Campaigners have warned that a motion tabled in the Senedd to end Welsh government spending on international relations would damage Cymru’s reputation as an open, outward-looking nation and weaken its ability to respond to global challenges such as climate change.

Llyr Powell from the Reform UK party has submitted a motion calling for the cessation of all Welsh government international relations spending. Critics have called this a step backwards for a nation that has built its global reputation on partnership, sustainability and solidarity.

The Welsh government’s international relations budget represents a very small proportion of overall public expenditure. It’s around £9.2m in total, of which approximately £1m supports international sustainable development activities. That’s equivalent to roughly 0.003% of total Welsh government spending.

Campaigners argue that despite its modest size, the budget delivers disproportionate value. They point as a clear example to the Mbale tree-planting initiative in Uganda, which plants a tree for every child born in Cymru.

The scheme has already sequestered an estimated 1.4m tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to around a quarter of Cymru’s annual transport emissions. It also supports local livelihoods, reduces landslide risk and strengthens climate resilience in vulnerable communities.

Cymru’s place in the world

A spokesperson from Global Climate Justice Cymru said:

We regret Reform UK’s isolationist approach to Cymru’s place in the world.

At a time when climate change, economic inequality and conflict are global challenges that do not respect borders, turning inward and cutting off the partnerships that help us respond to them is not strength, it is retreat.

Cymru cannot insulate itself from the world by pretending it isn’t part of it.

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The warning echoes the UK government’s own National Security Risk Assessment, which identifies biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse as top-tier threats to national security, economic stability and public wellbeing.

Environmental degradation, including deforestation in critical ecosystems like the Amazon, is linked to food insecurity, rising prices, instability and displacement worldwide.

The campaign also pointed to the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act. This requires Cymru to consider its contribution to global well-being as part of its approach to domestic policy. It’s not an optional extra, but a defining feature of how the nation is governed.

A spokesperson from Wales Overseas Agency Group said:

Cymru’s reputation as an outward-looking, internationally engaged nation has been hard-won. It reflects decades of leadership on sustainable development and global solidarity.

Cutting this funding would not save meaningful sums but it would send a damaging signal that Cymru is turning its back on the world.

Campaigners stressed that the costs involved are negligible in the context of overall public spending. The £1m sustainable development budget is equivalent to roughly 40 minutes of health spending in Cymru. While the entire international relations budget would barely cover six hours of healthcare spending.

They argue the real impact of cutting it would be reputational and economic. Around £8m of the budget supports international economic and cultural links. These are increasingly vital in the post-Brexit context, where Welsh exporters face new trade barriers, regulatory complexity and delays.

Campaigners are calling on Members of the Senedd to oppose the motion when it comes to a vote, and instead to recommit to Cymru’s role as a globally responsible, engaged and forward-looking nation working in partnership with others to advance shared prosperity, climate action and social justice.

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By The Canary

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On Wednesday 17 June, Starmer said he would like to give Andy Burnham a “big role” in government should he win the Makerfield by-election. The question was this: would Burnham accept a job in the most unpopular government of his lifetime, or would he simply force Starmer out and take the top job for himself?

The answer was obvious, and we didn’t have to wait long to hear it:

NEW: Andy Burnham won’t accept a job in Keir Starmer’s Government

Senior Labour source: “The benefit Andy has is the wind of change for not having been associated with the Government’s failings”

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— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) June 17, 2026

Burnham says no thanks

Starmer offered Andy B a job in an interview with Beth Rigby:

In a deeply personal interview, the PM tells me:

He wants Andy Burnham back in cabinet – to “have a big role in government”
He says he will talk to Burnham “after the weekend”
“I don't feel angry. I don't feel bitter” Starmer says, on the leadership crisis he’s facing… pic.twitter.com/WGjNoMkX9K

— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) June 17, 2026

He probably should have saved himself the embarrassment by offering Burnham the job directly. Saying that, if Starmer cared about embarrassment, he wouldn’t do half the things he does.

According to the Manchester Evening News (MEN), a “senior source” in Team Burnham said:

the benefit Andy has is the wind of change for not having been associated with the Government’s failings.

In other words, the man doesn’t want to get Starmer’s stink on himself. And this is all reminiscent of when David Cameron offered Boris Johnson a ‘top five’ position to not campaign for Brexit. And much like Johnson, Andy B is also a regional mayor with a massive barnet.

The MEN also reported:

The source also told us that the discussion of the Greater Manchester mayoral elections was an attempt to put ‘further challenges up’ and that if Keir Starmer stays it will give people ‘an excuse to vote against Labour’ in that election. If Mr Burnham wins the Greater Manchester Mayoral election is expected to take place at the end of July.

