Politics
MP Who Initiated Race To Replace Starmer Bizarrely Supports PM
The Labour MP who effectively pulled the plug on Keir Starmer’s premiership has now suggested she could still end up backing him to stay on as prime minister.
Catherine West announced last Saturday that she would run as a “stalking horse” in a leadership challenge to the prime minister in response to the party’s horrendous performance in last week’s elections.
The former Foreign Office minister said she planned to gather the required 81 Labour MPs’ names to formally challenge Starmer.
After Starmer vowed not to “walk away” from Downing Street in his make-or-break speech on Monday, she then decided to collect names of Labour MPs who would agree to set a timetable for the election of a new leader by September.
But her efforts were overtaken as ministers started to resign, putting more direct pressure on the prime minister.
Speaking after health secretary Wes Streeting dramatically resigned on Thursday, West then bizarrely claimed she could potentially vote for Starmer in any subsequent contest.
She said the “important thing” was the Labour Party is now having the conversation about how to beat Reform UK.
Asked if this was the outcome she wanted on Radio 4′s World At One, West said: “The original request I made was for the cabinet to get around the table and nominate someone to explain, to highlight, all the fantastic things the government has been doing with some urgency.”
She said she wants an “honest conversation” from candidates, including from the prime minister if he is a candidate.
“Many of us like Keir very much as a person, he’s got excellent credentials on the international stage and he could well win a competition if he were to put his name forward,” the MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet said.
Asked who she would vote for, she said: “We don’t know who the other candidates are.”
But she added: “If Keir Starmer decides he’s got the bottle, then he can come and fight, fight as though he’s fighting for the working people of this country, then he could beat the others!
“Because he’s a very bright man but the impression he gives is that he’s driving a car but he’s not putting the gears into action.”
She said the country is “idling like a car which cannot go forwards or backwards”.
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Andy Burnham has revealed the Commons constituency he wants to stand in so he can become an MP again and challenge Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership.
Labour MP Josh Simons has agreed to stand down from his Makerfield seat to make way for the Greater Manchester mayor less than two years after being elected.
In a statement, Simons said: “I am putting the people I represent and the country I love first and will be resigning as MP for Makerfield. I am standing aside so that Andy Burnham can return to his home, fight to re-enter parliament, and if elected, drive the change our country is crying out for.
“This has not been an easy decision. This is my family’s home, where only a few weeks ago, doctors and nurses at Wigan Infirmary saved our newborn son’s life.
“But we all must make choices and in recent days I found myself with a difficult one: defend the status quo or step forward and act. I have made my choice.
“I am in politics because politics is how you change lives for the better. My party has one last chance to do that: deliver for the people and places I represent, drive economic growth, secure our borders, reform our state and politics, and change a status quo that is not working.
“That is the fight. I believe Andy is the one to lead it.”
Simons won the seat with a majority of 5,399 over Reform at the general election.
In a statement, Burnham – who was MP for Leigh between 2001 and 2017 – said: “Over the last decade, I have been challenging this failure from the outside and building a new and better way of doing politics.
“We have built Greater Manchester into the fastest-growing city-region in the UK and put buses back under public control, introducing a £2 fare cap to help people with cost-of-living pressures.
“However, there is only so much that can be done from Greater Manchester. Much bigger change is needed at a national level if everyday life is to be made more affordable again.
“This is why I now seek people’s support to return to parliament: to bring the change we have brought to Greater Manchester to the whole of the UK and make politics work properly for people.
“Millions are struggling and they need the Labour government to succeed. It has already made changes to make life better for them in its first two years.
“After this week, we owe it to people to come back together as a Labour movement, giving the prime minister and the government the space and stability they need as the by-election takes place.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage said his party “will absolutely throw everything at” the by-election campaign.
Before he became an MP, Simons used to run Labour Together, the moderate think-tank which helped Starmer become party leader in 2020.
He was forced to resign as a Cabinet Office minister in February over his part in a Labour Together smear operation against journalists.
Despite being a former ally of the PM, he said in the wake of Labour’s drubbing in last week’s elections that Starmer had “lost the country” and needed to go.
The dramatic development comes after Burnham’s leadership rival Wes Streeting resigned as health secretary with a ferocious attack on Starmer on Thursday afternoon.
He said it was clear that the prime would not lead Labour into the next general election on the back of the party’s drubbing in England, Scotland and Wales last week.
Streeting said: “Where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift.”
Burnham stood down as an MP in 2017, and needs to find a way back to Westminster in order to challenge for the Labour leadership.
