Politics
Nigel Farage’s key Fundraising Advisor is a convicted fraudster who’s writing a book called ‘How to Launder Money’
Most people have probably never heard of George Cottrell. But – like Alastair Campbell to Tony Blair, or Dominic Cummings to Boris Johnson – Cottrell is a man who could be just a few years away from becoming one of the most important behind-the-scenes figures in Number 10, should Nigel Farage become Prime Minister at the next General Election.
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However, whilst both Campbell and Cummings only became publicly synonymous for dodgy behaviour within Downing Street, Cottrell already has a vast repertoire of misdemeanours and accusations to his name – including a criminal conviction for fraud, and involvement in organisations that broke electoral law during Brexit.
In addition, Cottrell has also been accused of money laundering on several occasions, and has even been accused of funneling money through cryptocurrency to illegally fund a Montenegrin political party – accusations which he, through his lawyers, has denied.
And, as if that wasn’t enough already, Cottrell has quite literally just written a book entitled: ‘How To Launder Money’.
Yes. Seriously.
Despite all of these massive red flags and huge neon flashing ‘WARNING’ signs against both his character and conduct, Cottrell has become arguably Farage’s most trusted fundraising advisor over the last decade – with the Reform leader even going so far as to describe him as ‘like a son to me’, and being flanked by ‘Posh George’ at virtually every public and private event.
In the UK, it is illegal for political parties and politicians to accept money or gifts from foreign sources, and it is also against the law to accept anonymous or unidentified donations, or to take money laundered in ways that obscure the true source of funds.
So why, then, would Farage – a politician whose party is currently roaring ahead in the polls, and who will clearly want to keep his nose clean and present a professional image in order to ensure he becomes Prime Minister – keep a convicted criminal, someone who seems to be perpetually mired in allegations of murky financial dealings, so close by his side?
In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know about George Cottrell, and why – if you want the best for this country – how politics is funded really, really matters.
Posh George
George Cottrell was born in 1993 into a wealthy and well-connected British family with aristocratic ties. His father, Mark, is a businessman and landowner from Gloucestershire, and his mother, Fiona, is the daughter of Rupert Watson, 3rd Baron Manton.
Cottrell was privately educated on the luxury Caribbean island of Mustique, and later attended Malvern College in Worcestershire – an exclusive private school where fees are now more than £30,000 a year. However, after being expelled from Malvern, reportedly due to his illegal underage gambling habit, he was reportedly offered a job raising capital for a corporate finance house, leading to him helping to set up a multibillion-pound private office in Mayfair for a well-known ‘international’ family.
According to the Telegraph it was here that Cottrell “learned about the murky and complicated world of ‘shadow banking’, secret offshore accounts and sophisticated financial structures in such jurisdictions as Panama, Andorra and Switzerland. He did well, and was soon working as a London-based banker for an offshore private bank (which was under investigation by the US authorities as a ‘foreign financial institution of primary money-laundering concern’).”
It was a smooth transition from here and into politics for Posh George, as his social connections and financial experience helped him enter the inner circles of UKIP where, in 2013, he was introduced to Nigel Farage by his aristocratic uncle, Lord Hesketh, a former treasurer of the party.
In just a few short months Cottrell became a trusted figure within the party, operating in Farage’s inner circle at UKIP, helping to manage campaign finances, booking Farage’s helicopters, and travelling with the party leader during events and media appearances. He was first promoted to head of fundraising, and later served as UKIP’s deputy treasurer during the 2015 general election campaign.
However, in 2016, things came crashing down.
Conviction for Wire Fraud
While attending the Republican National Convention alongside Nigel Farage, Cottrell was arrested by US authorities and indicted on 21 charges, including conspiracy to commit money laundering, wire fraud, blackmail, and extortion. However, he accepted a plea deal in which prosecutors agreed to drop 20 of the charges in return for him pleading guilty to a single count of wire fraud, for which he received an eight-month sentence, most of which he had already served pending trial.
The case arose from a long-running undercover operation by US federal authorities investigating schemes to launder money through offshore accounts and the dark web. Cottrell was recorded explaining methods by which illicit funds could be moved and concealed.
As Evolve reported at the time:
“Someone known as ‘The Banker’ advertised money-laundering service via dark-web site the Onion Router. Some customers from Phoenix, Arizona, duly responded, whom the mysterious ‘Banker’ directed to the equally mysterious ‘Bill’, later outed as Cottrell.
“According to Cottrell’s own admission to the court, he offered:
“Ways to transfer large amounts of cash out of the United States to avoid reporting requirements and disguising proceeds from criminal activity as legitimate business income for tax purposes.”
“He also admitted:
“I falsely claimed that I would launder the criminal proceeds through my bank accounts for a fee. Rather than launder any of the money, though, I intended to retain the money.”
“In short, Cottrell intended to defraud drug traffickers of their ill-gotten gains and hope they wouldn’t take action against him. Not the safest or, frankly, smartest way to make a quick buck.
“Cottrell communicated with them via ‘Cryptocat,’ offering his money-laundering skills and met them in Las Vegas where, by his own admission, they transferred $20,000 to an associate in Colorado who then transferred it back. Having shown his clients his system worked (deeply incriminating himself in the process), Cottrell then tried to blackmail them.
“He demanded they pay him 130 Bitcoin, then worth around $80,000, to stop him revealing their drug trafficking and money-laundering to the proper authorities. Unfortunately for our aristocratic master criminal, he didn’t know he was already speaking to the proper authorities.”
UKIP’s EU Funds Scandal
In November 2016, the European Parliament found that a political group led by UKIP MEPs had unlawfully spent over €173,000 (£148,000) of EU funds on activities related to UKIP’s 2015 UK general election campaign and the Brexit referendum – a period when Cottrell was serving as UKIP’s deputy treasurer. Furthermore, UKIP MEPs were also found to have unlawfully spent EU money on national campaigning purposes during 2014–2016.
UKIP was told to repay almost £1m in total to the European Parliament, whilst Nigel Farage, then leader of UKIP, had €40,000 docked from his EU salary to cover funds that he had misspent. Other MEPs involved included the current Reform Party Deputy Chair, Paul Nuttall, who also faced scrutiny over his expenses related to the misuse of EU funds.
Leave.EU Financial Irregularities
Then, in 2017, the Electoral Commission investigated Leave.EU and its financial vehicle, Better for the Country Ltd (BFTC), over their fundraising and spending during the 2016 EU Brexit campaign – organisations for which Cottrell was said to be a “key member of” during the referendum.
The Commission raised concerns that some donations may have come from sources not legally permitted to contribute to UK referendum campaigns, and found that the organisations had not fully reported all services received or the value of in-kind contributions, including work from overseas companies.
