Right then. Let’s not mess about. Andy Burnham has been Prime Minister for two weeks and already the man who promised real change and a break with the past, has filled his top team with so many Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) veterans, pro-Israel donors, and establishment re-treads you’d be forgiven for thinking Starmer never actually left.

Burnham offers just more of the same

We were told it would be different. Burnham said he had heard the anger. He knew people were sick of being ignored and sick of lobbyists calling the shots; sick of foreign governments dictating our foreign policy while our own people go hungry. And then? He turns around and hires the exact same people who’ve been doing exactly that for the last decade.

Let’s run the numbers, because they tell a story even the BBC can’t spin. Almost 40% of Burnham’s cabinet are affiliated with LFI — the lobby group that works hand-in-glove with the Israeli embassy. It doesn’t expose its funders, and LFI’s former director went on to become a spokesperson for the Israeli government.

Not some of them. Not just a few bad apples. Two in every five. And that’s just the ones we can name. The real figure is almost certainly higher. And it’s not his cabinet. It’s the people he’s put in the most powerful jobs around him. The ones who actually write the policy. The ones who decide who gets listened to and who gets shown the door.

Take James Purnell, Burnham’s new chief of staff. The most important job in Downing Street outside of the prime minister himself. And who is Purnell? The former chair of LFI.

Purnell ran the lobby group between 2002 and 2004. A Blairite through and through, and it should go without saying, Purnell voted for the Iraq war. Now, he’s running Burnham’s operation.

The list goes on and on

Then there’s Bridget Phillipson. Burnham’s first big appointment as Labour Party chair was announced in the last few days. She’s been in the role for barely a week and it’s already been reported that she’s received two £40,000 donations from Stuart Roden, a financier whose Tel Aviv-based venture capital firm employs “an array of former Israeli soldiers, many of whom have served in elite intelligence units”.

Roden holds private meetings with the Israeli ambassador.

And it’s not just Phillipson — Lisa Nandy, another top Burnham appointee, also took £40,000 from him. And we’re supposed to believe that doesn’t matter?

But it somehow gets worse because it’s not just money, it’s the policy. Burnham spent months hinting he’d be different on Gaza and has apologised for Starmer’s slow response. But he then, of course, reappointed Ian Austin as UK trade envoy to Israel. Yes, that Ian Austin.

The man who quit Labour over Corbyn, was ennobled by Boris Johnson, has falsely smeared pro-Palestine campaigners as antisemites and Holocaust deniers. He was forced to apologise in court. This is the man who has openly defended Israel’s actions in Gaza even after the UN said it found a plausible risk of genocide and Burnham put him back in the job as if nothing happened.

Poor judgement and poor leadership.

Of course Burnham won’t say the ‘G’ word

Let that sink in. While millions of people in this country are horrified by what’s happening in Gaza — marching, protesting, donating, begging for our government to stop sending arms and start speaking up — Burnham’s response is to promote the lobbyists, reinstall the smeer-merchants, and pack the cabinet with LFI veterans.

It is insulting and frustrating in equal measures. Burnham had a clean slate. He could have done anything. He could have reached for people who’ve actually stood up for Palestine and who’ve actually fought for public services. Those who answer to us and not foreign lobbyists. Instead, Burnham gazed at the list of Starmer’s most loyal pro-Israel ministers, crossed out the ones the papers didn’t like, and put the rest in charge.

Wes Streeting — LFI.

Ed Milliband — LFI.

John Healey — LFI.

Yvette Cooper— LFI.

The list goes on. These aren’t accidental appointments. These are not the best people for the job. This is the establishment’s safety net.

They let Burnham have the job because they, and we knew, they were guaranteed; that when it came to things that actually matter to power, he’d pick the same team.

I’m not claiming any of these people are inherently evil. It’s that there’s no fresh start here. There’s no break with the past. There is no Burnham revolution.

There’s a man who rode public anger into power on the back of a promise to change things. Then, the very first thing he did was hand the keys to the same people who’ve been driving us off a cliff for 20 years.

Did you really expect change?

If your top team is stuffed full of people with deep, documented financial and political ties to a foreign government — and that government is still slaughtering innocent civilians by the thousands — you cannot claim to be putting Britain first. You cannot claim to be different.

We can see the appointments, can see the donors and the lobby groups. Actions speak louder than Northern accents and so far, every single action of Andy Burnham’s since walking into Downing Street screams one thing loud and clear: business as usual.

Burnham hasn’t sailed into a new era. He’s just taken the wheel of the same ship, and the passengers he’s supposed to be carrying aren’t you and me.