And this was in response to Starmer’s other attempt to wriggle out of a leadership challenge.

Focus

Slippery Starmer also said the following:

We’ve got the by-election tomorrow. First and foremost, I want Andy Burnham to win, and that’s why I’ve encouraged activists and members to go up there during the course of the campaign, and they’ll be up there tomorrow helping to get the vote out.

Then what happens is we’re immediately tipped into a Manchester mayoral contest by-election, one of the biggest by-elections that we’ve ever fought, because of the scale of it. And it’s really important to my mind that the whole of the Labour Party and Labour movement focuses on that, which is the next most immediate task.

So here’s the thing; the biggest obstacle to Labour winning any election seems to be Keir Starmer leading the party. As such, this argument doesn’t really hold up. It is a string of sentences, though, and the man does have to act like he’s not just a placeholder prime minister.

Change?

We should add that Burnham’s offering right now isn’t all that different to Starmer’s:

• Burnham ‘to support’ Mahmood’s racist immigration changes.
• Burnham is silent on wealth taxes – not a promising sign from potential PM.
• Andy Burnham’s role with Iain Duncan Smith’s think tank just shows he’s more of the same.
• Burnham WON’T back proportional representation this parliament.
• Shapeshifting Burnham ditches trans rights to panic-grab Reform votes.
• Burnham slammed for saying he won’t renationalise Thames Water.
• Burnham calls for ‘safe routes’ then agrees with Farage in muddled interview.
• Green candidate calls out genocide as Burnham sits on fence.
• Andy U-Turnham has already abandoned the Waspi women.

While some of this may change when Burnham is actually PM, that doesn’t mean he’ll get better!

Featured image via The Canary

By Willem Moore

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A parliamentary question by a Muslim Labour MP has revealed UK military collaboration with the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) continued unbroken through genocide and numerous illegal attacks.

Apsana Begum asked Starmer’s ministry of defence:

whether the agreement signed in December 2020 by the Chief of the Defence Staff and his Israeli counterpart formalising military collaboration between the UK and Israel remains in place; and whether it has been (a) reviewed, (b) modified and (c) amended.

The curt answer was provided by Israel-supporting defence minister Luke Pollard, who confirmed that military agreement with Israel has been in place unamended:

The UK-Israel military cooperation agreement, which was signed in December 2020, remains extant.

A litany of shame

Since the beginning of Israel’s genocide in Gaza in October 2023, the IOF has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of civilians in Gaza and is starving more than a million. It has committed murder, ethnic cleansing and hundreds of abductions in the occupied West Bank. It has committed terrorist attacks in Lebanon and Qatar, murdered thousands in Lebanon, Iran, and Syria and illegally invaded and ethnically cleansed large areas of Lebanon and Syria.

And Pollard’s brusque ‘extant’ is masking the real extent of the UK’s extensive, direct collaboration in Israel’s crimes. It has provided aerial surveillance during the murder of aid workers – including British citizens – along with tens of thousands of children, hundreds of journalists and thousands of medics and rescue workers.

The Starmer government is a genocide regime providing direct military support as well as legislative and political cover to the terror colony. All confirmed in a ministerial response – as if more confirmation were needed.

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By Skwawkbox

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Amnesty International UK is launching a new live event series in Brighton on 25 June with musician, writer and mental health advocate Jordan Stephens.

He’ll be leading a conversation about the pressures facing young men today and how stronger communities can help create positive change.

Change The Record: In Conversation with Jordan Stephens takes place on Thursday 25 June at The Old Market in Hove. It’ll bring together Stephens and a panel of guests for an honest discussion about wellbeing, identity, belonging and the social and economic challenges shaping the lives of young men.

Stephens is best known as one half of chart-topping duo Rizzle Kicks. He grew up in Brighton after moving to the city as a child. And he attended a local youth club closely connected to The Old Market.

Ben Hurst, director of facilitation at Beyond Equality, will host the event. It’ll also feature youth sector leader Adam Muirhead and Yunus El-Asri, founder of Young Muslims in Politics.

Together they’ll explore the impact of loneliness, online influences, economic insecurity and shrinking community spaces. And they’ll discuss how young men can play a positive role in building happier, healthier and fairer communities.

The evening marks the beginning of a new Amnesty initiative creating space for young men to come together, challenge division and explore the social and economic pressures shaping their lives – from insecure work and housing to cuts to youth services and community support.

Jordan Stephens – ‘all men are feeling it’

Stephens said:

There’s a lot being said about young men right now, and much of it feels negative, polarised or stuck. This conversation is about honesty, connection and figuring out how men and boys can show up differently for ourselves, each other, and our communities.