He tried to stand as Labour’s candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election in February, but was blocked by the party’s ruling national executive committee (NEC).
However, the NEC will be under intense pressure to let him stand again in the hope that he can win the seat and return to Westminster, which he quit in 2017.
Communities secretary and Starmer loyalist Steve Reed says: “I’m sorry Josh has taken this decision.
“If anyone thinks there is a caped superhero that is coming our way with all the answers they have another thing coming.”
Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
Mandelson-protégé health secretary Wes Streeting is preparing to announce his bid to oust Keir Starmer. Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) is likely to play a major and potentially decisive role in who gets to stand in the contest to replace Starmer in Number 10.
Starmer is the worst PM in living memory. That’s quite an ‘achievement’ in a decade that has seen Boris Johnson and the dire Liz Truss in the same seat. But the odds are that the NEC – stacked as it is with Starmeroid and Blairite factionalists – will want a continuity candidate to win. That fact alone would have made it unlikely that Andy Burnham would be allowed anywhere near the contest.
Burnham is deeply flawed, but has a personality and some basic principles. Either would be enough to beat any of the Starmer-clones with which his faction crammed the parliamentary party. Either is enough to make him persona non grata for the NEC.
But Streeting’s rationale for announcing his leadership bid quickly will largely be based on making sure Burnham can’t even think about participating. Burnham would need time to find a parliamentary seat he could stand in before he can bid to lead. Even if the NEC allowed him to stand – rather than find a pretext to block him (again) – it’s far from certain any Labour candidate would win a by-election, even if a 2024 winner stepped down to make way for him.
Optics
But a single-candidate contest, or a Starmer v Starmer mini-me election, wouldn’t be great optics for what remains of Labour.
Former deputy PM Angela Rayner conveniently got a free pass on alleged tax-dodging from HMRC, just in time to throw her hat in the ring, though she’s not Blairite enough for most NEC limpets. And the NEC is currently under the control of the hardest-core factionalists, as new NEC members won’t be in place until the party’s annual conference in the autumn.
So, who might stand and what obstacles do they face? Might sheer inertia allow Starmer to cling on as the most hobbled of lame ducks? Ranjan Balakumaran looked at the situation for the Canary:
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Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
As the Met police tool up ahead of a big day of protest in London on Saturday 16 May, the UN has warned that the UK is eroding people’s rights.
The UN special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Gina Romero, has called on the UK to uphold its international human rights obligations.
This follows the adoption of restrictive legislation and political calls for a blanket ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Romero said:
The entry into force of the UK Crime and Policing Act on 29 April introduces provisions fundamentally incompatible with international human rights obligations regarding the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, association, and expression, and the right of participation.
Of primary concern is the vague concept of ‘cumulative disruption,’ which grants law enforcement excessive discretionary powers to restrict assemblies, disregarding the standard that peaceful protests inherently entail a level of disruption that must be accommodated.
The Act’s criminalisation of face coverings is especially problematic amidst intensified surveillance, as anonymity is often essential to protect privacy and prevent chilling effects.
By imposing further restrictions on mobilisations near places of worship, the State risks creating ‘no-go zones’ for dissent, undermining its duty to facilitate assemblies within ‘sight and sound’ of their target audience.
Yes, Starmer does take a ‘two tier’ approach to protest
On 29 April, following multiple stabbings in Golders Green, London, UK prime minister Keir Starmer said that he would consider banning some pro-Palestinian protests due to the “cumulative” effect that they were having on the UK Jewish community.
This statement followed Tory calls for a moratorium on all pro-Palestinian protests. The (allegedly) independent reviewer of terrorism legislation Jonathan Hall echoed these calls and:
claimed that it was ‘clearly impossible at the moment’ for such demonstrations not to ‘incubate’ antisemitism.
However, Romero called on the UK government to refrain from stigmatising and banning pro-Palestinian marches in the name of preventing antisemitism:
Antisemitism is a serious problem that must be addressed through targeted and lawful measures. It cannot justify a blanket prohibition on peaceful protest.
Romero expressed concern that the government’s approach appears to apply heightened security scrutiny to protest activity associated predominantly with Muslim communities. But it doesn’t apply equivalent scrutiny to other forms of protest with direct links to antisemitic and racist incidents.
International human rights law prohibits discrimination in the enjoyment of the right to peaceful assembly on grounds including religion and race. Romero said:
Where restrictions are framed around conduct, such as antisemitism, but are applied in a manner that disproportionately burdens one community defined by religion or ethnicity, this may amount to discrimination.
