In 2025, Tommy Robinson surprised many by orchestrating the largest far-right rally this country had seen in decades. Robinson reacted to this as you would expect — by selling advertising space and merchandise. We imagine Robinson made good money off his fans because he always does, but the future prospects of his fash-for-cash operation are in serious doubt:

On the left the AI.
On the right the reality.
Tommy’s March was a flop.
Smaller than last year. pic.twitter.com/geBlXYWidA

— Gyll King Post Skip Diplomacy (@GyllKing) May 16, 2026

A dying movement

Videos showed the crowd from different angles:

Tommy Robinson claims he's seen the aerial footage and "millions" attended his march.

Here's the main segment of their evening.

You be the judge. pic.twitter.com/vLzoKvxp5T

— smile2jannah (@smile2jannah) May 16, 2026

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CNBC TV show footage of the far right march in London

They've just about filled Parliament square

With barely anyone between Parliament square and Trafalgar square

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On the cover image, look at the bottom, there's a giant screen, with pretty much no one to watch it – and… pic.twitter.com/AiZbNTwI4a

— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) May 16, 2026

I don't know but you can get anywhere between 10-15k in Parliament square depending on how squished up they are to one another

— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) May 16, 2026

Speaking on the number of attendees, Nick Lowles of Hope not Hate said:

I think there were between 50,000-60,000 on the Unite the Kingdom demo, way down on last September’s event.

It also felt low energy. There was a buzz about September, probably because the size of it caught people by surprise. Expectations were higher now and the event didn’t really live up to it.

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The banning of 11 overseas speakers had a real impact on the demo. It distracted the organisers in the final week and the calibre of those who filled their spots were poor.

Last September, Elon Musk both helped build the demo and spoke. His absence was noticeable this time.

Lowles also said that Robinson:

will claim millions – but he will be lying.

More importantly though, and unlike last September, we have stood up to his narrative of division and hate. Britain is a better place than Lennon portrays. He failed, we are stronger than him

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Today’s Unite the Kingdom rally will most likely be viewed as a disappointment by the organisers.

Low turnout, low energy, and lack of high profile speakers raises questions on how Lennon can continue these near-identical demos without losing momentum.https://t.co/vIZf1oMZhM

— HOPE not hate (@hopenothate) May 16, 2026

Commenter Mukhtar, meanwhile, noted the following:

Tommy Robinson asked for money to hire a helicopter for aerial footage so nobody could “lie about the numbers.” He claimed the helicopter had been booked four days earlier.

Guess what? No helicopter footage was used. Instead, he used clips from a TikTok livestream filmed by someone who climbed onto the roof of a building.

Embarrassing

This year’s event was such a mess that even right-wingers were embarrassed by it:

Richard here describing how he’s had to walk through urine as the drunken yobs at the UTK rally are pissing all over the streets of London

He’s had enough

And he’s a UTK supporter. https://t.co/O1zV40L9xz

— Stop The Bollocks with Mirabel (@MirabelTweets1) May 16, 2026

It’s not hard to see why given the behaviour on display:

Tommy Robinson supporters in Westminister kick off and claim "two tier justice" because Tesco's aren't selling alcohol… pic.twitter.com/Yed33NNaXi

— The Saviour (@TheSaviour) May 16, 2026

Urinate the kingdom https://t.co/Lf73Y6CnQ4

— ابا الهراء (@m7amaRamadan) May 16, 2026

Of course, we have no sympathy for right-wingers who are fine with the blatant racism but draw the line at ungentlemanly behaviour. Because make no mistake — this was a hardcore racist affair:

the "entertainment" at Tommy Robinson low turn out unite the kingdom event..

disgusting, always is about hate nothing about unite the country at all pic.twitter.com/CfKL0VO1uM

— Just Dave now (@justdavenow89) May 16, 2026

The police would’ve arrested a pro-Palestine protester if they had held up a placard saying the exact same thing about Judaism. pic.twitter.com/FOVyR9XbC3

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) May 16, 2026

It’s also clear from footage that some of these degenerates are teaching their kids to be as vile as they are:

I'm trying to imagine Muslim kids chanting something similar about the Jewish or Christian faiths at a rally in London. The Prevent folks, counter-terrorism police, the entire British media would be all over the story, asking why Muslims are so extreme & brainwashing their kids. https://t.co/mNDYNqtr35

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) May 17, 2026

This sort of brainwashing has real-life impacts, as we’ve seen:

I don’t recall wall to wall media coverage and politician outrage about this incident

Maybe if the Iranian Kurdish man had been an ambulance …… https://t.co/Q5VBUeI9YV

— Stop The Bollocks with Mirabel (@MirabelTweets1) March 23, 2026

Tommy Robinson’s limp lineup

As we reported, Robinson had problems getting a lineup of speakers for this years event. We’re not sure what this says about the British far-right, but Robinson heavily relied on foreign speakers. The problem is the government banned several of them from entering the UK because they’re hate mongers who wanted to stir up trouble.

