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Reform UK’s Danny Kruger On Preparing For Government And Making ‘A Mess Of It’

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Danny Kruger: 'If We Don’t Win, Or If We Win And Make A Mess Of It, I Fear For Our Country'
Danny Kruger: 'If We Don’t Win, Or If We Win And Make A Mess Of It, I Fear For Our Country'

Danny Kruger (Photography by Tom Pilston for The House)


13 min read

Ex-Tory MP Danny Kruger reveals to Sienna Rodgers his plans as Reform UK’s head of preparing for government, from election readiness to pronatalist ambition – and why he fears for Britain if his party makes ‘a mess of it’

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A mop of grey hair can be seen bobbing over boxes piled high in a room with walls stripped bare, leaving only hooks missing their pictures. As a pair of podcast hosts stumble out, we shuffle in. Danny Kruger is being kicked out of his parliamentary office.

The Reform MP for East Wiltshire is likely destined for a pokier alternative, somewhere harder to find on the estate. This is his belated punishment, handed down by the whips, for defecting from the Conservatives in September to Nigel Farage’s insurgent party. He was the first sitting MP to make the big leap.

Now tasked with heading up Reform UK’s preparations for government, Kruger says he has “the most exciting job it’s possible to be doing in politics”. So, if there were a general election tomorrow, would his party be ready to govern?

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“We’ll be ready when we have to be. There’s not going to be a general election tomorrow,” he replies. “We are getting ready at pace. I would like more time, because I think we will benefit from having our ideas kicked around by more people with expertise.”

With characteristic impishness, he summarises: “The answer to your question is, we’ll be ready when we have to be, but we’ll be readier the later it is.”

His own attention is geared towards the Civil Service, which will see a major headcount reduction under Reform plans. Kruger sets out a private sector-style vision: more people brought in from the outside; ‘high-flyers’ better-paid, with a performance-related element; some recruited for short periods, say six months, to work on a specific task.

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Reform will prioritise “people with actual domain expertise” over “these posh generalists who float about from department to department making policy at the moment”, says the Eton-educated MP some would describe as a posh generalist himself.

“A lot of change is coming. Yes, more political appointees, whether they’re spads or civil servants, and a culture which prioritises delivery and genuine subject matter expertise.”

Would his party work with the new cabinet secretary, Antonia Romeo, dubbed “queen of woke” by some conservatives?

“I’m not going to get into individuals, although it’s true to say we are looking at individuals to see who in the current system we expect to work successfully with,” Kruger says. “To get to the top of the Civil Service, it’s quite a bad sign, really. You would have had to really conform to a very, very strict orthodoxy of belief and practice.”

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Asked whether a clear-out will therefore be required, he says he is consulting with current and former civil servants to spot talent – or lack thereof – among permanent secretaries (perm secs) and director-generals (DGs).

“Sometimes name me names – ‘Who do you think is good and bad?’ – but mostly, ‘What proportion of the senior civil service, the top 200 perm secs, DGs, do you rate?’” Their answers are “depressing”, he reports.

So, what proportion of the current crop do they categorise as “good”? Kruger spots a journalist’s trap and refuses to give a percentage. “But it’s bad,” he adds.

Danny Kruger
Danny Kruger (Photography by Tom Pilston)

This all sounds very Dominic Cummings, the former chief of staff to Boris Johnson, and an old friend of Kruger. The prospect of him joining the project is dismissed, however.

“I don’t think there’s any chance of Dominic coming on board. Neither does he want to, nor would Nigel have him. I think he’s put himself out of consideration for direct work in government,” Kruger says.

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“I don’t talk to him much because he’s not in the Reform camp, but I read his stuff, and I’ve always thought he was wise and prescient.”

Cummings has warned that Britain is sliding towards civil war, claiming that we are “only random viral posts away from riots and prairie fires getting out of control”. Does Kruger agree?

“Yeah,” he replies. The left portrays Reform as “rabble-rousers” who incite division, which could become violence. “The total opposite is the case. The only chance of unity for our country is Reform,” the MP continues. “If we don’t win, or if we win and then make a mess of it, I do fear for our country.”