They also found discrepancies between reported donations and financial records, suggesting misreporting of values or sources. Certain aspects of the case were referred to the National Crime Agency, which ultimately concluded there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges. However, Leave.EU was fined £70,000 (brought down to £66,000 on appeal) for misreporting donations and services, while BFTC was scrutinised but not fined.
During an interview with the Telegraph, Cottrell also admitted to using his insider knowledge to place massive bets on the referendum result after polls had closed on Brexit eve:
“At 10pm, I couldn’t believe I was still getting 9/1 [for a majority leave vote]. We were in our campaign office and I was tracking all the major stock indices, the dollar and pound currency markets. When it got to 3am, I was getting my managers out of bed to get me another 50 grand on here, another 50 grand there, to short sterling. I just couldn’t help myself.”
According to The Telegraph, Cottrell won a six figure sum that night, but he “lost most of it the next day, on some horse running called Exit Europe or something like that. I was a compulsive, habitual, addicted gambler.”
The Montenegrin Crypto Allegations
Following Cottrell’s conviction, he seemingly moved to Montenegro – a well-known centre for cryptocurrency and other blockchain technologies due to its lax laws and lack of regulation – travelling there more than 100 times under a passport name of ‘George Co.’ and conducting business activities there through a company called ‘Private Family Office‘.
It was here, at the luxurious Maestral Casino in Budva, that Cottrell reportedly lost £16m in one night in a high stakes game of poker.
However, this astonishing incident is, surprisingly, not the most controversial incident of Cottrell’s time in the tiny European nation.
In 2023, Montenegrin police raided the Salon Privé casino in the coastal region of Tivat and found an illegal cryptocurrency ATM – a machine designed specifically to convert cryptocurrency directly into cash.
The then Montenegrin Finance Minister, Aleksandar Damjanović, claimed that the machine was linked to Cottrell, and alleged that he was using it to illegally fund an insurgent politician, former Goldman Sachs banker Milojko Spajić, and the election campaign of his Europe Now! (PES) movement – claims that Cottrell’s lawyers have denied.
Following the raid, the then Justice Minister – and former Europe Now! member – Andrej Milović, claimed that:
“George Cottrell, according to information from insiders in their meetings, financed and helped Milojko (Spajić). He was introduced to him by his godfather MT, who connected him with global crypto investors, some of whom are on the wrong side of the law, like Cottrell. Money “donations” were arranged in Podgorica and along the coast, meetings were held on yachts in Luštica and Porto Montenegro, with the presence of certain Arab investors, and Cottrell also visited the premises of PES,”
Under Montenegrin law, all foreign citizens – including Cottrell, who is legally a British citizen – are banned from funding domestic politicians and political parties.
Cottrell’s lawyers have categorically denied any wrongdoing, stating that he had no financial ties to the casino and had never operated the machine. They also said that Cottrell did not personally fund Spajić’s campaign.
Europe Now! went on to win the election, and Spajić was made Prime Minister. Montenegrin authorities have now dropped the investigations.
Geostrategy – The Unlimited Company
Cottrell has now seemingly returned in the UK on a permanent basis and is back as an advisor to Nigel Farage, having been seen accompanying the Reform leader on numerous public and private occasions – including being directly beside Farage when he was infamously ‘milkshaked’ whilst campaigning during the 2024 General Election outside the Moon and Starfish Wetherspoons in Clacton-on-sea.
And now, OpenDemocracy reports that Cottrell has just incorporated a new company purporting to conduct political strategy and polling, named Geostrategy International Unlimited.
However, whilst Geostrategy claim to conduct polling, they are not a member of the British Polling Council, and whilst its website advertises that the company conducts “Party and Candidate Management”, it does so alongside footage of meetings with Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajic, who Cottrell’s lawyers strenuously denied he worked for during the election campaign.
More importantly, though, Geostrategy has been set up as an ‘Unlimited Company’ – a rarely-used form of incorporation which means it doesn’t have to file public accounts, but can still make political donations.
Anti-corruption campaigners have warned that due to the way Geostrategy has been set up, it could act as a “backdoor for illegal donations” – such as money from foreign sources that has been laundered through offshore accounts but reported as donations from permissible UK citizens to the Electoral Commission.
Speaking to Open Democracy, the director of Spotlight on Corruption, Susan Hawley, said:
“With the complete financial secrecy that unlimited companies offer, they can easily be abused by those who want to shield their accounts from secrecy,”
“The fact that Geostrategy has no other business footprint in the UK also raises real red flags about this arrangement.”
“We would urge the Electoral Commission to keep a close eye on these sorts of arrangements to ensure they do not provide a backdoor for illegal donations in the UK”.
Shortly before Geostrategy was incorporated, cash donations totalling £750,000 were made to Reform UK in the name of George’s mother, Fiona Cottrell – one of £250,000 in February 2025, and two of £250,000 in May 2025 – seemingly the only political donations she has ever made to any political party, according to the Electoral Commission.
The Clacton House
Reform leader Nigel Farage has also had a lot of questions to answer over his personal financial affairs lately – not least over the £885,000 house located in his Clacton constituency that he initially claimed to have bought himself, before later admitting that it was actually purchased outright – in cash – by his partner, Laure Ferrari.
Back in November 2024, after receiving significant backlash from locals who claimed he never spent time in his Clacton constituency, Farage proudly declared that he had now finally “exchanged contracts” on a house in the area – a four-bed detached house, complete with an outdoor heated swimming pool, located in the posh part of town, Frinton-on-Sea.
However, in September 2025, following Farage’s criticism of the now former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s underpayment of Stamp Duty, journalists and campaigners began digging into the Reform leader’s own financial affairs – at which point a rather large discrepancy was discovered: Nigel Farage hadn’t, in fact, bought the Clacton house at all. Official Land Registry documents showed that his partner, Laure Ferrari, was the sole owner – and that she had somehow bought the house outright, in cash, without the need for a mortgage.
Had Farage bought the house himself, he would have been liable for the higher rates of Stamp Duty because he already owns property. However, as Ferrari does not own property in the UK, she qualifies as a first-time buyer and only needed to pay the lower rate. This arrangement effectively means Farage avoided paying around £44,000 in tax by not purchasing the property himself, according to media estimates.
The Reform leader responded to the Land Registry findings by saying that he had “misspoke” and was “wrong to say I had bought it” – before insisting that the money used to buy the property was entirely Ferrari’s, attributing the fact she somehow managed to have a spare £885,000 lying down the back of the sofa to her “wealthy family”. But subsequent reports cast serious doubt on his claims, with a BBC investigation into Ferrari’s parents’ company filings and property records suggesting little sign of substantial familial wealth.
