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.
On 13 February, the High Court ruled that the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group was “disproportionate”. Since then, various politicians including Zarah Sultana have come forwards to voice their support for the ruling. The problem is that many of them didn’t speak up when it counted:
On the vote to proscribe Palestine Action, Liberal Democrat MPs abstained.
Stop gaslighting people.
When it mattered, you didn’t show up. https://t.co/nSd2SHcCWf
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) February 13, 2026
Suppression
Reporting on the ruling, Maddison Wheeldon wrote for the Canary:
The government’s choice to proscribe Palestine Action has been met by widespread public condemnation both at home and abroad. It has been viewed as an attempt to shut down solidarity that British people have shown with Palestinians through their legal right to protest.
Israel’s ongoing, horrific genocide against Palestine has been met with absolute impunity by Western leaders, resulting in mass protest and civil disobedience across the UK since October 2023. This proscription of direct-action group Palestine Action in the UK has widely been declared as an authoritarian and draconian overreach into the hard-fought civil liberties of British citizens.
Today’s ruling marks a positive step in the right direction.
In the video above, Davey says:
This High Court judgment shows prescribing Palestine action was a grave misuse of terrorism laws. Labour must accept its mistake, drop its appeal and stop wasting taxpayers’ money and suppressing civil liberties. Degrading counter-terror powers is a genuine threat to national security.
Davey isn’t wrong in what he’s saying. The problem is he’s showing he isn’t a leader — he’s a follower. And others have noticed too:
Ed Davey says banning Palestine Action was a grave misuse of terrorism laws.
Every single LibDem MP, including Ed Davey, abstained in the vote to ban them (66 had no vote recorded and 6 abstained by voting both for and against) pic.twitter.com/Y8qmDxO1pg
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 13, 2026
As Richard Burgon noted, only 22 MPs voted against the government:
I welcome the High Court ruling that the ban on Palestine Action is unlawful.
I was one of just 22 MPs who voted against proscribing Palestine Action and in my speech in Parliament I warned the Government of the consequences of its ban.
The Government must not seek an Appeal.
— Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) February 13, 2026
Only 22 MPs voted against proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. They should be proud of themselves; the other 628 should be ashamed. pic.twitter.com/Z2507SzhI9
— Karl Hansen (@karl_fh) February 13, 2026
Labour MP Karl Turner at least had the decency to admit that he “bottled it”. Just like with Davey, though, this will come across to many as a face saving exercise:
This is true. I bottled it and voted with the government. But should have stood firm. I told them though. PM and Home Sec. https://t.co/b9rfxasDAN
— Karl Turner MP (@KarlTurnerMP) February 13, 2026
Turner also said that Starmer’s government pushed the ban on the basis that they ‘knew more’ than they could let on (something the court case has ultimately disproven):
Just because it’s this MP or that MP on the left of the party warning the powers that be shouldn’t mean the helpful advice is discounted. @johnmcdonnellMP and many others warned the government at the time and we were just pushed aside as not knowing what they knew. 🤷🏼♂️ https://t.co/KopDPl7g1d
— Karl Turner MP (@KarlTurnerMP) February 13, 2026
Draconianism
As we’ve reported, Starmer’s government have been a nightmare when it comes to civil liberties. At this point, it’s clear that Labour will kick the PM out before too long. Let’s hope Starmer’s successor learns from his constant failures.
Featured image via Parliament / Leicester Gazette (Flickr)
The BBC is looking for a new head of its Arabic-language service to please Israel lobbyists. Mouthpieces for the occupation had complained it was too quick to blame Israel for its actions. The move is intended to force BBC Arabic to use the same dishonest framing as its English-language services.
The manufactured furore began in November 2025. Pro-Israel pressure groups complained that the BBC Arabic coverage of its ‘war’ in Gaza was “critically different” from English coverage. This meant that it was – this is not satire — “painting Israel as the aggressor” in Gaza.
BBC and the mirage of impartiality
Yes, genocidal Israel has murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians in Gaza along with hundreds of journalists and their families. It uses weapons that are illegal under humanitarian law on families in tents. But saying Israel is the aggressor is beyond the pale to the BBC. There was also criticism of BBC Arabic’s guests, because two of them had supported violence against Israelis.
Commenting on the BBC Arabic reshuffle, the Arabic-speaking Israeli ‘journalist’ Edy Cohen, welcomed the move:
https://x.com/EdyCohen/status/2019788772385177737
“Impartiality and editorial accuracy”? Right. But, as if this wasn’t hypocritical enough, Edy Cohen is no stranger to racist, inflammatory posts himself. In September 2024, in the midst of Israel’s genocide and talking to Israeli Channel 14 — the “pet channel of Likud and its far-right governing coalition partners” — he lumped the whole “Arab world” together into a mass that only responds to force and will attack Israel if it is “perceived as weak”:
In this world, the equation is simple: When Israel uses force and employs force – the Arab world and terrorist groups are afraid. When Israel hesitates and takes policy actions like containment or non-escalation, it’s perceived as weak, and invites further blows from terror organizations.
This was not an aberration for Cohen. He is so notorious for smears and ‘hasbara’ on behalf of Israel that he was the subject of an report titled:
Hashtags and hoaxes: How Edy Cohen engineers the Israeli disinformation machine on Twitter.
