A coalition of independent beauty brands is uniting against corporate giants whose profit-first mentality is hurting consumers. They’ve called out these behemoths for pedalling “ultra-processed” beauty products, viewing this as analogous to highly processed fast food. They insist consumers deserve better.

Independent beauty brands Neve’s Bees, Lyonsleaf, Husk & Seed, Shade All-Natural Sunscreen, have teamed up with the sustainability-focused media platform Live Frankly to spotlight toxic products under the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic. They are doing this as part of their new campaign, launched today.

The independents skin care providers aren’t alone in this mission. We wrote about Lush’s products and their diligent use of natural ingredients and zero-tolerance policy toward chemicals. Others are likely to follow suit.

‘Clean beauty’

Live Frankly aim to expose the cocktail of chemicals hidden in skin care regimes, arguing the the world is abandoning ‘clean beauty’ for a ‘scientifically-minded’ approach. While ingredients like peptides, retinol, and hyaluronic acid are touted for their benefits, Live Frankly points out that “science” has been reduced to a marketing tool with benefits falsely exaggerated.

In an open letter to the industry as part of their campaign, which launches today, they wrote:

These ingredients are not just being marketed as effective, but as essential for anti-aging. Anti-aging being the indisputable goal since before the dawn of early commercial beauty brands, when both Elizabeth Arden and her rival Helena Rubinstein preyed on women’s fear of aging, with Rubinstein reportedly telling the press in 1930: “Women have a duty to keep young.”

Women have faced relentless pressure to look a certain way and never age. Often, they feel anxious and confused about where to start. This campaign reminds us that health comes before beauty – and that health itself is beautiful.

Live Frankly spoke with Emma Dawes of the Soil Association for her perspective:

I disagree with that word anti-aging, everybody ages and it shouldn’t be looked upon negatively.

So, my personal view might be different to what the cosmetic industry or the Soil Association view could be, but I would say these ingredients have some functions, but maybe not as much as brands make out.

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They state that one brand particularly notorious for this is the Ordinary, whose ‘ethos’ tagline is “Grounded in science. Driven by purpose.”

Their bestselling serum, Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5 (with Ceramides), for example, is proven to target signs of aging and claims to deliver instant and
long-lasting hydration. Their testing shows results over four weeks – on 32 people.

Referring to the Ordinary’s well received ‘Periodic Fable’ – a parody of the scientific table that claims ‘dispel common beauty myths’ – chemist Julie Macken of Neve’s Bees describes it as a crafty market ploy.

A scientific table with zero science’, as it says in its heading, is exactly what it is. It’s very clever marketing but it’s also
faux-transparency and a smokescreen for all the ingredients they’re not talking explicitly about. I feel like
that little boy shouting ‘But, the emperor’s got no clothes on!’ Why can’t anyone else see this?’.

Choose water-free skincare

To combat false advertising, the Live Frankly-backed campaign educates consumers on what their true skin needs, as protection against the allure of glitzy marketing campaigns. They draw attention to underhanded practices such as the bacteria-promoting preservatives, emulsifiers, and stabilisers big beauty brands use in their products – effectively diluting them to maximise profits.

In their letter, Live Frankly write:

The impacts of preservatives are still being discovered, but so far Parabens have been linked to hormone malfunction, obesity, and possibly increased risk of breast cancer.
Plus, when applied to skin, preservatives don’t differentiate between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria, so they are likely to compromise the skin’s microbiome. Just like a healthy gut, a healthy skin microbiome is said to help your immune system and defend against inflammation, irritation, and conditions like eczema.

The microbiome is also impacted by the emulsifiers that are required to blend oil and water and thickeners to create desirable textures. Other additives include fragrance stabilisers such as phthalates, which mimic human hormones and are linked to fertility issues, early puberty, and some cancers.

These “can and are likely to be derived from petrochemicals,” explains Dawes. They can interfere with natural oils and disrupt the barrier, leaving skin prone to dehydration and environmental stressors.

To combat this in a much simpler way for consumers, this group of forward-thinking beauty brands recommend one thing. Specifically, they advise consumers to avoid those with water in the ingredients:

If your skin constantly dries out, no matter how religiously you moisturise, then the problem could be your ultra-processed skincare products. Not you or your skin.

At this point, we could list ingredients to avoid but we’ve done that before. Let’s be honest, it’s a long list and deciphering ingredients listed on creams pretty much requires a chemistry degree.

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So what if, instead of reading labels, there was a simpler option? One approach is to look for water-free skincare products. When brands don’t add water, they don’t need preservatives, emulsifiers or stabilisers. When it comes to moisturisers and sunscreen, this usually means choosing a balm, salve or oil rather
than a cream or lotion.