The freedom to assemble is foundational to a democratic society. Banning pro-Palestinian protests would be an affront to democracy. This is especially important ahead of the Nakba mobilisations that will take place on 16 May.
The special rapporteur has previously raised these concerns with the government.
Featured image via the Canary
By The Canary
President of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) has joined other trade unions in recognising that the ‘Starmer project’ has utterly failed. However, Ian Hodson goes further than the Labour-affiliated unions by arguing that people must collectively rebuild class politics itself.
Until then, he said:
the vacuum will continue to be filled by division, nationalism and billionaire-backed forces pretending to speak for working-class communities – whilst protecting the very system that caused the crisis in the first place.
Proving his commitment to solidarity, Hodson has worked with many groups including Platform for a Democratic Party. He told the Canary that he fully supports the idea of a grassroots political movement that empowers communities to shape policy decisions, and he has made clear that top-down politics harms the interests of working-class people.
After all, ordinary people always foot the bill in our crumbling society, while the rich evade tax and responsibility as they buy off politicians.
Thank you to @PlatformforaDP, of which I am proud to be a part, for this endorsement. Other members are Eric Barnes, Graham Bash, Michael Forster, Ian Hodson, Ken Loach, Ben Sellers and Audrey White. https://t.co/SlxQA98dH2
— NaomiFromKent (@NaomiFromKent) January 13, 2026
‘Starmer project has failed to deliver’
Ian Hodson spoke to the Canary following the moves by other unions to attempt to ‘right the ship’ that is Starmer’s failing Labour Party. In contrast to the other unions, Hodson believes the system will simply replace one stooge with another unless people force through radical, transformative change.
Hodson shared his insights with us, having worked alongside Labour and its leaders for many years, saying:
The Labour movement is at a pivotal moment. The Starmer project has failed to deliver the change our class was promised and in doing so has created the space for Reform to grow by feeding disillusionment, division and anger.
When politics abandons the language of class, inequality and collective hope, the far right step in with scapegoats and slogans.
He then spoke of how powerless trade unions are increasingly becoming to defend workers’ rights due to the blatant neoliberal status quo:
Trade unions cannot organise around managed decline, attacks on our own movement, and a political strategy built more on defeating the left than transforming society. Our class needs a real alternative that challenges poverty, insecurity and exploitation, not another version of the status quo dressed up as change.
Pointing to the radical change desperately required to remind politicians that the 99% matter and are the engine which drives our economy – even if the 1% offer lucrative, appealing backhanders:
What is needed now is a politics rooted once again in solidarity, public ownership, trade union freedom, redistribution of wealth and democratic control over the economy. A movement confident enough to confront corporate power, rebuild communities stripped apart by decades of neoliberalism, and give people something real to believe in instead of simply something to fear.
If we fail to rebuild that class politics, the vacuum will continue to be filled by division, nationalism and billionaire-backed forces pretending to speak for working-class communities whilst protecting the very system that caused the crisis in the first place.
Live launch of 'For the Many', with Audrey White, Ken Loach, Ian Hodson, Andrew Feinstein and more https://t.co/SRNQWrO1Ru
— SKWAWKBOX (@skwawkbox) October 9, 2023
Hodson: ‘We are conditioned to believe we are not meant to be heard as a class’
We then asked Hodson about the barriers that prevent working-class people from engaging in politics – or even considering it in the first place.
After discussing the barriers I personally felt putting my name forward in 2024 for the general election, Hodson said:
We are conditioned to believe we are not meant to be heard as a class. And women even more so.
Which is why it matters that we challenge and ultimately smash the machine that keeps power and wealth in the hands of the few.
It may take a generation, but every gain our class has ever won came because ordinary people refused to stay silent. We have had victories and defeats along the way, but every struggle leaves something behind for those who come next.
The BFAWU President isn’t alone in this principled ambition for the working classes. Your Party MP Zarah Sultana has strongly advocated for building collective power and has repeatedly warned that British society urgently needs to take “bold action”.
And, our own Ed Sykes wrote:
Sultana made it clear that strong policies and stances are necessary, and that the active participation of ordinary people matters, saying:
“The crises we face, which everyone in this room knows about – climate, cost of living, housing, inequality – they are too big for tinkering around the edges. They demand bold action and collective power. And that power starts here: it starts with you, it starts with our members, our communities, and our activists.
And Your Party has to be that platform for that power, a politics driven by the people: a politics that values diversity, but not as this window dressing exercise. It gives a voice to those who have deliberately made voiceless, and makes democracy feel real, feel tangible.”