Life as a small-c conservative has been a pain of late, including under recent Tory administrations. “We fight the long defeat, as Tolkien said. We’re always losing,” as Kruger puts it.

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Yet he fully believes that the winds are changing now. The mood of the country has shifted, and those in power, still embracing “the cult of the independent individual” without “any obligations beyond self-gratification”, are lagging behind.

“We’re all realising how empty that philosophy is and how destructive it is of society,” he says. “The Reform slogan is family, community, country. We’re talking about the associations that give us meaning and identity and security and a sense of belonging. I think that’s where the country is now going – away from a doctrine of total liberal individualism.”

“I’ve been hoping for a return to IDS all these years, but I found that in Nigel – he is my IDS”

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Kruger, 51, made his start in politics at the Centre for Policy Studies think tank and then as an adviser in the Conservative Party’s policy unit, initially under Iain Duncan Smith. After a stint as the Telegraph’s chief leader writer, he started writing David Cameron’s speeches – including, most memorably, the “hug-a-hoodie” one. He insists his politics have not budged over the years, however.

“I remain quite proud of that speech,” he says, explaining that it was actually very conservative, advocating proper punishment of criminals as well as love for young people at risk of crime. (His embrace of words like “love” is not unusual for politicians driven by their faith – Kruger became a Christian in his 20s, after meeting his wife, Emma – and should not be mistaken for softness of politics.) He left Cameron in 2008 to work full-time on the youth crime prevention charity he co-founded.

“I’ve always been a social conservative. The bits of Cameronism that I approved of, like the Big Society, I still approve of. I was always a Brexiteer.”

He is “probably less of a neocon”, though: “I supported the Iraq War – I regret that.” He regrets, too, supporting parts of the Covid response before later becoming a strong lockdown critic.

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“I was the token right-winger in the Cameron team. I was probably most at home, in all of these Tory leaders I worked for, with IDS, in the 2003 era. So, I’ve been hoping for a return to IDS all these years, but I found that in Nigel – he is my IDS.”

Danny Kruger
Danny Kruger (Photography by Tom Pilston)

Kruger has been prominent over the last year not only because of his defection but also his opposition to assisted dying.

“My expectation is that they’re going to run out of time,” he says of Kim Leadbeater’s bill currently before Parliament. “While I oppose the bill, and I will oppose any assisted dying bill because I don’t think it’s possible to craft a safe one, you could craft a much safer one than this.” He does not accept that peers have been filibustering to kill the bill.

Kruger’s mother, Bake Off star Prue Leith, has been one of the celebrities at the fore of the pro-assisted dying campaign. They made a documentary together about the subject, through which they came to better understand each other’s views.

“It’s been a bit difficult sometimes, because it matters a lot to both of us, and we haven’t been prepared to stop. She’s committed to the campaign; I’m committed to resisting it. But, no, overwhelmingly, I salute my mum for not minding that I am leading, or one of the leaders of, the campaign to stop her getting her way,” he says. “Neither of us is budging. That’s OK.”

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The other big social reform put before MPs recently was the decriminalisation of abortion at any point during pregnancy, via an amendment by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi. Unlike the assisted dying legislation, it passed the Commons easily.

“I thought it was a real shame that we did that – as a country, as a Parliament. Again, totally understand the argument for it, but it has sent a very, very strong signal that it is acceptable to abort a viable baby at nine months,” Kruger says. He also argues it has put vulnerable women at further risk of coercion by abusive partners. (Advocates of decriminalisation naturally disagree on both points.)

“The fact it happened the same week as the assisted dying bill just struck me as a very, very dark episode in our national life.”

In Kruger’s 2023 book Covenant, which outlines his conservative communitarian philosophy, he describes sex as being a private act done almost in public, when it should really be a public act done in private. What role does he believe a political party can have in undoing the sexual revolution, or resetting our sexual culture?