As women, we’re tired of walking down the beauty aisle feeling confused, overwhelmed, and unsure of what’s worth our money.

In the middle of a cost-of-greed crisis, every purchase counts. We work hard for our money and deserve real value — not clever marketing and over processed formulas. We’ve learned to be mindful about the food we put in our bodies, so it’s time we extended the same care to what we put on our skin.

Featured image via the Canary

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party have been accused of anti-semitism as a result of their latest Green Party smear:

official Labour account now caricaturing a Jewish rival as a sinister svengali type. https://t.co/ysOf5SKGhd pic.twitter.com/5GX6ynNzYw

— bat020 (@bat020) February 22, 2026

There are some complexities to this, but one thing is clear: if Labour had portrayed a Jewish politician like this under Jeremy Corbyn, the British media would have covered it 24 hours a day for a year.

Svengali

The commenter above points to the Wikipedia Svengali article, which carries the following image of an actor playing the character:

Svengali was an evil Jewish hypnotist, with the highlighted Wikipedia article noting:

Svengali is a character in the novel Trilby which was first published in 1894 by George du Maurier. Svengali is a Jewish man who seduces, dominates and exploits Trilby, a young orphan girl working in Paris, and makes her into a famous singer.

Additionally:

In the novel, Svengali transforms Trilby into a great singer by using hypnosis. Unable to perform without Svengali’s help, Trilby becomes entranced.

This is how History Today describe the character:

Svengali is one of those rare literary creations that becomes shorthand for a kind of behaviour: in this case, mesmeric control over another.

So here’s the thing; Zack Polanski was actually a hypnotist. As such, there’s an argument to be made that people should be able to portray him as a stereotypical hypnotist, even if it does resemble an anti-semitic caricature.

Here’s the other thing; between 2015 and 2019, the British establishment decided anything which even remotely looked like anti-semitism should be treated as the gravest hate crime of the century.

Now, the media is churning out stuff like this:

This caricature of Zack Polanski in the daily mail is pretty fucking dodgy isn’t it? pic.twitter.com/cVbzkWWwAO

— Godspeed You Black Tamperer (ft Maya) (@twlldun) December 29, 2025

And Reform are knocking out images like this:

#Reform in #Brighton have posted, reposted and spread this #Antisemitic meme, in reference to @ZackPolanski, a Jewish man, which is clearly directly based on a #Nazi poster from 1937.

Comments welcome from anyone wanting to defend #Reform using actual #Nazi propaganda. pic.twitter.com/nxfzIc5sv3

— John O’Connell (@jdpoc) November 3, 2025

Shameful

We said in the Corbyn years that the media and Labour right were using concocted anti-semitism smears to attack the anti-Zionist movement.

Now, the people we warned you about have made it crystal clear; they never cared about anti-semitism beyond their ability to use it as a cudgel.

Featured image via X

Content warning – this article discusses domestic and sexual violence. Reader discretion is advised.

Dean Lewis has blocked journalists across his social media accounts for covering the growing number of abuse allegations against him. Meanwhile, he is refusing to refund fans who, understandably, no longer wish to attend his shows.

Island Records Australia dropped Lewis from their roster, meaning he is now an independent artist.

But despite this, the US leg of his tour resumed on January 5 in Salt Lake City, Utah. This is after he postponed it last year due to illness.

Since then, hundreds more women and girls have come forward on social media with a wide range of abuse allegations. From domestic abuse and sexual assault to messaging underage girls with extreme content – it has become clear that Lewis has an ever-growing raft of allegations against him.

Previously, an insider who worked closely with Dean Lewis told the Canary that Island Records Australia covered up accusations about him grooming young fans. The people closest to Lewis then attempted to silence the women with cease-and-desist letters.

Dean Lewis avoiding fans

Now, his team are denying hundreds of fans refunds.

He also turned off the resale option on Ticketmaster. This allows fans to resell tickets if they can no longer attend a gig, and is used by most artists.

@nathalie.maaria he’s not sorry it happened, he’s sorry the public found out‼️ #canceled #deanlewis #statement #foryou #viral ♬ original sound – Aster

According to the BBC:

In cases where allegations have been made against an artist, consumers are not legally entitled to their money back. Ticket holders would only be entitled to a refund if the organiser cancels, moves or reschedules the event.

However, in similar cases in the past when there have been allegations of abuse or misconduct, artists have postponed or even cancelled their tours.

TikTok videos show that Ticketmaster have now partially refunded some fans’ meet-and-greet experiences with Lewis. This is because the VIP package changed. This means it no longer includes the intimate pre-show performance, Q&A session, and the group photo with Dean.

Essentially, Dean appears to be avoiding one-on-one or small-group interactions with fans. I wonder why that might be, Dean?

