs to end and the leadership in Downing Street has to change” and “the situation in Downing Street is not good enough”.

Sarwar said the decision to speak out against Starmer “is not easy and “not without pain” as he has “a genuine friendship with Keir Starmer”.

But he said his “first priority” had to be to his country.

Sarwar said: “We cannot allow the failures at the heart of Downing Street to mean the failures continue here in Scotland, because the election is not without consequence for the lives of Scots.

“The situation in Downing Street is not good enough. There have been too many mistakes. They promised they were going to be different, but too much has happened.

“Have there been good things? Of course there have many of them, but no one knows them and no one can hear them because they’re being drowned out.

“That is why it cannot continue.”

Sarwar said he had spoken to Starmer earlier on Monday and “it’s safe to say that he and I disagreed”.

His call for Starmer to quit comes after the Prime Minister lost his director of communications, Tim Allan, and his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, in less than 24 hours, with both resigning in quick succession.

McSweeney announced his resignation on Sunday over his role in the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador.

The pressure on Starmer has been growing since his admission at PMQs on Wednesday that he knew about the ongoing friendship between Mandelson and paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein when the former was appointed as US ambassador.

Labour is expected to suffer significant losses at Scottish Parliament elections in May, with the party trailing both the Scottish National Party and Reform UK.

A Scottish Labour source told PoliticsHome that Sarwar wanted to be the first to make the call for Starmer to go to gain the maximum electoral advantage among the devolved leaders ahead of the Holyrood elections.

The source confirmed there have been conversations between Sarwar and allies of Health Secretary Wes Streeting, widely seen as a leading candidate to succeed Starmer, in the run-up to the decision to call for Starmer to quit, though the electoral factor was the key reason for his announcement.

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy posted on X in support of Starmer, saying he “won a massive mandate 18 months ago, for five years to deliver on Labour’s manifesto that we all stood on”.

He added: “We should let nothing distract us from our mission to change Britain and we support the Prime Minister in doing that.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Defence Secretary John Healey and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Steve Reed have also posted online in support of the Prime Minister.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “Keir Starmer is one of only four Labour leaders ever to have won a general election.

“He has a clear five-year mandate from the British people to deliver change, and that is what he will do.”

More follows…

Additional reporting by Sienna Rodgers

Labour and its press allies continue to try to undermine popular Green party candidate Hannah Spencer in the Gorton and Denton by-election. Predictably, the tactics on show are the most hypocritical and tin-eared imaginable.

In an Observer article yesterday, Labour’s corporate-lobbyist, NHS privatiser candidate Angeliki Stogia tried laughably to claim that Spencer should stand aside because:

Every Green vote is going to make Reform very happy.

With hypocrisy that should be astonishing but isn’t, she also claimed the Greens had shared “misleading” polling showing they are the main hope of defeating Reform UK.

Labour just got caught using a poll based on responses from just 51 people to try to claim it is in a good position. Even Labour fan and war criminal Alistair Campbell dismissed it as “bullshit”.

Labour hypocrisy

The hypocrisy didn’t end there. Stogia also claimed to be angry that Reform is “spread[ing] division” in the constituency. Reform’s whole playbook is division, of course, but Stogia’s boss Keir Starmer constantly tries to out-Reform Reform. Remember his “island of strangers” speech, compared to racist Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” incitement? Or how about Labour boasting about how many people it has deported?

Stogia’s Guardian-assisted nonsense comes shortly after Labour’s deputy leader Lucy Powell begged and stamped her feet to demand the Greens step aside. But the bookies – not known for throwing their money away – make Spencer odds-on (5/6) favourite to win, with Reform next on 13/8. Labour trail miles behind – 9/1 in a three-horse race is dire.

If Labour was really interested in ‘stopping Reform’, Starmer would be telling Stogia to stand aside and begging the public to support the Greens.

Featured image via the Canary

Another day, another media shill doing the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) job of turning the public against PIP claimants for them. Most annoyingly, this time it’s a physically disabled person who is throwing people with mental health conditions under the bus. But then it is Julie Burchill.

DWP don’t need a hand denigrating mental health

Burchill is, by her own definition. a ‘Rad-fem, Christian Zionist’, she’s best known for her abhorrent views on immigration and transphobia. So it figures that she’s also horribly lateral ableist too. In a column in the i Paper Burchill wrote:

If you’re too anxious to work but go on holiday, you shouldn’t get PIP.

Siiiigh, same old bullshit. It doesn’t need pointing out (again!) that personal independence payments (PIP) isn’t an out-of-work benefit. The article actually barely mentions claimants going on holiday; it’s a throwaway comment. But that didn’t stop the editor from making it the most clickbait possible headline.