As we reported on 15 January, banned speaker Eva Vlaardingerbroek:

is part of Generation Remigration, which is a group that advocates for – you guessed it – ‘remigration’.

Additionally:

Remigration is built on the idea that people of different ethnicities cannot live peacefully together. This is quite obviously what you would describe as ‘racist’. In years gone by, people on the far right would try to provide some sort of cover to claim ‘we’re not racist‘. Clearly, there is no such cover here.

Commenting on the speakers who did attend this year’s event, Mukhtar said that Robinson:

He also claimed celebrities would attend and give speeches. In the end, they had that washed-up actor Tamer Hassan on Zoom. Sharon Osbourne was a no-show, and even Katie Hopkins couldn’t be bothered to turn up, so she appeared on Zoom too.

When Starmer blocked foreign far-right agitators from entering the UK, Tommy tweeted that American congressmen were coming and dared him to block them. No American congressmen attended.

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The event also included some of the worst musical performances of all time:

I must insist that you watch this from beginning to end. It’s beyond fucking awful and unintentionally hilarious. pic.twitter.com/2QWJK6Utl4

— Moog (@a_toots) May 16, 2026

Icky Rourke. pic.twitter.com/hs4Gti5f2X

— Jim Nauseum 2.0 (@jim_nauseum2) May 16, 2026

It’s hard to imagine anyone who was subjected to this racket making an effort to return next year — not when they can simply be racist at home.

Imported hatred

What the rally lacked in numbers and entertainment, it made up for in imported Yank nonsense:

I just walked past that lot.
It is an out and out racist march.
It’s gross to be anywhere near.
Anyone who says this is normal people expressing normal sentiments isn’t normal. https://t.co/LOUDo1TkNI

— richard bacon (@richardpbacon) May 16, 2026

It’s not for nothing that we’re starting to see American-style far-right Christian nonsense in Britain. As Amnesty reported, US billionaires are paying for all this:

Three reasons why the "Unite the Kingdom" rally this Saturday is worse than you think…@ElonMusk a little something for you at the end. pic.twitter.com/pkrOb7OZ1L

— Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK) May 14, 2026

As Amnesty said in the video:

the Unite the Kingdom march this Saturday is funded by billionaires with dangerous anti-rights agendas. Ever heard of Robert Shillman? He’s a US tech billionaire who funds Islamophobic figures from across the globe like Katie Hopkins and Geert Wilders, as well as Tommy Robinson. He dug deep this year and has donated 100,000 bucks to make this rally happen.

What went wrong?

Robinson and folks like him have spent the past few years riling up their followers with hardcore Islamophobia and bullshit. If you attended the Unite the Kingdom march in 2025, you might have believed the country was on the edge of imminent collapse, and that patriots were ready to overthrow the government. The problem with operating at that level of intensity is that when nothing actually happens, people start to drift off.

Tommy Robinson is good talking a big game, but he’s also notorious for rinsing his fans for everything they’ve got:

Before his 'Unite The Kingdom' Rally last year Tommy Robinson promoted a linked crypto coin called UTK.

If you had invested £1000 then it would now be worth around just £2.50.

Yet today he is out again pushing a 'trading strategy' that says no one has lost any money. pic.twitter.com/CM8sGlsRVF

— UNN (@UnityNewsNet) January 26, 2026

A recent example was when he claimed ISIS had made him a priority target — using the situation to beg for donations and then dropping the story a few weeks later:

Is he….. seeking a safe country while unable to financially support himself?

Well, well, well. https://t.co/EPe2yJ6seY

— Ginger Tucci (@Ginger_Tucci) February 14, 2026

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There’s also Unite the Kingdom itself, as Lowles noted:

More worryingly for Stephen Lennon, his supporters are beginning to see through his money making exercise. He’s admitted to receiving $300,000 from two people for the demo, plus the hundreds of thousands he raised from supporters. On top of that were all the merchandise, bucket collections etc..