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“A limited but important one,” he replies. He is clear that every government policy is “critically important to the way families form” and confirms that Reform UK is looking at switching our tax system to be based on households rather than individuals.

“Marriage traditionally was the means by which sexual relations between men and women were regulated, and I think we are suffering from having a totally unregulated sexual economy,” he says.

“I’m not interested in your love life, or anything about your personal life – that is your business. But I am interested in the framework in which you make your decisions, and I’d like the framework to be more pro-social. If you want – most people do want – to settle down with one person to have children, we should make that easier.”

While he is against the 2022 introduction of no-fault divorce, because the landmark change “basically means that your vows don’t matter”, he does not commit to overturning it. “I don’t know whether we’d be able to reverse it,” he says. “I don’t think that would be party policy, to change that.”

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It may not include this one, but – with Reform UK figures concerned about our low birth rate – the party is developing a suite of fertility-boosting policies, he confirms: “Yes, we have a pronatalist ambition. We want people to have more children, and we think the government should get behind that wish.”

Expect more from Reform on childcare, for example: “Clearly, the system is totally dysfunctional. There’s a massive disincentive for parents to be able to organise their finances around their actual lives. It’s broken.”

Kruger must be serious about getting into power: he appears to position himself as less right-wing now that he has joined Reform than he did as a Tory.

Asked about his past interest in dismantling the welfare state in favour of the ‘Big Society’, he maintains that the latter was “the best aspect of the Cameron government – except the referendum, of course” and criticises welfare dependence, before pointing out that “we don’t want to dismantle the public services that people rely on”.

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Is he remembering his call for “a period of creative destruction in the public services”, which forced him to stand down as a 2005 Tory candidate? “Yes, yes, I don’t want to walk into that one,” he smiles.

“Let’s not pretend otherwise: there is a clear affinity of worldview between the Maga movement and Reform”

As we discuss the British shibboleths that Reform cannot afford to be seen as having any wish to meddle with, Kruger rejects any notion of switching away from the current NHS funding model. Instead, he expands on his view that the real problem is that this country is very sick. He talks of “the principle that there’s often better alternatives than a pharmaceutical prescription or a medical treatment” – so, is he against obesity jabs?

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“I’m no expert. I don’t want to wade into a debate where I don’t have the expertise – that doesn’t stop me always, but on this occasion…” Another smile. “Instinctively, I’m suspicious of a solution that seems so easy.” He is “not a caveman” and is “very pro-tech”, yet “shortcuts feel to me to be dangerous. But who am I to object?”

On the subject of Reform’s electoral vulnerabilities, The House probes Nigel Farage’s closeness with President Trump. Is that a challenge for the domestic audience?

“Clearly, Donald Trump is not wildly popular in the UK, and the fact that we have and Nigel has a personal friendship with him, might not be advantageous,” he says.

“On the other hand, I think it reflects well on Nigel that he’s stood by Donald Trump, including when Trump was down, and that relationship is very, very useful, potentially, to the United Kingdom and to a Reform government. And let’s not pretend otherwise: there is a clear affinity of worldview between the Maga movement and Reform.”

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Kruger clarifies: “The US is a very different place. We don’t want to mirror their politics. We don’t want to follow everything that the current administration is doing in the UK, far from it. But the US and the Republicans are the best friends this country could have.”

The Reform MP seems genuinely comfortable in his new home. He claims not to know whether more Conservative MPs will follow suit, saying it is “a very personal decision” and “not for me to decide who Nigel would want to have anyway”.

He delivers the pitch anyway: “If you’re an authentic conservative, your patriotic duty is to join Reform – unless you’ve got some massive personal problem with some policy we’ve got, or people. But you shouldn’t.”

So, if Farage’s party forms the official opposition or government, which jobs does he have his eye on? The Department for Work and Pensions, perhaps?

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“I would like to start putting in my bids for jobs now, but I won’t. Who knows what Nigel will want from each of us?” Kruger replies, acknowledging that “yeah, social policy is where I feel most expert”.