@strangercakes It’s the fall of an empire… #deanlewisdrama #deanlewistour #deanlewis #refund @evie rose @Truthtok ♬ original sound – N3RO

One fan told the Canary that after publicly showing support for Dean’s victims, he blocked her, and then she quickly received an email telling her that her tickets for his upcoming show had been cancelled.

She told the Canary:

Fans of Dean Lewis have been blocked and received messages saying our tickets are no longer valid.

It made me feel very very sad.

I truly barely said anything on the situation other than being sad and for people to stop bashing the girls so I don’t know why I got removed.

Another fan, who received two similar emails, told the Canary:

We thought we got refunded for the shows. AXS still aren’t doing refunds, but I think we got blacklisted from the shows. Me, [name redacted] and [name redacted] all got refunds last night. We had previously requested refunds, but they told us no. So we didn’t request them again.

I had a ticket for Denver, and two days ago I got this email and it said my order has been cancelled , sorry for any inconvenience. Which means they’ve realised I bought a ticket.

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I think they thought I was gonna show up and blacklisted me. One of the girls has never even posted anything about the situation, but he knows shes friends with us.

She had her tickets cancelled for both Los Angeles and Denver.

Proving his guilt

Whilst covering this story, I realised that Dean Lewis had blocked me on both TikTok and Instagram. This is after I previously covered the allegations against him:

But it’s not just me – Dean (or his team!) is blocking hundreds of former fans for speaking out, questioning his behaviour, and even just showing support for his victims.

@tpwk_mikaela Let’s see how many people he will block today #deanlewis #canceled #blocked #fyp #fypシ ♬ Piano famous song Chopin Deep deep clear beauty – RYOpianoforte

It seems that Lewis is afraid that he can no longer control the narrative, after his pathetic excuse of a statement in November.

@truthfulparody Blocking fans, ticket holders and journalists?🤪 Unfortunately for Dean Lewis he can’t control the narrative and delete or block the “comment section” in person at his upcoming shows which are starting tomorrow 🤯 #foryou #trendingnow #deanlewis #viral #tour ♬ original sound – Wildlinglady

Incriminating himself

The Canary put these allegations to Dean Lewis and his team, and the response we received was nothing short of damning.

They specifically requested that we publish the whole email response. However, in order to do that, we would be breaking several UK defamation laws.

The response starts by questioning my own journalistic credentials:

While you are not known to us professionally, we are fully aware of you personally, including your former status as an enthusiastic fan of Dean Lewis and your close association with [name redacted] and others now acting in concert with her.

Any suggestion that your approach to Mr Lewis is neutral or journalistic is noted and firmly rejected.

I am a gold-standard NCTJ-qualified journalist with a Masters (distinction) in journalism. It included several media law exams – which means Dean Lewis, you (and your money) do not scare me.

The Canary is not a ‘neutral’ news organisation – it never has been. We stand in solidarity with victims, survivors, and all those who have experienced injustice. We do not bow down to the rich, powerful, or self-righteous people who think they can throw their money and weight around to silence victims.

The response then goes on to say:

You will not be surprised to learn that we have been monitoring [name redacted] activities for some time. Her recent conduct — facilitated and amplified by your correspondence — constitutes a coordinated campaign of harassment, defamation, and tortious interference, among others. The conduct also appears to breach multiple platform policies and applicable laws across several jurisdictions. As such, we have retained an international legal team and are actively preserving evidence.

But here’s the thing – it’s only harassment and defamation when it’s not true. And the Canary has seen the evidence – the screenshots, the texts, the photos of injuries, the obsession with having young girls call him ‘daddy’. We don’t publish hearsay; we publish facts which we can back up.

If your response when young women accuse you of violence is to go on the attack and cry harassment – I think I can see where the problem is.

It continues:

In recent months, [name redacted] has cultivated a substantial social-media following [social media handle redacted] by publishing salacious and unverified allegations concerning Mr Lewis and profited from it, before subsequently removing and republishing materially similar content via alternate burner accounts. This blatant bait-and-switch strategy is designed to aggregate followers, propagate false narratives, evade platform enforcement, and profit from calculated reputational harm. Your participation in this ecosystem is noted.

The reality is that the aforementioned social media users (and several others) published voice recordings, texts, and photos from Lewis. They then received cease-and-desist letters, which the Canary has seen. The social media users in question then temporarily removed or hid social media posts until they had taken legal advice.

We have removed the next paragraph of their response because it contains unverified claims and is potentially defamatory.

Threatening the Canary

The response ends:

In response to your questions: you are free to publish as you see fit, entirely at your own risk and that of your publication. Relevant individuals at The Canary have been copied for their awareness.

We formally request that this letter be published in full alongside any article. In any event, we expressly reserve all rights, including the right to publish this correspondence independently ourselves and to rely upon it in any legal or regulatory proceedings without further notice.