Stoking the fire
The report was published in August 2023, before Israel’s Gaza genocide began, so he didn’t just start after 7 October. It notes that:
Cohen deliberately – and strategically – tarnishes the reputation of Palestinians, Palestinian political factions, and the Palestinian resistance, specifically targeting them to discredit their stance.
It also points out that among Cohen’s most prominent hashtags are “#GloryToIsrael” and “#PalestineIsNotMyCause”.
According to the report, Cohen is helped in the circulation of his fake videos and inflammatory comment by a network of:
accounts bearing Arabic names that exclusively champion Israel and tout the “benefits” of normalization. He shares the posts from these accounts that, in turn, retweet his own posts.
Even though some of these tweets are attributed to real Arab figures who openly endorse normalization, many of them appear to be fake accounts, seemingly created with the specific intent to persuade Arab followers to embrace the concept of normalization.
It appears that Cohen is either formally a part of Israel’s ‘hasbara’ propaganda network, or functionally indistinguishable from those who are. The Misbar report concludes it’s the former:
In sum, Misbar’s comprehensive analysis concludes the Edy Cohen account is one of the many Israeli accounts present in the Arabic online sphere that systematically target Arab audiences, skillfully glossing over and whitewashing Israel’s image for them while concurrently distorting and casting a shadow over Palestinians. This calculated effort also appears designed to sow division within Arab nations and communities whenever the opportunity arises.
Cohen and others like him continue to lecture on ‘impartiality and editorial accuracy’ in BBC Arabic coverage — accusing them of ‘wrongly painting Israel as the aggressor’ in Gaza. Meanwhile, no mainstream UK media outlets will dare challenge this — amplifying the Israel lobby’s narrative instead.
Featured image via Barold/the Canary
One of the biggest criticisms of Reform is that it’s just a rebrand of the Tory Party. Now, ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has created his own spinoff party, and it’s shaping up to be…a rebrand of a rebrand:
Ten years with the Conservatives and today I’m joining Restore Britain. I’ve always said it would take something genuinely compelling to make me defect, and this is it. https://t.co/eyeu9b2MIU
— Monika Užkalnytė🇻🇦 (@Monikablogs) February 13, 2026
And as Lowe himself has said, he’s open to attracting talent from the Tories, Reform, Advance — basically any reactionary party you can think of. Furthermore, Rupert Lowe seems intent on expanding his political circle.
Rupert Lowe: From Reform to Restore
The timeline of Lowe leaving Reform is messy. The TLDR is:
- Lowe began criticising Farage (seemingly in coordination with Elon Musk).
- Farage suggested Lowe wouldn’t be anywhere near office without Nigel’s cult of personality (a.k.a. Reform).
- Reform suspended Lowe and reported him to the police for ‘verbal threats’ and “serious bullying” of female staffers.
- Lowe described the accusations as “vexatious”.
- Several months of back and forth ensued.
With someone like Lowe, it’s better to have them on the inside pissing out than on the outside pissing in. Now, Farage is going to learn why that saying exists.
Lowe announced his new party in a SEVEN MINUTE LONG video on Twitter/X:
I am today launching Restore Britain as a national political party.
Join us.https://t.co/RMtEuHopgV pic.twitter.com/jQMAOjQJ5A
— Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) February 13, 2026
We’re not watching all that, but we’re glad for him, or sorry that happened.
Remember when Twitter used to be about brevity? This is how long the average Rupert Lowe tweet is now:
By the way, we can’t ignore the fact that Lowe’s ‘Reform’ rival is going to be called ‘Restore’.
Does he not understand his main weakness is going to be voters literally just getting the names mixed up?
Some of what Lowe says in the announcement video is worth being aware of – particularly this section:
I’m now going to dedicate my life to finding, organising, funding and providing hundreds of qualified candidates to present to the British people at the next general election. This process has already started. with invitations being issued to patriots in aligned political parties: Reform, the Conservatives, the SDP, Advance, and more.
In local politics, we will work in partnership with localised political parties such as Great Yarmouth First that have the best interests of their residents at heart, combining our forces at the next general election.
The men and women standing for Restore in that election will not be politicians. I promise you that.
They will not be failed ministers.
They will not be tainted by failures of the past.
They will be from business, from the military, from science, from medicine, from education, from industry, representing real communities up and down the country. Every single one will be from well outside the existing political establishment and every single one will understand the difficult decisions that need to be taken.
While we can’t say who Restore will run for office, we can say the party is already attracting the dregs of British politics.
Rejects
Firstly, we should note it’s not just British dregs; the South Yank-frican billionaire Elon Musk is also behind the project:
Join Rupert Lowe in Restore Britain, because he is the only one who will actually do it! https://t.co/sa5VkSRWXD
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 14, 2026
If you spend any time on Musk’s platform, you’ll know Lowe gets boosted six ways from Sunday on there. This, of course, is because Nigel Farage is not extreme enough for Musk, so instead he supports Lowe, Tommy Robinson, and Advance UK:
Advance UK will actually drive change.