Thankfully, Burchill does correct herself on the employment fact in the piece, but she also adds:

Of course, you can work and still receive PIP – as I do – but I do think too many people are getting it when they could be supporting themselves.

Such as, for instance, a columnist who brags about squandering their wealth.

Punching down again

Burchill is of course, talking about people who she, and vast parts of the media, think don’t actually deserve PIP from the DWP – people with mental health conditions. This is just the latest in a long line of the government trying to de-legitimise people with mental health conditions, whilst planning to make it harder for those same people to claim PIP.

Burchill rightly points out how hard it is to get PIP, even if you have a very physically obvious disability. In her case, she’s a wheelchair user and can’t walk. She said it took her six months to be approved for PIP, however she also took the chance to shit on other disabled people:

I can’t help thinking that had I claimed the mental equivalent of a “bad back” – anxiety perhaps – I would have been awarded it a lot earlier

There’s more joys in life than work

Burchill’s ‘article’ is mostly a bizarre rant about how, if she’s worked nearly every day since becoming a wheelchair user, what’s stopping everyone else? Dunno babe, probably less understanding bosses and less flexibility because they’re not rich. Calling herself a ‘grafter’ not a ‘grifter’, she says:

I can’t think of anything worse for anyone’s mental health than not having a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

It’s really fucking sad that work is the only reason to get out of bed in the morning for many. My dog is my reason for getting out of bed. For some it’s simple joys like a good cup of coffee, their fave tv show to catch up on, or seeing friends. I love my job, but I’m also not some capitalist drone whose only joy is work.

The thing about the old ‘work is good for your mental health’ argument, though, is that it usually comes from people who are supported in their work. It doesn’t take into account just how soul-destroying and detrimental to your mental health an awful job with a horrible boss, can be.

Playing into the government’s hands

Instead of sympathising with this point, Burchill essentially implies that disabled people should be happy with any old menial job, whether or not it’s suited to their needs. Which, of course, fits the DWP’s narrative perfectly and helps them push disabled people into work

There’s also the point that apparently needs hammering home that PIP has fuck all to do with whether you can work or not. Because, despite stating this, she still spends the majority of the piece conflating anxiety with workshyness. Which, again, is something the government has done consistently.

Hilariously though, Burchill also thinks the government are on disabled people’s side here. She calls them ‘the chief sponsor of idleness’. It’s always those who think they’re sticking it to the establishment who are playing right into their hands.

The government and media are doing enough, we don’t need one of our own doing it too

At a time when the media and government are doing everything in their power to turn the public against people with mental health conditions, we don’t need one of our own on their side too. Though it’s made pretty clear that Burchill is one of those disabled people who thinks she will be spared from the hatred because she works hard and doesn’t complain:

During my year in a wheelchair, I’ve had to deal with all of these, alongside other emotions as varied as fear and fury; if I and other severely physically disabled people can learn to process these feelings, why can’t those with anxiety do the same

Let me tell you now, Julie, the hate mob doesn’t give a fuck if you’re on their side or not. They’ll come for us all in the end and won’t be happy until all disabled people are left to rot.

Deliberate choice to turn people against benefit claimants, again

Burchill’s piece was published alongside two others. The first by Carrie Grant who shares her own experience as a parent carer on how the SEND system failures feed into more people needing PIP. The second is by a former PIP assessor who points out how life-changing PIP can be for all claimants.

This could’ve and should’ve been an impactful and important series. However the i Paper couldn’t help themselves and had to ensure they included a hefty dose of the scrounger narrative too. There are so many campaigners who also claim PIP that they could’ve asked to write this.

This was a deliberate choice to de-legitimise mental health claimants. ‘Look, even REAL disabled people know they’re faking!” The fact that it’s a disabled person attacking other disabled people – and doing the DWP’s job for them – shows just how insidious the media narrative really is.

Featured image via the Canary

Bad Bunny just shook the US with his Super Bowl halftime show. And perhaps the most beautiful moment was when fellow Puerto Rican superstar Ricky Martin sang about US colonialism in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. This was especially poignant because of escalating US terror against Cuba right now.

Bad Bunny, Ricky Martin, and US colonialism

Puerto Rico is a US territory that has been denied full democratic rights. And Bad Bunny speaks to the island’s resistance during many years of financial crisis. His song Lo que le pasó a Hawaii (‘What happened to Hawaii‘) expresses a desire that the US doesn’t do to Puerto Rico what it has done to Hawaii.