Could he be in the Cabinet Office – Reform’s Pat McFadden? “The Oliver Letwin of the operation! Again, we don’t know what the structures of government are going to be, what roles will exist, what departments we’ll have. I think there needs to be some machinery of government changes.”

The cabinet, he says, “will look smaller” and Farage has confirmed that the jobs will not all go to MPs, “so there might not be room for me”.

That would seem rather harsh, considering what a significant step he took in defecting. “I might have screwed up by then. My normal trajectory is to do something catastrophic and blow myself up. So, let’s see what I do next.”

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Labour accused of anti-semitic caricature

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Labour accused of anti-semitic caricature

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

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

Svengali

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

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

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

Additionally:

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

This is how History Today describe the character:

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

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

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

Now, the media is churning out stuff like this:

And Reform are knocking out images like this:

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Shameful

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

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

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Dean Lewis threatens the Canary over abuse allegations

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Dean Lewis threatens the Canary over abuse allegations

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dean Lewis avoiding fans

Now, his team are denying hundreds of fans refunds.

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

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

According to the BBC:

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

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

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

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

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

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

She told the Canary:

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

It made me feel very very sad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Proving his guilt

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

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

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

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

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

Incriminating himself

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

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

The response starts by questioning my own journalistic credentials:

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

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

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

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

The response then goes on to say:

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

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

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

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It continues:

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

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

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

Threatening the Canary

The response ends:

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

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

Sincerely,

Dean Lewis Management Team

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

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

Feature image via Cera/Unsplash

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Muslim man stabbed outside mosque in Smethwick

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Muslim man stabbed outside mosque in Smethwick

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

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

Attack outside of a Mosque

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Deeply distressing and concerning’

The spokesperson for West Midlands police force stated:

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

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

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

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

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

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Reform want to bring ICE chaos to the UK

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Reform want to bring ICE chaos to the UK

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

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

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

Reform want ICE-style goons

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

This is what we reported on 3 February:

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

Is this what we want on UK streets?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Green Party have also reacted:

They’re far from the only ones either:

Announcements on announcements

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

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

Yusuf also promised to end the “invasion”:

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Where does Yusuf think this sort of rhetoric ends?

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

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

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

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

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Andrew Mountbatten Windsor used taxpayer money for massages

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Andrew Mountbatten Windsor used taxpayer money for massages

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

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

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

Andrew is a dodgy royal using public cash for private massages

On 23 February, the BBC reported that:

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

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

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

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

The BBC added:

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

He explained:

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

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

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

we should have flagged that something was wrong

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

Demand accountability

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Trump orchestrated the Mexico cartel killing

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Trump orchestrated the Mexico cartel killing

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

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

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said:

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

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

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

Security website The Watch reported:

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

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

Merging defence and law enforcement

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

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

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

Instead, Trump:

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

Trump has married:

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

Singh adds:

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

Civilisational and supremacist

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump’s Mexico threats

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

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Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said in November:

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

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

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

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

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Manchester police arrest victim of fascists’ racist ‘lynch mob’ attack

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Manchester police arrest victim of fascists' racist 'lynch mob' attack

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

Police arrested the victim.

Neo-Nazis on the streets of Manchester

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

Police were then filmed arresting and handcuffing the victim:

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

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

Fascist impunity continues in the UK.

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Goodwin linked to Nazi pseudoscience, Byline investigation shows

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Goodwin linked to Nazi pseudoscience, Byline investigation shows

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

Goodwin: if it walks like a duck

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

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

actively defended, promoted and cited key figures within the network

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

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

As Byline Times notes:

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

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

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

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

Direct form, not just links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Gaza is now seeing fuel and water shortages

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Gaza is now seeing fuel and water shortages

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

An unprecedented water crisis in Gaza

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

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

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

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

Fuel: a faltering lifeline

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

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

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

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

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

Acute shortage of medicines

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

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

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

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

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Is Palestinian sport seeing a genuine revival

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Is Palestinian sport seeing a genuine revival

In Gaza, football was not just a game. It was a space for life and a window of hope for an entire generation. Today, Palestinian sport faces an unprecedented scene of destruction, after Israel’s genocide affected infrastructure, facilities and human resources, amid mounting accusations that international sports institutions have been turning a blind eye to its rights for decades.