Farage is weak sauce who will do nothing. https://t.co/Vnw2uTdRRi
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 26, 2025
I have not met Rupert Lowe, but his statements online that I have read so far make a lot of sense https://t.co/bxHaigf3A1
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 5, 2025
Notoriously, Lowe defended Musk after his site started generating deepfake imagery (what you might call ‘revenge pornography’):
The register of member interests shows that Rupert Lowe earned more than £46K from Twitter last year.
This self appointed champion of protecting women and girls has said precisely fuck all about Musk’s AI creating sexualised images of women & children.
Grifting charlatan. pic.twitter.com/gfrkCTiLL9
— Gyll King Post Skip Diplomacy (@GyllKing) January 9, 2026
Said deepfakes included Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). And Musk spat his dummy out when governments of the world demanded that he turn off the paedophile taps. We thought they should have arrested him, but apparently if you’re the world’s richest man, you can facilitate the creation of CSAM without getting in trouble.
Another one supporting Lowe’s new party is the human migraine Katie Hopkins:
God bless you @elonmusk
I swear you were sent to help save us. https://t.co/ibILta4t9E
— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) February 14, 2026
The less said about Hopkins the better, but she’s definitely someone who’s ‘tainted by the failures of the past‘. We’d say Lowe probably has the sense not to run her as a candidate, but he supported Musk despite all of the above, so who knows?
Carl Benjamin — a.k.a. ‘Sargon of Akkad’ — has also joined Restore.
It’s over before it’s even begun. All we need now is Nick Griffin and Are Tommeh https://t.co/8D1GArKNuo
— Manic Kieth Preachers KC (@wrb91) February 13, 2026
Benjamin got in trouble in 2019 because he couldn’t stop ‘joking’ about raping Jess Phillips. Here’s a picture of the guy covered in milkshake from the time he ran as a UKIP candidate:
Ukipper Carl Benjamin gets the milkshake he so richly deserves🥤 pic.twitter.com/OlOkw9Yf7l
— dave ❄️ 🥕 🧻 (@mrdavemacleod) May 19, 2019
A serious force?
Lowe’s supporters are claiming the party is off to a flying start. Nevertheless, Rupert Lowe has plenty of critics as well.
Over 5.1 million views on X alone within 12 hours of launching.
The reaction has been incredible, I have never seen anything like this in British politics.
So proud and grateful to be part of this really important movement. https://t.co/YxOSZ2wHyv
— Lewis Brackpool (@Lewis_Brackpool) February 14, 2026
While this isn’t hard confirmation, previous polling has shown there’s a potential voter base for Lowe — especially in his own constituency:
🚨NEW: New polling reveals that 9% of the public would vote for a party led by Rupert Lowe
[@FindoutnowUK] pic.twitter.com/36bn1q6cHj
— GB Politics (@GBPolitcs) January 15, 2026
📊 POLL | Voting intention in Great Yarmouth:
⚫️ GYF: 44% (+44)
🔴 LAB: 17% (-15)
➡️ REF: 16% (-19)
🔵 CON: 13% (-12)
🟢 GRN: 5% (+1)
🟠 LD: 5% (+2)GYF = Great Yarmouth First, Rupert Lowe’s party.
Via @FindoutnowUK, 2-4 Dec (+/- vs GE2024) pic.twitter.com/f3YG5G553B
— Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️⚧️ (@LeftieStats) December 5, 2025
While it’s tempting to think Restore will split the Reform vote, there is another possibility. The spurned Lowe could use Restore as a weapon to damage Reform’s electability, and he could then use that to force Farage out and take control of both parties. This wouldn’t surprise us, as Lowe has already merged with Advance UK — a party formed by Ben Habib — i.e. another of the politicians Farage kicked out of Reform:
🚨BREAKING: Ben Habib has announced that the Advance UK Party will merge with Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain
Advance UK currently has 40,000 members and dozens of councillors
— GB Politics (@GBPolitcs) February 14, 2026
Reform and Restore could also just enter into an electoral alliance. This shouldn’t be difficult, of course, because they already have the exact same name.
Featured image via Conservatives
Data published by the Israeli army shows that 50,632 servicemen fighting in the ranks of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) hold two or more nationalities (listed below).The data does not indicate how many were reservists versus active-duty soldiers — fighting for Israel.
As reported by the Canary’s Joe Glenton, the data was obtained by Declassified UK obtained through a Freedom of Information request.
Americans rank first (12,135), French second (6,100), and Russians third (5,000). Nationals from Germany, Ukraine, Britain, Romania, Poland, Canada, and Latin America also feature on the list. Of these, 4,440 soldiers hold two foreign nationalities, while 162 hold three or more — serving in military operations in Gaza, waged by Israel.
Less expected are Arab nationals from Yemen, Tunisia, Lebanon, Syria, and Algeria, who appear in the data — albeit in noticeably smaller numbers.