They’re the one’s paying for the voyage and we all know who they are.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachael Swindon

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The fight over data centers has suddenly become a defining battle in the race to run Kansas — on both sides of the aisle.

Gubernatorial hopefuls are trying to leverage the issue to weaken their rivals in the final stretch before Tuesday’s primaries, with attack ads, dark money and accusations of flip-flopping roiling the race. Democratic state Sen. Cindy Holscher and GOP state Sen. Ty Masterson, two of the top contenders in their respective fields, are bearing the brunt of the criticism.

Republican businessman Philip Sarnecki has spent more than $300,000 on ads attacking Masterson for voting for a bill last year to expand data center construction and give 20-year tax breaks to developers, accusing him of being beholden to big tech.

On the Democratic side, Holscher voted for the same bill but has now staked out a populist stance calling for a moratorium on data centers — an appeal to the same grassroots base that has put her in a strong position to win. Her primary opponents are attacking her as a flip-flopper, and social media ads fueled by anonymous backers keep highlighting her past vote in support of data centers. She’s up against state Sen. Ethan Corson, whom Gov. Laura Kelly endorsed, and Overland Park Mayor Kurt Skoog.

The brawl shows just how divisive and complicated the politics of data centers has become, as politicians in both parties struggle to define a clear winning position on the mass hubs amid growing voter backlash. A July POLITICO Poll found that Americans are increasingly souring on data centers, a trend that’s especially evident among Democrats but crosses partisan lines.

Republican and Democratic candidates are harnessing that opposition to gain an edge in crowded primaries, a rare moment of partisan crossover that speaks to its potency. 

In Kansas, a state with nearly 40 data centers and many pending proposals, local opposition to the industry has animated city council meetings from Wichita to Kansas City. Several towns, like Topeka, have chosen to pass one-year moratoriums to give leaders more time to study the proposals.

Now, the state’s top race is getting caught in the crossfire, as Democrats look for a way to hold onto the governor’s mansion after eight years under Kelly — and Republicans grow bullish about taking back the seat in a red state that voted for President Donald Trump by 16 points in 2024.

“It’s bleeding across both primaries and it’s blurring traditional party stances,” said Bob Beatty, a political science professor at Washburn University in Topeka, who said the rapidly shifting politics speak to a growing “fear around AI.”

Tuesday’s Kansas primaries will help show the party bases’ appetite for data centers — signaling whether voters are looking for a leader who takes a strong position against new developments or a middle-of-the-road approach aimed at bringing in more tax revenue.

Both Masterson’s and Holscher’s campaigns are dismissive that the attack ads will work.

“It’s a very kind of kitchen sink approach here at the end,” said a Masterson campaign adviser, granted anonymity to speak freely about the race. The aide argued that the attacks have been ineffective against the state Senate president, especially given he’s the Trump-endorsed candidate in a state the president won three times.

Holscher, who said in an interview she regrets her vote, argued her new position reflects where people across the state stand now: “This is a unifying issue in terms of where people are on it, urban and rural as well as young and old,” she said in an interview. “I’m the only Democrat in this race to call for a moratorium on data centers because we have to get these guardrails in place. We are having our people and our resources exploited.”

Data center construction — and hostility towards them — exploded after passage of the 2025 legislation backed by Holscher and Masterson, which saw widestrong bipartisan support and was signed by Kelly, a pro-business Democrat.

Masterson has said that “folks build here on our terms, or they don’t build here,” and that local communities should be in charge of deciding whether they want the infrastructure. He supports a Kansas version of the White House’s position on data centers — a voluntary commitment designed to prevent them from driving up utility bills.

But several of his Republican opponents take a more hardline approach by calling for an outright moratorium, like Sarnecki and Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt, another candidate in the top tier of the field.

The Kansas Comeback PAC, linked to Sarnecki, has challenged Masterson’s vote for the 2025 bill. “After 20 years in politics, Ty Masterson has mastered the game,” the TV ad by Kansas Comeback PAC says. “Thousands from big tech. Rewarded them with tax breaks.”

On the Democratic side, it’s difficult to tell who’s leading the field given limited public polling. Holscher’s supporters have cast the race as a choice between a populist fighter and a safe establishment figure, and they believe she will be boosted by the national tailwinds propelling leftwing candidates in states like Colorado, New York and Michigan. One survey from June, conducted before the candidates began running ads, had Holscher up by 27 points.