Yet, even though Farage could have legally gifted the money to Ferrari in order to buy the property, he continues to insist that he did not provide any funds and has absolutely no financial stake in the property.
So where did the money really come from? It’s all rather a big mystery.
Cottrell’s New Book – “How To Launder Money”
And finally, and perhaps most perplexingly, we come to the very recent announcement that Mr Cottrell is writing a book, conspicuously titled – and I am genuinely not making this up – “How To Launder Money”.
That’s right, just six days ago on September 24th, Biteback Publishing proudly announced that in February they will be publishing “a unique insiders’ guide to money laundering” co-written by Nigel Farage’s closest advisor and long-time political fundraiser, George Cottrell, alongside the “international financial investigator” Lawrence Burke Files.
The book claims to be a guide to aid governments and law enforcement authorities on how to properly crack down on financial crimes, and the authors say they “aim to show the general public how it’s possible for a few hundred million to go missing without a trace”.
However, what do they think the problem causing rampant money laundering and other financial crimes? That’s right, it’s “overregulation” – too many laws.
And according to the foreward to the book written by Biteback, the book supposedly shows how current money laundering regulations are “doing more damage than ever before.”
Yes, it genuinely appears that, through the book, Cottrell and his co-author will try to convince policymakers that relaxing laws on money laundering and other financial crimes are the real way to solve the problem.
It should also be noted that the publisher of the book, Biteback Publishing, is co-owned by the billionaire former Tory donor – who claimed non-dom status, sheltered assets in offshore trusts, lived as a tax exile in Belize, and was a star of the Panama Papers – the veritable Final Boss of tax avoidance, Lord Michael Ashcroft.
Analysis
It’s incredibly obvious to anyone even remotely interested in UK politics that corruption, cronyism, and dirty money is still a huge issue that’s skewing and scarring our democratic process.
There are currently numerous loopholes and ambiguities built into electoral law that allow anybody with the right financial knowledge to obscure the true source of funds if they want to, and the Electoral Commission – the independent body tasked with monitoring and regulating political financing – lacks anywhere near the necessary powers to genuinely investigate where suspicious donations might have actually come from.
When you take into account the countless number offshore banking entities that are available to individuals looking to hide the source of their funds – many of which are located in British overseas territories such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, and UK Crown Dependencies such as Jersey and the Isle of Man – all it really takes is a bit of careful financial planning to get away with it.
UK Electoral Law also currently allows political parties to be funded via cryptocurrency – which, through just a couple of transactions, can leave the true source of funds essentially entirely untraceable. Reform UK is currently the only British political party to accept donations in crypto.
However, whilst Reform’s website forces crypto donors to prove their identity via third party software, this only proves who made the final donation – not where the actual funds truly came from.
Speaking to Byline Times, the Executive Director of Spotlight on Corruption, Dr Susan Hawley, said that this practice of gifting cryptocurrency is impossible to ban unless you ban crypto donations entirely, stating: “as long as the (crypto) donation comes from a permissible donor, it doesn’t matter who gave that permissible donor the money.
Before adding: “Under the current regime, it seems to me that just having the identity of the last handler of the crypto, so to speak, is not really much protection for British democracy.”
“At the very least, consideration must be given to banning donations using cryptocurrencies that are designed to enable anonymity and mixing of legitimate and illicit funds, and those without a public or open ledger [record], and that are unsupported by a central bank.”
When taken together, these legal loopholes mean that any UK political party or politician could be being funded by wealthy foreign individuals and organisations, or even representatives of adversaries to the UK, who have ulterior motives – such as those wanting to push potentially disastrous policies that ultimately only benefit them and their company or country, whilst damaging the UK – and the British public would simply never know.
The government say that they will be introducing new legislation next year that aims to strengthen electoral law and make it harder for political parties and politicians to obscure the true source of political donations.
Labour say that the Elections Bills will make it harder for foreign companies to transfer money into UK shell companies that do not generate UK income, and will force political parties to carry out enhanced checks on donors to ensure their funds do not ultimately come from foreign sources.
In addition, the Electoral Commission will be given powers to impose fines of up to £500,000 on those that break the rules with false or misleading declarations that constitutes a criminal offence.
However, the rules are not expected to impose any cap on donations, and the government is also reportedly not expected to ban donations made via cryptocurrency – leaving various loopholes open for potentially malicious foreign actors to exploit.
I think it’s safe to say that the UK’s political process may continue to be flooded with dirty money for a little while longer – all so politicians can profit, whilst our country suffers the consequences.
Blues-infused vampire horror film Sinners took home three bronze masks at this year’s BAFTAs, after taking box office charts by storm during its initial release.
With the three awards, Sinners has become the most highly-decorated movie by a Black director – Ryan Coogler – in BAFTA history. This is, of course, a colossal achievement, and every one was rightly deserved (and then some). In particular, the movie took best original screenplay for Coogler’s extraordinary script.
The only problem is that this is the year of the Common Era 20-goddamn-26. How the fuck am I writing ‘first Black winner’ for any category in 2026?
Sinners gets 13 nominations, 3 awards
The awards ceremony was held at the Royal Festival Hall in London on Sunday 22 February. Sinners, a historical horror set in Jim Crow-era Mississippi, was nominated for 13 categories. These included leading actor, casting, cinematography, editing, costume design, make-up and hair, production design, and sound.
In themselves, those 13 nominations are another record for a film by a Black director. However, it was still one less than the Leonardo DiCaprio-fronted One Battle After Another, which took six BAFTA wins this year. Incidentally, One Battle has drawn intense criticism for its stereotype-laden depiction of Black women.
Along with Coogler’s award, Wunmi Mosaku won best supporting actor for her role as Sinners’ Hoodoo priestess, Annie. Composer Ludwig Göransson also took home best original score for the film’s centuries-spanning soundtrack.
‘Feeling seen’
Along with its slick storytelling and gorgeous camerawork, Sinners also drew high praise for its palpable love of Black culture – historical, contemporary and future. Taking the stage to accept his award, Coogler spoke about the importance of community and care for the subject matter of his writing:
I come from a community that loves me. They made me believe that I could do this, that I could be a writer. And it was amazing to be accepted into the community of film actors, the community of Los Angeles … For all the writers out there, when y’all look at that blank page, think of who you love, think of anybody who you’ve seen in pain that you identify with and wish they felt better and let that love motivate you. I’ll be forever grateful for this, thank you all.
Likewise, at the winner’s press conference, Mosaku stated that:
It always feels good when you feel like your story and your experience is being represented with integrity and creativity.