Hodson: “Refuse to accept invisibility”
He finished by saying that it is essential that socialists today work to build a platform and provide the tools for a new generation to be even more empowered to “speak up and speak out”.
Beautifully, he finished by reminding us that courage and commitment today for working-class politics will provide:
Another step forward for our class, and for the generations of women that will follow and refuse to accept invisibility ever again.
We at the Canary couldn’t agree more: it is high time working-class people are finally taken seriously in UK politics.
Featured image via the Canary
Some research suggests that those already genetically predisposed to developing dementia could benefit from fish oil supplements. And another paper said that getting enough vitamin D in midlife could reduce risk, too.
Now, a study published in Neurochemistry International has found that an amino acid already present in many medications and supplements could target dementia before it has a chance to cause major damage.
Arginine could slow dementia-related damage
In this research, arginine – an amino acid naturally found in fish, nuts, and meat, and which is commonly used in medications for heart conditions and erectile dysfunction – appeared to reduce the buildup of amyloid plaques in animal and in vitro trials.
Amyloid plaques are sticky bundles of abnormal protein fragments, the accumulation of which has long been associated with dementia.
Alzheimer’s, the UK’s most common form of dementia in the UK, is also linked to stringy proteins called tau tangles. Amyloid plaques and tau tangles have been compared to the “trigger and bullet” in the development of the condition.
In the latest research, scientists noticed that arginine seemed to stop amyloid plaques from clustering together to create that troublesome buildup during in vitro (cells in glass test tubes or petri dishes) trials.
They then tested whether this worked for fruit flies and mice. After administering carefully-titrated amounts of arginine to the creatures, they noticed that the amino acid both prevented plaque accumulation and reduced the harm caused by that buildup.
Excitingly, as we already use arginine in medications and supplements, we know it can be safe for humans.
Study author Professor Yoshitaka Nagai said: “Our study demonstrates that arginine can suppress [amyloid plaque] aggregation both in vitro and in vivo.
“What makes this finding exciting is that arginine is already known to be clinically safe and inexpensive, making it a highly promising candidate for repositioning as a therapeutic option for AD [Alzheimer’s disease].”
What might this finding mean?
It doesn’t mean that any arginine supplement will work as well as the specific, carefully-calculated concentrations the scientists used in these animal trials, as the researchers note. (Additionally, animal trials don’t always map onto human health well).
But Professor Nagai said it could open an avenue for looking into the effects of the amino acid on human dementia risk.
“Our findings open up new possibilities for developing arginine-based strategies for neurodegenerative diseases caused by protein misfolding and aggregation,” the academic shared.
“Given its excellent safety profile and low cost, arginine could be rapidly translated to clinical trials for Alzheimer’s and potentially other related disorders.”
The king failed to mention a ban on the use of snares during his weird annual speech on Wednesday 13 May 2026. Along with a shit load of other animal rights omitted, this comes despite widespread expectations that the government would finally ban the cruel traps.
The Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) recently released footage of illegal snaring on the historic Welbeck Estate in Nottinghamshire. The video shows a wire snare set at the entrance of a badger sett with an adorable badger cub appearing just inches from the lethal device.
More broken promises for our wildlife
The king’s speech didn’t include the Animal Welfare (Snares) Bill, despite Labour’s bullshit manifesto pledging to protect our wildlife. Wildlife charity Born Free laments the lack of wildlife commitments, calling the government’s silence a ‘troubling retreat’ from what Starmer promised. But what can we expect from a dickhead who got into power with ten pledges that turned out to be total and utter lies?
The RSPCA also weighed in, noting that the ban on snare, alongside the one on trail hunting, wasn’t contained within this year’s legislative agenda. This omission ignores the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Animal Welfare Strategy from December 2025, which explicitly committed to banning snare traps in England.
Scotland and Wales have already banned the fucked-up traps, but it remains legal in England. The hunting industry still continues to use snares for ‘predator control’, which is total and utter bullshit. They’re frequently found in breach of welfare codes.
Illegal activity on the Welbeck Estate
The footage obtained by the HSA on Welbeck Estate shows very clear proof of illegal activity. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 clearly states that it is a criminal offense to set a snare which intends to cause bodily injury to badgers. And having one mere inches from a sett full of cubs definitely suggests fatal intentions.
The snare was found reset near an active sett and it showed recent signs of a struggle in the dirt. Blood-stained soil doesn’t exactly scream innocence from the Welbeck Estate. Wildlife presenter Chris Packham branded the scene ‘savage’ and called for an immediate ban to crush the ‘widespread illegal activity’.