Corson is also backed by former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Lt. Gov. David Toland, and supporters believe he has the necessary crossparty appeal to win the general election in conservative Kansas. Kelly cut a TV ad on his behalf that started to run in major media markets last week.

While Holscher now wants to pause construction to give time to develop regulations, Corson supports construction moving forward with data center development, with guardrails around energy costs and water usage.

“Cindy seems to think that we should just go along with her flip-flopping and not making up her mind and doing what’s politically convenient for her race, and that’s not what we’re going to do.” said Ty Dragoo, chair of the Working Kansas Alliance, a group of more than 23 unions. Corson has raked in endorsements from trades unions like those represented by Dragoo’s group.

“Our north star is to get jobs, to get high-paying jobs, and to get sustaining jobs, and we’re not going to deviate from that.”

Holscher says her experience holding town halls throughout the state, including in deep red areas, opened her eyes to the depth of the opposition to the developments, which have sparked concerns about human health and environmental harms like water usage.

“She’s been listening, and people just want to be heard,” said Democratic state Rep. Linda Featherston, a Holscher supporter. “You have to be out amongst the people listening to what they have to say and not just brushing them off.”

But Holscher’s push for a moratorium has alienated some county, state and labor leaders who see an opportunity for data centers to boost the state’s economy. Corson is advocating for a local-first approach where communities get to decide whether they want to welcome the industry, while at the same time instituting statewide regulations so that the facilities pay energy costs, minimize water usage and ease the tax burden on residents nearby.

“Ultimately, these decisions should be made by communities, not by politicians in Topeka,” Corson said in a statement. “I believe some communities will look at a potential project and decide to move forward, and when they do, my Department of Commerce will work side-by-side with them to make it as beneficial for the community as possible. But other communities will decide that a data center is not a good fit, and as governor, I will absolutely respect that decision.”

Corson’s war chest also puts him in a good position to face off against likely opponent Masterson, who will bring the force of the national GOP’s deep pockets. The Republican Governors Association has already placed a nearly $7 million TV ad reservation in major Kansas media markets starting immediately after the primary.

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Six weeks after it took place, the Oxford Union has released footage of its debate on Islam, and it’s yet another spectacular humiliation and defeat for bigot, criminal and scam artist Tommy Robinson.

A diverse team, which included the incongruous pairing of Palestinian Oxford Union president Arwa Elrayess, and former Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, easily put down the Islamophobes by a margin of 57 to 41.

Robinson’s team included fellow hatemongers and professional trolls, Lawrence Fox and Jonathan Sacerdoti.

The debate, titled This house believes that the West is right to be suspicious of Islam, was met with large protests back in June. Demonstrators were understandably irate at the Oxford Union offering an audience for Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon).

Alongside that, they argued with some justification that the motion was yet another platform for Islamophobia, when our legacy media grants just that every day of the week.

The counter-argument is that nothing harms charlatans like Robinson quite like exposing his hatred to scrutiny, and that’s exactly what happened as the opposing sides faced off.

Tommy Robinson challenged with facts and stats

Robinson began by attempting to claim that Islam is absolutist in nature, and incapable of finding common ground with others. He obviously is unaware that Muslims, along with Christians and Jews, lived in harmony for many years in places like Palestine. That is, until the creation of Robinson’s favourite exclusivist ethnostate, so-called ‘Israel’.

Likewise, contrary to what the far right would have us believe, there is no mass conflict led by Muslims against others in Britain or Ireland today. In reality, the worst violence that takes place is inflicted by intolerant non-Muslims against Muslims, migrants and people of colour, such as that carried out by loyalist thugs in Belfast.

Indeed, as Elrayess pointed out, Muslims are the most likely to be in favour of inclusive ways of organising society.

She said:

Eighty-five percent of British Muslims back democracy as the best system of government, [versus] the general public’s 71%. Ninety-four percent back equal treatment under the law for all faiths and none, [versus] the general public’s 80%.

Seven in 10 say they feel loyal to the United Kingdom; the general public – one in two. Eight in ten interact with non-Muslims at least weekly.

Nine in 10 say standing against bigotry, including antisemitism, matters to them. Four in ten have served themselves, or through family, in public service. On every single one of those measures, British Muslims are more committed to British values than the British average.

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Of course these are universal human values rather than “British values”, but that aside, the stats certainly put Robinson’s divisive shit to rest.

Robinson went on to cite regressive attitudes to homosexuality in Muslim majority countries. He’s obviously forgotten that, in terms of the long stretch of human history, it’s the equivalent of an eye blink since being gay was illegal in most Christian majority countries.