In particular, she talked about the personal importance of hearing:
the response of black women feeling seen, loved, valued, treasured, and the power of our ancestry and the spirituality.
For me, seeing that response made me realise how lonely I felt and all of a sudden these women were in my life who I’d never met, I felt a kinship to.
An ongoing battle
I really can’t speak highly enough about how beautiful this movie looked, how moving its soundtrack was, how well the actors embodied their characters. Seriously, if you haven’t watched it yet, do it.
But the fact that Sinners had to be this extraordinary in order to attain this level of recognition at the BAFTAs – and still come second to the somewhat-confused One Battle After Another.
This speaks to a major problem within these prestigious awards – namely, the judges really prefer to give them to a white guys, if at all possible.
Just six years ago, all 20 candidates for both best lead and supporting actor were white. And, in the same year, not a single woman was nominated for best director (or any of the six years before that). Then, in 2023, all 49 winners across every category were white.
The previous record-holder for most BAFTAs for a film by a Black director was Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, which received two masks back in 2014. It came joint third with The Great Gatsby, and behind both American Hustle and Gravity.
A systematic issue
Director Ryan Coogler is also up for best original screenplay at this year’s Oscars. Likewise, Sinners itself is also up for a record-breaking 16 nominations at the prestigious US academy award ceremony.
The one previous Black screenwriter to win the Oscar for best original screenplay was Jordan Peele, for Get Out. Coincidentally, Get Out was also a horror centering on the idea of whiteness exerting control over Black bodies.
The issue, of course, goes far beyond awards ceremonies, being grounded in systematic racism within the film industry itself. That goes from the stereotyping of Black actors, to the denial of opportunity to Black film-makers, to the narrow recognition of Black people making Black art (while white people make art art), and beyond.
This is hardly a new complaint, but we wouldn’t have to keep rehashing it if it didn’t keep fucking happening.
Featured image via the Canary
A skittish BBC has censored a speech from BAFTA winner Akinola Davies Jr. Ending his acceptance speech with “free Palestine”, Davies Jr had expressed solidarity with all people who have to leave their countries and who suffer genocide.
Because the BBC had left a racist slur elsewhere in its BAFTA coverage, critics highlighted how its editorial inconsistency showed its “hierarchy of racism“.
BBC censorship of a prominent Black voice
Akinola Davies Jr and his brother Wale Davies won the best debut BAFTA for their film My Father’s Shadow. And Davies Jr had previously told the BBC that the production was so important because “there’s an absence of my story” in popular discourse.
The BBC, however, clearly thought viewers shouldn’t hear what he had to say at the BAFTA award ceremony.
The state propaganda outlet cut Davies Jr’s comments about migration, genocide, and Palestine in its coverage. As Far Out Magazine explained:
during the television broadcast of the annual ceremony – that runs roughly 30 minutes behind the actual event – the political remark was seamlessly cut.
Free Palestine Cut, The N-Word Aired: Racist Priorities Exposed
Convenient how the BAFTA & the BBC can surgically cut Akinola Davies Jr’s “Free Palestine” yet broadcast the N-word. There’s a hierarchy of racism there.
And the apology, “Sorry if anyone was offended” IF? The… pic.twitter.com/LeDvfgrNWR
— Save Our Citizenships 🔻 (@LetsStopC9) February 23, 2026
BAFTA itself put out the full comment. And it spread widely online too:
Akinola Davies at the BAFTAs “To all those whose parents migrated to obtain a better life for their children, to the economic migrant, the conflict migrant, those under occupation.. those experiencing genocide, you matter.. for Nigeria, London, the Congo, Sudan, free Palestine” pic.twitter.com/YQuZUTU3yy
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 23, 2026
@GMB
The BBC cutting “Free Palestine” from Akinola Davies Jr at the Baftas, but then broadcasts a racial slur, is all you need to know.#gmb pic.twitter.com/haFR04OZKE— Martin Burslam 🇵🇸🍉 🟨🟥🏍 (@NeonLuvBar) February 23, 2026
The BBC had made a clear choice to censor Davies Jr’s words, despite acknowledging online the applause he had received for his message:
The BBC cut Akinola Davies Jr’s BAFTA speech in its broadcast. But it did mention his “Free Palestine” finish, along with other comments, in its online newsfeed.https://t.co/9D87HT8rFx pic.twitter.com/0F6w6M5pXk
— Ed Sykes (@OsoSabioUK) February 23, 2026
A spokesperson for the BBC argued that it had to make choices in order to fit coverage of the live three-hour event into a two-hour slot. But the outlet’s efforts to avoid political comments (particularly those going against the line of the British state) have been clear.
Film as a bridge to help process collective trauma
Co-winner Wale Davies insisted after receiving the award that:
film gives us the opportunity to create a more inclusive world
“To live this human experience is a political one.”
Akinola Davies Jr & Wale Davies, winners of best British debut at the #EEBAFTAs for My Father’s Shadow, respond to a question about the political responsibilities of high-profile film creatives. pic.twitter.com/KutquqPu2O
— Screen International (@Screendaily) February 22, 2026
And photographer Misan Harriman called the BAFTA winners:
a new vanguard of storytellers that the world needs now more than ever
My Father’s Shadow is a seminal love letter to Nigeria, as never seen before, written by sons of the soil with grace and intention. Wale Davies and Akinola Davies Jr represent a new vanguard of storytellers that the world needs now more than ever. It was my honour to observe… pic.twitter.com/UhGw6DMqO0
— Misan Harriman (@misanharriman) February 23, 2026
Davies Jr had previously spoken of the experience of British-Nigerians, lamenting that:
As a community we don’t really talk about collective grief or collective trauma.
This film presents a bridge for both generations to connect and for people to understand what their parents went through.
My Father’s Shadow explores family life during times of political repression and unrest.
In his BAFTA acceptance speech, Davies Jr had said:
To all those whose parents migrated to obtain a better life for their children. To the economic migrant, the conflict migrant, those under occupation, dictatorship, persecution, and those experiencing genocide. You matter. Your stories matter more than ever. Your dreams are an act of resistance.
To those watching at home: archive your loved ones, archive your stories yesterday, today, and forever. For Nigeria, for London, the Congo, Sudan. Free Palestine!
Featured image via the Canary
According to Novara’s Harriet Williamson, the Greens have accused Labour of the following:
NEW: Green source says “Labour’s desperation has led them into an alliance with Tommy Robinson” 👀 pic.twitter.com/V6Sa2RW1Pk
— Harriet Williamson (@harriepw) February 23, 2026
To explain, we’ll need to tell you about the Greens’ Urdu video:
“Unholy alliance”
As part of their Gorton & Denton by-election campaign, the Greens put out a campaign video in Urdu:
Manchester Gorton & Denton by-election Green Party message in Urdu for residents. Vote Hannah Spencer. Vote Green 💚Thursday 26th February. Polls open 7am to 10pm. #votegreen pic.twitter.com/5O3T030ga9
— Muslim Greens (@muslim_greens) February 23, 2026
Why did they do this?