Robinson isn’t capable of holding a movement like this together because he lacks the ideological zeal of an Adolf Hitler. He might genuinely hate Muslims, but he doesn’t hate them as much as he loves money, and his bank balance always come first.

Because of all this, Robinson hasn’t just failed to grow his movement; he’s actively shrunk it. And the people who are left are increasingly divorced from reality:

But… he did get away with it https://t.co/JjAtOOnDhM

— Alistair's Great Tweets (@YesitsAlistair) May 16, 2026

Tommy Robinson — the downfall

Tommy Robinson was poised to grow the British far-right into a viable and terrifying movement. Instead, he pissed it up the wall like lukewarm Stella.

At this point, this movement seems doomed to fade away. And the smaller it becomes, the more repellant it will be to the majority of people watching.

Featured image via Getty Images

By Willem Moore

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President Donald Trump keeps knocking out his political enemies in the GOP. On Saturday, Sen. Bill Cassidy was the latest to fall.

It’s a massive warning sign for any Republicans who’ve provoked the president’s wrath: Trump’s revenge campaign has already mobilized voters in both Indiana, where he successfully ousted several state GOP senators over redistricting, and Saturday night in Louisiana. Tuesday’s primaries in Georgia and Kentucky, where Rep. Thomas Massie is up for reelection and he’s picked sides in the open Senate race, will be another test. Now, the president is entering those races with the wind at his back. 

Cassidy’s distant third-place finish marks the end of his tenure in the Senate, one that was doomed by his vote to convict Trump on impeachment charges related to the Jan. 6 insurrection five years ago.

That decision ostracized him from Louisiana’s rabidly conservative base and set up two strong primary challengers in Rep. Julia Letlow — the Trump-endorsed candidate — and MAGA-friendly state Treasurer John Fleming. Up until polls closed, Cassidy maintained that his massive war chest, his record in Congress and a high turnout of non-party voters would be enough to save him.

In the end, it was not.

“For a man with such a formidable intellect, his political strategy was breathtakingly dense,” said Lionel Rainey, a Louisiana GOP strategist, who is unaffiliated with any of the campaigns. “History will remember Bill Cassidy as the absolute smartest guy in the political morgue.”

Letlow, boosted by Trump’s support, advanced to a runoff with a significant lead over Fleming — evidence that his endorsement is still key for Republican voters and can boost a candidate who begins a race with relatively low name ID and fundraising power.

Trump on Saturday night declared online that Cassidy’s “disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of legend, and it’s nice to see that his political career is OVER!”

As Cassidy took the stage in Baton Rouge to concede and thank his supporters, he appeared to repeatedly needle Trump in his remarks, possibly previewing a potentially adversarial role to the White House he will take on as a lame duck senator.

“Insults only bother me if they come from somebody of character and integrity, I find that people of character and integrity don’t spend their time attacking people on the internet,” he said at one point, after taking apparent digs at Trump for refusing to accept his 2020 loss was legitimate and declaring that “leaders should think through the consequences of their actions.”

Cassidy’s suddenly pointed criticism of the president following his loss suggests he could quickly turn into a headache for the White House. He has already blocked a handful of White House appointees, and still chairs the powerful Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Without the need to woo the president, he could follow the path of retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and refuse to fall in line on some key votes — an important factor in a fairly narrowly divided Senate.

Throughout the campaign, Cassidy tried to cast Letlow as insufficiently conservative, nicknaming her “Liberal Letlow” and hammering her for her past support of diversity initiatives in higher education. But those attacks did not stick.

Trump didn’t dip into his own MAGA Inc. coffers or appear on the campaign trail to elevate Letlow — but she still benefited from some of his allies. The Make America Healthy Again PAC pledged $1 million in support of her candidacy, angered by Cassidy’s skepticism of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. becoming the Health and Human Services secretary. Those frustrations grew when the senator blocked Casey Means’ nomination as U.S. Surgeon General, which the White House later pulled.

Cassidy’s attempt at self-preservation was also stymied by the rise of Fleming, a former Freedom Caucus member who claimed he was the most conservative candidate in the race. In the final hours, Fleming got a shoutout from Trump as well, who posted earlier Saturday that Cassidy must be “CLOBBERED” by “two great people!!!”.