Ricky Martin, who has previously joined Bad Bunny and others on the island in progressive political mobilisations, sang Lo que le pasó a Hawaii at the 2026 Super Bowl. The song says:

They want to take my river and my beach too
They want my neighborhood and grandma to leave
No, don’t let go of the flag nor forget the lelolai
‘Cause I don’t want them to do to you what happened to Hawaii

RICKY MARTIN IN THE HOUSE 🔥#AppleMusicHalftime pic.twitter.com/7JLXOKaTjj

— TSN (@TSN_Sports) February 9, 2026

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Ricky Martin looking straight into the camera while singing “LO QUE LE PASO A HAWAII” was ✨chef’s kiss✨ This is politics. pic.twitter.com/JkmEHyIJSN

— ✨ (@greenzeldy) February 9, 2026

As Hawaiian news outlet KHON2 explains:

Puerto Rico has been a colony of the United States since 1898 — the same year that the US illegally annexed Hawaiʻi…

As people indigenous to the land get pushed out, Bad Bunny described outsiders who came into the island, hungry to take things for themselves…

The song compares Puerto Rico’s colonization to that of Hawaiʻi’s; the issues Bad Bunny highlighted in the song are the same issues shared by many Native Hawaiians today.

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The same story in Cuba – right now, in 2026

The US didn’t just occupy Puerto Rico after independence from Spain. It occupied and interfered in Cuba too, which shared culture and history with Puerto Rico. But to stop its influence waning in the Caribbean after Cuba’s 1959 revolution, the US embedded itself further in Puerto Rico while seeking to strangle Cuba economically.

US imperialism has long sought to dominate in the Americas, often through brutality. And following its illegal invasion of Venezuela and abduction of its president, the US under Donald Trump has intensified its stranglehold on Cuba. There was no provocation. This is blatant imperialism, out in the open for all to see.

Trump’s racist regime, with the support of largely white Cuban exiles in Florida like Marco Rubio, is manufacturing a famine on the island. In an escalation of its devastating economic terrorism, it has been intimidating other countries into cutting Cuba off from the outside world.

The American government is generating a famine in Cuba with its fuel embargo. Once again, The United States uses hunger as a weapon of war

— Climate Defiance (@ClimateDefiance) February 8, 2026

🇨🇺 BREAKING | Cuba has warned international airlines that it will run out of jet fuel within 24 hours, citing intensified U.S. energy pressure, according to an official aviation notice seen by EFE. The shortage affects all of Cuba’s international airports from Feb. 10 to March… https://t.co/MWbTWIt8AI

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) February 9, 2026

“We call it a blockade, they euphemistically call it an embargo.

It is neither blockade nor embargo – it is war.” https://t.co/X74iiq1UOk pic.twitter.com/Bxe2f5kAWn

— COMBATE |🇵🇷 (@upholdreality) February 8, 2026

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If other countries allow the US to get away with starving Cuba of oil, any one of them could be next.

Starmer, Macron and other Euro leaders may be as anti-Cuba as Trump, but that will count for nothing.

As Greenland shows, he’ll pursue US self-interest no matter who it hurts. https://t.co/AIv2cDfYFZ

— Steve Howell (@FromSteveHowell) February 8, 2026

Cuba has sent tens of thousands of doctors, nurses, teachers, & scientists to more than 100 countries around the world

The international community owes a debt of humanity to ensure Trump does not starve the Cuban people into submission

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The medieval US blockade is a war crime

— Chris Hazzard MP (@ChrisHazzardSF) February 7, 2026

The 2026 Super Bowl got the biggest viewing figures ever, for one of the world’s highest-profile sporting events. So Bad Bunny and Ricky Martin bringing the reality of US colonialism into the heart of the empire was a massive moment. And it came at a moment when Cuban lives literally depend on global resistance to US terror.

Featured image via the Canary

Laura Álvarez has sparked debate online within Your Party following a comment about a candidate not aligning with Jeremy Corbyn’s slate. And the row has helped highlight the urgent need for both transparency and respectful debate in the party.

Álvarez, who married Corbyn in 2012, kept a low profile while Corbyn was Labour leader. But she has spoken a lot about Your Party during its founding process, particularly in support of Corbyn’s The Many slate in the party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections.

Your Party public spat

The Grassroots Left slate aligns with Zarah Sultana’s vision for Your Party. And Álvarez suggested that a candidate for this slate was “unknown in the community” of Islington.

This was apparently a reference to Anahita Zardoshti, the “founder and chair of Your Party’s Islington proto-branch”. Zardoshti came second in the endorsement phase of the CEC election:

Who’s unknown, @LauraAlvarezJC? If you’re gonna have a dig at Anahita at least have the good grace to name her.

I’d say the number of endorsements largely speaks for itself as for whether she is ‘unknown’… https://t.co/fjXGTSTs49 pic.twitter.com/ZuOLvqW9Wk

— Cllr James Giles (@JamesGilesRBK) February 8, 2026

Just a bit rude to claim you don’t know a person when you voted for them to be a council candidate with @IslingtonIndep and invited them to your Christmas party.