Welbeck is a sprawling 1,500-acre estate owned by William Parente, who once served as the high sheriff of Nottingham. Ironic. The estate hosts frequent bird shoots, massacring pheasants and partridges, and these activities usually lead to the deaths of non-target species.
In other words, they use the guise of shooting birds to ‘accidentally’ murder innocent mammals such as foxes. What is it with rich people and this need for blood?
Toxic trash near tourist hotspots
In addition to these illegal snares, the HSA discovered boxes full of poison and dead rats littered all over the woods. These were located just a few hundred metres from Creswell Crags, a popular tourist attraction.
The irresponsible use of poisons poses such a major environmental risk. How long is it before a beloved family pet stumbles across the site and dies? And if a predator eats one of those poison rats, they can easily spread the poison through the food chain. But something tells me that may be the point.
The hunting industry has faced repeat convictions for these shitty practices. A court convicted a Shropshire gamekeeper of using toxic bait to target predators in 2022.
A HSA spokesperson said the shooting industry will ‘always prioritise their hideous blood sports’ over the environment. With the Labour party and the king refusing to provide the promised legislative follow-through, how many more animals will suffer and die before this brutal practice is finally shut down?
Featured images via Hunt Saboteurs Association/Facebook
By Antifabot
I’ve finally figured out why I find Wes Streeting so grating. It’s because he bigs up his working-class origins even as he shits all over working-class Britain. ‘I’m from Stepney’, he chirps, like a camp Dick van Dyke, before looking down his Cambridge-educated nose at his fellow oiks who voted for Brexit. He wears his humble roots like fancy dress to disguise his lofty indifference to the populist beliefs of those who don’t only come from working-class Britain but still live there. ‘I’m one of you’, he says, when every Brit with a brain knows he’s one of Them.
Everyone is asking the wrong question about Streeting, the former health secretary who seems to have been on manoeuvres against Keir Starmer’s shitshow of a premiership since Day 1. ‘Can he go all the way?’, asks every intrigue-addicted hack in SW1, when what they should be asking is: ‘Who in the name of all that is holy thinks Wes Streeting is the answer to Britain’s problems?’ It terrifies me more than I can say that there exist in the Labour Party people who think this Third Way tit with his committee-written jokes and petrol-blue suits should be PM. No further proof is needed that Labour is over. O-V-E-R.
Don’t get me wrong, Streeting’s floundering campaign for the crown has been hilarious. It was rumoured for months that he wanted to clear out robotic, adenoidal Starmer in favour of his own robotic, adenoidal shtick. And following the trouncing of Labour in the local and devolved elections last week, this bloodless clash between the two beigest men in politics warmed up a little. Streeting is going to launch a leadership challenge, his oddball allies told their old university chums in the bourgeois press. Actually, gloated the Starmerites, he doesn’t ‘have the numbers’. Now, at last, it seems he’ll strike: he resigned as health secretary today.
It is the palest, most pathetic palace coup in the history of these isles. I’ve witnessed pub fights of more consequence. It shames my English heart that we’ve gone from the Battle of Marston Moor to this clash of midwits cut from the same grey cloth of technocracy. If Streeting really has found his spine, thanks to his hypemen hoodwinking a few more MPs into backing him, what earthly difference will it make? He’d be Starmer 2.0 – a husk of a PM whose historic role will be to oversee the richly deserved death of a Labour Party that long ago betrayed the kind of people Wes grew up with.
The idea that ‘the boy from Stepney’ will breathe life into the body politic is undiluted hogwash. It’s an idea that excites Guardianistas in particular. Leftists called Arabella or Edred love to gush over Angela Rayner as a salt-of-the-earth broad they might enjoy half an ale with, and over Streeting as the one Eastender they could chat to without suffering a microaggression. That’s because while Streeting the man might be from the working class, Streeting the politician was forged entirely in the institutions of elite groupthink. He might be a ‘boy from Stepney’ but he is a seasoned creature of the establishment.
Rarely in the history of our politics has someone from humble origins being so successfully flattened into a fleshy embodiment of elite opinion. Consider the conveyor belt he rode into politics. His first big role was as president of National Union of Students, that assembly of the most insufferable youths in the land whose raised fists and daft keffiyehs cannot disguise their zealous middle-class careerism. He then worked for Stonewall for a year-and-a-half – the former gay-rights charity turned trans cult which helped to lay waste to the rights of women by conspiring to destroy sexed language and even single-sex spaces.
