Politics
No, the police are not ‘systemically racist’
A report published in April by the Children’s Commissioner for England on the police’s record on strip searching children has caused tumult in elite circles. The document, ‘Police powers and children – strip searching and use of force’, states: ‘Although only six per cent of the population of 10- to 17-year-olds in the 2021 census were black, 35 per cent of the children strip searched were of black ethnicity.’ The conclusion, we are told, is obvious: Britain’s police are systemically racist.
Few statistics are deployed more aggressively in Britain’s culture wars than those around policing. Yet the claim that British police are racist is as lazy as it is unfair. It rests on a single move: take a statistic showing a disparity, strip away all context, and assume a motive. No serious discipline would accept that standard of evidence or such dishonest reasoning. Yet, when the topic is policing, it is simply taken at face value. Maybe because the reality is less convenient.
The first point to make is that policing is not distributed evenly across the population. It is concentrated in the places where crime is most prevalent. These areas are generally the most economically deprived and contain the highest number of people from ethnic-minority backgrounds (that certain minorities are statistically more likely to be poorer in the first place is a separate debate). This means law enforcement clusters in specific neighbourhoods, particularly in major urban centres. These areas do not resemble the country as a whole, either in crime patterns or demographics.
The accusation of racism crumbles when this fact is acknowledged. If police activity is focussed in a relatively small number of high-crime areas, and those areas have distinct demographic profiles, then uneven outcomes are inevitable.
Critics are quick to cite disparities in enforcement, the recent complaints about strip searches being a perfect example. But they are far less willing to engage with the realities of criminality and youth exploitation in the areas where these searches occur. It is a sad fact that black people (of all ages) are more likely to be the victims of violent crime than other ethnic groups. In London, 62 per cent of homicide victims are black – but so are 65 per cent of offenders. So what are the activists saying – that the police shouldn’t try to prevent homicide from happening?
None of this requires the belief that policing is perfect. Of course officers make mistakes. Procedures are sometimes poorly followed. Oversight has, in some cases, identified serious failings in the treatment of minors. These issues deserve attention. But they do not at all amount to evidence of a system animated by racial bias.
This is not serious thinking. It is political rhetoric. Even the commonly cited evidence does not support the sweeping conclusions drawn from it. Too many studies and news reports collapse different contexts into a single headline figure, erasing the role of geography, crime distribution and police strategy. The result is a narrative that is emotionally forceful but factually thin.
Accusations of systemic racism reflect what has become an inbuilt woke scepticism toward an institution which, in recent years, has bent over backwards to appeal to the lanyard classes. This has warped public trust and, ultimately, the willingness of ordinary coppers to act decisively in high-risk situations – especially with the senior ranks’ propensity to throw front-line police under a bus at the first hint of controversy. That outcome serves no one, least of all the communities most affected by crime.
The truth, as ever, is less convenient than the slogans. Policing means meeting the demands of public safety with the imperfect judgement of human beings, usually operating under substantial pressure. Disparities can emerge from all of these factors without requiring a single, all-encompassing explanation. To insist otherwise is not to pursue justice. It is to impose a politically charged narrative.
Certainly, the strip-search figures deserve scrutiny. But they do not justify the confident declaration of systemic racism that so often follows. If Britain is to have an honest debate about policing, it must begin by abandoning the idea that unequal statistical outcomes are racist. They are not. And until that distinction is acknowledged, the conversation will remain driven, not by evidence, but by ideology.
Paul Birch is a former police officer and counter-terrorism specialist. You can read his Substack here.
Iraqi lawmakers have revealed that Israel built a second secret base in the desert in Iraq. This comes after a shepherd was found dead for exposing the first.
This means that Israel, a genocidal terrorist state, operated two covert bases intermittently and illegally for well over a year.
Only last week, the Wall Street Journal reported on the first illegal outpost in the Iraqi desert. Since then, Iraqi officials have told The New York Times that there was another undisclosed base. This is also in Iraq’s western desert.
According to the New York Times, Israel used the first base, which Mr. al-Shammari discovered, during the 12-day war in June 2025. As far back as 2024, the IOF started preparing to build the makeshift base by identifying remote sites from which it could operate.
To make matters worse, it has become clear that the US knew about at least one of the bases since June 2025, or even earlier. This means that the US failed to tell Iraq that hostile forces were on its soil.
Iraq — ‘western desert region’
One Iraqi lawmaker, Hassan Fadaam, told The New York Times that Israel had established at least one other outpost. He said:
The one in al-Nukhaib is just the only one that was found out.
A second official confirmed the existence of a second base. They did not provide a location; however, they said it was also in a “western desert region”.
According to Iraqi officials, official protocol requires Washington to inform Baghdad of any activities on Iraqi soil. So, did the US purposefully conceal the Israeli activity? Or did it inform Iraq’s top command of the operations, which kept them confidential?
The officials thought it was extremely unlikely, however, that Iraqi leaders knew the presence was Israeli until the exposure by the shepherd. It also most likely assumed the sites were American.
According to the family of the shepherd, authorities have ignored his murder.
Officials also reported that the US role in Iraqi security was part of Israel’s “calculations” in deciding it could operate safely and clandestinely in Iraq.
The first Israeli base in al-Nukhaib is no longer operative; however, the status of the second is currently unknown.
Israel is a rogue terrorist state. The setting up and operating of clandestine military outposts on sovereign Iraqi territory is a blatant war crime. How can anyone believe that Israel truly wants peace in the region when it keeps invading the region’s countries time and time again?
