A group of Communist labour supporters attacked a group putting up the British flag,  Then complained that the peaceful english supporters defended themselves against yet another unprovoked attack on peaceful British citizens showing their support for Britain not the EU or the Communist socialist government of England run by the Dictator Starmer the rent boy Shagger of No 10  who supports communist socialism the same as China and North Korea and this is what a Communist Labour Government and its Communist MPs like Burnham (“They will try to tell you he isnt a communist, By his very support of the Labour movement he is a Communist”) maybe a champane communist but none the less a Communist, and did you see Burnham stand up for democracy or the british people, or worse still he didnt stand up for the children raped and soddomised by grooming gangs to his everlasting shame if he had any,  who the media are trying to portray as the king of the north more like the Donkey  of the North attached to Communist socialist ideal that have destroyed every country and its populations standard of living that this Socialist Crap has been allowed to fester.

Try Cuba, Russia, North Korea and China where if you disagree with any one in a position of authority they come round in a van and Gas you!,  yes you heard that correctly, its a proven fact not only that but if your organs meet the need of one of there hierachy  your a “gonna” with your organs harvested, this is Communist socialism that any one voting Labour is and has supported over the past 75 years  insidiously crawling into the corridors of power, the Civil service rank with Communist supporting members, Parliament and the Lords  support it, Democracy is dead in Britain killed by the Conservatives and the eunuchs of the liberal party the ball less mob ,and by the Scum in parliament that call themselves Labour MPs, and you the people are to blame for this, your proud to say you dont vote because you cant see anyone you like, well if you cant vote to keep your liberty you dont deserve it,

Thats why you get the Guardian and most other papers supporting the left wing stories to use against the people who support Britain branding them far right and you get stories denigrating and calling those who support Britain Far right as though the Communists are the ones who support you just look at putin good old communist KGB operative, and dont forget Starmer was recruited by the Russian state when he was young so it was reported, well they dont, and never did,they wanted to put all those in society who they deemed had no worth, thats you the old the labour supporter, the disabled, anyone who didnt work or support this scum,  They advocated kill chambers were do you think the Nazis and China got the idea from the Fabian society the society the society that has worked tirelessly to undermine Democracy for a hundred and forty two  years, This society  controls labour and all lobour Governments, as every labour prime minister has been its member, and most all of the cabimet are members they all support the Fabien society aims  and you considered the worthless by labor MPs have been in there sites for along time.

Remember this, laws are made and followed in a democratic society for the benefit of all, Labour destroyed this belief in democracy  by ignoring the democratic vote to leave the EU dictatorship as indeed did the Conservatives, So now you have no obligation to follow any laws, you now dont have to follow the laws administered by corrupt judges, and officials like the Stazi that calls itself a police force in britain, if the so called enforcers of law need help turn your back on them, they are not your friends, they are your enemy, as are judges and politicians, council oficials that support labour,  all these officials should be held to account as they are in other non democratic countries  take a leaf out of the Ukraine book of how to deal with corrupt officials that work against the population, that dosent mean we condone violence but south american countries are going down this rout and Britain under the Labour pary is following.

A group of far-right flag-fanatics have been filmed attacking passersby in Birmingham before they ran over a man in a hit-and-run attack. The victim was hospitalised with a broken leg that required surgery to insert a pin into the shattered bone.

Around ten residents had gone along the main road in the Stirchley area of the city removing flags put up by the group. The ‘patriot’ thugs took offence and turned up to show their love for England by assaulting peaceful residents: Peaceful residents my arse a gitaters supporting the comunist labour government.

@birmingham.live Conflict between a Raise the Colours masked man and others occurred in Birmingham last night #birmingham #westmidlands #flags ♬ original sound – birmingham.live

The arrogant bullies reportedly also posted footage to their own groups.

Far-right denial

The hit-and-run victim was run down shortly after the filmed incidents. Police recovered an abandoned van nearby, which witnesses said bore the same ‘Raise the Colours’ logo. The group has denied that it condones violence.

Further far-right violence is feared on Saturday 16 May as supporters of ‘Tommy Robinson’ march across London, protected by police.

This article was written by the The Skwawkbox  a left wing scumbag media rag promoting Communism in all its forms.  The Founder of this pathetic communist rubbish wasone called  Steve Walker

The post The truth about Reform voters appeared first on spiked.