Here’s a pic of me and @Ana_Zardoshti at your Christmas party with Jeremy to help jog your memory https://t.co/0P0UnoEBE7 pic.twitter.com/y9tcuuPRIK

— Nathaniel (@NathanielYPI) February 8, 2026

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Councillor James Giles, a Sultana ally, questioned Álvarez’s public comment. But Álvarez responded by saying:

I told you to never contact me again

Laura your ad hominem attacks on me, now on Anahita and the rest of the movement need to stop. And on the other items – I think we all know what happened.

The only thing I did on July 3rd was democratically vote on whether we wanted a sole leadership of Jeremy Corbyn or a…

— Cllr James Giles (@JamesGilesRBK) February 8, 2026

What followed was a number of comments asking Giles not to question Álvarez. But in the interests of transparency, it seems perfectly acceptable to scrutinise personal comments suggesting we should doubt candidates’ role in their community.

No one in the public arena should ever be beyond scrutiny

The establishment smear campaign against the left that intensified under Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party left deep scars. It left distrust, anger, and defensiveness. And it left pain.

However, we’re at a moment where socialists are building back a meaningful resistance. And with the Green Party successfully tapping into the burning desire for change in the country, a Your Party that shuts down internal criticism or wastes time with factional arguments may not last too long.

There are genuine critiques we could make about everyone. And we don’t need to support a specific faction in order to believe that. There needs to be open, respectful debate. Because members agree on most things, and it should be easy to reach comradely agreements on the other areas.

We absolutely should be asking questions about:

There is a real buzz on the ground about what Your Party could become. People know what they want. And as the statistics show pretty clearly, that isn’t factional infighting and public spats. Because there are hundreds of thousands of people who initially expressed interest but have so far stayed away.

The Greens have grown massively under Zack Polanski because there’s a clear direction of travel, and there’s a willingness to work together with all progressives. If Your Party genuinely wants to grow into a meaningful movement for change, it could learn a lot from the Greens right now.

Featured image via the Canary

Morgan McSweeney is the architect of Keir Starmer’s Labour and a top-tier dickhead. On 8 February, he finally resigned – namely because he was the man who proposed that the disgraced Peter Mandelson take on the ambassador to the US position.

It seems the Labour party hasn’t changed, however, as politicians are coming out to defend him:

Sorry to see this decision by Morgan, it’s a very dignified statement and reflects the character of someone I know to be thoughtful and dedicated to Labour and the security and prosperity of the country. https://t.co/DIDBCSvHsM

— Luke Akehurst (@lukeakehurst) February 8, 2026

Defending the indefensible

If you’re not too sure of who McSweeney is, let’s just call him the cunt-in-chief behind Starmer. The Canary’s Skwawkbox captured who he is perfectly:

McSweeney is a horror. Undeclared donations from the Israel lobby, spying on journalists, covert campaigns to destroy media that highlight his boss’s crimes, deep connections with genocidal Israel and a coordinated sabotage campaign to prevent Labour winning the 2019 general election. His fingerprints are on all of it.

How the fuck can you defend that? But weirdly, some Labour politicians have decided to die on that hill.

Giant walking baby and Zionist shill Luke Akehurst is one of those who defended him. Weird, that a man who consistently denies a genocide would have other shit opinions…

Akehurst doing his best to ignore his world crumbling around him

One by one, we’re going to pluck these disgusting, paracitical, perverted little creeps out of power

And you’re on the list Luke, you Zionist loving little polyp

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Tick tock 😊 https://t.co/8DWp8zmxb5

— 𝔸𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕗𝕒𝔹𝕠𝕥 – AKA The Intolerant Left (@_Wrevolution_) February 9, 2026

Baroness Jacqui Smith also came out swinging on McSweeney’s behalf:

Baroness Jacqui Smith defends what Morgan McSweeney has done to the Labour Party & says shes grateful to him for it.

Yes Labour gives top govt jobs to the best friends of paedophiles, & I’m grateful for it! pic.twitter.com/a4xpipqH2g

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— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 9, 2026

If you’re unfamiliar Smith, she’s a former home secretary who misused over £116,000 in taxpayer-funded expenses.

It seems like figures from the Labour right are still not ready to let go of McSweeney and his disgusting legacy. I wonder how many more will come out of the woodwork…

The rot

So, it seems like Labour hasn’t really changed at all. Yes, they may have lopped off the worst of the rot, but it definitely runs deeper than McSweeney and Mandelson.

Featured image via Terry Ott (Wikimedia)