Streeting has more recently said it was wrong to chant ‘Trans women are women, get over it!’. He has even graciously decreed that gender-critical women should not be silenced. Ladies, you may speak! Wes says so! Yet it would be folly of the gravest kind to ignore that this aspiring PM was once at the heart of a charity whose neo-religious dogmas led to the shattering of female liberty and the drugging of gay teens. He later did stints at PricewaterhouseCoopers and a Labour think-tank, no doubt guzzling down more crank woke Kool-Aid as he went.
Streeting the Downing Street dreamer was made not by the working class but by the institutions of the anti-working class. In the rarefied charity sector with its post-truth, anti-woman bollocks, and among student agitators who break out in hives at the sight of a Brexit voter, and in the plush offices of snotty think-tanks that examine the masses rather than talking to them. He is the star protégé of the wankerati. Entirely unsurprisingly his views are of a piece with this moral regime he ingratiated himself with. He hated Brexit and said Starmer should have taken more action to ‘undo’ it. He warned the little people not to use inflammatory language about the rape gangs. And in his resignation letter today, he laments the ‘dangerous English nationalism’ of Reform UK that poses such a threat to our ‘values and ideals’.
‘Dangerous’ — he’s talking about the working classes, isn’t he? He’s talking about hoi polloi. He’s talking about the pissed-off of Wales and the north of England who last week initiated the latest stage of their populist revolt by voting for Reform. It is breathtaking how clueless Labour is. They really are content to wallow in the self-flattering and bigoted delusion that the working classes have only temporarily been enticed away by the demagogic trickery of Nigel Farage and will be back in Labour’s arms soon enough when a ‘fresh face’ is in charge. You fools. You are finished. Neither the turncoat from Stepney nor that ‘King of the North’ Andy Burnham will save Labour from what is coming – the democratic fury of the people they have betrayed and demeaned for far too long.
Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. His latest book – After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation – is available to order on Amazon UK and Amazon US now. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy.
Starmer’s policies have failed to meaningfully support universities and colleges (Alamy)
4 min read
During moments of political crisis it’s often said there are weeks when decades happen. This has been one such week.
Last Thursday the country overwhelmingly rejected Keir Starmer and the direction he has taken the Labour Party. As general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), I called for him to set out a timetable for his departure. I did so, not simply because he’s lost the confidence of the country, but because his government’s policies have failed to meaningfully support universities and colleges and, in many cases, have actively deepened the crisis facing them.
For months ministers have talked about the need to support young people: at Labour Party conference, in the King’s Speech, and in repeated promises about opportunity and national renewal. Yet the rhetoric has never been matched by investment. Britain is now on course to become the first generation to leave its children poorer than themselves. That is the defining struggle of our time, and education should be at the centre of any serious response to it. Instead, Labour has adopted little more than a holding position while the crisis in higher education worsens by the week.
UCU has been sounding the alarm on university finances for years. On Tuesday, Parliament’s Education Committee finally put its weight behind those warnings. Its report describes a sector under “unprecedented” financial pressure and warned dozens of universities are at risk of going bust within the next 12 months.
This is a sector that contributes hundreds of billions of pounds annually to the economy, employs half a million people, educates three million, and projects soft power across the world, with more world leaders graduating from the UK than any other country. Campuses also act as economic drivers in many of the post-industrial towns that were once considered Labour heartlands, creating jobs and building pride in local communities. In short, UK higher education remains one of the sectors Britain leads the world in, creating huge benefits: locally, nationally and globally.
Every pound of public money invested in higher education results in a £14 return. If last Thursday’s voters had seen meaningful investment locally, they may not have turned so resolutely against Labour. But instead of growth, Labour chose to launch self-defeating attacks on international students: a new levy, stricter rules for those on graduate visas, embracing ever more hostile migration rhetoric. It chose to sacrifice our universities on the altar of Reform’s hard-right immigration agenda in an attempt to win votes. This strategy ended in spectacular failure last Thursday, with voters from the centre, the left, and the right turning against the party like never before. Now, as with many of our universities, it is terminal for Labour.
The consequences for universities, staff, students and local communities are now severe. If institutions begin collapsing before the next general election, the economic and social damage will be immense. Labour cannot claim to support growth while allowing one of the UK’s most successful sectors to fall apart.
That is why the government must implement the Education Committee report’s recommendations on protecting staff, students and local communities from institutional failure. We are calling for direct government intervention before the crisis spirals further.
This must start with a lifting of the hostile migration policies that have harmed higher education, jobs, local economies and resulted in millions of voters abandoning Labour for the Green Party and Plaid Cymru.