Sincerely,

Dean Lewis Management Team

I think that was a threat to both the Canary and me.

Any defamation trial would involve us providing the evidence that our claims are “substantially true” – so try your luck. At least you can’t lose your AirPods in a prison cell.

Feature image via Cera/Unsplash

On Friday 20th November, three young men were violently attacked with one 18-year-old Muslim man being fatally stabbed. The attack happened outside a mosque on Oldbury Road in Smethwick. The police were called to the deeply distressing attack just prior to 9pm on Friday night.

The other young men, aged 19 and 22 years-old, were taken to hospital for treatment. Their injuries are reported to be non-life threatening according to West Midlands police.

Young man fatally stabbed outside mosque in central England during Muslim holy month of Ramadanhttps://t.co/p9d7vP2A1f

— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) February 21, 2026

Attack outside of a Mosque

The man murdered, named on Saturday afternoon by West Midland’s police is Zeshan Afzal, a Smethwick resident. Since the incident, the police force has confirmed that a murder investigation is currently underway.

However, according to the police incident is not yet being considered racially or religiously aggravated – a presumptive conclusion at this early stage.

The facts have not been established, nor made public. That said, there are murmurs that Zeeshan was leaving the mosque when a group of men attacked Muslim worshippers, and that he may have been trying to protect his Muslim brothers.​

The police have said their inquiries are ongoing to determine what actually happened – including a timeline of events and the identity of the perpetrators who attacked three Muslim men, during the holy month of Ramadan.

To put that into perspective, imagine a knife stabbing against Christian worshipers leaving a Christmas mass service.

The West Midlands police have attempted to reassure the local community, advising that there will be a visible police presence in the area.

LONDON 
UK police have launched a murder investigation after a young man was stabbed to death outside a mosque in England’s West Midlands during celebrations of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan

Officers were called over reports of disorder outside a place of worship on Oldbury… pic.twitter.com/YDDrikZRFt

— RapidAlert (@DisasterAlert2) February 21, 2026

‘Deeply distressing and concerning’

The spokesperson for West Midlands police force stated:

At this stage the incident is not being treated as religiously or racially aggravated but we’re working to establish the full circumstances and who was involved.

We’re reviewing CCTV and carrying out other enquiries in the area.

We would urge witnesses or people with information, including mobile phone or dashcam footage, to please contact us.

We understand how deeply distressing and concerning this incident is and we will have extra officers in the area over the coming days to offer reassurance to the community.”

If you have any information, please contact West Midlands Police on 101, quoting log number 4896 of February 20th. Alternatively, call CrimeStoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

Featured image via the Canary

As we’ve reported, masked goon squads have run amok in the US. The scary thing is these aren’t members of some militia or gang – these are agents of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

While these agents have always dealt in violence, Trump has turned them into a full-on Gestapo-style menace. In January, this saw them gun down Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. The response from the American public was incredibly negative, with Trump’s polling now in the toilet.

Despite the murder and negative political outcomes, however, Reform have decided they need to import ICE-style policing to the UK:

If you want concentration camps in the UK, people being grabbed off the streets, or murdered on them, five year olds being separated from their parents and locked up vote reform, but they’re still going to make you poorer https://t.co/KxmOVfDe9J

— Daniel Lismore (@daniellismore) February 23, 2026

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Reform want ICE-style goons

There are many videos of violent ICE goons online, including literal murders:

The little ice agent with the brown beanie and the backpack aggressively escalated the situation. Two handed shoving women, pepper spraying people, wrestling the guy down from behind, hitting him with his can of pepper spray. That wasn’t law enforcement https://t.co/W9VJIoW01s

— ElCaminoCat78 (@JtCatCamino) January 25, 2026

This is what we reported on 3 February:

On 26 January, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents wrestled nurse Alex Pretti to the ground and shot him multiple times in the back. The killing was caught on camera by several bystanders, providing various angles. The Trump regime initially defended the use of lethal force, with key advisor Stephen Miller describing Pretti as an “assassin“. Trump and others around him would later backtrack following massive public backlash.

Is this what we want on UK streets?

Death and mayhem, with government officials running cover for the violent thugs who commit it?

Oh, and Pretti wasn’t actually a migrant, by the way. So even if you are some sicko who would like to see migrants gunned down in the street, be aware that no one will be safe.

Another thing to be aware of is that ICE bolstered its numbers by relaxing its recruitment practices. One whistleblower within the agency said:

This isn’t the department of baking cookies. This is the Department of Homeland Security, where you can be deported from the country.

And we’re now employing people who are not equipped to tie their own shoelaces.

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This whole thing is a complete disaster from beginning to end.