Because a decent number of people in Gorton & Denton speak Urdu.
Why are people upset?
Because some people really, really like being upset.
🥀 Labour’s smear of the day is…
🟩 The Greens doing a video in Urdu!
💪 We’re proud that we are making election information more accessible in a proud multi cultural community.
🚨 There is no barrel Labour won’t scrape. Desperation.
🤔 Due to Mandelson being arrested?
— Manchester Green Party 🐝 (@McrGreenParty) February 23, 2026
Not all voters speak English as their first language so of course Greens wish to be inclusive. Our approach has been praised by locals who love their diverse community.
Greens have been outspoken about the Labour Government’s foreign policy failure over Gaza and it is well known that many voters wish to send a message to Labour at this by-election for very many reasons.
The by-election remains a close race between Reform and the Greens.
As the Greens claim above, Labour are apparently also among those who are upset:
NEW: A Green Party source said Labour are busy briefing against the Greens’ Urdu video because they’re pissed about “getting demolished in the social media game” – and it’s “no surprise” this “comes the very day Peter Mandelson is arrested”
— Harriet Williamson (@harriepw) February 23, 2026
Economist Ashok Kumar said the following:
Tommy Robinson is repeating almost word for word what Labour HQ is briefing against the Greens for producing an advert in Urdu. Labour circulate Bengali election videos in my neighbourhood in Tower Hamlets. Such shallow opportunists. How low will they go? pic.twitter.com/SFj2bXGp8N
— Ashok Kumar | 🇵🇸 (@broseph_stalin) February 23, 2026
Ask yourself this
If you’re one of the people who are upset by the Urdu video, ask yourself the following:
- Have you ever been on holiday?
- Did you encounter the English language?
- Did you find that friendly and helpful?
If the answers are ‘yes’, ‘yes’, and ‘yes’, you should consider shutting up forever.
And before you point out you were a tourist and not a resident, come on – admit it – you’ve considered becoming an expat in Spain – you’re that sort of person – and you would be furious if you the local chippy served ‘pescado y patatas fritas’ instead of ‘fish and chips’.
Bad politics
If Labour are attacking the Greens for reaching out to local communities, it’s probably not going to do them any favours. Let’s face it; the residents who are upset about the Urdu video are going to vote Reform, so all Labour will do is push more potential voters towards the Greens.
Featured image via Number 10 (Flickr)
The Conservatives are currently pushing forward with a policy they argue will begin to address the student loans crisis crippling adults across the country. Party leader Kemi Badenoch insists that reducing the amount paid by plan 2 students is the way to do it. However, Martin Lewis slammed Badenoch for this selective and poorly thought-through policy on Good Morning Britain (GMB) yesterday morning.
Last night, historian Sir Anthony Seldon told Victoria Derbyshire that Lewis had his full support. Going further, Seldon argued all student debt should be wiped, rejecting the idea that any course is a “dead end” for young people. Finally, the respected historian urged the government to bring in the ‘Money Saving Expert’ to fix the system within a record four weeks.
This highlights that politicians can find solutions when they choose to act, and it shows that resolving the student loans crisis depends on political decisions, not inevitability.
Watch this from Historian Sir Anthony Seldon 👏
➡️ Calls to wipe student debt and pay for it out of general taxation
➡️ Bring in Martin Lewis and give him four weeks to find a solution
➡️ There are no dead end courses eg the arts, stresses universities are so much more,… pic.twitter.com/clIeo9u1tR
— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) February 23, 2026
Martin Lewis is right
We wrote yesterday about Lewis’ masterclass on GMB in challenging an MP. The money saving expert ran holes through Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch’s latest policy billed to address the student debt crisis. Don’t get me wrong, as a plan 2 myself, I support her plans to wipe student debt. But there is much more to be done, as Martin Lewis rightly pointed out.
We wrote yesterday:
On Good Morning Britain, money saving expert Martin Lewis pushed back firmly against Kemi Badenoch. Pointing out her blatant oversight, Lewis confronted her misguided approach to the student loan crisis affecting workers across the country. In doing so, Lewis gave a master class in how politicians should be rigorously challenged on policies that impact working people’s everyday lives.
Rather than accepting the Tories headline-grabbing promises, he instead pressed for meaningful solutions. In fact, his challenge was so robust that he managed to get Kemi’s commitment to a direct discussion focused on reforms that would genuinely benefit students.
Contrary to the Conservatives’ policy being dangled like a carrot to voters, historian Anthony Seldon has called for all student debt to be wiped. He went further, urging the government to accept that it must stop treating students as a source of profit. Instead, Seldon argued that they already contribute to the economy through the skills and expertise they develop at university.
Furthermore, Seldon emphasised that higher education is about far more than achieving high grades or obtaining a certificate. After all, it is a formative experience where young people develop vital life and social skills. Also, it’s essential for improving critical analysis skills with young people engaging in progressive, informed debate.
Basically, university education adds quality and value to people’s lives. Unless that value is stripped away by exorbitant interest rates on impossible levels of debt, of course.
Scrap all student debt: no hierarchies
This issue once again exposes how neoliberals within British society have persistently structured the system to advantage some groups over others. As a result, we have seen entrenching hierarchies in both access and opportunity, whilst inequality soars. Badenoch’s proposed fix would only deepen resentment and fuel anger among young people. After all, we understand that pain and frustration are relative to the individual. However, in this case, that pain is being felt by huge swathes of the population, not confined to a narrow few on Plan 2.
As Seldon and Lewis astutely argue, any solution that is not universal merely kicks the can further down the road. Student loans would remain a source of profit, while the government would continue to risk disenfranchising young people from the opportunity to connect, collaborate and grow alongside their peers.
Featured image via the Canary
Green party deputy leader Mothin Ali has hit back at Israel lobby-funded Starmeroid MP David Taylor. Taylor had quoted notoriously Islamophobic, pro-Israel ‘X’ account ‘Habibi’ to attack Ali. It was part of the Israel lobby’s flailing attempt to revive the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam against the Greens for daring to debate whether to support international law on Palestinian resistance.