Feature image via Owen Franken/Getty Images
By HG
The ban failed almost as soon as it began. On the very day in December 2025 that it was supposed to have taken effect, hordes of under-16s trolled PM Anthony Albanese’s X account. ‘I’m still here’, they posted, and ‘wait until I can vote’. It was spectacularly embarrassing for the government – though very amusing for the rest of us.
During a lengthy propaganda campaign, which cost the Australian taxpayer $76.1million, bureaucrats insisted children needed to be kept safe from harmful material such as pornography, self-harm content and body-image pressures. This is hardly a controversial position to take – most of us would agree.
The problem here is that the Australian government’s apparent concern about protecting children collapses completely under scrutiny. As many have pointed out, far more explicit corners of the internet such as Pornhub and OnlyFans remain only partially policed, inconsistently age-gated, and easily evaded with a virtual private network (VPN). Children also continue to inhabit the gaming-platform, Roblox, which was not on the government’s verboten list, despite the grooming risks there being well documented.
But the hypocrisy extends beyond inconsistent bans. Far more damning is the fact that the very same bureaucrats who recently discovered the notion of childhood innocence have, for years, been exposing schoolchildren to sexualised and ideological material over which parents have little meaningful control. Such material has been disguised within benign-sounding programmes such as Australia’s ‘Respectful Relationships Education’ or the UK’s ‘Relationships and Sex Education’ (RSE). Yet on closer inspection, both are awash with gender theory, queer theory, intersectional feminism, toxic-masculinity workshops and third-party classroom activities so explicit they would make Bonnie Blue blush.
In terms of its embrace of radical gender ideology, Australia has long outstripped the UK. This is largely because Australian parents are handing over their two-year-olds to kindergarten teachers who have been ordered by the government to explore children’s gender identity. Teachers have been instructed that early childhood is a critical time for children to begin understanding gender, and that kindergartens need to be, as one state government website puts it, ‘safe spaces where LGBTQI+ children and families feel welcomed, honoured and supported’. They have also been warned against ‘heteronormative ways of working and ensuring rainbow families are meaningfully included and experience a sense of belonging’.
The UK’s RSE programme was made compulsory for primary and secondary school students in 2020 by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government. While the Department for Education’s statutory guidance for schools talks a great deal about respect, inclusion and age-appropriate content, the programme has simply acted as a gateway for nefarious organisations to indoctrinate children. While charity Mermaids – which claims that ‘our gender is decided by other people when we’re born, based on the way our body looks’ – gives out chest binders for girls to try out in their spare time, Stonewall tells kids in its LGBTQ+ glossary that ‘G’ is for Gender Identity:
‘This is the gender that someone feels they are. This might be the same as the gender they were given as a baby, but it might not. They might feel like they are a different gender, or they might not feel like a boy or a girl.’
At this point, the only thing children might feel is confusion and anxiety.
RSE takes us to the Wild West of sex education. This was made apparent in the Cass Review, the landmark independent review of gender-identity services for children in England, which found a great deal of emphasis is being placed on ‘non-normative’ sex. As one resource laments, ‘penis-in-vagina sex can be a bit meh, or rubbish, for many couples’. At every opportunity, it seems, heterosexual sex is either actively denigrated or struggling to keep up with an endless parade of more ‘exciting’ alternatives. In one lesson plan from an award-winning independent school, 12- and 13-year-olds are asked what they ‘know / think / feel’ about the kind of sex had by ‘heteronormative couples’ and ‘non-heteronormative couples’.
Though official guidance makes no mention of pornography or masturbation, the Cass review found that both have become fixtures of RSE. Resources included ‘Masturbation: A Hands-On Guide’, and material from an organisation called Split Banana, including ‘A Simple Guide to Great Sex-Ed: How to Talk About Porn’.
How do we reconcile the vast chasm between the government’s feverish attempts to ban children from social media on the grounds of safety, with its continued insistence on exposing those same children to explicit and controversial sexual content in the classroom? One can only conclude that this was never about protecting kids from harm at all. It was about control. The state wants to be the one doing the indoctrinating – to shut parents out of their children’s formation while it assumes ever greater authority with ever less transparency. This uneasy arrangement now sits at the heart of our educational crisis.
Bella d’Abrera is the Director of the Foundations of Western Civilisation at the Institute of Public Affairs, and the author of Mindless: How the Education System is Indoctrinating Children and Destroying our Civilisation (Wyborn Press, 2026).
Just days before the start of the 2026 World Cup finals, international warnings are escalating regarding the climate risks that players and fans may face during the anticipated tournament in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. These concerns are rising amid increasing fears about the impact of high temperatures and high humidity on physical safety and athletic performance.
The Reuters revealed that about 20 international scientists and experts in health, climate, and sports performance directed an open letter to FIFA, in which they asserted that currently approved heat management protocols are “insufficient” and do not align with the latest scientific studies related to heat stress in sports.
High heat, elevated humidity, and solar radiation
According to the report, experts warned that the danger is not solely linked to temperature but is exacerbated by high humidity and intense solar radiation. This combination increases fluid loss and raises the likelihood of muscle cramps, exhaustion, and heat stroke, especially given the congested match schedule and the staging of some matches during daytime hours.
The experts, according to Reuters, indicated that some host cities might experience temperatures ranging between 30 and 40 degrees Celsius during the summer tournament. They called for extending mandatory cooling breaks to at least six minutes, in addition to postponing or rescheduling matches when climatic conditions reach levels that threaten player safety.