Imagine the angriest loser in your local area, and now imagine him with the authority to crack heads on a whim. This is what ICE looks like in practice.

And as one person pointed out, the thugs below could be the ICE agents of tomorrow:

They’ll be queueing up round the block to join Zia Yusuf’s ICE-style agency if the Manchester Britain’s First march is anything to go by.🤬 #ReformUK https://t.co/pxpdjjTph8 pic.twitter.com/L62SCre87G

— The Rev. Anton Mittens 🌹👮🎓 (@MittensOff) February 23, 2026

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This is what the Guardian wrote about Reform’s upcoming announcement:

Reform UK would create an ICE-style agency dedicated to deporting hundreds of thousands of people, as well as terminating the status of those with indefinite leave to remain (ILR).

The New Statesman’s Oli Dugmore is among those who have spoken out:

ICE/CBP agents have shot 13 people since September.

I do not think we should “recreate ICE” in the UK.

This should be… uncontroversial pic.twitter.com/uBmjWrdkTu

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— Oli Dugmore (@OliDugmore) February 23, 2026

The Green Party have also reacted:

🚨 BREAKING

➡️ REFORM will announce British ICE THUGS would be deployed on UK streets if they get into government

✅ Vote GREEN in Gorton and Denton

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🛑 STOP REFORM https://t.co/X6mwNwUjhk

— Manchester Green Party 🐝 (@McrGreenParty) February 23, 2026

They’re far from the only ones either:

Reform to copy ICE, says Zia Yusuf👇

Because of course there’s nothing more British than Gestapo-style police thugs terrorizing local communities and throwing 5 year-olds and grannies into detainment camps

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It’s actually what a lot of our – British – parents fought against pic.twitter.com/tpsj9lCt59

— Alex Taylor (@AlexTaylorNews) February 23, 2026

Does #Gorton & #Denton want ICE UK agents poking around your neighbourhood?

A vote for @GoodwinMJ is a vote for “where are your papers?”. pic.twitter.com/radWIm6u0J

— Reform Party UK Exposed 🇬🇧 (@reformexposed) February 23, 2026

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Announcements on announcements

Reform have made other announcements today (to be fair, that’s true most days, because Farage is addicted to press conferences):

Reform UK will protect Britain’s Christian heritage.

— Reform UK (@reformparty_uk) February 23, 2026

Britain’s ‘Christian heritage’ has become less important because British people have moved away from religion. You can feel sad about that, but trying to legislate faith is wishful ‘nanny state’ thinking.

Yusuf also promised to end the “invasion”:

Zia Yusuf: “We can and will secure our borders and end the invasion.” pic.twitter.com/nnauswb0sP

— Reform UK (@reformparty_uk) February 23, 2026

Where does Yusuf think this sort of rhetoric ends?

It can’t escape him that the talk around immigration has become more extreme year on year. Does he think that will magically end before we get to ‘remigration’ – i.e. the forced deportation of people of colour.

Because make no mistake – prominent figures are talking about remigration now:

Remigration is the only way https://t.co/HB4sxLGKl0

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 1, 2025

Yusuf is also still pretending to be the ‘shadow home secretary’ – something he legally is not. This would be sweet if he was four-years-old, because he’s got a special little podium and everything:

My first speech as Shadow Home Secretary: here’s how Reform will secure our borders, deport illegal migrants and make you feel safe 👇 pic.twitter.com/iRzztOY492

— Zia Yusuf (@ZiaYusufUK) February 23, 2026

At the end of the day, though, none of this will make Britons better off. Reform know this, and so do the billionaires who are backing them.

Featured image via The Canary

The British royal family is already a thoroughly unaccountable institution; but Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has given the world an insight into just how dark this elite world can get. And taxpayers will not be happy to hear how easily he got public money for private massages.

Mountbatten-Windsor consorted with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and allegedly raped Virginia Giuffre on numerous occasions when she was a teenager. Over years of abuse under Epstein and Maxwell’s control, Giuffre thought she “might die a sex slave“.

Mountbatten-Windsor paid millions in royal money to settle a case with Giuffre, despite denying wrongdoing. Giuffre sought to use this money to fight against human trafficking. She died by suicide in 2025.

Andrew is a dodgy royal using public cash for private massages

On 23 February, the BBC reported that:

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor charged taxpayers for massages and excessive travel costs while working as the UK’s trade envoy, whistleblowing retired civil servants have claimed.

A former civil servant told the state broadcaster that he had wanted to refuse Mountbatten-Windsor’s request for payment of “massage services” but that senior staff had overruled him:

I’d said we mustn’t pay it, but we ended up paying it anyway

Mountbatten-Windsor had been working as a trade envoy from 2001 to 2011, with “civil servants and taxpayer funding” supporting his trips abroad. He reportedly met Giuffre for the first time in 2001. And he “spent weeks” around this time at Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion, getting “daily massages“.