Self-righteousness by a Briton on this topic is a bit like being a raging alcoholic for decades, then berating others for having a drink once you’ve been sober for a day.

Robinson runs down Britain from Spanish hideout

Tommy Robinson’s opponents picked up on his tendency to cite practices he claimed were Islamic, despite having no basis in the Qur’an itself. Though the fact that all religious texts are open to endless interpretation anyway, betrays the somewhat absurd premise of the motion, and much debate on religion. Such discussion is not a remotely scientific exercise, and there is no objective ‘Islam’ that can ever be identified, just as for any other faith.

Luton-based podcaster Michael Doward proceeded to further undermine Robinson. Doward points out that Robinson likes to bolster his street cred with references to his own time in the supposedly Muslim-dominated town, yet does so from the comfort of sunny Spain. There is a pattern of far-right figures who like to pontificate about Britain’s supposed ills from a safe distance several thousand miles away.

The generally odious Jacob Rees-Mogg managed one of his broken clock moments to finish the debate, telling Robinson and co:

I thought I was coming up against the hard men of the right of British politics. The people who have a reputation for being tough and forthright and powerfully patriotic, and it turns out that they are wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beasties!

Because they have no confidence in the West, in their nation, in the religion [Christianity, according to Mogg] that has made our nation fine and great and strong. Instead they’re sitting there in their homes at night, fretting that we’re suddenly going to be converted to Islam. Well I’m not.

Feeble far right quiver in the corner

Much as we hate to give Rees-Mogg any credit, this is an effective summary of the true nature of the far right. Fundamentally, they are a pathetic lot, characterised by fear more than anything.

Zionists live in a self-created imaginarium in which Jewish people are perpetually on the verge of suffering a new holocaust. Israeli Occupation Forces embark on racist, genocidal violence, in part to try and prevent this fictional outcome.

Loyalists live under a permanent siege mentality, forever terrified of Catholics, Muslims, migrants, people of colour, plus probably the shadows on the wall and creaking floorboards too at this point. The far right generally are constantly panicking about white genocide and Muslim takeovers, despite violence from white people against others being far more of an issue.

That feeble lack of confidence is clearly prompted in part by the paucity of their knowledge and ideas, embodied once again by the ridiculous Robinson on the debating stage.

Featured image via Oxford Union

By Robert Freeman

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This email actually came in a couple of days ago, but we’ve been too dumbstruck to respond to it until now.

Because, like, wow.

Firstly, let’s take a moment to note the weird font change halfway through that central paragraph, as though someone else entirely butted in. And let’s also note that those 93 words took COPFS 27 days to come up with, which makes it all the more shocking that they haven’t even read the question.

The letter we sent them on 3 July couldn’t have been any more explicit: we WEREN’T asking them about fraud. We acknowledged fraud was hard to prove. We said, with the starkest clarity, that the issue was embezzlement.

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We’re sure they tried really hard to remember that.

But the eventual response is an insult so crassly contemptuous (and therefore entirely in character for the Crown Office, which is answerable to no-one and can do whatever it likes in Scotland) that it’s hard to know what to do about it. Normally officialdom at least vaguely pretends that it cares about accountability to the people that pay its wages, but to be frank it’d have been less offensively dismissive if COPFS had just sent us a dog turd in a jiffy bag.

We’ll let you know where we go from here when we know ourselves.

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Jewish anti-genocide activist Tony Greenstein says that multiple “political debanking” attacks have forced him into the “cash economy”.

His trial under the Terrorism Act, for supporting Palestinians’ legal right to resist Israel’s occupation, begins on18 August.

In a statement, Greenstein explains the history of debanking — an attack also used against the Canary — and details how he has been a recurrent victim of debanking as the UK state represses pro-Palestine speech.

In full, the statement reads:

When Nigel Farage was debanked in June 2023 by Coutts for his political opinions it made the national headlines. Dame Alison Rose, CEO of the National Westminster Group, which owned Coutts was forced to resign.

In July 2024 I was debanked by Nationwide Bank for ‘regulatory reasons’. They refused to provide any reasons. I had been with Nationwide over a quarter of a century.

In July 2025 I was debanked by HSBC which closed the account which my wife and I had open for our son, who is autistic. The only transactions that were made on it were for my son’s care.

At the same time I was debanked by First Direct, the telephone bank owned by HSBC, which I had been with for 33 years, just three years less than the bank itself had been in existence. Again no explanation was provided by either bank and unlike Nigel Farage my debanking has attracted no publicity from the mainstream press.