Letlow’s first-place finish is a boon for Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who aggressively campaigned for her with his endorsement, pressured big donors to get in line behind her and was behind Louisiana closing its primary system — a move that disadvantaged Cassidy, who has historically brought in some Democratic voters.

The runoff, scheduled for late June, sets up a new battle for the president’s base: Do they go with the Trump-chosen option in Letlow or the other MAGA candidate in Fleming, who previously worked as White House aide under Trump? Pre-runoff polls showed a close race between the two, though Letlow comfortably led Fleming in the first round. The extended primary is sure to be bruising.

As the polls closed on Saturday evening, Trump had already begun to expand his target map, singling out Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) for campaigning on behalf of Massie, who is facing his own tough reelection fight in Kentucky against Trump-backed primary challenger Ed Gallrein. (Colorado’s filing deadline has already closed, so it’s unlikely that threat can be carried out this election.)

“Is anyone interested in running against Weak Minded Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District?” he wrote on Truth Social. “Even though I long ago endorsed Boebert, if the right person came along, it would be my Honor to withdraw that Endorsement, and endorse a good and proper alternative.”

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Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) just lost his seat — a key victory for President Donald Trump’s revenge tour this cycle.

Rep. Julia Letlow, the Trump-backed candidate, and state Treasurer John Fleming advanced to a runoff in the Louisiana GOP Senate primary on Saturday, with Cassidy finishing in third place.

It’s a remarkable result: Cassidy is the first senator of either party to lose in a primary since 2012. The two-term senator and chair of the powerful Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee failed to even make the runoff, finishing with roughly a quarter of the vote.

Both Letlow and Fleming benefited from MAGA voters’ frustrations with Cassidy for his 2021 vote to convict Trump on impeachment charges related to the Jan. 6 insurrection, and for his skepticism of Trump’s decision to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary.

The president, who has been itching to oust Cassidy, finally got his wish Saturday. The result follows Trump’s successful attempts to oust several GOP state senators in Indiana last month over redistricting clashes.

Letlow, a three-term representative from north Louisiana, jumped into the race with Trump’s endorsement, a huge boost in the deep-red state. Gov. Jeff Landry also endorsed her and worked behind the scenes to help her campaign, and the Make America Healthy Again PAC committed $1 million to supporting her.

Fleming, a former member of Congress and White House aide under Trump, drew deep grassroots support during his campaign and was able to cut into Letlow’s polling lead in the final days of the race.

The runoff will extend an already expensive battle for the GOP nomination to late June. Early polls suggest a tight race between Letlow and Fleming, though Letlow had a clear advantage in the first round of voting.

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This game of football is not over.

Except for viewers in Scotland, where no laws apply.

Don’t get us wrong, readers. In the (minimum of) 32 seconds that were left to play, it was highly unlikely that Hearts were going to score the two goals they needed to win the league. It is improbable that the referee allowing the game to end at that moment (because thousands of Celtic fans immediately invaded the pitch) changed the destination of the Premiership title.

But improbable is not impossible. let’s note a couple of things.

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(1) The eight minutes added by the fourth official is a MINIMUM. It is very common for games to go on longer than the minimum for all sorts of reasons. When Scotland beat Denmark to qualify for the World Cup, Kenny McLean’s shot from the halfway line hit the net EIGHT minutes into the six that had been indicated by the fourth official.

It is perfectly possible, then, that Celtic vs Hearts could have had two and a half minutes still to go. We’ll never know when the referee was actually going to blow before he bottled it after Callum Osmand’s goal.

(2) The annals of football, as we all know, are stuffed with examples of teams scoring two goals in a couple of minutes.

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Just one minute and 44 seconds, including the celebration time, elapsed between Lyndon Dykes’ equaliser for Scotland against Norway in Oslo in June 2023, and Kenny McLean’s winner. The two goals that won Manchester United the 1999 Champions League were even closer together, at just 1m 41s, again including all the celebrations.

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In both cases, the ball was actually in play for only about 30 seconds of that time. 30 seconds, then, is a long time in football – the referee can’t just let goal celebrations run down the clock, he has to add time on.

And that’s why there are laws. That’s why we don’t just let the referee blow his whistle if a team is 4-0 down with 10 minutes left, even if it’d mean he could catch an earlier train home. It’s not a matter of discretion or convenience. The game has to be played to its end.