World Cup and the impact of climate change on football
For its part, The Guardian newspaper, in its report, focused on the broader climate dimension of the tournament, suggesting that the 2026 World Cup could turn into an “unprecedented test” of global football’s ability to adapt to the repercussions of climate change.
The British newspaper explained that the risks of extreme heat have doubled compared to the 1994 World Cup hosted by the United States, due to globally rising temperatures in recent decades. It also pointed out that several American and Mexican cities are likely to register very high temperatures during matches, particularly during daytime fixtures.
According to The Guardian, the concerns are not limited to players but also extend to fans, with expectations that spectators will be exposed to long periods of direct heat inside the stadiums and surrounding open areas.
Unsafe climatic conditions
BBC Sport highlighted the position of the professional players’ union, FIFPRO, which considered some expected climatic conditions during the tournament to be “unsafe” for players, especially with the increasing match congestion in modern football.
The British network clarified that FIFA is already considering a series of protective measures, including implementing mandatory cooling breaks during both halves of matches, providing air-conditioned benches for substitutes and technical staff, and continuously monitoring heat and humidity levels inside the stadiums.
BBC also mentioned the possibility of adjusting the timing of some matches to avoid peak heat hours, as the international federation seeks to reduce health risks for both players and fans.
As part of fan protection plans, FIFA is working to provide shaded areas, misting systems, cooling buses, increase water distribution points, and allow closed water bottles into matches held in extremely hot conditions.
With mounting scientific warnings and pressure from players’ unions, the 2026 World Cup appears not just to be a global football event, but a real test of football’s ability to confront the challenges of a changing climate, in a tournament that may be held under one of the most severe thermal environments in World Cup history.
Featured image via Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images
By Alaa Shamali
In the runup to the local elections, investigators exposed many of Reform UK’s election candidates. The investigations didn’t stop with the local election results, however, and more has come to light since then. Among the latest revelations is that Reform UK’s Bradford leader is a racist and a creep:
Reform — disgusting
The above post highlights three posts Place shared.
The first suggests ‘London has Fallen’ as a result of embracing Islam; the second depicts Angela Rayner as a sex worker who charges “£1 for 30 minutes”; the third we’ve blurred because it’s an AI creep shot of what appears to be teenage girls.
So he’s a bit of a dirtbag, this Place, isn’t he?
And for reference, this is what he looks like:
Clearly, the man is old enough to know better. We have further reason to know this too, because he just spoke to the BBC about another Bradford councillor that Reform has severed ties with:
Place told BBC Politics North: “It’s entirely his decision what he does now, but he’s not a Reform councillor.”
“Words have consequences and I don’t condone his words at all – they’re horrific, he should never have put those out,” Place said.
However, he added that Devaney was “absolutely devastated” and had previously issued “heartfelt apologies”.
“His words were wrong but I have to have a bit of empathy for him for the fallout of this. It’s absolutely ruined him,” Place said.
For reference, councillor Daniel Devaney said that Muslims are “pure scum”. We have to assume Place actually agrees with this sentiment (or has previously agreed with it), because he’s also shared posts like this:
Two faced
In conversation with the BBC, Place knows that racism is bad. On social media, however, he’s more than happy to promote Islamophobia between the AI child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
This man clearly isn’t fit for office. He’s not even fit for the cesspit which is social media.
Featured image via Getty Images (Dan Kitwood)
By Willem Moore
A prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) is pursuing five new arrest warrants for Israeli officials. These include Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
However, the ICC has not yet issued them.
According to Haaretz, the ICC prosecutor also named Settlement Minister Orit Struck and two military officials.
In 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The ICC found that there were:
reasonable grounds to believe that each has committed the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare and crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts, as a direct perpetrator, acting jointly with others.
The Chamber also found reasonable grounds to believe that they are each responsible for the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against civilians as a superior.
Shady MOD contracts
Shockingly, Smotrich’s Ministry of Finance owns an arms factory in the UK. Meaning an Israeli state-owned weapons factory, responsible for the mass murder of Palestinian children, is just sitting alongside the Tyne River in Newcastle.
Pearson is responsible for supplying parts for armoured vehicles and also specialises in combat robotics. Rafael, Israel’s state-owned arms manufacturer, owns it. Rafael also produces missiles and drones for the IOF. Even on Companies House, the Israeli government is listed as holding the controlling stake in the firm.
To make matters worse, the British government recently awarded Pearson Engineering a £10m Ministry of Defence contract.
Smotrich has repeatedly called for Israel to completely ethnically cleanse all 1.8m people from Gaza, so it can ‘be settled’.
He himself is an illegal settler in the Occupied West Bank, and the Israeli government has granted him sweeping ministerial powers to “direct and expand” Israeli settlement policy.
ICC arrest warrant for Ben-Gvir?
Ben-Gvir is another piece-of-shit illegal settler in Kiryat Araba, one of the most radical settlements in the occupied West Bank. Previously, he stated that his rights are more important than those of Palestinians and is the psychopath behind a new law sentencing Palestinians to death.
He is the leader of Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power, a far-right, anti-arab party.
He has racked up at least eight criminal convictions, including supporting a terrorist organisation and inciting racism. His criminal record is so long that when he appeared before a judge, a former official said:
we had to change the ink on the printer
In 2022, he pulled a gun on Palestinian parking attendants in Tel Aviv, and was part of a group of settlers who slashed Palestinians’ car tyres and tried to storm one family’s home. When Palestinians responded by throwing stones, he pulled out a gun, despite the police presence at the scene.