- United States: 12,135 soldiers
- France: 6,127 soldiers
- Russia: 5,067 soldiers
- Germany: 3,901 soldiers
- Ukraine: 3,210 soldiers
- Britain: 1,686 soldiers
- Romania: 1,675 soldiers
- Poland: 1,668 soldiers
- Ethiopia: 1,387 soldiers
- Canada: 1,185 soldiers
- Hungary: 885 soldiers
- Italy: 828 soldiers
- Argentina: 609 soldiers
- Netherlands: 559 soldiers
- Brazil: 505 soldiers
- Australia: 502 soldiers
- South Africa: 415 soldiers
- Belgium: 406 soldiers
- Austria: 390 soldiers
- Switzerland: 373 soldiers
- Spain: 372 soldiers
- Czech Republic: 309 soldiers
Conflicting jurisdictional obligations
The presence of dual-national IDF servicemen has raised questions about their legal obligations — in other words, when serving in Israel, whose laws are they answerable to.
These concerns have also culminated in criminal investigations into the conduct of soldiers deployed in Gaza since 2023.
In the UK, human rights groups collaborating with the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights submitted a report to the Metropolitan Police war crimes unit. Their findings highlight the participation of British nationals in Gaza and their possible involvement in suspected war crimes.
In June 2025, Canadian authorities, responding to complaints, launched preliminary investigations into Canadian nationals serving in the IDF suspected of war crimes.
Meanwhile, Belgium is investigating a Belgian soldier fighting for an elite IDF unit deployed in Gaza. That said, Belgium imposes no restrictions on dual nationals serving in foreign militaries.
Suspected Gaza war crimes
International organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have long called for independent investigations to ensure that dual citizens are acting in compliance with international humanitarian law. A recent investigation by Al Jazeera Arabic found that six Israeli snipers hold dual nationalities and were implicated in attacks targeting civilians in Gaza.
According to local estimates, the war in Gaza, now in its third year, has resulted in more than 72,000 deaths and approximately 171,000 injuries. In addition, there has been widespread destruction of infrastructure, with humanitarian and legal repercussions extending far beyond the battlefield.
Featured image via the Canary
When this year started, I knew I had to make drastic changes… because my phone had taken over my life.
Screen time had skyrocketed. Humour circled around TikTok reactions. I found myself scrolling through waves of news horrors and memes before I was fully awake each day.
Enter the Brick, which has emerged as the go-to app for people looking to reset their relationships with their phones.
“Bricking” your phone has now become a verb for people to share the news that they are logging off and to tell others. I actually learned about “bricking” and “unbricking” myself through the loud declarations of other writers and influencers.
I was skeptical at first about whether an app blocker that costs over $50 could be worth it. But I had tried free ways of deleting social media apps and blocking them from my phone through features like Apple’s Screen Time or Android Digital Wellbeing, and they hadn’t worked because they are easy to bypass.
However, the Brick is a little square device that pairs with an app you download on your phone through a QR code. Once you connect your phone to your Brick, you can select which apps you need to block and for which hours of the day.
Then, the real test begins. You tap the physical Brick device with your phone to activate its app-blocking features – you need to touch the Brick again if you want to regain access to your blocked apps.
I was struck by how hard it was to leave the house for a whole day with a bricked phone. I even delayed using it at first because of this anxiety, which only strengthened my resolve that I probably needed to go through with this experiment.
So, after a day of too much scrolling, I put myself to the test and put my Brick on my fridge. Now, I would have to get up from the couch or get back home from work if I wanted to access that tantalising Reddit post.
I am happy to report that after more than a month of use, my brain feels different. I expected the strict enforcement of a Brick to change me – but even I was surprised by how much it did.
What you should know before you try a Brick
The Brick, available for iOS and Android, lets you set modes for “deep work” and “family time” hours, so bricking automatically happens during the natural rhythm of your day. It also keeps a running tally of how many hours you have been bricked each day, and on average, presumably to encourage you to stay strong and go a little longer without unbricking.
If you forget to use the Brick on your phone in your rush out the door, you can also Brick your device by pressing the Brick icon on the app’s homepage from where you are, but you will still need to go back to where your actual Brick is to unlock what you want to unlock.
What I loved about it
The first week I used it, I was surprised and embarrassed by how often my fingers would automatically tap the social media apps my Brick blocked me from accessing. My Brick bouncer would gently scold me whenever I tried to instinctively check Instagram or TikTok.
The app gives you five “emergency” unbricking workarounds if you really need to access an app you have blocked and you’re not near your Brick device, but I have yet to use one. Needing to use “emergency” unbricking to make an Instagram story about the Galentine’s party I attended really put into perspective what exactly I was doing with my one precious life.
The Brick challenged my belief that real-time social media feedback was necessary to stay connected with my friends or to be good at my job. In my opinion, this forced reflection is the Brick’s best benefit. I’ve missed a few direct messages from my friends, I’m not seeing as many funny TikTok memes anymore, and I’m out of the loop on some social media trends, but I feel more in control of what I am consuming. At the very least, I am paying more attention to how I spend my time on my phone.
What I think could be better — and why I’m sticking with my Brick
The Brick costs around $59 for one device. Though I find this little plastic box to be prohibitively expensive for what it is, I like that more than one person can use the same Brick, so you could theoretically get your roommate or partner to split the costs, too. I also like that once you buy it, you don’t need to pay a subscription fee to keep using it, unlike many other apps.
However, bricking yourself is not going to transform you completely.
Catherine Pearlman, a licensed clinical social worker and author of First Phone: A Child’s Guide to Digital Responsibility, Safety, and Etiquette, said the Brick is “a wonderful device,” but can’t be a long-term solution to endless social media scrolling on its own.