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Because imagine the alternative. Imagine if the crowd could just invade the pitch when THEY thought the game was won, and we let them decide.

What if the 2,500 Danish fans at Hampden last November, say, had taken it upon themselves to storm the field in the 93rd minute with the score still at 2-2 and Denmark heading for the finals, and the referee had thought “Well, it’s Scotland, they’re not going to get another goal now and I can’t be arsed waiting for the stewards to get all these Danes off the pitch, we might as well call it a day?”

What if the Norwegian fans in Oslo, having conceded a late equaliser after dominating the game and having taken Erling Haaland off, had collectively gone “Better safe than sorry” and piled onto the turf before Kenny McLean could stroke home that exquisite winner?

Just a couple of weeks ago, Rochdale scored in the 95th minute in a vital promotion decider against York City. Fans streamed onto the pitch.

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There were only 60 seconds left on the clock. The referee could have just thrown up his hands and said “Well, it’s done now.” But he insisted on completing the game. It took six minutes to clear the pitch and kick off again. 75 seconds later, York equalised and won promotion.

Where do you draw the line? If it’s okay to end a game 30 seconds early because of thugs on the pitch, why not 60? Why not 90? Why not five minutes? We’ve proved above that 30 seconds is enough to turn defeat into victory. The only answer is that you can’t – you play to the end, and if circumstances prevent that then you don’t reward the thugs with a league championship, you abandon the match.

That’s not an abstract hypothetical assertion. It actually happened literally a week ago.

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The consequences were swift. In the Czech Republic, that meant the club responsible – who would have clinched the league if the game had ended normally – forfeited the match, and suffered other severe punishments.

But every single person reading this knows that that won’t happen in Scotland, because as this site has documented for years, Scotland is a country where nobody rich or powerful is ever held accountable for anything, and that goes double when the body responsible for enforcement of the laws is the Scottish Football Association.

For the last 15 years the SFA (with the support of the press) has allowed a club that’s only existed since 2012 to claim it’s won the league 55 times, to the unending (and justified) fury of Celtic supporters. Yet those same fans are all over social media this weekend insisting that the laws of the game, which are the same across the globe, should not be applied when their club is guilty of the exact same offence as Slavia Prague.

And they’ll get their way, because in Scotland whoever screams the loudest wins. We’re a joke of a country with a joke of a football league that has now, because of blatant cheating in both cases, still only been won by two clubs (or rather, three clubs pretending to be two) in over 40 years.

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There is no coherent argument whatsoever for allowing yesterday’s result to stand. It is absolutely clear by the laws of the game what should happen. But not one person thinks for a single second that it will.

We’d be depressed, readers, if only we were even a tiny bit surprised.

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Thousands of people rallied Saturday in the cradle of the modern Civil Rights Movement to mobilize a new voting rights era as conservative states dismantle congressional districts that helped secure Black political representation.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey called Montgomery “sacred soil” in the fight for civil rights.

“if we in our generation do not now do our duty, we will lose the gains and the rights and the liberties that our ancestors afforded us,” Booker said.

The crowd was led in chants of “we won’t go back” and “we fight.”

“We are not going down without a fight. We are not going down to Jim Crow maps,” said Shalela Dowdy, a plaintiff in the Alabama redistricting case.

A crowd of thousands gathered in front of the city’s historic Alabama Capitol, the place where the Confederacy was formed in 1861 and where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke in 1965 at the end of the Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights March. The stage, set in front of the Capitol, was flanked from behind by statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and civil rights icon Rosa Parks — dueling tributes erected nearly 90 years apart.

Speakers said the spot was once the temple of the confederacy and became holy ground of the civil rights movement.

Some in the crowd said the effort to redraw lines has echoes of the past.

“We lived through the ’60s. It takes you back. When you think that Alabama’s moving forward, it takes two steps back,” said Camellia A Hooks, 70, of Montgomery, Alabama.

The rally began in Selma, where a violent clash between law enforcement and voting rights activists in 1965 galvanized support for passage of the Voting Rights Act. It then moved to the state Capitol, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “How Long, Not Long” speech that same year.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving Louisiana hollowed out voting rights law that was already weakened by a separate decision in 2013 and then narrowed further over the years. That helped clear the way for stricter voter ID laws, registration restrictions, and limits on early voting and polling place changes, including in states that once needed federal preclearance before they could change voting laws because of their historical discrimination against Black voters.

Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement are alarmed by the speed of the rollbacks, noting that protections won through generations of sacrifice have been weakened in little more than a decade.

Kirk Carrington, 75, was a teen in 1965 when law enforcement officers attacked marchers in Selma on what became known as “Bloody Sunday.” A white man on a horse wielding a stick chased Carrington through the streets.

“It’s really just appalling to me and all the young people that marched during the ’60s, fought hard to get voting rights, equal rights and civil rights,” Carrington said. “It’s sad that it’s continuing after 60-plus-odd years that we are still fighting for the same thing we fought for back then.”

City will be affected by Supreme Court ruling

Montgomery is home to one of the congressional districts that is being altered in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.

A federal court in 2023 redrew Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District after ruling that the state intentionally diluted the voting power of Black residents, who make up about 27% of its population. The court said there should be a district where Black people are a majority or near-majority and have an opportunity to elect their candidate of choice.

But the Supreme Court cleared the way for a different map that could let the GOP reclaim the seat. While the matter remains under litigation, the state plans special primaries Aug. 11 under the new map.

Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures, who won election in the district in 2024, said the dispute is not about him but rather people’s opportunity to have representation.

“When Republicans are literally turning back the clock on what representation, what the faces of representation, look like, what the opportunities, legitimate opportunities for representation look like across this country, then I think it starts to resonate with people in a little bit of a different way,” Figures said.

Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, a Republican, said the Louisiana ruling provided an opportunity to revisit a map that was forced on the state by the federal court.

“People tend to forget what happened. When this thing went to court, the Republican Party had that seat, congressional seat two,” Ledbetter said last week. “There’s been a push through the courts to try to overtake some of these red state seats, and that’s certainly what happened in that one.”

Evan Milligan, the lead plaintiff in the Alabama redistricting case, said there is grief over the implosion of the Voting Rights Act but it is crucial that people recommit to the fight.

“We have to accept that this is the new reality, whether we like it or not,” Milligan said. “We don’t have to accept that this will be the reality for the next 10 years or two years or forever.”

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Starmer mini-me Wes Streeting has turned on his former boss and confirmed his intention to stand to replace Keir Starmer in Downing Street. He has little prospect of winning — even Starmer would hammer him, according to the latest polling of Labour members. Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has declared his intention of standing in the Makerfield by-election in the hope of getting into the contest. But Burnham faces the major hurdle of having to win a seat dominated by Reform in last week’s local elections.

But Streeting has — apparently unwittingly — opened a potential door for a Burnham win. Presumably in his desperation to improve his dire standing with party members, Streeting has told Europhile Labour right-wingers of the ‘Progress’ faction that he wants to take the UK back into the EU if he wins.

This will infuriate Makerfield Reform voters, who despise Starmer and want him gone but will not want to risk re-returning to the EU. But if they vote in a Reform MP, he (it will almost certainly be a man) will not be in a position to prevent Streeting carrying out his plan if Streeting manages to get into Downing Street. Burnham could. He is miles ahead of both Streeting and Starmer with Labour members — if he can get into Parliament to stand in the Labour leadership race.

Burnham — Two big gambles

Burnham has previously also mentioned rejoining the EU. But if Burnham he is serious about winning Makerfield, he needs to announce immediately that he will not attempt to rejoin the EU, at least in this parliament. Reform voters might then lend him their vote, especially if Burnham campaigns hard on Farage’s plans to replace the NHS with an insurance system. There are indications he or at least his advisers have realised this.

The big gamble then for Burnham would be that opposing re-entering the EU (the EU would be mad to accept us back anyway, mind) might put Labour members off him. But he is currently beating Starmer by 61%–28%, while Starmer is beating Streeting by 53%–23%.

He’s already taking a big risk by standing in a seat in which he’s a distant second favourite, when defeat will sooner or later cost him the mayoralty. Will he roll the dice to improve the odds in the first one?

Featured image via Gary Oakley/Getty Images

By Skwawkbox

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As Skwawkbox reported last night, the Israeli occupation bombed the Moataz Tower, one of its few surviving tall buildings in Gaza. But more details have emerged of the cynical, murderous attack — which targeted a wedding.

Israel followed its usual pattern of claiming it had aimed to kill a “senior Hamas” figure. The UK ‘mainstream’ media, if they bother reporting the atrocity at all, will parrot this line as though it’s not a war crime to slaughter hundreds of civilians to kill one man.