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The shocking assembly election results in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry are a result of an emboldened Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Modi, which is finessing voter disenfranchisement and bulldozer operations.

Our webinar – where we heard from Anant Gupta, political correspondent of India’s Scroll.in, and Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary of CPI(ML) Liberation – made three things clear: the brazenness of the SIR; the sheer audacity of disenfranchising millions – chiefly Muslims – in plain sight; and the use of bulldozers to rob minority populations of their livelihoods. All should shock us out of our complacency.

Fascism and Hindu supremacy are on the rise, led by Modi’s BJP, whose loyalties lie with US-backed Israel and the UAE. The billionaire Adani has long been a close ally of Modi. Both are complicit in the genocide in Gaza through corporate connections and Indian workers being sent to Israel. 

SIR – Special Intensive Revision

The SIR stands for Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls. It was an exercise conducted by the Election Commission of India in 12 states and union territories starting in late October 2025, ahead of the 2026 assembly elections. The Election Commission presented it as a routine housekeeping exercise to clean up voter lists by removing duplicate entries, deceased persons, and those who had moved.

Gupta’s analysis shows that, in 105 seats that the BJP won in West Bengal, the total number of voters deleted during the SIR exceeds its margin of victory.

Some 129 seats changed hands from the Trinamool to the BJP in Bengal. Not one seat went from the BJP to any other party.

In 86 of these seats, the BJP’s win margin was less than the deletions in the SIR. It had never won them before.https://t.co/4W7lJtSmFT

— Anant Gupta (@AnantGuptaAG) May 6, 2026

Gupta explained that the SIR in West Bengal required progeny mapping, meaning voters had to prove a family link to the 2002 electoral roll, which was exclusionary.

Alongside Muslims, married women, migrant workers, queer people, divorced women, and millions of young voters were systematically erased.

And on the eve of the elections, the BJP-controlled central government sent large contingents of paramilitary forces into West Bengal, where they still remain.

Incumbent complacency

The results are a wake-up call to the Trinamool Congress, which had ruled West Bengal since 2011 and whose leader, Mamata Banerjee, has been a key opponent of the BJP. The ruling party underestimated the scale of the SIR and was “delusional” enough to think it could still win, Gupta said.

Banerjee, while right in pointing out that SIR deletions were “anti-youth”, did not acknowledge their overwhelming targeting of Muslims and did not ideologically oppose them enough to mobilise people-power against it.

Bulldozer operations

The bulldozer is a symbol of fascist violence, Dipankar Bhattacharya rightly points out in the webinar. It involves both the state and a section of fascist social forces that spearhead and celebrate the violence. JCB remains the primary instrument; the British company is synonymous with home demolitions.

India has been running a systematic eviction campaign against Muslims of Bengali origin in Assam – over 100,000 people have lost their homes across 33 operations since 2021. And the BJP’s SIR-engineered victory in West Bengal has been followed by a wave of Hindu supremacist violence, with Muslim shops and places of worship demolished; statues, including those of Lenin and of Adivasi anti-colonial fighters Sidhu and Kanhu, pulled down; and opposition party offices set on fire.

Conclusion: people, not courts

The SIR is not simply a mechanism for denying citizens the right to vote. It is part of an arsenal of laws and initiatives geared towards ethnic cleansing, which have led to mass detentions and deportations of Indian Muslims.

Already, the new BJP government in West Bengal has announced that those excluded from electoral rolls will also be denied welfare benefits.

There is no institutional remedy left. The Election Commission has abandoned neutrality. The Supreme Court has failed. International courts offer little. The only path forward is for the people to unite to face the rapid escalation of fascism.

India is now staring at a crisis started by Trump – Modi’s friend – and his delusional war on Iran. With only 60 days of oil reserves, India’s import-dependent economy is facing catastrophic shortages, while Modi is currently on another foreign trip to the UAE.

In the wake of Partition, communists in Bengal succeeded in thwarting the Hindu supremacist forces through building powerful mass movements and cultural interventions. Today, the need of the hour is for the left and progressive forces to close ranks and stand with the people to resist the Modi regime’s fascist design.

Featured image via YouTube

By South Asia Solidarity Group

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Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said Friday that he will grant clemency to Tina Peters, a former county clerk and darling of election conspiracy theorists who was serving a nine-year prison sentence for allowing unauthorized access to voting machines after the 2020 election.