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described Ben-Gvir as an “imminent danger to Israel” compared to a nuclear-armed Iran.
He has also made clear his intentions to ethnically cleanse Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank.
In 2025, he and Smotrich both called the soldiers who were guilty of raping a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman detention ‘heroes’.
The IOF even banned Ben-Gvir from joining because of his ‘extremist past’. Imagine being too extreme to join a bunch of literal terrorists.
Orit Strock
Orit Strock is the Minister for Settlement and National Missions, and is also an illegal settler in the Avraham Avinu settlement in Hebron. She is a member of Smotrich’s far-right religious Zionist party.
In April, a car from Struck’s motorcade hit and killed a Palestinian child near the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba in the occupied West Bank.
A 16-year-old Palestinian boy has been killed after he was struck by a vehicle reportedly belonging to far-right Israeli minister Orit Strock’s security convoy near the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba in the occupied West Bank. pic.twitter.com/7RsHIYopS5
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) April 21, 2026
Only recently, Strock’s daughter, Shoshana, reportedly died by suicide after publicly accusing her family of enduring alleged ritual sexual abuse from as young as two and a half years old. She had just appointed lawyers to pursue justice for the crimes against her.
However, in December 2025, Shoshana warned her Facebook followers that she was in danger of being murdered to silence her. And she told them not to believe a word of it if she was found dead and it was called suicide, or an ‘accident’.
Of course, Jewish law generally prohibits autopsies. That’s pretty convenient.
An Israeli court issued a gag order to domestic media, which prevented outlets from linking the allegations to Strock’s mother and other named individuals. However, it does not apply to international media outlets.
Of course, they all deserved their day in the Hague.
If I called for the levels of violence on these individuals that they have called for in Gaza, the police would lock me up for inciting. These guys are on another planet — one in which the rules do not apply to Zionists.
Of course, these people alone are not the issue. Zionism and Jewish supremacy are the problem. As long as both exist, more psychopathic, genocidal war criminals will continue to rise to power.
Feature image via Getty Images
By HG
Flag shagger arrested!
As we reported, Tommy Robinson’s 2026 Unite the Kingdom rally was a massive flop. Despite this, some good did come of it:
Oh dear… Raise the Colours leader Ryan Bridge has just been arrested at Euston station https://t.co/jTvTaLaKrr
— Nick Lowles (@lowles_nick) May 16, 2026
Flag shagger raising the colours
Ryan Bridge is one of the UK’s top flag shaggers. As we reported on 11 May, his hobby recently saw him trying and failing to bully an older man outside his house:
Ryan Bridge from Raise The Colours and his goons bullied an elderly man. pic.twitter.com/FoA42dNEPZ
— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) May 10, 2026
Bridge indulges in his flag shaggery as part of Operation Raise the Colours. This is what Hope not Hate wrote about the group:
HOPE not hate can reveal that the co-founder and organiser of the group is longtime Stephen Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson) ally Andrew Currien (AKA Andy Saxon). Formerly a key member of the English Defence League’s leadership bodyguard team, and now running security for the far-right party Britain First, Currien has previously been jailed for his part in a racist death. He was one of six men convicted in 2009 after a 59-year-old man was crushed to death by a car following a violent brawl.
Bridge is another key member of the operation, and he’s also linked to a £40 million fraud scandal, as the Mirror reported in 2018.
Ryan Bridge, the guy behind the Raise the Colours, faces eight years in prison if convicted. pic.twitter.com/mRmu8HwCmF
— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) November 30, 2025
Bridge was one of the goons who raised money to travel to France to harass migrants. The following is a video of Bridge fleeing in terror which was filmed after that all went predictably wrong:
Wind people up and then run like cowards. Hardmen image of Danny Tammo and Ryan Bridge destroyed in one short clip. https://t.co/TtqfV8PyCw
— St Michael (@ClurichaunLol) November 29, 2025
Nick Lowles of Hope not Hate said the following regarding Bridge’s arrest:
Confirmation that Ryan Bridge was arrested for an incident in Birmingham a couple of nights ago when someone who objected to them putting up flags was run over…. https://t.co/jbDOKa1srq
— Nick Lowles (@lowles_nick) May 16, 2026
The following shows Bridge denying knowledge of the incident alongside another video showing that he clearly did know about the incident:
Bridge isn’t the only Raise the Colours thug out there causing trouble either:
These men who are ‘protecting women’ are assaulting and insulting women. — Council Flat Kurstie (@parlyparty) May 16, 2026
This isn’t patriotism. This isn’t protection.
This is fascism. This is assault.
They are the loud minority bullying the UK. pic.twitter.com/4qgjazr9sv
Unexpected
The Canary is usually the last outlet you’d expect to be celebrating an arrest at a protest. For Bridge, however, we’ll make an exception — especially as he’s the sort of shithouse we’d ordinarily be protesting against.
Featured image via Twitter
By Willem Moore
As we’ve reported, Andy Burnham is a politician with many, many faults. Despite this, there was hope Burnham could be used as a vehicle to get some decent policies implemented. As it turns out, though, Burnham has already backed down on one of the policies which made him worth voting for:
Burnham said electoral reform must be "in a manifesto", and revealed he does NOT back proportional representation, instead praising the non-proportional Supplementary Vote (SV)
Via @itvnews pic.twitter.com/wO40XxnR4K — Stats for Lefties
BREAKING | Andy Burnham confirms he will NOT scrap first-past-the-post before #GE2029
(@LeftieStats) May 17, 2026
Going off this logic, it’s realistic to think Burnham could also back away from renationalising key utilities and industries.