Taylor went for Ali after the Habibi account used an X post to try to mock the Greens. With the typical Zionist lack of self-awareness, the troll didn’t realise that what it was using to attack Ali is 100% true and aligned with the majority of Britons’ disgust with Israel’s genocide and the Labour party’s collaboration in it. Ali’s post also demonstrates the kind of plain-speaking politics most voters would welcome compared to the evasiveness of mainstream political parties:
David Taylor has form
Taylor’s own record, unsurprisingly, is scarcely any better than Habibi’s. He joined the Israel lobby’s attempts to remove anti-genocide hero Francesca Albanese from her voluntary UN post advocating for Palestinians. He promoted the Starmer regime’s unlawful ban on Palestine Action – and wants it extending to the Islamic Human Rights Commission for being ‘anti-British’ by opposing war. He opposed a report criticising Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians and pushed for war with Iran to protect Israel. He publicly called for military strikes on Iran in February 2025 to protect Mossad-controlled mobs. And he opposed the government creating an official definition of Islamophobia – one that almost exactly mirrors the ‘IHRA’ antisemitism definition he supports.
True to form, Jewish News libel-machine Lee Harpin joined in the attack on Ali, though he used a different tack, citing supposed horror at Ali’s “repeated engagement” with Muslim news site 5Pillars.
But like his party boss, Mothin Ali knows to come out fighting when the Israel lobby revs up its smear machine. He hit back in uncompromising style, telling Taylor that his post showed “exactly why you’re called the genocide party” and pointing out the racism of the ‘Habibi’ account Taylor quoted:
This is exactly why you’re called the genocide party! Labour MPs now agree with extreme racists and islamophobes, like there’s no difference between them!
Anyway how much did you get? https://t.co/nPzuc2C3pU
— Mothin Ali (@MothinAli) February 24, 2026
What a very welcome difference to the ‘apologise and apologise again’ response to pro-Israel smears that killed Corbyn’s Labour.
Featured image via the Canary
Poor celebrities. Hugh Laurie, who starred in Israeli spy thriller series Tehran for Israeli public channel Kan 11, has seemingly disavowed Zionism. As one can expect, the Zionists are throwing the dummy out of the pram over this.
Tribute pompts backlash
On 17 February, Laurie tweeted a tribute to Dana Eden, a co-creator and producer of Tehran, who recently passed away, sharing following words:
Eden died on Sunday, reportedly taking her own life. It’s a terrible thing. She was brilliant, funny, and an exceptional leader. The Canary extends love and condolences to her nearest and dearest.
Laurie’s tribute drew criticisms of his work – criticised for fictionalising the life of a Mossad agent in Iran, normalizing Israel’s infractions, and mourning a figure associated with Israel’s “propaganda arm.” And on the subject of Gaza and the plight of its people, Laurie has nothing to say.
Two days after the social media storm, which seemingly touched a nerve, he posted the following defence:
I used to hate blocking people,” but “I’m older now.” Again, he was condemned for working for the show and for his racist “blackface” in a previous series called Jeeves and Wooster.
Then came his apparent disavowal of Zionism and its army of digital trolls.
Nothing I have ever said or done could lead a sane person to believe that I am a Zionist. However. If someone exults in the death of a friend of mine, yes I will block them. If you wouldn’t do the same in my position, you can fuck off too.
— Hugh Laurie (@hughlaurie) February 20, 2026
The Zionists were loud and rattled. How dare he? How dare a public figure refuse to align himself with a settler colonial project after reaping the fame of starring in Zionist propaganda?
GB News, Daily Mail, Spectator, the Telegraph, and Jeremy Vine contributor Angela Epstein lamented that Laurie was not a Zionist.
Not Hugh Laurie as well. I thought he was one of the decent ones…. https://t.co/45W8HKAAQN
— Angela Epstein (@adepstein1) February 20, 2026
Angela Epstein is a Gaza genocide denier, and regular critic of Corbyn, Sultana, and Polanski.
Rabbi Litvin called Laurie “pathetic” for his disassociation from Zionism.
What greater affront could @hughlaurie make to Dana Eden than using her death to disassociate from Dana, her people, and her homeland.
How utterly pathetic. https://t.co/w31uw6zAGp
— Rabbi S Litvin (@BluegrassRabbi) February 20, 2026
To which Laurie replied:
Rabbi. I did no such thing, nor would I ever. Please re-read in the morning.
Jonathan Sacerdoti’s Spectator piece was the most rambling of all – insisting that Laurie must “own the full genocidal implications” of not being a Zionist – as if opposing a settler-colonial project were the real violence.
Is @hughlaurie a Zionist? Does it really matter?
What celebrities and others really mean when they say they are ‘anti-Zionist’.https://t.co/YwbOcsdP0g
— Jonathan Sacerdoti (@jonsac) February 23, 2026
Let’s talk about Zionism baby
The question of how to talk about Zionism – the explicitly colonialist ideology of the settler-state of Israel – has frazzled many a celebrity.
Some, like Laurie, are learning the hard way that involvement in Israeli TV comes with ideological strings attached.
He didn’t expect mudslinging by the Zionists funding the series Tehran, incensed by his lack of allegiance.
So, while, Laurie figures out his allegiances, let’s take a moment to appreciate the film industry figures using their platforms to call out Israel’s genocide.
These include Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem and Brian Cox who recently signed the open letter condemning the Berlin Film Festival’s silence on Gaza. It seems that here’s hope yet, the world is taking note Israel.
Featured image via the Canary
Many see Reform UK as a toxic party which preys on people’s worries to promote division. Now, one of their MPs is talking up the idea of the most divisive outcome of all – Civil War:
🚨 NEW: Reform UK MP Danny Kruger says a British civil war is possible if they don’t win the next general election
“If we don’t win, or if we win and then make a mess of it, I do fear for our country”
— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) February 24, 2026
Reform and civil war
Sienna Rodgers conducted the interview with Kruger for Politics Home. Noting that Kruger is good friends with Dominic Cummings, Rodgers wrote:
Cummings has warned that Britain is sliding towards civil war, claiming that we are “only random viral posts away from riots and prairie fires getting out of control”. Does Kruger agree?
“Yeah,” he replies. The left portrays Reform as “rabble-rousers” who incite division, which could become violence. “The total opposite is the case. The only chance of unity for our country is Reform,” the MP continues. “If we don’t win, or if we win and then make a mess of it, I do fear for our country.”
Let’s be real; when politicians talk up violence like this, they’re doing it to rile up the most agitated elements in their base.
People responded to Kruger as follows:
More yank nonsense but extremely dangerous language nonetheless and shocking that an MP would even think about saying this. It’s hard to be hopeful about the UK. https://t.co/LgTS2cz1rt
— cez (@cezthesocialist) February 24, 2026
Absolute disgrace this, threatening that if people don’t vote Reform UK there will be civil unrest.