Polis, a Democrat, told CNN that he is halving her sentence, meaning she could be paroled within a month after accounting for time already served for aiding efforts to overturn the presidential election.

The Colorado governor said his decision came after Peters acknowledged her wrongdoing in an application for leniency, which was obtained by CNN. POLITICO has not independently reviewed the document.

Polis told CNN he believed Peters’ was unfairly punished for free expression in her comments alleging fraud in the 2020 election.

“I hope that Democrats don’t sacrifice our deeply held belief in free speech because of political expediency or disregard for what people are saying,” Polis told CNN. “There should be no consideration of what we say, how unpopular it is, how inaccurate it is in sentencing or in criminal proceedings.”

Polis’ decision followed months of intense pressure from President Donald Trump, who issued his own symbolic pardon of Peters last year, but cannot grant clemency for violations of state law.

Trump has repeatedly called on Polis to free Peters, and his pressure campaign came as his administration has taken a series of actions to slash funding to and litigate against Colorado. Also in December, Trump vetoed a bipartisan bill meant to bring clean water to the state, the first and only veto of his second term.

Polis told CNN he spoke with Trump privately about Peters’ case, but insisted he granted her clemency after “looking at the merits of the case.”

The Democratic governor, who has occasionally bucked his own party, suggested he was weighing granting Peters clemency in March, after a former Democratic state senator was sentenced to probation and community service after being convicted of similar charges.

“Justice in Colorado and America needs to be applied evenly, you never know when you might need to depend on the rule of law,” he wrote on X.

Peters was convicted on four state felony charges in August 2024 by a Colorado jury after she fraudulently gave a right-wing activist affiliated with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell access to the Mesa County election system.

She was unrepentant in her sentencing hearing two months later, telling the court that she’d “never done anything with malice to break the law.”

Peters’ conviction was upheld by an appeals court in April, but ruled that the lower court’s decision to impose a nine-year sentence was too harsh.

In a statement issued before Polis’ decision on Friday, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat now running for attorney general, strongly urged Polis not to grant leniency to Peters.

“Peters organized the breach of the election equipment, broke the public trust and attacked the very foundations of our democratic process,” she said. “Her actions are still being used to try to undermine the 2026 election. She should get no special treatment by the Governor, and his statement is shocking and worrisome.”

Peters’ case has long attracted the attention of prominent Republicans, including Trump, who falsely argue that former President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election was fraudulent.

“Democrats have been relentless in their targeting of TINA PETERS, a Patriot who simply wanted to make sure that our Elections were Fair and Honest,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in December. “Tina is sitting in a Colorado prison for the ‘crime’ of demanding Honest Elections.”

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The top UK intelligence scrutiny body has warned that critical files on disgraced Labour politician Peter Mandelson are being withheld. The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said key documents related to the case had not been made available by Keir Starmer’s government.

The BBC reported on 15 May:

Lord Beamish, chair of the committee tasked with reviewing the documents, said Lord Mandelson’s vetting file was one example of a document that had been kept back.

He said the government may have good reasons to withhold some material but did not have the authority to do so and ministers should seek MPs’ approval to retain certain pieces of information.

Revelations about Labour grandee Mandelson’s long friendship with late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein have plunged the Starmer regime into crisis.

Mandelson is also deeply linked to the right-wing Labour Together project which successfully undermined the Jeremy Corbyn leadership. He had been picked to be UK ambassador to the US. Now his career lies in tatters.

There are also questions about the liberal use of redactions on the material in question:

NEW: The Intelligence and Security Committee has raised concerns about the government's handling of the Mandelson Files.

It says redactions are being applied "far too broadly" and some documents are being withheld altogether.

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It also teases that we can expect to see lots and… pic.twitter.com/0XD3PbqaPG

— Jack Elsom (@JackElsom) May 15, 2026

A Cabinet Office spokesperson said the government was:

 working to publish as much material as we can as soon as possible.

Tory and Lib Dem politicians clearly smell blood. Tory shadow minister Alex Burghart said:

It is outrageous that Labour are trying to withhold documents about the Mandelson-Epstein affair from Parliament.

Mandelson — government cover up, again

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said:

This thing reeks. Why is the government trying to cover up, again, the scale of the Mandelson mess? What could be worse than what we’ve already seen?

MPs voted that all relevant files should be released.

The BBC said:

In his statement, Lord Beamish said the committee has reached a decision on all the redactions requested by government in the 337 documents referred to it, and that it is now for the government to publish the documents within 28 sitting days.