In June 2026 Santander froze both my personal accounts and those of The Brighton Trust, a registered charity for which I am Treasurer. At the time of writing they are still frozen. No explanation has been given for their actions.

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In July 2026 Kent Reliance (One Savings Bank) also froze the savings accounts of my family without giving any explanation. They have now closed them.

In December 2023 I was arrested for supporting the October 7 resistance operation by Palestinians in Gaza. I have been charged under s.12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 for what is an expression of opinion but which is classified as ‘terrorism’ today.

In much the same way over 3,000 people have been arrested for supporting the ‘terrorist’ group, Palestine Action.

It is clear that some national agency – either the National Crime Agency or the Counter-Terror Police has been feeding malicious allegations to the banks.

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Under money laundering and anti-terrorist legislation if banks are told that someone is suspected of money laundering then they are forbidden to ‘tip off’ the customer for fear of jeopardising an investigation. That may make sense when someone is involved in financing the drugs trade or ISIS but makes no sense when the ‘terrorism’ alleged is an expression of free speech.

At my trial later in August I will be pleading not guilty to supporting a proscribed organisation, Hamas. Clearly certain agencies of the state cannot wait for the trial verdict and are actively seeking to destabilise me.

I make no apology for supporting Palestinian resistance against Israel’s genocidal occupation which is now 59 years old. As far as I am concerned Palestinian resistance is no different to the resistance of Black people during Apartheid in South Africa. The only difference is that conditions in Israel today for the Palestinians are far worse than they ever were in South Africa.

In the 1980s both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher called the ANC terrorists however neither of them went as far as to accuse their supporters of terrorism too. In today’s political climate any support for Palestinian resistance against Israel’s genocidal army is called ‘terrorism’.

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Indeed the accusation of terrorism is being made against UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. We live in an era where opponents of Western wars and terrorism are themselves being accused of terrorism.

Debanking someone because of their political opinions is Financial Terrorism yet that is what the British State is doing today. Not only to me but Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine and Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

The BBC and British press, who were ready to cry foul when the leader of Britain’s racist Reform Party was debanked, are remarkably silent when it comes to opponents of racism being debanked.

Greenstein is holding a webinar exactly a week before the start of his trial to raise support for his legal fight. Speakers include Electronic Intifada‘s Ali Abunimah, Palestinian author Ghada Karmi, Jewish ANC veteran Ronnie Kasrils, Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori, and Greens for Palestine’s Lubna Speitan.

Featured image via YouTube

By Skwawkbox

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Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente has suggested Israel is behind the ‘immigration crisis’ in Spain’s Ceuta enclave in Morocco.

The Moroccan government is widely considered a US client state and is heavily dependent on Israeli weapons supply. Israel and the US have been accused of coordinating the Ceuta crisis, in which thousands of Moroccans poured into the enclave and at least 67 people have died, to punish Spain. Spain’s resistance to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its refusal to allow US warplanes to use Spanish bases and airspace to attack Iran and Spain’s condemnation of Israel’s racist attack on footballer Lamine Yamal have infuriated the imperialist regimes.

Spanish response

Puente was responding to Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon’s exploitation of the crisis to attack Spain. In an X post and a subsequent follow-up on he said:

Well, everything is starting to become quite clear.

You know what? I want Spain to be a sovereign nation in an interconnected world. I don’t want it to be a branch of Trump or Netanyahu.

As Al Jazeera has pointed out, Israel’s army of mouthpieces and bots have focused on fanning the flames around Ceuta for months.

In the months leading up to the crisis in Ceuta, pro-Israel voices conspicuously raised the issue of the enclave…[after] the Sanchez government has been increasingly critical of Israel, labelling it a “genocidal state” and cancelling major arms deals accordingly. In 2024, Spain recognised the State of Palestine.

Israel, of course, has no shame about the hypocrisy of criticising someone else’s enclaves while occupying the West Bank. And using Gaza as a concentration camp while it genocides Gaza’s indigenous population and other refugees from the Zionists’ theft of Palestinian land.

The Trump regime, meanwhile, has attacked Spain for months for not allowing the use of its airbases in the illegal war on Iran. Trump and his cronies are using Ceuta to fan anti-immigrant hate in the US, raising further suspicions that the US played a role in inciting the crisis as well:

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The ‘crisis’ does indeed look more like a punishment beating dished out to a country that dares to stand up against US imperialism and Israeli genocide and war crimes.

Spain has demanded an EU meeting and accused the EU of collaborating in the US-Israeli attack in its response.

Featured image via Paolo Blocco/ WireImage 

By Skwawkbox

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