Not all men are the problem, but all men are feeling it – the algorithms pushing division, the isolation, the daily grind of economic pressure. It’s important to come together to reflect and work out what we can do to make our communities happier, healthier and fairer for everyone.

Audiences will also hear more about Amnesty’s developing work with young men. And there’ll be opportunities to get involved locally following the discussion.

After the event, attendees are invited to continue conversations informally at the venue bar with organisers, guests and community groups.

Stephens is an artist, actor and author whose memoir Avoidance, Drugs, Heartbreak & Dogs became a Sunday Times bestseller. Alongside his music career with Rizzle Kicks, Stephens has become a leading voice on masculinity and mental health. He recently fronted Channel 4 documentary Hunting My Sextortion Scammer and is co-host of the podcast Miss Me?.

Ben Hurst is director of facilitation at Beyond Equality. The organisation works with men and boys to help create safer and more equitable communities. Over the past decade, Beyond Equality has facilitated conversations with young people, educators, organisations and community groups across the UK and beyond.

Change The Record is Amnesty International UK’s platform for musicians, artists and the wider creative industry to champion and protect human rights. The initiative brings together artists, fans and cultural leaders to resist division and use creativity as a force for freedom and social change.

Event Information

Change The Record: In Conversation with Jordan Stephens, 8pm-9.45pm, Thursday 25 June 2026.

The Old Market, 11A Upper Market Street, Brighton and Hove, BN3 1AS.

Get tickets here.

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By The Canary

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Disability Arts Online is calling on people across the country to share their memories and experiences of the Disability Arts movement. It’s part of a major new heritage project, with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Cripping Culture: A Journey into Disability Arts Heritage is a new project that will save the stories of the Disability Arts movement from being lost and share them through an accessible digital archive, interactive timeline and podcast series.

(Cripping, like queering, uses a reclaimed word to apply a disability lens to culture.)

By gathering the stories and sharing them for anyone to access and engage with online, Cripping Culture aims to support the development of a culture that embraces disabled people’s stories and fills in gaps in existing knowledge.

Disability Arts Online would like to hear from anyone with a link to the Disability Arts movement and is asking them to contribute their own stories to the collection. These could be memories of an event, show or exhibition they attended, something they read, an artist they met, an organisation they were part of or anything else involving disability arts.

Contributions are welcome from people of all backgrounds including artists, writers, producers, performers, curators, musicians, activists or audience members.

By getting as many people as possible from all regions of the UK involved, Disability Arts Online hopes to capture previously untold stories and shed new light on key moments in the Disability Arts movement’s history.

Disability Arts Online is especially keen to hear from people who:

• Are part of the global majority.
• Have intersectional experiences of disability.
• Can tell stories from regions that are currently underrepresented in collections or narratives.

Share your disability arts story

To share your story, visit disabilityarts.online/cripping-culture and submit the online form. Contributions can be text, video, audio or photos that help illustrate your memory. The project wants to know how the memory or experience contributed to both your life and the Disability Arts movement.

You can share multiple stories about different events, projects, artists or organisations. These can be in English or British Sign Language. Disability Arts Online can offer access support for anyone who might require it to submit their contribution.

Colin Hambrook, Heritage Project director, said:

It doesn’t matter who you are, if you have a story to tell that involves disability arts in the UK, then we want to hear from you. Everyone who shares a memory will play an important part in the Cripping Culture project, saving our heritage for future generations.

It is important for the legacy of the Disability Arts movement that we capture stories of events from all regions of the UK that may have not been previously recorded.

We want to celebrate the vast breadth of disability arts activity that has occurred across time. Please help us share this call out far and wide.

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Stuart McLeod, from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, said:

We’re proud to support Cripping Culture: A Journey into Disability Arts Heritage, a project that will safeguard and share the diverse stories of the Disability Arts movement.

Thanks to National Lottery players, this project will ensure that voices and experiences which have too often gone unheard are preserved and shared for generations to come.

By inviting people from across the UK to contribute their own stories, it will help build a more inclusive and representative picture of our shared cultural heritage.

The Cripping Culture contributions call out is open until Friday 14 August 2026.

To find out more about the project and share your story, visit disabilityarts.online/cripping-culture.

Cripping Culture: A Journey into Disability Arts Heritage is a three year project. It has received almost £250,000 in funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

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By The Canary

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We hope you love the products we recommend! All of them were independently selected by our editors. Just so you know, HuffPost UK may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page if you decide to shop from them. Oh, and FYI — prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.

Sorry, but unless you’ve stomached the central line in a heatwave, you don’t know what hot is. Think: dripping with sweat, an unsavoury smell, and all round regret that you didn’t stay home.

As someone who can go from cool, calm, and collected to hot and overstimulated in a second, I always need to have a solution on-hand.