This reality opens up four key areas for discussion: the role of the Peace Council, the position of FIFA and international bodies, the controversy over double standards, and the possibility of a return to sportsmanship amid a fragile truce and widespread destruction.

The Peace Council: symbolic support or practical step?

Recent months have seen the announcement of a partnership between the Peace Council and FIFA to rebuild stadiums and academies and develop sports infrastructure in Gaza. Despite the stated ambition, this project faces widespread scepticism given the reality on the ground: a large proportion of facilities and stadiums have been destroyed, and the community is in dire need of basic reconstruction of housing, hospitals and schools before stadiums.

Therefore, many believe that the initiative, while humanitarian in nature, is more of a symbolic gesture than a real reform for Palestinian sport, and may be part of efforts to improve FIFA’s image after sharp international criticism of its inaction towards Israeli violations.

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FIFA and Palestinian sport: a long history of turning a blind eye

For decades, FIFA has adopted a policy of passive neutrality towards what Palestinians describe as Israeli occupation violations of Palestinian sport. FIFA has ignored restrictions on the movement of Palestinian players and the targeting of stadiums and sports facilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the imposition of Israeli clubs in settlements at the expense of Palestinian federations.

Even international calls, demonstrations and petitions demanding sanctions or Israel’s exclusion from FIFA have been met with no response. These calls have intensified since the assassination of nearly 1,000 Palestinian athletes, two-thirds of whom were footballers, highlighting the gravity of the violations for which FIFA has not been held accountable.

In contrast, FIFA quickly excluded Russia from international tournaments in 2022 following its war in Ukraine, which, according to the Palestinians, reflects double standards and a real disregard for Palestinian football rights despite the scale of violations that have continued for many years.

Even the International Olympic Committee has not taken any practical action, despite international calls and demonstrations demanding an end to the violations or the imposition of sanctions, reinforcing the Palestinians’ sense of abandonment in terms of protecting the rights of sport in Palestine.

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Human losses and a lost generation

The crisis is not limited to infrastructure. The sports sector has lost nearly 1,000 athletes, more than two-thirds of whom are football players. These losses mean the loss of entire generations of talent and the halting of the development of young players, in addition to the profound psychological and social effects on those who survived.

Experts emphasise that the restoration of Palestinian sport requires long-term programmes that include psychological and social rehabilitation, not just the reconstruction of stadiums.

During periods of relative calm, five-a-side tournaments were held in Gaza as a way to restore the sporting spirit, albeit symbolically. These initiatives carried significant moral weight, but their impact remains limited due to the absence of facilities capable of hosting official tournaments, the damage to entire clubs, and the lack of complete security stability.

Furthermore, according to experts’ estimates, the reconstruction of Gaza could take more than five years, which puts Palestinian sport at the bottom of the list of priorities compared to the urgent need for housing and basic services.

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Between reality and what is needed – will sport return to Gaza

International sports institutions remain on the defensive, insisting that they operate within complex legal frameworks, but Palestinians consider this silence or passive neutrality to be indirect complicity, especially in the face of decades of ongoing Israeli violations.

The real challenge of reviving Palestinian football is not limited to building new stadiums, but also includes guaranteeing players’ rights, protecting facilities, restoring lost talent, and comprehensive programmes to rehabilitate the sporting community.

The current truce may bring some of the pulse of sport back to Gaza, but Palestinian football faces existential challenges: stadiums have been reduced to rubble, generations have been lost, and sports personnel are psychologically exhausted.

Restoring the game requires genuine international will, a comprehensive long-term plan, and enormous resources to rebuild both human and physical infrastructure. Football in Palestine is not just a game; it is a symbol of resilience and national identity, and its revival requires more than symbolic promises, but a real commitment to restore the rights that have been taken away from Palestinian sport.

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