The BBC added:

Another source, a former senior Whitehall official, backs up the claim. This former civil servant, who oversaw finances in this area, had seen similar expenses for Andrew’s trips and says he has “absolutely no doubt” about its authenticity.

He explained:

it was like it wasn’t real money, they weren’t spending any of their own money

There was apparently a severe lack of proper recording or vetting of expense requests, amid an environment of excessive deference and little scrutiny.

The first ex-employee suggested that, in hindsight, greater scrutiny of Mountbatten-Windsor’s behaviour could have reined him in. He asserted:

we should have flagged that something was wrong

While there may have been some light resistance, however, the civil service essentially looked away.

Demand accountability

Despite people seeing Mountbatten-Windsor as “a liability” even at the time, this powerful establishment figure kept his role for years. And now, in the age of artificial intelligence, authorities still refuse requests for information about his behaviour as a trade envoy because it would be “too time-consuming” to go through it.

There are now demands for the royal family to, at the very least, bar Mountbatten-Windsor officially from access to the throne. But in spite of everything in the public domain about him and his recent arrest, such a process could still be an excruciatingly distant possibility.

Judging by how long it has taken for Mountbatten-Windsor to lose his royal titles, and how long it’s still taking to lose his path to the throne, there must be more public pressure on the government and monarchy to act.

People like Mountbatten-Windsor and fellow friend of Epstein Peter Mandelson still have immense privilege, unlike the victims and survivors of the disgusting criminal network Epstein ran.

The instinct in establishment circles to ‘protect their own’ (as we can also see in the latest revelations about Mountbatten-Windsor’s expenses) clearly remains. And justice is not yet a reality for all the women whose lives the abusers destroyed.

The general public must demand a proper response from the UK’s rulers. And if the establishment doesn’t allow meaningful accountability and justice, then we must bring that establishment crashing to the ground.

Featured image via the Canary

The US military has supported Mexico’s bloody cartel raid with intelligence from a new joint cartel task force. This fits exactly into Donald Trump’s bid for hemispheric dominance. Or, as one writer has put it, the erratic president’s new strategy for a ‘homeland empire’.

The White House confirmed it backed the bloody raid which killed cartel boss Nemesio ‘El Mencho’ Oseguera Cervantes. Cervantes was killed by Mexican government forces on 22 February. He was head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). The attack triggered a further wave of violence across the country.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said:

The United States provided intelligence support to the Mexican government in order to assist with an operation in Tapalpa, Jalisco, Mexico, in which Nemesio ‘El Mencho’ Oseguera Cervantes, an infamous drug lord and leader within the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, was eliminated.

But apart from this admission details are thin. However, it’s understood that the Department of War’s Arizona-based Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel (JIATF-CC) supported the operation with intelligence. JIATF-CC was founded by executive order in January 2025:

to coordinate all U.S. government resources deployed to or supporting the efforts in the [U.S. Northern Command] area of responsibility to identify, disrupt and dismantle cartel operations along the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Security website The Watch reported:

Approximately 10,000 active-duty troops were mobilized to bolster those efforts and provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to other U.S. agencies, including the Customs and Border Protection agency.

Like Trump’s internal immigration crackdown using paramilitary thugs, this is another merger of policing with warfighting.

Merging defence and law enforcement

The military and law enforcement are traditionally seen as separate. This is an oversimplification in the post-9/11 world, but under Trump that two have merged even more quickly.

Historian Nikhil Pal Singh warned in a recent piece for Equator:

familiar analytical frameworks which rely on the distinction between foreign and domestic realms, normality and legality, policing and war, cannot provide the ‘world picture’ we need to grasp what’s happening here.

Instead, Trump:

conflates immigrants, drugs and free trade as sources of weakness coming from outside, “poisoning the blood of our country”.

Trump has married:

the archaic geopolitics of a settler empire to the modern legal frameworks devised by his liberal predecessors.

Singh adds:

What distinguishes his latest regime is its effort to reimagine and remake the borders of American state power, collapsing the foreign and the domestic in a single domain of impunity: call it ‘Homeland Empire’.

Civilisational and supremacist

The Trump administration has laid this approach out in its own words in its National Security Strategy (NSS) published in November 2025. It speaks in supremacist, civilisational terms, reading as much like a Joe Rogan interview as a major policy document:

The era of mass migration must end. Border security is the primary element of national security.

The NSS wilfully conflates migration with drug trafficking, spying and more besides:

We must protect our country from invasion, not just from unchecked migration but from cross-border threats such as terrorism, drugs, espionage, and human trafficking.

A border controlled by the will of the American people as implemented by their government is fundamental to the survival of the United States as a sovereign republic.