However, he listed a number of concerns about how the government had responded to the humble address.

The Canary has reported:

The rules in place to protect British national security were suspended to allow Mandelson to participate in, and profit from, highly sensitive briefings, meetings, and intelligence. A coordinated “protection racket” for Blair’s disciples, by Starmer’s handlers.

The Labour party’s increasingly cartel-mindset and the ensuing damage of the Mandelson is yet to receive the attention it deserves. Starmer, in particular, has been left off the hook.

Keir Starmer came to power having made a lot of promises, as our readers will be well aware… One which stands out today is a 2020 pledge for a “transparency revolution”:

We need a transparency revolution. There should be no power without accountability, and true accountability requires transparency.

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) February 4, 2020

Starmer looks like he might not last much longer. It seems fitting that this latest revelation about his tendency towards authoritarianism and secrecy could be one of the final nails in his political coffin. Starmer looks destined for the dustbin of history. Few will be sad to see him go.

Featured image via Carl Court/Getty Images

By Joe Glenton

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Occupation forces have again attacked Gaza, launching a heavy bombardment on Gaza City. The well-known Moataz Tower, one of the few tall buildings still standing, was hit and is now ablaze:

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A post shared by ZaqoutMe | سارة زقوت (@sara.a.zaqout)

As night fell, the intensity of the fire became clear:

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A pattern of murder in Gaza

Following its usual pattern, the occupation military’s excuse for murdering potentially hundreds of civilians was that it was targeting a ‘Hamas leader’:

Yesterday, 14 May 2026, several people were wounded after parts of a damaged building collapsed on them as they were clearing rubble from an earlier attack:

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Israel’s bombing of Gaza and its starvation blockade have never paused, despite the supposed ceasefire in place since autumn 2025. Israel is a terror state and the UK continues to equip and enable it.

Featured image via Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

By Skwawkbox

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In a move that reflects the growing importance of the Chinese market for global football, FIFA announced the signing of a new broadcasting agreement with China Media Group to transmit Men’s and Women’s World Cup tournaments within China until 2031.

Under the agreement, as stated on the official FIFA website, China Media Group will broadcast the 2026 and 2030 Men’s World Cup matches, along with the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cup editions, giving hundreds of millions of Chinese fans direct access to the biggest global football tournaments.

China and FIFA agreement

FIFA Secretary General, Mattias Grafström, described the agreement as a “source of great pride,” emphasizing that China represents one of the most important global football markets due to the growing public passion for the game.

Grafström pointed out that the 2026 edition will be “historic” as the first to feature 48 teams, confirming that the partnership with the Chinese group will help provide an advanced broadcasting experience and reach new youth segments through digital platforms.

The agreement is an extension of a decades-long relationship between the two parties and coincides with efforts led by the Chinese Football Association to develop local football, especially at the youth level, with direct support from FIFA.

These efforts were recently boosted by the qualification of China’s U-17 Boys’ and Girls’ teams for the age-group World Cup tournaments, in addition to the recent visits of Jill Ellis and Arsène Wenger to China to support development and cooperation plans with the local association.

This agreement puts an end to the uncertainty that had surrounded the broadcasting rights for the 2026 World Cup inside China, which had previously threatened to deprive nearly one billion Chinese citizens from watching one of the world’s biggest sporting events.

According to FIFA, the agreement is part of a broader strategy to enhance the media reach of major tournaments in global markets with high fan density.

Featured image via Jayne Russell/Getty Images

By Alaa Shamali

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Trade unions and workers across Bolivia are marching on another general strike against the neoliberal administration led by Trump ally President Rodrigo Paz.

Thousands of miners clashed with police in La Paz on Thursday, demanding the resignation of the neoliberal Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz over the country's economic crisis.

The government says Paz, in power six months, will not step down. pic.twitter.com/aVQ7GgvRvg

— comra (@comrawire) May 15, 2026

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Bolivia — general strike

Workers decided to strike indefinitely following the Paz administration’s refusal to negotiate on laws that undermine the rights of peasants and indigenous territories.

The people are marching upon the administrative capital, La Paz, from all corners of the Andean country. The strikes are being coordinated by the largest miners’ union (FSTMB) and the confederation of peasant workers (CSUTCB).

One spokesman for the unionised workers condemned the “neoliberal” government  and stated online that the long march comes

 … in repudiation of this government that only wants to turn us into another US colony. … We are sovereign. Here, we govern ourselves.