“Once you’re home [where your Brick is], the impulse still exists,” she told me. “So it doesn’t actually teach you how to work through that impulse to say…‘How do I really want to spend my time? How do I work through this emotion that I’m trying to avoid by scrolling?’”
Answering those questions is a bigger journey only you can answer. For Pearlman, it meant finding other ways to use her screen-free time.
“I knew I wasn’t going to stop using my phone, but I wanted to have an alternative,” she said as an example. “And then when the newspapers got too upsetting, I went to Kindle. So now I just read books in my Kindle, and I read eight books in January.”
If you want to get serious about blocking social media not just on your phone but on your computer as well (which your Brick cannot access), Pearlman suggested the free website blocker Cold Turkey.
As for me, I’m continuing to brick myself in the evenings, so that I can learn a new screen-free hobby of crochet. Just this past week, my phone screen time dropped 62% compared to the week before. Making loops of crochet rows with my hands feels more satisfying than the loops of TikToks I watched each night, but I don’t think I would have stuck with my new hobby without the Brick’s admonishments.
I’ve gone from my high of nine hours of daily screen time to a more reasonable five or six hours during a workday. I still have lapses where I will go a night without Bricking, but I feel much calmer when I do. When my head is not cluttered with the pulls of social media notifications and enticing Reels, I have time to figure out what I really want to do. And that’s a gift that I think is worth keeping.
While menopause is a stage in every woman’s life, there is still so much we don’t know about the transitional period and the impacts it has on the body beyond the stereotypical symptoms such as hot flashes and mood swings.
In fact, there are 62 possible symptoms of menopause, which range from histamine sensitivities to hair loss and currently, 1 in 7 menopausal women are on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) to mitigate these often debilitating symptoms, according to the pharmacy experts at Chemist 4 U.
Now, Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian, a Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology, and Christelle Langley, a Postdoctoral Research Associate, Cognitive Neuroscience, both from the University of Cambridge have delved into just how cognitively impactful menopause can be for women and produced an eye-opening study.
The cognitive impacts of menopause
The researchers analysed data from nearly 125,000 women from the UK Biobank (a large database containing genetic and health data from about 500,000 people).
They placed participants into three groups: pre-menopausal, post-menopausal and post-menopausal with HRT. The average age of menopause was around 49 years old. Women who used HRT typically began treatment around the same age.
They found that menopause was associated with poorer sleep, increased mental health problems and even changes within the brain itself.
Writing for The Conversation, the researchers said: “Post-menopausal women were more likely than pre-menopausal women to report symptoms of anxiety and depression. They were also more likely to seek help from a GP or psychiatrist and to be prescribed antidepressants.
“Sleep disturbances were more common after menopause, as well. Post-menopausal women reported higher rates of insomnia, shorter sleep duration and increased fatigue.”
While HRT is the treatment prescribed for more difficult symptoms of menopause, the researchers believe that lifestyle changes could play a crucial role in improving symptoms.
“Our work and that of other research groups shows that a number of lifestyle habits can improve brain health, cognition and wellbeing, thereby reducing the risk of cognitive decline associated with ageing and dementia.
“This includes regular exercise, engaging in cognitively challenging activities (such as learning a new language or playing chess), having a nutritious and balanced diet, getting the right amount of good-quality sleep and having strong social connections.”
If you are struggling with menopause symptoms, speak to your GP.
Who remembers Beilby Porteus? He doesn’t quite win the competition for Church of England cleric with the silliest name in history – the reverend Nutcombe Nutcombe, 19th-century chancellor of Exeter Cathedral, easily walks away with that prize. But Porteus was certainly one of the Church of England’s most outstanding campaigners for the abolition of slavery and, what we might call today, racial justice.
From the pulpit of St Mary-Le-Bow in 1783, he gave a seminal sermon. It condemned the inhumane treatment of slaves in the Caribbean, and in particular those on the Codrington Plantations – then owned by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, a Church of England body. Despite this fulminating critique of his own church, in 1787, Porteus was appointed as Bishop of London and thus also to the House of Lords, a position he used tirelessly to support William Wilberforce’s campaign to extirpate the slave trade. He was also committed to improving the lot of the poor, and making sure that as many people around the world had access to the Bible in their own languages.
Unfortunately, it seems that the Diocese of London has forgotten what it itself did to fight slavery. It is now engaged in a ‘Racial Justice Priority’ project. Clergy will be encouraged to promote ‘anti-racism in sermons’ in order to correct what the diocese claims is its own ‘systemic racism’. The project will also engage in ‘truth-telling’ to challenge the ‘historical heritage of slavery’, which, the Church of England seems to believe, haunts its every move. The cost of this project is £730,000 over three years, funded by the Church Commissioners – whose money, it is worth pointing out, was originally laid down for the support of poor clergy and cathedrals.
Who could possibly object to the Diocese of London acting against racism? It would be following not only in the footsteps of Porteus, but also the prompting of scripture itself, which reminds us that: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek… for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.’ The problem is that such anti-racism initiatives are more apt to exacerbate racial division than to heal it, and to lead far beyond the bounds of what may be sanctioned by theology and scripture into the world of partisan political dogma.