Trump’s Caracas kidnap of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on 3 January figures here. US figures often conflated the war on drugs with the War on Terror in the build-up to the raid. The US even drew on decades-old rhetoric about Al Qaeda to justify its violence.

Trump’s Mexico threats

On his first day back in office in January 2025 Trump designated Mexican cartels as terror organisations. In November 2025, the US government said it was preparing CIA personnel and special forces troops to strike cartels inside Mexico.

Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said in November:

He (Trump) has suggested it on various occasions or he has said, ‘we offer you a United States military intervention in Mexico, whatever you need to fight the criminal groups.

But I have told him on every occasion that we can collaborate, that they can help us with information they have, but that we operate in our territory, that we do not accept any intervention by a foreign government.

It seems Mexico, already embattled over relationship with Cuba, has settled on intelligence sharing with the US.

Few will weep over the death of a cartel leader, least of all ordinary Mexicans. Some figures say 300,000 people have died in Mexico in cartel-linked killings since 2025. But Trump’s ongoing practice of merging policing and the military and using them against a range of vaguely defined regional and global enemies is a way of reshaping the US and the region according to his whims.

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A mob of dozens of far-right thugs attacked a defenceless Brown man in Manchester on Saturday 21 February, for no other reason than the colour of his skin. Witnesses said that the attackers chanted “F*** A***h” after the man asked what their protest was about.

Police arrested the victim.

Neo-Nazis on the streets of Manchester

The mobs were also seen performing Nazi salutes and demanding ‘forced remigration’ of Black and brown people – and attacking other locals unfortunate enough to be caught in their path. At the same time, a large contingent of police protected the racists from counter-demonstrators.

Police were then filmed arresting and handcuffing the victim:

The incident follows the pattern of previous far-right attacks in Manchester, like the 2024 attack on a lone Black man, in which police reacted to the attack by pinning down and arresting the victim.

The Greater Manchester Police force’s own figures show huge levels of racism in its policing tactics, yet it has failed to acknowledge the issue despite repeated investigations reaching conclusions of structural and institutional racism.

Fascist impunity continues in the UK.

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Parachuted-in Reform UK by-election candidate Matthew Goodwin’s links to Nazi pseudoscience have been exposed in coverage by Byline Times. The revelation comes hot on the heels of allegations of sexual harassment and reports that Reform boss Nigel Farage is scrambling to distance himself from Goodwin’s record of misogyny.

Goodwin: if it walks like a duck

Goodwin represents Reform this week in the Gorton and Denton by-election created by the ‘retirement’ of its former Labour incumbent. He holds a ‘visiting professorship’ at an academic centre connected to “the front publication for a reconstituted Nazi eugenics foundation”.

Eugenics is a notorious, racist pseudoscience that began in Victorian Britain but was taken up by the Nazis as a way of ‘Aryanising’ the population to remove supposed ‘unworthy’ characteristics. It has never truly fallen out of favour with the far right – and Goodwin has:

actively defended, promoted and cited key figures within the network

of at least five organisations linked to the eugenics movement, including ‘Aporia’. Aporia was exposed in 2024 as the publishing arm of the US far-right, so-called ‘Human Diversity Foundation’, described as a reconstitution of the Nazi ‘Pioneer Foundation’ (PF). Neither organisation has ever renounced their racist origins.

Goodwin holds the ‘visiting professor’ post at the University of Buckingham’s ‘Centre for Heterodox Social Science’ (CHSS). CHSS lists the racist organisations in a section titled “Our Network” and says that all of them are “mission-aligned” with its goals.

As Byline Times notes:

Goodwin has argued that people from Black, Asian and other immigrant backgrounds are not necessarily British. “It takes more than a piece of paper to make somebody ‘British’,” he said in November 2025.

In an interview in June 2025, he described “Englishness” as “an ethnicity that is deeply rooted in a people that can trace their roots back over generations.” The formulation excludes millions of British citizens. He has claimed that women in Britain are having children “much too late” and called for a “negative child benefit tax” for those without children, alongside removing income tax for women with two or more.

Goodwin has also complained that universities are too dominated by “childless women”, which he claimed leads to “politically correct authoritarianism.”

Once a critic of the far right and its abusiveness, Goodwin jumped the fence to join the extremists. Bookies and many polling companies make local plumber and Green candidate Hannah Spencer favourite to win on Thursday, but the Green ‘get out the vote’ operation will be crucial.

Direct form, not just links

Goodwin’s links to so-called ‘race science’ are not just indirect links. In 2019, pseudoscientist Noah Carl was dismissed from a Cambridge University research post after fellow academics signed a letter describing his work as “ethically suspect and… flawed” racism dressed as science. Carl had published his work in another Nazi-funded, white supremacist magazine and the university’s own investigation came to the same conclusion about his claims.