Proportional Representation
Before we get into what Burnham said, we should explain what he was talking about.
In the UK, we operate under the ‘First Past the Post’ (FPTP) electoral system. As the Electoral Reform Society reports, this is at odds with most other democracies, which use some form of proportional representation.
Under FPTP, constituencies vote for their MP, with the winner in each constituency taking a seat in Parliament. The following graph demonstrates how FPTP can lead to results which don’t match how the country voted:
As you can see, Labour achieved nearly two thirds of the seats in parliament with only around a third of the votes. Clearly, then, this isn’t democratic.
The society adds:
Westminster’s First Past the Post voting system usually allows parties to form a government on their own. But, these governments may only have the support of 35 percent (Labour 2005), a record low, or 37 percent (Conservative 2015) of the country.
Westminster’s voting system creates two sorts of areas. ‘Safe seats’, with such a low chance of changing hands that there is no point in campaigning, and ‘swing seats’, that could change hands.
As parties want to get as many MPs as possible, parties prioritise voters who might change their minds who live in swing seats. Parties design their manifestos to appeal to voters in swing seats, and spend the majority of their funds campaigning in them.
The alternative is proportional representation (PR), with the Electoral Reform society writing:
Proportional representation (PR) is not a voting system in itself. Instead, it’s the idea that seats in parliament should reflect the proportion of votes cast; something which can be achieved through a variety of electoral systems.
As such, there’s not just one way that PR works. But it’s possible to understand what it might look like if it were implemented across Britain by getting to grips with the nuts and bolts of the different types of voting systems which do establish proportional representation.
The PR options they list include:
- Single Transferable Vote (STV).
- Additional Members System (AMS).
- Party List Proportional Representation.
Burnham getting his excuses in
In the clip at the top, Burnham says:
I stood for Westminster four times under the first past the post system and then in 2017 when I stood for the first time to be Mayor of Greater Manchester under a proportional system, I realised that you had an incentive to knock on every door because you might be able to get a second preference from somebody who was a Lib Dem voter or a Green.
And I used to say to them, ‘oh, well, OK, if you support regulation of the buses, maybe you could consider giving me a second preference?’ And the thing about that was it finally aligned the conversation on the doorstep with what people want from politics, which is about problem-solving first and foremost not point scoring and you know for me you know building a different political conversation in the country then allows us to start thinking of different long-term solutions.
I think Westminster politics has served people very badly indeed.
As Stats for Lefties noted, Supplementary Vote (SV) isn’t one of the systems that is traditionally classed as ‘proportional’. On their site, the Electoral Reform Society rank it as follows:
Of course, the fact that Burnham used SV in Greater Manchester doesn’t necessarily mean it would be his preferred system for the country (he wasn’t the guy who introduced it, after all). The question is whether he’d seek to introduce proportional representation in this parliament, and we now have an answer to that.
When asked if he was talking about “electoral reform”, Burnham said:
I support it and I think it brings a different conversation. But that, to then go on to answer your question, would require it to be in a manifesto and endorsed at a general election.
This is consequential, because the Green Party was talking about standing down in the Makerfield by-election based on the idea that Burnham would introduce PR if he wins and becomes PM.
Greens standby
This is what Greens leader Zack Polanski said on potentially standing down to give Burnham a better shot at winning against Reform:
Last week’s elections shows the country is crying out for a break from the failed status quo. Keir Starmer has been unable and unwilling to break with an economic model that has fuelled the affordability crisis and this is why we have said he must go. Whatever happens in the coming by-election, Andy Burnham will need to make clear which version of him is going to show up.
Is it the politician who has been part and parcel of the Labour establishment for decades, abstaining on legislation making brutal cuts to welfare, PFI and other Labour privatisations?
Or is it the one who has publicly supported proportional representation, been a popular Mayor in Manchester and expressed support to make changes to the failed economic model.
The country needs to know if Andy Burnham is serious about breaking out from the terrible orthodoxies from the past, or if he will just be more of the same.
Now, it seems, we have an answer.
Burnham can say he supports PR and will campaign for it in future, but why would anyone believe a Labour politician at this point? And as some Green supporters are now saying:
Greens must run and take the seat. If @AndyBurnhamGM offers no shift in the electoral system, it means no deal. And there's no point arguing this will "let in Reform" –– Reform will win due to our electoral system, regardless of who's prime minister for the next 3 years. https://t.co/ilKMAgK3qU
— Philip Proudfoot (@PhilipProudfoot) May 17, 2026
There’s more to this too. Burnham has spoken about renationalising key utilities and industries. Is this something he’d do if he replaces Starmer, or would that require a general election too?
It seems to us that unless Burnham makes bold, dramatic moves like ending the privatisation scam, there’s no chance he’ll win the next election. As such, why should we care if he wins the Makerfield by-election, when he’s already suggesting nothing significant will change until 2029?
Burnham — no easy ride
Former Greens leader Caroline Lucas actually called for her party to stand down before they’d secured any guarantees from Burnham:
I hope this isn’t true. There are times when it’s more important to put country before party. This is one of them. Burnham’s longstanding commitment to a fairer voting system could transform our democracy & counter dire threat of a Reform UK government https://t.co/PNfl5GnB0X
— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) May 15, 2026
With all respect to Lucas, this demonstrates why the Green Party hasn’t traditionally been very good at politics.