Very far, in some cases. The racial-justice plan includes targets for percentages of ethnic-minoirty membership among clergy, administrative staff and even churchgoers. It also proposes ‘unconscious bias training’ for volunteers – something many of them will almost certainly view as the final straw after hours of safeguarding training and the day-to-day challenges of fundraising.
Perhaps more damaging than all of this is the ideological crusade inherent in the project. The previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, regularly insisted that the Church of England was ‘institutionally racist’. Nearly all of the evidence in support of this claim amounted to a reluctance of ethnic minorities to follow the norms of Anglicanism – something Welby chalked down to the ‘racism’ of the Church of England and its members. So it has drawn from scripture to justify an approach which effectively calls for the historic culture of the majority to adapt itself to the new minorities, rather than for minorities to assimilate.
This approach to scripture – based primarily on the most famous biblical lessons of loving one’s neighbour, the Good Samaritan and St Paul’s statement of there being neither Jew nor Greek – informs not only this Racial Justice Project within the Diocese of London, but also the approach of the Church of England at a higher level. It is from this that there is a general insistence on the good of open borders, a deep reluctance to speak out about any reasonable concerns people might have about wide-scale migration – even when its impact on the most vulnerable in society has been, as in the case of the rape gangs, at the deepest level of seriousness.
One of the practical impacts of this likely to be seen in London churches will be physical. An innocuous paragraph in the Racial Justice Strategy calls for ‘partnerships that can assist the Diocese of London in reviewing the legacy of statues and monuments exploring historical links and their relevance in today’s culture’. This refers to a desire expressed in the Church of England’s wider racial-justice reports for a move from ‘retaining and explaining’ monuments to a presumption that they should be removed if they have connections to slavery, despite any heritage or educational value they might have.
Another is in the idea of ‘truth telling’ to highlight ‘the historic injustices and the role played by the wider church’. The problem is that nowhere in the literature can one find calls to celebrate the courageous and world-leading actions of Porteus and his many Anglican colleagues to end the slave trade and help the disadvantaged. Everything is pointed towards calling for the majority in the church to lament their wickedness, but to forget anything good they might have done. This one-sided approach is hardly just or ‘truth telling’.
Congregations will be alienated by this injustice, but also they will know that this approach is not properly based on scripture. Christ calls for one to love the neighbour and the stranger, but the Bible, both in Old and New Testament, calls for the stranger and guest to be respectful to their hosts and society, respecting their customs and laws. One is hard-pressed to find, either in the CofE’s racial-justice documents, or in its public pronouncements, this huge part of scriptural guidance repeated. This absence is an unfortunate sign that the racial-justice agenda is driven more by politics than theology.
One injunction of scripture is ‘let us now praise famous men’. Perhaps if the Diocese of London spent more time honouring the legacies and examples of those like Porteus, rather than flagellating itself for imagined sins, they would be more likely to inspire its congregations to practical work against real racism and oppression, rather than driving them away in despair.
Bijan Omrani is the author of God is an Englishman: Christianity and the Creation of England.
Activists and politicians are urging the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) to boycott upcoming Nations League fixtures against the illegitimate settler-colony ‘Israel’. In a remarkable twist of fate, the Republic of Ireland has ended up in the same group as the land thieves for the 2026-2027 UEFA Nations League. This means Europe’s most pro-Palestine nation will potentially face-off against the world’s most anti-Palestine band of genocidal thugs.
Kosovo and Austria are the other teams in the group. Ireland are due to play Israel in September and October 2026.
However, the likes of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) have demanded things don’t even get that far. The pro-Palestine campaign group said:
The apartheid state should have been expelled from UEFA for its crimes against Palestinians, long before its genocidal war on Gaza. We demand that the FAI refuse to play these fixtures. We need a national sporting body to stand up and call the bluff of the governing organisations. Boycott apartheid Israel all day, every day until freedom for Palestine.
Boycott is the essential tool to prevent Zionist sportwashing
Unlike in the case of Russia, UEFA and FIFA — the administrative bodies for football in Europe and worldwide respectively — have pissed about endlessly when it comes to getting rid of the genocidaires squatting illegally on historic Palestine. They banned Russia almost immediately after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Yet nearly two and a half years into the world’s first live-streamed genocide, perpetrated by the Netanyahu regime, they have dodged removing ‘Israel’.
Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit (PBP) also called for refusing to play the fixtures:
The Government should stop trying to normalise the Israeli regime. Israel is not a normal state, it is a regime based entirely on ethnic cleansing, apartheid and barbaric genocide of Palestinians. Like apartheid South Africa, boycott can help dismantle this cruel regime.
Sporting and cultural boycotts were indeed crucial to ostracising that racist regime. The likes of Eurovision and the Nations League are crucial to maintaining the Zionist charade of straddling two continents. ‘Israel’ is Schrödinger‘s Colony, existing in two (terror) states simultaneously: both a ‘nice, normal white European country’ just like us, as it supposedly shows by competing in the above contests. Yet we are asked to believe its inhabitants are indigenous to the land they’ve been stealing for the past 100 years, despite largely arriving from overseas to steal the territory from its rightful owners — the Palestinians.