Gaza — life and limb

But they will not report the true aftermath of the crime, which robbed the wedding party and their guests of life and limb. Survivors fled the wrecked building, recounting the horrors of the attack as they came:

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A post shared by Wear The Peace® (@wearthepeace)

Palestinian journalist Wadih Abu Al-Saud reported from the scene as rescuers spoke of severed limbs and heads, and of women and children trapped as the building burned:

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A post shared by Translating Palestine فلسطين (@translating_falasteen)

Israel perpetrated the attack on Nakba Day, when Palestinians remember the violent, colonial seizure of their lands and homes. The terror state remains able to function with impunity, in large part, because of the collaboration of western media and politicians.

Featured image via Omar Ashtawy/Getty Images

By Skwawkbox

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has offered a huge bounty for a former US military intelligence operative who defected to Iran. Monica Elfriede Witt is wanted on espionage charges. Witt used to work for air force intelligence and had high-level clearance.

The FBI announced on 15 May that it was offering:

a $200,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension and prosecution of Monica Witt, a former U.S. service member and counterintelligence agent who was indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia in February 2019 on charges of espionage, including transmitting national defense information to the government of Iran.

The agency described Witt as:

a former active-duty U.S. Air Force intelligence specialist and special agent for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, served in the military between 1997 and 2008 before working as a U.S. government contractor until 2010.

Adding that her military service and later contracting work:

provided her access to SECRET and TOP SECRET information relating to foreign intelligence and counterintelligence, including the true names of U.S. Intelligence Community undercover personnel.

The FBI said Witt defected in 2013, giving secrets to Iran.

FBI has not forgotten, not forgiven

Daniel Wierzbicki of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Cyber Division, went full divorced dad fire and brimstone:

Monica Witt allegedly betrayed her oath to the Constitution more than a decade ago by defecting to Iran and providing the Iranian regime National Defense Information and likely continues to support their nefarious activities.

Adding:

The FBI has not forgotten and believes that during this critical moment in Iran’s history, there is someone who knows something about her whereabouts. The FBI wants to hear from you so you can help us apprehend Witt and bring her to justice.

In 2019, the BBC reported that Witt took a Persian language course while serving and later worked for a private defence firm for years after leaving the military. Her contracted role involved consulting on:

“Iranian subject matter” and providing “language and cultural specialisation”.

In a later role at another military firm she:

“supervised, controlled, and co-ordinated the execution of highly sensitive counterintelligence operations against foreign intelligence services worldwide”.

The US and Israel attacked Iran first on 28 February without provocation. Iran was offering unprecedented concessions in negotiations at the time. The Pentagon has since stated there was no imminent threat from Iran. And the UN’s atomic watchdog, the IAEA, has said there is no evidence Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.

The Iranian government remains intact despite months of intensive US and Israeli attacks. The US-Israeli attack’s main achievement seems to be a global energy crisis after Iran predictably closed the straits of Hormuz, a vital oil channel.

It’s not clear why the bounty on Witt has suddenly been raised — she has been on the run since 2013, after all — though it may well have some connection to US president Donald Trump’s badly-backfiring war…

Featured image via theTimes

By Joe Glenton

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A US lawmaker has said the US has lost 39 aircraft in the failing Iran war. The number is considerably higher than previously suspected. The details emerged in a Senate hearing in the US.

The Express Tribune reported an exchange between Democratic Congressman Ed Case and Pentagon financial officer Jay Hurst “about the extent of damage suffered during the conflict”:

“We’ve lost about 39 aircraft, according to a report in The War Zone, and that’s an old one that’s almost one month old,” Case said, asking Hurst whether the Pentagon had calculated “a retention cost on all those aircraft.”

Hurst replied:

There are costs there, sir, but I want to get back to you in writing and what they specifically are, because, as you can imagine, repair of aircraft is something that’s very hard to calculate.

Adding:

We want to do a full diagnosis of the aircraft before we estimate that cost.

Sounds like the Pentagon was playing for time. But Hurst did not deny the 39 figure outright.

The outlet added that according to Case:

39 aircraft were destroyed and another 10 sustained varying levels of damage.

The report also claimed that an F-35A Lightning II fighter jet was hit inside Iranian airspace and that a Boeing E-3 Sentry aircraft was destroyed.

The claims could not be independently verified, and Pentagon officials did not publicly confirm the alleged losses during the hearing.