We are firmly in this fight until the very end.

CSUTCB and COB, the Bolivian Workers’ Central union, call for Paz’s resignation.

A general strike is now underway in Bolivia, this time calling for the resignation of the neoliberal President Rodrigo Paz.

Causes:
– Fuel crisis
– Inflation
– Govt proposals to privatize natural resources

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The neoliberal experiement is already a failure. pic.twitter.com/e0qYkkBlHg

— Ollie Vargas (@Ollie_Vargas_) May 12, 2026

What sparked the strikes?

Bolivia’s plurinational, largely indigenous and generally low-income population has been beset by recurring fuel crises. These were caused in part by fuel subsidies, which massively benefitted the poorest but led to black market trade and state losses.

Back in January, Paz’s economy Minister Gabriel Espinoza said that cutting subsidies on gasoline and diesel would save public finances $10m per day.

Union leaders accused the government of ‘buying off’ specific sectors to undermine the strike’s legitimacy, after Paz rescinded a meeting in the presidential palace with the COB executive and miners’ federation (FSTMB) leader Andrés Paye.

The collapse of natural gas industrialism in Bolivia met with dwindling supplies of foreign currency. The result was soaring inflation, supply shortages and higher prices. Bolivians often queue for hours for fuel and US dollars trade at twice the official rate.

Relatedly, the country — alongside neighbouring states currently undergoing neoliberal restructuring, notably Argentina — has suffered crippling inflationary pressures. This only intensified since the fuel shocks generated by the criminal US-Zionist war on Iran.

Another trigger for the strikes was the introduction of Law 1720, which threatens to overturn the country’s historically progressive laws recognising indigenous land rights. These were won by Evo Morales’ indigenous-led Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), but Law 1720 sought to privatise the land for foreign extractive corporations.

Yet, at a public meeting in La Paz this week, representative of the strikers and peasant union leader Oscar Cardozo declared:

Our life is collective, not individual. The land must be respected; it’s not for sale.

Democracy Now! reports that the Paz administration already repealed Law 1720 on 13 May, but the strikes continue anyway in disgust at the US-aligned regime.

Only six months into its rule, Bolivia's neoliberal government is failing.

Indigenous movements and trade unionists launched a general strike yesterday, demanding President Paz resign in response to his land privatization efforts and economic crises. pic.twitter.com/zIxljiF26W

— Jacobin (@jacobin) May 13, 2026

The recolonisation of Bolivia

When Paz was elected in late 2025 and took office that November, he did so on a platform of “capitalism for all.” This signalled a hard break from two decades of MAS.

While he is often described as “centre-right,” Paz wasted no time aligning himself with the far-right, imperialist Trump administration. Colonial war-hawk Marco Rubio quickly congratulated Paz following his surprise election win.

Elected on a neoliberal policy platform, Paz is the (white) Spanish-born relative of two ex-presidents. As mayor of Tarija, Paz built commercial malls and plazas which offered the city’s predominantly working-class population very little.

Paz swiftly legalised Elon Musk’s Starlink—overruling considerable privacy and data security concerns—and reestablished ties with genocidal and apartheid-ruled Israel.

Paz arrested ex-president Luis Arce over corruption allegations. He promised to ‘reopen’ Bolivia’s critical mineralresources to international markets (read: sellout vital national assets), warmly welcomed by hemispheric hawk Marco Rubio.

Paz eviscerated universal fuel subsidies, sending gas, diesel, bus, and food prices soaring—sometimes 160%—and crippling many households across the low-income plurinational state.

Day 2 of Bolivia's general strike, demanding the resignation of neoliberal President Rodrigo Paz.

Rural communities are marching on the capital, will arrive by end of the week. They say the long march is "in repudiation of the government that wants to turn us into a US colony". pic.twitter.com/2D9rNe3iy8

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— Ollie Vargas (@Ollie_Vargas_) May 13, 2026

Movement away from socialism?

Paz’s presidency constitutes the reassertion of a traditionally white-dominated ruling class (~5%) over a majority indigenous (~20%) and mixed-race (~68%) population. It’s also self-evident backlash against the wildy popular and progressive MAS.

Evo Morales’ popular Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party dominated Bolivian politics for two decades. MAS saw sweeping recognitions of indigenous rights, side-lined by the prior constitutional arrangement. It advanced sectors like public healthcare, education, and infrastructure. Evismo became a grassroots power-symbol for global leftism.