Boyd Barrett was referring to comments from the pathetic Micheál Martin. The treacherous Taoiseach once again showed his fealty to Ireland’s masters by declaring:
It [the matches against ‘Israel’] should go ahead, and I think the FAI has taken the correct decision to fulfil the fixture.
RTE say Martin has said there is “no official boycott of Israel in Ireland”. The question is why, especially when the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is calling for it. There is no prospect of the Zionist entity changing of its own accord. It can only be shifted by external pressure and that means boycott — wreck its economy, and cut all ties with it culturally and in the sporting realm.
Others must join Ireland to force UEFA’s hand
Previous calls by activists to boycott athletic contests with the terrorist pseudo-state have been unsuccessful. Some members of the Irish women’s basketball team refused to travel for a fixture in Riga against the Zionist entity. Irish players then refused to shake hands with the land thieves on the other side. The match ultimately went ahead, however.
The FAI did pass a vote in November 2025 calling for the illegal settler-colony to be banned from international football. However, it seems the heads of Irish football are less keen when it actually comes to putting this into practice themselves. The FAI is adamant that the Nations League games will go ahead. They say they have consulted with UEFA, who are threatening disqualification if Ireland refuse to play.
The means of solving this problem is much like that faced by workers at their place of employment. If only one threatens to rebel, it’s trivial for the employer to say “fine, piss off — I’ll have no trouble replacing just you”. The task for the boss becomes much harder if everyone gets in a union and threatens to walk out.
That’s what’s needed here — with sufficient pressure from local activists in a country where the vast majority of people will oppose playing ‘Israel’, Ireland can provide the credible threat of withdrawal.
The trick will be working with other nations to get them to join this threat, forming a united front that the craven bosses at UEFA can’t ignore. If successful, it could be the beginning of the end for the Zionist fake-state’s continued sport-washing of its disgusting atrocities.
Featured image via the Canary
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If you’re a big-time hater of the big light, you’re certainly not alone.
Reviled for being too bright and unflattering, the big light isn’t beyond saving. Sometimes, all you need is the right shade to dim it down a bit and give it a healthy dose of style.
From the smooth and elegant to the bold and maximalist, here’s a range of lampshades to choose from that would make any big light 10x better.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) on Friday morning detained and cautioned a pro-Palestine activist under anti-terror law. This happened despite a judicial review that very morning ruling the group’s ban is unlawful. Máire Mhic an Fhailí was held by police for around 30 minutes at Laganside Courts in Belfast. This was for wearing a t-shirt with the words “I support Palestine Action”.
Earlier that morning, the High Court in London had ruled that the British government had been wrong to ban the direct action group. They determined the proscription amounted to:
…very significant interference with the right to freedom of speech and the right to freedom of assembly.
When activists conveyed this information to PSNI officers, they seemed unaware of the ruling. The officers scrambled to confirm it for themselves.
Mhic an Fhailí was previously arrested in August 2025 for what the police claimed was also Palestine Action support. However, this essentially amounted to punishment for speaking Irish. The PSNI were admonished by the police ombudsman on that occasion. This was for their failure to adequately cater to the activist exercising her right to use a language. Notably, this is a language that supposedly now has parity under the law.
Police again discriminate for speaking Irish
Despite this, Mhic an Fhailí was again held on Friday for far longer than necessary due to police not being able to properly translate her answers. Speaking outside court, she said:
Although we heard today in the courts that the proscription of Palestine action has been declared illegal, I was still detained in the courts for wearing the Palestine action t-shirt. Furthermore, I gave my name and address in Irish, which caused another difficulty.
They said they couldn’t provide an interpreter and I refused to back down by giving my name in English. And so they checked my name in Irish and found my name and address on their police files. And so, they let me go eventually.
It remains to be seen whether the PSNI will follow the course of London’s Met Police. The Met have said they will hold off on arrests in the aftermath of the High Court verdict. In a statement on Friday, they said:
The High Court has found that the decision to proscribe Palestine Action was unlawful.
However, the group remains proscribed pending the outcome of any Government appeal, which means expressing support is still a criminal offence.
We recognise these are unusual circumstances.
From a Metropolitan Police perspective, officers will continue to identify offences where support for Palestine Action is being expressed, but they will focus on gathering evidence of those offences and the people involved to provide opportunities for enforcement at a later date, rather than making arrests at the time.
This is the most proportionate approach we can take, acknowledging the decision reached by the court while recognising that proceedings are not yet fully concluded.
The Six Counties police have recently pledged to ratchet up a clampdown on support for proscribed groups. They have been heavily criticised for going after anti-genocide protesters showing support for Palestine Action, while turning a blind eye to support for actual terrorist groups like the Ulster Volunteer Force.
However, they still emphasised that direct police involvement in removing material such as banners would be minimal. Land owners are still expected to be the ones taking primary responsibility. This is for ensuring their property isn’t used for unlawful displays.
A win for Palestine Action, but British state still criminalising anti-genocide protest
Mhic an Fhailí was at the courts supporting the for four activists being dragged through the so-called justice system for peaceful opposition to Zionist starvation policies. The charges relate to two protests held in July and October 2025, in which roads were blocked near Belfast City Hall. In addition, Mhic an Fhailí herself is among 9 activists currently under threat of prosecution for the demonstrations.