Mostly, that involves wearing skirts (like every day) and, until now, carrying a paper fan I can flap furiously at myself and anyone who comes within 20cm of me.

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But honestly, that doesn’t always do the job. So when I saw Shark had launched a three in one fan that fits in your bag, I got all hot and bothered.

Designed for indoor or outdoor use, the fan comes with three attachments: a high speed fan, a water misting head, and a cooling paddle, which can lower your skin temperature by up to nine degrees.

My review of the Shark ChillPill

Honey Jane Wyatt/ HuffPost

First impressions

Having heard so much hype around this product on social media, I was excited to see whether this could make a serious difference to my comfort in the heat.

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Although the Pill comes in six colours, I ordered the Iced Latte colour, which I’m pleased to report goes well with a whole range of summer outfits (if you care about that…).

I’m a creature of habit, so the idea of having three heads to choose from is slightly intimidating. If there’s one thing I know about myself, it’s that I’m only going to use one of them at a time – and obsessively.

You’ll never catch me carrying all three heads in my bag, so I knew I had about 48 hours to figure out which head I preferred before I settled on the one it came with (the fan head).

Luckily, there’s a heatwave going on – in case you hadn’t noticed – so I had plenty of opportunity to experiment.

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Honey Jane Wyatt/ HuffPost

After fully charging the Pill, which takes around 3.5 hours from an empty battery, I loaded it up with the mist head.

I have curly hair, which requires a careful balance of adding and avoiding moisture to prevent frizz, so I predicted that would be the head I’d use the most.

The package comes with three spare wicks, and the mist head is loaded with one already, so all you have to do is add water to the head and add it on to the fan.

To turn the Pill on, you switch the button on the side, click the black screen head, and twist it clockwise to increase the intensity.

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This head allows you to run the fan and mist at the same time, and clicking on the screen once will provide a constant stream of mist, while two clicks means it will be expelled in pulses.

To make sure it’s travel-friendly, you can either rest it against the table and angle the head towards you, or hold it as a handle. In this instance, I used the handle to get precise with where the water was going.

As expected, I didn’t love the sensation of being sprayed with water while at home, but when I used it again at a weekend picnic, it was just what I needed to cool me down between copious amounts of day drinking.

Honey Jane Wyatt/ HuffPost

Next, I used the basic fan head. Unsurprisingly, this is the most versatile for using when at your desk or during your commute.

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The fan has 10 intensities, and on the lower settings, it’s perfectly quiet, meaning it won’t distract your colleagues if you balance it on your desk.

But, when you’re out and about you’ll likely want to use it on the higher settings, and let’s just say it’s not exactly subtle.

To be fair, you probably won’t be thinking about noise when you’re dripping with sweat on the bus, but it’s worth keeping in mind that you might get a couple of side eyes from your fellow commuters – not least because they’re jealous of your chill.

Honey Jane Wyatt/HuffPost

Honestly, I wish I’d tried the cooling plate head sooner, but I avoided it because it looks pretty unassuming.

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Let this be your millionth reminder to never judge a book by its cover, because as soon as I used the paddle head while running an event that required me to carry boxes during 34 degree heat, I realised I was very in the wrong.

Instead of blowing air, this paddle collects the coolness from the fan so it makes the area of your skin you hold it against up to nine degrees cooler.

Clicking the screen once will make it slightly cool, and two clicks will enable cooler settings.

It sounds too good to be true, I know, but I am pleased to confirm this was exceptionally life changing. Not only does it provide a welcome shock of icy cold during a hot day, but it has a real lasting impact on your body temperature.

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Final verdict

• Easy to hold
• Fits in your bag
• Battery lasts up to 11 hours
• Strong and cools you down effectively
• Easy to change the heads
• Great that you can balance it on the table

• A little noisy on the higher settings
• Cooling plate and mist heads last up to only an hour on higher settings

After testing this fan for the last three months, I’m pleased to say I am now an electric fan convert. Sorry to my paper fan, but it just doesn’t do quite as good of a job.

I’m a huge fan (sorry, had to be done) of the several settings the Pill comes with. While I can’t say I’m rushing to use the fan head on transport, the cooling plate is more than enough for a refreshing boost, and I know when I’m at the beach the misting head will make me extremely popular.

Huge props have to be given to its battery life: although it will run out in a matter of hours if you’re using it on the high settings constantly, it took a while for my Pill to run out after its initial charge.

If you’re not sure about its bulkiness in your bag, don’t worry, because Shark has also made a whole range of accessories than make carrying it much easier, including a wrist strap and clip attachment.

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My only advice would be to move quickly, it’s already sold out twice already, and with another heatwave set to hit at the weekend, it’ll definitely sell out again!

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