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The US has been extremely guarded about losses in the failing war — including casualties. The Intercept’s Nick Turse reported on 1 April:

Almost 750 U.S. troops have been wounded or killed in the Middle East since October 2023, an analysis by The Intercept has found. But the Pentagon won’t acknowledge it.

Adding:

U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, appears to be engaged in what a defense official called a “casualty cover-up,” offering The Intercept low-ball and outdated figures and failing to provide clarifications on military deaths and injuries.

US-Israel attacked Iran first on 28 February without provocation. Iran was offering unprecedented concessions in negotiations at the time. The Pentagon has since stated there was no imminent threat from Iran. And the UN’s atomic watchdog, the IAEA, has said there is no evidence Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.

The US has achieved none of its original war aims. Iran predictably closed the Straits of Hormuz, a vital oil channel, once attacked — creating a global energy crisis. Far from being defeated, Iran has said the war will continue until:

the enemy’s inevitable and permanent humiliation, disgrace, regret, and surrender.

Trump came to power on an anti-war ‘America First’ ticket. He now faces worldwide humiliation. The US president is currently scrambling for an off-ramp from the war he started.

Featured image via NBC

By Joe Glenton

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As Bill Cassidy fights for his political life, he’s refusing to acknowledge the political gravity surrounding him.

Five years after he cast a vote to convict President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial over Trump’s election denialism and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Cassidy is facing a challenge from Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) and GOP State Treasurer John Fleming in a crucial Louisiana primary today that marks the next stop on Trump’s revenge tour.

In an interview with POLITICO on Saturday, Cassidy sounded disconnected from the reality he faces, frequently referring only to Letlow as “my opponent” while ignoring Fleming, and complaining about the state’s shift to a closed party primary back in 2024.

If Trump’s push to oust Cassidy succeeds, it could unleash another rogue in the Senate with a vendetta against Trump and nothing left to lose.

But Cassidy claims he’s not thinking about that. Asked whether he would be a thorn in Trump’s side in his remaining months in office should he go down and join other YOLO Republicans, Cassidy sounded defiant.

“I’m going to win today,” Cassidy said. “I may go into a runoff. But I’m always going to vote for the good of my country and my people.”

If no candidate clears 50 percent in today’s vote, the top two candidates will advance to a June 27 runoff. Recent polls show a tight three-way campaign. Most polling puts Cassidy in third place, behind Letlow and Fleming, another MAGA candidate.

Cassidy spoke with POLITICO by phone before he made his Election Day rounds after attending a wedding Friday evening. He talked of his plans to improve affordability and criticized Letlow for not voting for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

“I don’t quite know why, but it takes courage, and so you got to know what’s right, and then you got to have the courage to do what’s right, and that’s what I have,” Cassidy said. “I’ve proven it. That’s what this race is about.”

But in the final hours before results roll in, the senator who drew Trump’s ire over his impeachment vote was the one crying foul over voting issues.

Cassidy echoed his concerns about Louisiana’s move to a closed primary system, telling Playbook he had just gotten off the phone with a “No Party” voter who tried to cast a ballot for him but said he could not. Cassidy said he’s communicating with Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landy, who he said is investigating. A spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Today, I’m trying to make sure that people are able to exercise their right to vote … in a system which, in effect, has been designed to prevent people from being able to cast their vote for me,” Cassidy said.

He brushed off MAHA’s role in the primary. “People in our state want someone who has delivered,” he said. “If you’re talking about ‘Making America Healthy Again,’ my gosh, I’ve worked to make my state healthy again. And so if people are concerned about our state being healthier, then I’m your candidate.”

And he expressed no regrets over his impeachment decision.

“That is not something I think about.” Cassidy said. “If my opponent is focused on that, she’s thinking about five years ago. I’m thinking about five years from now. If she wants to be wedded to the past, be wedded in the past, but by golly, you’re not working for the future. I’m working for the future, that’s where I’m focused.”

Despite Cassidy’s resoluteness, GOP sources in Louisiana see an increasingly bleak outlook for Cassidy — no matter where he finishes at the end of the day.

“There is almost a 0.0 percent chance that Bill Cassidy is coming back to the Senate,” said an unaligned GOP strategist with experience running races in Louisiana and granted anonymity to assess the state of play.

“He’s run a lot of ads,” the person said, “and the problem with his ads is he’s in them.”

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