Polanski might not get Burnham to commit to PR, but if he doesn’t, he can certainly make Burnham regret that decision – especially when the polling is this tight:
Source: @Survation estimate, 15 May 2026 — Stats for Lefties
NEW | Burnham narrowly leads in Makerfield
Lab: 45% (-)
Ref: 42% (+10)
—
+/- vs 2024 general election pic.twitter.com/wwgueC9uDP
(@LeftieStats) May 16, 2026
And as we now know, the Greens will be contending the seat:
Despite Caroline Lucas urging the party to step aside and endorse Starmer's Labour Party, a Green spokesperson said the selection process has begun.
"We've shown we can beat Reform" they added.
(Via @Telegraph) pic.twitter.com/E0jcD3X43C
— Stats for Lefties
NEW | Greens confirm they will contest Makerfield.
(@LeftieStats) May 17, 2026
People are tired of Labour politicians failing to deliver, and Andy Burnham may be about to find out just how tired they are.
Featured image via Getty Images (Christopher Furlong)
By Willem Moore
A huge explosion and fireball rocked Beit Shamesh in the Occupied Palestinian Territories late on Saturday, 16 May.
Residents near Israel’s Beit Shemesh area reported a loud explosion and large fire visible from afar.
Israel’s Kan News later claimed the incident was a controlled explosion carried out inside a civilian factory. No injuries or damage were reported. pic.twitter.com/FyHLPmoaeZ
— Faytuks Network (@FaytuksNetwork) May 16, 2026
The explosion reportedly took place at Sdot Micha Air Base, which Tomer, an Israeli government-owned weapons and defence company, has previously used to test weapons.
The mysterious massive explosion apparently occurred at a test engine facility inside the highly secretive Israeli Sidot Micha base, located at 31°46’24.08″N 34°53’47.93″E.
A similar explosion took place at the same facility in 2021 during an Israeli rocket engine test. https://t.co/qw89XZf0rR pic.twitter.com/XPfmv3qzrV
— Egypt’s Intel Observer (@EGYOSINT) May 16, 2026
Tomer claimed the blast was a “planned controlled experiment”.
However, the official narrative has raised more questions than it has answered.
I don’t know what just happened in Beit Shemesh, but this is in no way a “controlled explosion”. What kind of controlled explosion that powerful in a “sensitive zone” happens in the middle of the night without notifying residents? Israel is lying again pic.twitter.com/jszyq6Mk2K
— Hadi (@HadiNasrallah) May 16, 2026
Beit Shamesh — ‘Intentional’
For a start, most Western media outlets have pretty much ignored the story, which is an immediate red flag. We already know that Israel has strict censorship laws in place, especially surrounding military sites. Israel even detains journalists who violate the censorship regulations. Additionally, Israel requires journalists to submit visual materials such as photos and videos in advance for approval.
Presumably, there is very little footage because the explosion happened at an Israeli military base.
However, in recent months, all Western media outlets ever bang on about is Israel and antisemitism (ahem, BBC). So why the sudden silence when social media is filled with videos of a huge explosion in central Israel? Something doesn’t add up.
Next, why was an “intentional” and “planned test” carried out so late at night, without warning residents?
Where was the warning to settlers? Don’t God’s chosen people deserve a warning?
Warnings and alerts would have been issued to the settlers had it been a controlled demolition. They have received them for demolitions in the north and Gaza.
This city was pounded repeatedly during the war from Iran. It has 2 bases that contain Jericho ICBMS that carry nukes. https://t.co/KMAZ844lrh
— Jawad (@levantupdates) May 16, 2026
Israel usually warns illegal settlers when it tests or detonates weapons. Yet Israel did not warn residents in Beit Shemesh. Why didn’t it this time?
There are also reports on social media that ambulances and other emergency services were blocked from attending the scene.
Additionally, the Jerusalem Post reported the circulating theory that the explosion may have destroyed a stockpile of surface-to-air missiles belonging to Arrow 3, an anti-ballistic missile defence system.
Tomer
Tomer is an Israeli government-owned defence company that provides:
a national knowledge center for the State of Israel, Tomer develops and manufactures rocket systems used in air, land, and naval weapon systems used by Israel’s Ministry of Defense (MOD), Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and foreign armed forces. Among these weapon systems are rocket motors of the Arrow missiles, Shavit satellite launchers, ELRAD air defense systems, and artillery rockets.
A previous analysis by the Independent suggests that the Tomer tests weapons at the Sdot Micha Air Base.
Israeli media previously quoted Tomer after a similar blast at the site in 2021. It said it was a “controlled test” with “no exceptional circumstances”.
Tomer has also claimed that the:
angle and darkness of videos amplified the explosion’s visual force.
Importantly, though, Tomer is responsible for many of the weapons which the IOF has used in its genocides in both Gaza and Lebanon.
Sdot Micha — Beit Shamesh
Sdot Micha is an IOF Air Force missile base and depot in the Occupied Palestinian territories, in the Jerusalem district. It spans around 13km from southeast to northwest.
The base illegally occupies land on which the villages of Al-Burayj, Sejed, Jilya, and Qazaza were located before the Nakba in 1948.
The base houses at least three different IOF squadrons and operates Jericho intermediate-range (IRBM) and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). It also maintains Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 missile batteries. A separate, high-security area northwest of these positions contains four bunkers for warhead storage.