The activists come from a range of Palestine solidarity groups, including BDS Belfast, Belfast Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Mothers Against Genocide and Queerde. The group’s campaign is entitled No Crime in Opposing Genocide.
In an update on today’s court session on the BDS Belfast page, they state that Friday’s hearing was largely a formality. The actual contest on their charges will likely take place in April. All activists intend to plead not guilty. Indeed, they have the right under international law to oppose their government’s involvement in genocide.
Speaking outside court, BDS Belfast activist Damian Quinn said:
Those peaceful activists went to a protest and then stood on those roads because the British government and the North of Ireland government and the Irish government are doing nothing for the Palestinian people.
He continued:
It’s our right under international law and under the Genocide Convention to oppose genocide, to prevent and oppose genocide. We don’t wait until the [International Court of Justice] ICJ say it’s genocide, we already know it’s genocide.
The fact that the trial is still proceeding shows the success of Palestine Action at the High Court is just one step in a long road to stop the criminalisation of anti-genocide protest. Zionist influence on British politics is enormous, and removing its harmful effect on democracy will be a long struggle.
Featured image via Barold/the Canary
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![Heathrow has said passenger numbers were 60% lower in November than before the coronavirus pandemic and there were “high cancellations” among business travellers concerned about being trapped overseas for Christmas as Omicron spreads. The UK’s largest airport said the government’s travel restrictions had dealt a fresh blow to travel confidence and predicted it was likely to take several years for passenger numbers to return to pre-pandemic levels. This week ministers said passengers arriving in the UK would have to take a pre-departure Covid test, as well as a post-flight test, because of fears about the spread of the new variant. “[The] high level of cancellations by business travellers concerned about being trapped overseas because of pre-departure testing shows the potential harm to the economy of travel restrictions,” the airport said in an update. Heathrow said the drop in traveller confidence owing to the new travel restrictions had negated the benefit of reopening the all-important corridor to North America for business and holiday travel last month. Eleven African countries have been added to the government’s red list, requiring travellers to quarantine before reuniting with families. “By allowing Brits to isolate at home, ministers can make sure they are reunited with their loved ones this Christmas,” said John Holland-Kaye, the chief executive of Heathrow. “It would send a strong signal that restrictions on travel will be removed as soon as safely possible to give passengers the confidence to book for 2022, opening up thousands of new jobs for local people at Heathrow. Let’s reunite families for Christmas.” Heathrow said that if the government could safely signal that restrictions would be lifted soon, then employers at Heathrow would have the confidence to hire thousands of staff in anticipation of a boost in business next summer. The airport is expecting a slow start to 2022, finishing next year with about 45 million passengers – just over half of pre-pandemic levels. This week Tui, Europe’s largest package holiday operator, said it expected bookings for next summer to bounce back to 2019 levels. However, Heathrow said on Friday not to expect the aviation industry to recover for several years. “We do not expect that international travel will recover to 2019 levels until at least all travel restrictions (including testing) are removed from all the markets that we serve, at both ends of the route, and there is no risk of new restrictions, such as quarantine, being imposed,” the airport said.](https://wordupnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/shutterstock_1100012546-scaled-400x240.jpg)
![Heathrow has said passenger numbers were 60% lower in November than before the coronavirus pandemic and there were “high cancellations” among business travellers concerned about being trapped overseas for Christmas as Omicron spreads. The UK’s largest airport said the government’s travel restrictions had dealt a fresh blow to travel confidence and predicted it was likely to take several years for passenger numbers to return to pre-pandemic levels. This week ministers said passengers arriving in the UK would have to take a pre-departure Covid test, as well as a post-flight test, because of fears about the spread of the new variant. “[The] high level of cancellations by business travellers concerned about being trapped overseas because of pre-departure testing shows the potential harm to the economy of travel restrictions,” the airport said in an update. Heathrow said the drop in traveller confidence owing to the new travel restrictions had negated the benefit of reopening the all-important corridor to North America for business and holiday travel last month. Eleven African countries have been added to the government’s red list, requiring travellers to quarantine before reuniting with families. “By allowing Brits to isolate at home, ministers can make sure they are reunited with their loved ones this Christmas,” said John Holland-Kaye, the chief executive of Heathrow. “It would send a strong signal that restrictions on travel will be removed as soon as safely possible to give passengers the confidence to book for 2022, opening up thousands of new jobs for local people at Heathrow. Let’s reunite families for Christmas.” Heathrow said that if the government could safely signal that restrictions would be lifted soon, then employers at Heathrow would have the confidence to hire thousands of staff in anticipation of a boost in business next summer. The airport is expecting a slow start to 2022, finishing next year with about 45 million passengers – just over half of pre-pandemic levels. This week Tui, Europe’s largest package holiday operator, said it expected bookings for next summer to bounce back to 2019 levels. However, Heathrow said on Friday not to expect the aviation industry to recover for several years. “We do not expect that international travel will recover to 2019 levels until at least all travel restrictions (including testing) are removed from all the markets that we serve, at both ends of the route, and there is no risk of new restrictions, such as quarantine, being imposed,” the airport said.](https://wordupnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/shutterstock_1100012546-scaled-80x80.jpg)
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