But Goodwin went to bat for the discredited Carl, describing the university’s decision as “mob rule crushing free speech on campus”. The disgraced Carl moved on to become a regular writer for the above-mentioned Aporia, eventually becoming senior editor in 2022. Goodwin then appeared on the magazine’s supremacist podcast – but not to challenge its positions.

Goodwin has quoted white nationalist icon Charles Murray – who attributed inequality to the supposed inferiority of racialised groups and of women – at least three times. Murray claimed that good breeding made the wealthy superior to the inferior genes of those less privileged.

Goodwin has also claimed that science is about to endorse these supposed racial differences that underpin eugenics:

the idea that there are not inherent differences between groups is just going to be completely unsustainable. I mean it already is if you look at the evidence. Over the next 5-10 years it’s just going to look utterly ridiculous as a lot of this research and evidence comes through.

Goodwin did not respond to the publication’s request for comment. Reform – as with the sexual harassment allegations, dismissed them as:

desperate [allegations] bordering on conspiratorial by a discredited outlet attempting to derail a democratic election.

The blighted condition of British politics under Starmer and the fascist Tory/Reform axis he tries to emulate has become so awful that it is a high bar to say that a particular right-winger is unfit to be anywhere near a parliamentary seat. But that proposition applies to Goodwin.

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The Gaza Strip is entering its most dangerous phase since the outbreak of Israel’s genocide, with a tightened blockade, widespread destruction of infrastructure and a worsening shortage of basic services. The suffering is no longer limited to food and medicine shortages, but has extended to water, electricity, health and civil organisation, placing more than two million Palestinians in unprecedented hardship.

An unprecedented water crisis in Gaza

At the heart of the deteriorating humanitarian situation, the water crisis is worsening daily. The Gaza Municipality announced that the city has been facing a severe crisis for weeks, after the Israeli ‘Mikrot’ water line was disrupted by military operations in the eastern area known as the ‘yellow zone’.

According to the municipality, more than 85% of the city has been almost completely deprived of water, at a time when it was relying on the ‘Mikrot’ line as its main source during the genocide, after 72 wells were destroyed and the only desalination plant in Sudaniya was put out of service, in addition to the shutdown of the Bir al-Na’ja and al-Safa wells, which were destroyed again.

The daily water needs of Gaza City are around 100,000 cubic metres, while only 12,000 cubic metres are actually available at best, a shortfall of more than 75%. As a result, the per capita share in many areas does not exceed five litres per day, which is far below the minimum humanitarian requirement for survival.

The United Nations estimates that around 1.4 million of the 2.1 million inhabitants live in approximately 1,000 camps for displaced persons, without running water or electricity, which exacerbates health risks due to overcrowding and high temperatures.

Fuel: a faltering lifeline

The water crisis is directly linked to the fuel crisis, as municipalities are unable to operate wells and sewage treatment plants regularly due to a lack of supplies. Although limited quantities of fuel are being brought in, they do not cover operational needs, leading to frequent interruptions in water pumping and the accumulation of sewage in some areas.

Local authorities emphasise that fuel rationing has a direct impact on vital sectors, from hospitals to public sanitation services, exacerbating the health and environmental crisis and putting the service system to severe tests.

Economically, markets have seen significant increases in the prices of some basic commodities as a result of limited supplies and higher transport and coordination costs. Despite a relative improvement in the availability of some products in recent weeks, price fluctuations remain a prominent feature as restrictions continue.

In response, government agencies and the Ministry of Economy have intensified their regulatory campaigns to control markets and prevent monopolies and exploitation of the crisis.

and announced measures against some offending traders in an attempt to protect consumers and ensure fair distribution, especially in light of eroding purchasing power, rising poverty rates, and the dependence of a large segment of the population on aid or irregular sources of income.

Acute shortage of medicines

The issue of medicines and medical supplies remains one of the most sensitive and serious.

Hospitals are suffering from an acute shortage of essential items, including medicines for chronic diseases and antibiotics, as well as surgical and intensive care supplies.Health authorities warn that continued restrictions on the entry of medical supplies threaten the lives of thousands of patients, especially those with cancer, kidney and heart disease.

The weak operational capacity of hospitals amid fuel shortages further exacerbates the fragility of the health sector, which is already on the brink of collapse.*A chronic deficit*Ultimately, restrictions on the entry of aid and essential goods—whether through rationing or complex procedures—remain a key factor in keeping the sector in a chronic deficit.

Between worsening thirst, scarce fuel, volatile prices, and acute shortages of medicines, Gaza’s residents face a daily struggle for survival in one of the most complex humanitarian situations since Israel’s genocide began.

Featured image via the Canary