But socialism is difficult to administer in the world’s largest informal economy. Eventually, MAS became mired in political infighting and — via corruption — abandoned many populist promises. After two decades and Morales’ blocking, MAS lost power.

But though Bolivians grew wary of MAS, many still demand economic dignity. In response to various ensuing neoliberal reforms, COB, the largest trade union congress, initiated an indefinite general strike at the start of 2026.

 Throughout early 2026, COB-affiliated workers led demonstrations and roadblocks, leaders refusing to negotiate with a president intent on dividing social movements and reversing progress. The workers then went on strike again in March 2026.

Now Bolivians march again, defying the state’s movement away from socialism. One unionised indigenous food-seller, Vilma Paredes, told the Canary:

Who knows, maybe we’ll discover that we don’t need political leaders — we just need to organise ourselves for the common good. That’s my opinion.

Featured image by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

By Cameron Baillie

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A British ‘black propaganda’ unit carried out a vast range of ‘anti-communist’ influence operations and even owned international news agencies. The Foreign Office ran the Special Editorial Unit (SEU) from the late 1940s to the 1970s. Declassified UK‘s Jon McEvoy, who has reported on the unit before, accessed a new tranche of files released from London’s National Archives.

McEvoy said:

The focus of much of this material was on the Soviet Union and its external activities, but other campaigns targeted left-wing and national liberation movements across the developing world.

The SEU was part of the Information Research Department (IRD). It served as a:

clandestine anti-communist propaganda unit which operated in the Foreign Office between 1948 and 1977.

And the SEU made deniable (or ‘black’) propaganda. Targets included nationalist movements around the world:

Anti-colonial leaders such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Indonesia’s Sukarno, and Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah were a frequent focus of British propaganda operations.

McEvoy added:

Elsewhere, the SEU orchestrated propaganda campaigns on such diverse topics as fishing rights in the North Atlantic, apartheid in South Africa, and European communist parties.

The operations included running entire fake media outlets.

Foreign Office — fake news before it was cool

Running news agencies was one of SEU’s “core activities”. These are described as “controlled outlets” in the archival material. SEU tried to ensure:

they were stocked with a constant stream of propaganda material.

Some are even named:

Agencies controlled from Whitehall included Near and Far East News (NAFEN), the National Guardsman, the Guardian of Liberty, Lion Features, and World Feature Services.

The unit considered Guardian of Liberty particularly successful:

“With the Hungarian Uprising as its ostensible origin”, one SEU file noted, the Guardian of Liberty was able to build up “a reputation as an authoritative source of information on Communist affairs” which was often “embarrassing to the Soviet authorities”.

Adding:

The SEU was particularly pleased with how it functioned as a “hard-hitting disavowable outlet available for the dissemination of particularly ‘difficult’ subjects” such as “the naming of KGB agents operating in foreign countries”.

The fake outlets mixed everyday news items with overtly political material to appear less suspicious:

In order to look like bona fide news agencies, the SEU’s “controlled outlets” fused political with “anodyne” content in order to “sweeten the pill” of the propaganda material.

These “anodyne” articles covered such issues as women’s affairs, health, sociology, geography, history, and sport.

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One SEU operative quoted in the files remarked of fake new agency Lion Features:

In order to attract editors and readers, and to maintain the appearance of a genuine features agency, an average issue is usually made up of two polemical articles, combined with three others of a positive or anodyne nature.

The unit also supplied secret briefings to outlets and journalists:

In addition to controlling news agencies, the SEU supplied “independent” outlets and journalists with secret briefings and pre-written content for publication under their own names.

Some of those stories emanated from British intelligence material, helping journalists to build their own prestige and disseminate stories internationally.

The intelligence services built links with journalists from major outlets of the time. The documents mention outlets like Reuters, the Sunday Telegraph, the Scotsman and the Economist. Other sections describe how the UK sought to increase racial tensions between Africans and the Chinese inside former colonies.

SEU also sought to play off Russia and China and cause discord between Egypt’s nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser and other North African and Middle Eastern nations.

The IRD officially shut down in 1977. Today we cannot fully know where the UK state is running influence operations, if it still operates entire media outlets or which journalists it may seek to recruit influence. Using propaganda to shape global and domestic politics is still standard fare for states and corporations.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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