Can’t win based on policies because they are so vague that they have to resort to fear. https://t.co/Fd7O8pzOMl
— Reform Party UK Exposed 🇬🇧 (@reformexposed) February 24, 2026
Is his opinion of the people he represents really that low? https://t.co/edKs7lM9DT
— Frances ‘Cassandra’ Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) February 24, 2026
Rich men’s wars
The piece from Sienna Rogers is worth a read, anyway, featuring stuff like the following:
His own attention is geared towards the Civil Service, which will see a major headcount reduction under Reform plans. Kruger sets out a private sector-style vision: more people brought in from the outside; ‘high-flyers’ better-paid, with a performance-related element; some recruited for short periods, say six months, to work on a specific task.
Reform will prioritise “people with actual domain expertise” over “these posh generalists who float about from department to department making policy at the moment”, says the Eton-educated MP some would describe as a posh generalist himself.
Why is it always the rich who talk up wars they know they won’t have to fight?
Featured image via Parliament
Russian military veterans have described the grinding horrors of war against Ukraine. The former soldiers appear in a new BBC documentary named The Zero Line: Inside Russia’s War.
They claim to have witnessed summary executions by Russian commanders as well as massed human wave attacks referred to as ‘meat storms’.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in 2021. It soon descended into stalemate with NATO countries, including the UK, arming Ukraine. Some sources put the number of total casualties at 1.8 million. A US-led peace deal is currently being thrashed out as fighting continues.
The soldiers told the BBC that the practice of executions was known as ‘zeroing’. One alleged he saw a Russian commander – later decorated valour – order the death of another soldier:
I see it – just two metres, three metres… click, clack, bang.
Another veteran from a different unit said he saw the same officer execute four men:
I knew them. I remember one of them screaming, ‘Don’t shoot, I’ll do anything!
The veterans also reported apparent mass graves:
20 bodies of fellow soldiers lying in a pit after being “zeroed” by comrades.
Meat waves
The interviewees described:
how they were tortured for refusing to take part in assaults they describe as verging on suicide missions. Russian troops call these attacks “meat storms” as waves of men are sent across the front line relentlessly to try and wear down Ukrainian forces.
One eyewitness said he refused to go to the front line and was :
tortured and urinated on.
He claimed:
Others in his unit who refused would be electrocuted, starved, and then forced into meat storms unarmed…
The Russian government told the BBC its forces operated:
with utmost restraint, as far as possible under the conditions of a high-intensity conflict, treating their personnel with maximum care.
The government said they could not verify any of the claims but insisted criminal allegations were investigated.
You can read the full testimony here. The documentary, due to air on TV on 24 February, can already be seen online here.
Pipeline strike
Ukraine is alleged to have destroyed a key section of oil pipeline with drones. The Druzbha-1 station supplied Russian crude oil to eastern Europe. Open source X accounts showed footage of explosions:
BREAKING:
The Druzhba-1 station at Kaleikino, the key node of the Druzhba oil pipeline, was blown up by Ukraine
The oil pipeline accounts for 86% of Hungary’s oil consumption
Almost 100% of Slovakia’s oil consumption
As a response, Slovakia announced it will halt electricity… pic.twitter.com/SPu6hCZEDH
— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) February 23, 2026
Hungarian foreign affairs minister Péter Szijjártó said the country would stop supplying diesel to Ukraine unless the matter was addressed:
Despite promises and assurances, it has still not been restored due to a Ukrainian political decision even though every technical condition is at hand, according to our information.
A European Commission spokesperson told reporters:
We are in contact with Ukraine on the timeline for reparation of the Druzhba oil pipeline and how quickly this might be up and running.
The spokesperson insisted reserve oil stocks meant there were:
no short-term risks to security of supply for Hungary and Slovakia.
The war is now 5 years old. The Kremlin said on 24 February it has not achieved all its aims yet. And, in true Trumpian fashion, the US president has indicated he wants a peace deal done by 4 July – in time for the United States’ 250th birthday celebrations.
Featured image via the BBC
Oh FFS. Here we go again with the rotten core of the British establishment brazenly shielding its own from the real horrors they’ve inflicted.
In capitalist Britain, power protects predators.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor — the nonce formerly known as “Prince” — gets hauled in on his 66th birthday for “misconduct in public office,” a typically slimy, bureaucratic catch-all that basically comes down to him leaking some trade secrets to his paedo pal Jeffrey Epstein back when he was playing trade envoy.
It’s a charge that might land him in a cushy cell for life in theory, but we all know it’ll end in a slap on the wrist, a quiet settlement, or some sausage-fingered royal intervention to make it vanish like those military titles did some years ago.
Call me a cynic, but this appears to be a deliberate sidestep by the police and the Crown to avoid the elephant in the room — sweaty Andrew’s well-documented alleged abuse of Epstein’s underage victims.
Think about it, the old bill has dusted off some ancient misconduct law about sharing memos with a dead sex trafficker, instead of charging him with the rape, exploitation, and paedophilic predation that’s staring them in the fucking face.
It’s class war, motherfuckers
From where I’m standing, this reeks of class warfare at its most disgustingly insidious. The ruling elite get to play by an entirely different set of rules. While poor and working class people rot in prison for something like petty theft, selling a bit of pot, or protesting against genocide, these billionaire parasites dodge accountability for systemic abuse.
At what point do we consider revolution to be a just and necessary course of action? Personally, I don’t think 99% of Britain has the balls for anything like that.
The French had the right idea, and I don’t mean tractor blockades but the guillotine blades dished up to their parasitic royals in the late 1700’s, shortly before Reform UK’s founding conference.
Okay, maybe we don’t need to see literal heads rolling into a crested wicker basket. There are still plenty of uninhabited islands where we can drop off the predatory elites, or better still, feed the Great White Shark population with some billionaire nonces.
See, I’d make a fucking great Secretary of State for Justice.
Nobody actually believes this is law enforcement, do they? Surely they also think it’s a grubby cover-up, a way to placate the public with a performative bust while ensuring the nonce never faces the full weight of his depravity?
My position on the British monarchy isn’t complicated and couldn’t be any clearer. Let’s get every single skeleton out of the closet, including the already-dead Duke of Kent, return the jewels, seize the estates and seek justice for the victims of the predatory elite. Let’s drag every single complicit aristocrat into court for their actual crimes against humanity, rather than tiptoe around naming the paedophiles and their enablers in statements, treating them like fragile glass instead of the filth that they are.
Meanwhile, let’s go after the Greens
I put the radio on in the car earlier, fully expecting to hear a heated debate between royalists and republicans. A former Prince being arrested is pretty big news, after all, even if it is no different to a serial killer being arrested for a minor assault.