Ministers need to recognise the scale of intervention now required. Labour has just announced it will nationalise British Steel, protecting 2,700 jobs. This is the same number of staff that just one institution, the University of Nottingham, put at risk of redundancy this week. Over the past year, UK universities have announced more than 15,000 job cuts.
UCU members continue to fight, and marking boycotts are due to go ahead at multiple institutions if universities refuse to prioritise saving jobs and courses. But our members alone cannot resolve a crisis created by political failure and government inaction.
If Labour is serious about growth, national renewal and the future of young people, it must stop treating higher education as an afterthought. A revived university sector is essential not only for students and staff, but for the future of the UK economy and for any hope Starmer’s successor will have to rebuild public trust and ensure they are not remembered as Britain’s last Labour prime minister.
Jo Grady is general secretary of the UCU
UN agencies have warned that both the Israeli military and settlers are murdering or permanently injuring increasing numbers of Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank. Compounding the issue, access to treatment for those injuries is in desperately short supply.
UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder stated that Palestine was suffering from “historic levels of settler attacks”. Since January 2025, Israelis have killed around 70 children. Beyond this, 850 children have been injured. In both cases, the majority of the attacks used live ammunition.
Likewise, since the October 2025 ‘ceasefire’, UN agents have recorded over 229 children killed and 260 injured in Gaza alone.
Palestinian children facing coordinated attacks
Speaking from Geneva, Elder added that:
We’re seeing attacks become increasingly coordinated. Documented incidents include children shot, stabbed, children beaten, and children pepper-sprayed.
He also explained that there has been a “sharp rise” in Israelis detaining or arresting Palestinian children in the occupied territory. In fact, these levels have now hit their highest totals of the last 8 years.
At least 347 minors are currently imprisoned in Israeli military detention “for alleged security-related offences”. Worse still, 180 of that number are being:
held under administrative detention and without the procedural safeguards, including detention without regular access to legal counsel and the right to challenge detention.
Schools becoming ‘places of panic’
Elder described how, during a recent West Bank visit, he met an 8-year-old who was beaten by a settler. The resulting head injuries hospitalised the child, and his mother:
had both her arms broken when she reached across to protect her four-month-old baby, putting therefore her arms between her baby and the attacker’s club.
The UN official also reported on the alarming prevalence of attacks on attacks on children in or around schools. Israelis have targeted schools for demolition, and detained, injured or even killed the students themselves. The spokesperson explained that:
Schools, which should be places of safety and stability, are increasingly becoming places of panic.
I walked with schoolchildren through the West Bank so as to try and help them avoid any attacks. It’s interesting to watch them walk… They don’t walk in a straight line because they’re constantly looking over their shoulder.
This is a walk to school. It’s become a walk through fear.
‘Preventable disability risks become permanent’
Speaking from Jerusalem, the UN World Health Organization (WHO)’s representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territories – Dr Reinhilde Van de Weerdt – reported that roughly 10,000 children are living with life-changing injuries in the Gaza strip.
Since October 2023, a total of around 43,000 of the 172,000 people injured in Gaza have sustained significant trauma to the limbs, the spinal cord or brain. Likewise, of those 172,000, nearly 2,500 were wounded after the so-called ‘ceasefire’ of October 2025.
Currently, over 50,000 conflict-related injuries are in need of long-term rehabilitation. However, the are currently no operational rehabilitation facilities within Gaza. The WHO representative added the chilling warning that:
Every day that rehabilitation services in Gaza remain under-resourced is a day that preventable disability risks become permanent.
The severe shortage of prosthetics in the Strip further exacerbates this issue. Van de Weerdt explained that:
Of the 2,277 people that have had a limb amputated, less than 25 per cent have been fitted with permanent prosthetics.
However, that shortage of medical equipment is being engineered by Israel. Currently, 18 shipments of prosthetic limbs, wheelchairs and other rehabilitation-related supplies are ‘pending clearance’ for entry into Gaza. The waiting times vary from just above 4 months to over a year.
Featured image via the Canary
Politics
Palestinian call for BDS backed by majority of Welsh cabinet and nearly 40% of new Senedd members
New analysis from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) shows that nearly 40% of the newly elected Senedd supports the Palestinian-led call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) in respect of Israel. This includes seven of the ten newly appointed members of the Welsh government cabinet.
The figures show that 36 of the 96 Members of the Senedd (MSs) signed PSC’s Senedd Pledge for Palestine, which included the call for BDS. Signatories include:
- 33 Plaid Cymru MSs, including deputy first minister Sioned Williams MS, six other cabinet members and two further deputy ministers.