Experts also suspect that Sdot Micha houses nukes. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute:
Up to 50 warheads are thought to be assigned for delivery by land-based Jericho ballistic missiles, although the Israeli government has never publicly confirmed that it possesses the missiles. The missiles are believed to be located, along with their mobile transporter-erector-launchers (TELs), in caves or bunkers at Sdot Micha Airbase near Zekharia, about 25 kilometres west of Jerusalem.
As usual, the official Israeli narrative raises more questions than it answers.
It’s also pretty ironic that Israel and the US have been so paranoid about Iran developing nuclear weapons. Yet, here it is, conducting random explosions that may or may not be tests.
How ironic that Israel is so paranoid about Iran getting nuclear weapons, and here it is, conducting random “explosions” and no one knows what the hell is going on. Pure hypocrisy.
— Amira Nour (@Amira_Nour8) May 16, 2026
The only thing tightly controlled about this explosion is the narrative, which is pretty standard for the Jewish-supremacist ethnostate.
Feature image via HG
By HG
Something truly callous happened in London on Saturday. Shortly before the grieving mother of a young woman who was murdered by an illegal immigrant was about to go on stage and share her heartbreak, activists flashed the slogan ‘Immigration makes Britain brilliant’ on a huge screen. As the mum was no doubt going over her notes, steeling herself for her nervous speech about the horrors inflicted on her daughter, ‘progressives’ decided to remind her and her dumb admirers that actually immigration is fab. And there it was: the iron fist of cruelty in the velvet glove of ‘Be Kind’.
The mum was Siobhan Whyte, mother of Rhiannon. In 2024, Rhiannon was murdered by an ‘asylum seeker’ from Sudan called Deng Majek. She had been working at the very migrant hotel where Majek was staying. One evening, after she finished another day’s graft of cooking for Majek and the others, he followed her to the railway station and stabbed her 23 times with a screwdriver. He then danced with glee over her bleeding body. Siobhan, in her speech at Saturday’s Unite the Kingdom rally, fumed against the politicians who have let our borders go to rack and ruin. Keir Starmer is an ‘abhorrent excuse of a leader’, she said. He has ‘failed us’.
The ‘progressives’ who intruded into the Unite the Kingdom rally with their pro-immigration taunting were from Led By Donkeys, the turbo-smug, craft-beer tosser collective that was born from the middle classes’ imperious disgust with the vote for Brexit. As Siobhan and thousands of others made their way to Parliament Square, Led By Donkeys carried out one of their cunning stunts, flashing their ‘brilliant immigration’ slogan on a digital billboard by the roadside. The bourgeois press lapped it up, loving this vision of graduate leftists from leafy London ripping the piss out of the gammon-hued working classes who dumbly worry about our broken borders.
The rest of us, though, those of us whose moral compasses are not yet cracked, were left with two striking images from Saturday. On one side, a shattered mum giving a faltering address on the awful fallout from unchecked immigration, and on the other, well-fed Guardianista wankers saying immigration is the best. On the stage, a harrowing tale of working-class suffering at the hands of a cruel man and an apathetic establishment – in the crowd, the digital scoffing of a privileged middle class that thinks riff-raff whining about immigration is basically fascism. Working-class pain and bourgeois jeers – rarely has our moral divide, our moral chasm, been so grimly on display.
These are the battlelines in modern Britain. There are the cold, insular elites for whom mass immigration is a source of moral virtue and cheap labour – and there are the concerned communities who worry that our withered sovereignty is undermining the sanctity of the nation and the security of its people. There are the chattering classes who have made being ‘pro-immigration’ into a cheap pose designed to demonstrate one’s moral fitness for high society – and there are the working classes who must live with the consequences of this sacrifice of our territorial integrity at the altar of bourgeois virtue. People like Siobhan Whyte, whose daughter’s precious life was lost to the post-sovereignty mania of her supposed betters.
Saturday really did shine a light on The Two Britains. There were two protests in London. There was Unite the Kingdom, called by Tommy Robinson, at which a mostly working-class audience waved the Union flag and aired their grievances over the slow death of British identity. And there was the ‘Nakba Day’ protest, at which a mostly middle-class audience waved the Palestine flag and aired their fury against the world’s only Jewish nation. One gathering wanted to repair a kingdom, the other dreamt of destroying one – the Jewish one. ‘From the river to the sea’, they chanted, and we know what that means: erase the Jewish State, every last inch, all the way from the river to the sea.
The Palestine demo was an orgy of bigotry dolled up as virtue. It was proof that the middle-class left, bereft of ideas for Britain itself, now derives its sense of meaning almost entirely from hating Israel. Masked in their culturally appropriated keffiyehs, they barked for the globalisation of the intifada and wrung their untoiled hands over that sneaky, bloodlusting ‘Zionist entity’. The vibe at Unite the Kingdom could not have been more different. It was more mellow, more serious, more devoted to fixing the land in which we live rather than annihilating the land in which the Jews live. One side cried out for the restoration of
Britain, the other for the obliteration of Israel.
And yet it was Unite the Kingdom that was tarred as fascistic and dangerous, including by Keir Starmer himself. Was there bigotry in some of the speeches at Unite the Kingdom? Unquestionably. There were flashes of anti-Semitism at the rally, too, with one white-supremacist banner calling for an end to ‘the Zionist occupation of Britain’. Yet as the Campaign Against Antisemitism says, that vile far-right hate was ‘absolutely dwarfed by the anti-Jewish hatred [on the Palestine march]’. ‘Hang every ZOG pedo cunt’, said a placard on that ‘kind’ demo, ZOG meaning ‘Zionist Occupied Government’. The Palestine demo was infused with dreams of anti-Jewish violence (intifada) and a longing for the vaporisation of the Jewish State.