Instead, they were discussing the Green Party’s position on the legalisation of drugs.
Funnily enough, I originally planned to write a thousand-word piece on why a Green victory in Gorton and Denton would be a victory for common decency, the British left, and bigger boobs for the many, but along came the misconduct distraction, and here I am, distracted.
Anyway, Gorton and Denton…
Be in no doubt, the Greens absolutely must crush it in the Gorton and Denton by-election on Thursday. This isn’t an ordinary by-election as the Green candidate, Hannah Spencer must not only smash the rotting facade of Starmer’s Labour betrayal, but also block the fascist-adjacent Reform UK from poisoning the well.
Labour and Reform must lose the Gorton and Denton by-election.
Hannah Spencer, a no-nonsense local plumber and councillor, is my kind of candidate. She’s not some polished elite, she’s from the trenches, pushing for public energy ownership to slash bills and reclaim profits from offshore fat cats.
A two-horse race
The Labour Party cannot win this election. Their best hope was with Andy Burnham, but they blocked him from standing, rigging their own NEC to protect Starmer’s cushy Westminster bubble, prioritising party machine hacks like Angeliki Stogia over actual fighters for the people.
This is a two-horse-race between the Greens and Reform UK. The Greens, under Zack Polanski, are surging as the true anti-Reform bulwark and the myth of Labour Party invincibility has been well and truly shattered.
While the emergence of the new Reform splinters such as Restore and Advance are likely to have damaging implications for the Farage party in the long term, here and now, the red part of Gorton and Denton need to do the right thing, and vote Green.
The choice really couldn’t be any clearer. Enable the far-right with a vote for a discredited, deceased Labour Party, or deliver a seismic, historic victory for the left.
Vote Green, please
On the off-chance of a Labour voter in Gorton and Denton reading this now, please, put party preference to one side and get behind the Green candidate. And if you don’t like her, you’ll have the chance to vote her out in three years.
Will you have that chance if your constituency becomes a solid base for Farage photo-ops for weeks to come? Do you really want to see that fucking horrible piece of shit in every supermarket, pub and petrol station forecourt while you’re just trying to get the school run done, just because there’s something you don’t quite like about Polanski?
If the people want to send a clear message to Keir Starmer, the only vote to consider is for Hannah Spencer and the Greens.
Any other vote is an endorsement of Reform UK and their super-rich string pullers, and that revolution I mentioned earlier — however it may look — will get buried under Reform’s boot and it will be full steam ahead for Farage’s hateful mob to metastasize nationwide, dragging us toward a dystopia of borders, bosses, and yet more bigotry.
Vote Green.
Featured image via the Canary
A police chief in charge of AI use has admitted that a new £115m national police data centre will produce biased and racist results. However, he also claims that police will try to mitigate that risk.
Which is all fine then, given that the police have done such a good job of combating their own racism so far.
Alex Murray – the National Crime Agency’s threat leadership director, and the national lead for AI – said:
Once you’ve recognised and minimised [bias], how do you train officers to deal with outputs to ensure that it is further minimised?
If you talk about live facial recognition or predictive policing, there will be bias, and you need to get in the data scientists and the data engineers to clean the data, to train the model appropriately, and then to test it.
There is no point releasing something to policing that has bias in it that’s not recognised, and everything should be done to minimise it to a level where it can be understood and mitigated.
AI use: ‘lack of meaningful oversight’
Labour have recently called for a massive expansion in the use of AI in policing. This has already been criticised in an early day motion tabled in parliament, with signatories including Labour MP Jon Trickett. The motion voices alarm at the creation of:
a surveillance framework resembling a panopticon, with asymmetric state power exercised over the population without adequate statutory safeguards or democratic consent; recognises widespread concern from civil liberties organisations regarding misidentification, algorithmic bias and lack of meaningful oversight; and calls on the Government to halt the rollout of live facial recognition and AI policing technologies
Part of the government’s initiative includes building a new national AI data centre, which will cost the public an eye-watering £115m. The centralised data centre would replace the current system, in which individual forces make their own decisions on AI in policing. Critics argue that this framework is slow and wasteful.
AI racism: they know, they’re doing it anyway
Alex Murray claimed that the centre would try to reduce bias, and to determine which private suppliers’ products work best. However, the police have form for neglecting to reduce or act on bias in their AI policing already. On the failure of a previous police venture in facial recognition technology, the Association for Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) stated that:
System failures have been known for some time, yet these were not shared with those communities affected, nor with leading sector stakeholders.
Furthermore, Murray also argued that a human police officer will always have to make any final decisions on what to do with an AI tool’s results.
This will, of course, come as absolutely no reassurance to anybody who knows that UK police forces have known about their own systematic racism and bias for decades and completely failed to address it.
Reproducing human bias
On the use of ‘machine learning’ in policing, I previously wrote that AI decision-making is sometimes perceived as unbiased and emotionless. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Rather, it simply hides the – very human – biases in its training dataset behind a veneer of cold ‘fairness’.
In her report on AI biases in policing, the UN’s Ashwini K.P. – special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism – also called out predictive policing. Back in 2024, Ashwini explained that:
Predictive policing can exacerbate the historical over policing of communities along racial and ethnic lines. Because law enforcement officials have historically focused their attention on such neighbourhoods, members of communities in those neighbourhoods are overrepresented in police records. This, in turn, has an impact on where algorithms predict that future crime will occur, leading to increased police deployment in the areas in question. […]
When officers in overpoliced neighbourhoods record new offences, a feedback loop is created, whereby the algorithm generates increasingly biased predictions targeting these neighbourhoods. In short, bias from the past leads to bias in the future.
Similarly, AI algorithms have also shown deep racial bias in its ability to recognise human faces. A study by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) on the use of facial recognition technology in the national police database turned up more incorrect matches for Black and Asian people than white people.
Darryl Preston – the APCC’s forensic science lead – said:
The discovery of an in-built bias in the police national database’s retrospective facial recognition system, even if only in limited circumstances, demonstrates the need for independent oversight of these powerful tools.
It is not acceptable for technology to be used unless and until it has been thoroughly tested to eliminate bias. That clearly was not the case in this instance.
Both Labour and the police themselves know – and have been reminded repeatedly – that AI policing produces discriminatory results. The problem is that they just don’t care.
They’ll continue pressing forward, with weak promises to ‘mitigate’ the bias. Then, when AI policing inevitably reproduces human bigotry against real people, we’ll get the same playbook we’ve seen before. A decade-late half-apology, sworn promises to reform and do better, and then more of the same old bigotry.
Featured image via the Canary
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