- Both Green MSs.
- Labour MS Mike Hedges.
You can see the full list of pledged MSs below, including constituency.
Going into the 7 May election, 141 candidates for the Senedd had made the pledge, including:
- 57 Plaid Cymru candidates.
- 49 Green candidates.
- 9 Liberal Democrat candidates.
- 7 Labour candidates.
- 7 independents.
Palestinian civil society organisations launched the BDS movement in 2005. It called on global allies to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel to pressure it to end its occupation and apartheid against Palestinians.
It takes inspiration from the global anti-apartheid movement, which helped bring an end to apartheid in South Africa. That campaign was very active in England and Wales.
BDS directly relevant to Wales
The pledge calls on members of the Senedd to take all appropriate steps to:
- Uphold the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.
- Stand up to Israel for its crimes of genocide and apartheid.
- Ensure the Welsh government is not complicit in these crimes, including by supporting BDS.
This has direct relevance to the Senedd. Last year it emerged that the Welsh government had given a £500,000 grant to an arms company that exports parts for Israel’s F-35 fighter jets, despite the then first minister claiming otherwise.
These aircraft have been used in Israel’s obliteration of Gaza, which is widely considered to have amounted to the crime of genocide, a finding confirmed by the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry.
More than 2,200 council candidates in England signed a similar pledge ahead of the local elections. This followed more than 1,300 sitting councillors from across the UK already making the pledge.
Bethan Sayed, co-chair of Palestine Solidarity Campaign Cymru, said:
The scale of support for the Senedd Pledge for Palestine is a watershed moment for Welsh politics. Almost 40% of our new Senedd Members have sent a clear message: the people of Wales will not sit idly by while the UK government fuels the machinery of apartheid and genocide. This shows that Palestine was on the ballot paper, and the new Welsh government must act decisively.
We are calling on the Welsh government to immediately audit all financial ties to companies complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation and ensure that no more Welsh taxpayers’ money, such as the £500,000 grant to the F-35 supply chain, is used to facilitate the obliteration of Gaza.
But the Senedd’s responsibility doesn’t stop at our borders. The Welsh government must use its unique voice to demand that the UK government end its arms export licences to Israel. Wales has a proud tradition of internationalism; it is time for our leaders to match the moral clarity of the Welsh public and turn that tradition into decisive action.
Full list of MSs who made the pledge:
-
Alun Cox, Afan Ogwr Rhondda, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Sera Evans, Afan Ogwr Rhondda, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Elyn Stephens, Afan Ogwr Rhondda, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Mair Rowlands, Bangor Conwy Mon, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Elfed Williams, Bangor Conwy Mon, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Niamh Ffion Mai Salkeld, Blaenau Gwent Caerffili Rhymni, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Lindsey Geoffrey Whittle, Blaenau Gwent Caerffili Rhymni, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Sioned Ann Williams, Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Zaynub Akbar, Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Nick Carter, Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Dafydd Trystan Davies, Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Paul Rock, Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf, Green Party.
-
Anna Heledd Brychan, Caerdydd Penarth, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Leticia Andrea Gonzalez Estagarribia, Caerdydd Penarth, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Kiera Duncan Marshall, Caerdydd Penarth, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Anthony Slaughter, Caerdydd Penarth, Green Party.
-
Lyn Ackerman, Casnewydd Islwyn, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Peredur Owen Griffiths, Casnewydd Islwyn, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Kerry Elizabeth Ferguson, Ceredigion Penfro, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Anna Nicholl, Ceredigion Penfro, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Llyr Gruffydd, Clwyd, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Carrie Harper, Fflint Wrecsam, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Marc Jones, Fflint Wrecsam, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Beca Brown, Gwynedd Maldwyn, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Sian Gwenllian, Gwynedd Maldwyn, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Mabon ap Gwynfor, Gwynedd Maldwyn, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Elwyn Vaughan, Gwynedd Maldwyn, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Safa Elhassan, Gwyr Abertawe, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Mike Hedges, Gwyr Abertawe, Labour Party.
-
Gwyn Williams, Gwyr Abertawe, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Sarah Rees, Pen Y Bont Bro Morgannwg, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Heledd Fychan, Pontypridd Cynon Merthyr, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Lis McLean, Pontypridd Cynon Merthyr, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Matthew Jones, Sir Fynwy Torfaen, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Cefin Campbell, Sir Gaerfyrddin, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
-
Nerys Evans, Sir Gaerfyrddin, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales.
Featured image via the Canary
By The Canary
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