On what planet is it the grandmothers with St George’s flags who are the Nazis, while the masked mobs hollering for apocalyptic violence against the Jewish nation are ‘progressives’? In what moral universe does it make sense to denounce proud working-class Britons as fascist scum, while letting the lowlife celebrators of the 7 October pogrom pose as good guys? This is moral inversion of the most staggering kind. It is a crime against truth. If you’re working class and want to live in a safer, happier nation, you’re scum; if you’re a keffiyeh loudmouth who thinks the rape and murder of Jews is ‘resistance’, you’re good. Future historians will marvel at the lies and sheer moral bankruptcy of our times.
Starmer’s televised address on Friday, in which he railed against Unite the Kingdom as if it were the second coming of the Luftwaffe, was the most shaming moment of his premiership. The vast majority on that rally were good people who just want proper working borders, a tougher clampdown on Islamist extremism, and a tad more national pride. For Starmer to defame them as a threat to the nation, as a ‘stark reminder of exactly what we are up against’, is repulsive. We now have a prime minister who defines himself in opposition to his own people, like some mad, drunk monarch marooned in his remote tower. Those chanters on Saturday were right: ‘Keir Starmer’s a wanker.’
Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. His latest book – After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation – is available to order on Amazon UK and Amazon US now. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy.
Kuenssberg — Josh Simons is the now-ex-Labour MP who was found to have spied on journalists. As we’re supposed to live in a liberal democracy, this sort of behaviour should be frowned upon. Instead, the national broadcaster just treated Simons like a normal politician:
Josh Simons is on #bbclaurak this morning.
Will Laura Kuenssberg ask him about his role as the head of Labour Together, when he organised a smear campaign against a journalist investigating the organisation, and for which he had to subsequently resign as a minister? pic.twitter.com/KzN5p1EQ41
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 17, 2026
Kuenssberg — Josh Simons
On 14 May, the Canary’s Skwawkbox reported:
Simons was in charge of LT when it paid a firm to spy on independent journalist and author Paul Holden, who was writing a book about LT’s secret activities and its sabotage of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. The firm also spied on a couple of ‘mainstream’ hacks who were prying a bit too closely. He quit when he was found out but remains a full-throated amplifier of antisemitism smears and turned on Starmer this week, at least publicly.
It’s clear why Simons would use antisemitism smears to discredit Israel critics, as Jody McIntyre reported for the Canary:
Last June, Simons received £5,000 from Mike Craven, a former press officer for Tony Blair. Craven, still listed as a director of Labour Together Limited on Companies House, has previously attacked Jeremy Corbyn “and the far left” for not recognising the Israeli state’s “right to exist”.
Additionally:
In February, it was revealed that he had failed to properly declare a donation from Trevor Chinn, the former Labour Together director and funder who, after being nominated by Labour Friends of Israel, received an Israeli Presidential Medal of Honor for “skills and work to the benefit of the State of Israel”.
And:
At the 2024 conference of the Jewish Labour Movement, Simons spoke alongside former Israeli spy Assaf Kaplan at an event that promised to teach the audience “how to run a good campaign”.
A more curious journalist than Kuenssberg might have asked Simons why he:
- Spied on British journalists.
- Has links to the security apparatus of a foreign country.
- Takes money from wealthy individuals whose sole interest seems to be promoting Israel.
Instead:
narrator: she did not. https://t.co/oKvTOlgOzw
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 17, 2026
Unsaid
The BBC had Simons on because he’s stepped down as an MP to allow Andy Burnham to run for parliament. This is a big story, obviously, but that doesn’t mean Simons’ history doesn’t matter. If anything, it makes his disgraceful actions more interesting.
Allowing a man who ran a factional org that broke the law when it channelled secret cash to fund Starmers rise, & which then ran a smear campaign against journalists investigating its role, to opine on whats gone wrong for Labour & the need to come together, is frankly absurd. pic.twitter.com/LmedXZ8HFT
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 17, 2026
In the clip above, Simons says this by-election is about whether Labour can win back working class voters. There’s no reflection on the fact that the right-wing faction he was a part of pushed away such voters by pursuing endless privatisation and corporatisation — a political ideology which made us all poorer (especially those of us in the North).
The endless Labour infighting also didn’t help, and most of it was driven by politicians like Simons:
Simons taking the moral high ground
Was it in the best interests of Lab & the country when you ran a smear campaign against journalists investigating the factional org you were running (which had played a key role in bringing Keir to power & broke electoral law in the process!) pic.twitter.com/VuCrvpVKza
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 17, 2026
Simons also called for an end to online anonymity:
The man who ran a secret campaign to target and smear journalists says anonymous accounts on social media are polluting our public conversation. pic.twitter.com/rkKajGy4y2
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 17, 2026
This is a bit rich from a guy who spied on journalists from the shadows!
When is a journalist not a journalist?
BBC journalism doesn’t exist to uncover the truth; it exists to obscure it. And as Saul Staniforth highlighted, this is far from the first time this has happened:
And keeps forgetting!https://t.co/IOk55q6iY2
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 17, 2026
Featured image via BBC
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