Texas Democrats have wandered in the wilderness for decades. They hope a seminarian-turned-politician will finally lead them out.

Now that Republicans have nominated Attorney General Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate, Democrats see November as their best opportunity this century to flip Texas blue. They have a favorable political environment, aided by nationwide dissatisfaction with the economy and President Donald Trump’s leadership. They see the Texas GOP fractured after a messy Senate primary that took out Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), one of the party’s senior statesmen, and a potentially fatally flawed candidate in Paxton with his significant personal baggage.

They think their nominee, state Rep. James Talarico, is the ideal candidate to break through.

“Democrats have been in the desert for three decades,” said Mark McKinnon, a longtime GOP strategist and adviser to former President George W. Bush. “Talarico could be Moses.”

Cliff Walker, a Texas Democratic strategist and principal at Seeker Strategies, echoed the sentiment: “Folks are pretty damn bullish. I think this is the year.”

The pieces are all aligning, Democratic strategists, lawmakers and activists argue: Talarico is a charismatic candidate who has fundraising prowess and boasts a lead in early head-to-head polling.

Still, it’s a target that has long eluded Democrats in one of America’s most conservative, and costliest, battlegrounds. In election cycle after cycle, they’ve raised their hopes and poured money into trying to flip a statewide seat blue. Try as they might, Texas Democrats haven’t elected one of their own to the Senate since 1988.

Paxton won’t make it easy. The Texas attorney general, who defeated Cornyn by a wide margin in Tuesday’s runoff, emerged from the most expensive Senate primary on record with his eyes trained on November. After securing Trump’s endorsement last week, Paxton announced he’d remove all ads attacking Cornyn from the airwaves and instead focus his gaze on Talarico, who he calls a “leftist lunatic” and “Talafreako.”

“My opponent is the most extreme radical the Democrats have ever nominated,” Paxton said in his victory speech Tuesday. “No matter what he says or how much he raises, the reality is that James Talarico is going to be nothing more than a Texas-based puppet for Chuck Schumer and the national Democrats.”

Texas Democrats have been bullish before. In 2014, former state Sen. Wendy Davis elicited hopes of flipping the governor’s mansion, but her campaign spent $36 million only to lose to then-Attorney General Greg Abbott by a whopping 20 points.

In 2018, national Democrats were hesitant to back former Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s challenge to GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. O’Rourke eventually caught fire in the race’s final months, smashing fundraising records and running neck-and-neck in the polls, before losing by less than three percentage points — and leaving national Democrats wondering what could’ve happened if they jumped in sooner.

In 2020, Cornyn defeated Democratic nominee MJ Hegar by nearly 10 points; in 2024, Cruz toppled former Rep. Colin Allred by eight.

This cycle could be different, Texas Democrats say. Talarico is polling and fundraising ahead of where O’Rourke was at this point in 2018. And Talarico benefits from a Democratic political operation in the state — much of it built by O’Rourke — that was nonexistent when his predecessor ran.

“It’s the best chance Texas Democrats will have to win a statewide race in the entirety of my career,” said Democratic strategist Jeff Rotkoff, who has advised campaigns in Texas for 25 years.

The national headwinds facing Republicans — as voters’ patience for the Iran war and its effect on energy prices has eroded — are blowing especially hard in Texas, said Matt Angle, founder of the Lone Star Project, a Democratic-aligned group.

“At the voter level, what you’ve got is just an overwhelming dissatisfaction with Republicans in a way that you just haven’t seen in Texas in the past,” Angle said.

Some point to Texas’ 9th Senate District as evidence, which Trump won by 17 points in 2024 and a Democrat flipped in January. When the Democratic-aligned Texas Majority PAC surveyed voters there, they found that 90 percent of Republican-leaning voters who backed the Democrat in the race said they did it because “they just would not support any MAGA candidate,” said Katherine Fischer, the group’s director.

“It was tough for us last cycle to run in an environment where our president was deeply unpopular,” Fischer said. “Now it’s on them.”

Democrats believe Cornyn’s closing argument: That Paxton and his long trail of controversies will create a drag on the Republican ticket.

“Ken Paxton will be an albatross,” Cornyn said during a Fox News appearance Tuesday. “He could well lose, but even if he doesn’t lose, he will win by such a razor-thin margin that it’s likely to have a negative drag on the down ballot races in Texas.”

It’s a message that has some national Republicans wringing their hands. “The national mood is not great for Republicans right now, and Texas feels even worse,” said one Washington GOP operative close to Cornyn, granted anonymity to speak openly. “We already know we’re heading into a headwind in the state, up and down the ticket, and we just put up the worst possible top-of-the-ticket person.

“I can’t think of a worse person to put on the top of the ticket than Ken Paxton,” he added. “It’s laughable. All I can do is laugh.”

Still, it may be Paxton who gets the last laugh. Although his impeachment, the securities fraud investigation and ethics complaints against him, and his ongoing divorce were played up in the many attack ads Cornyn ran, the attorney general still managed to garner support from a large majority of GOP runoff voters.

“I think Talarico is the only opponent Paxton can beat,” said Tim Edson, the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s former political director. “Democrats are going to wish they had Beto again. … Talarico is a Marxist creep who will make Paxton seem normal after this race is litigated.”

The NRSC backed Cornyn in the primary. In a post-election statement the group blasted Talarico, but didn’t mention Paxton.

“A state President Trump won by nearly 14 points isn’t going to elect James Talarico — a radical leftist who thinks God is nonbinary and that Texas should be a welcome mat for illegals,” said NRSC spokesperson Samantha Cantrell. “He is the most dangerous flank of the far left. Texas isn’t swapping brisket for open borders.”

Paxton is already laser-focused on attacking Talarico as too progressive: A Paxton-aligned super PAC spent the past week running an ad that labeled Talarico as “weird,” clipping the state representative’s statements on gender, race, meat consumption and patriotism.

Those culture war issues are seen as Talarico’s largest liability as he seeks to win over a wide umbrella of progressive and moderate Democrats, independents and Republicans dissatisfied with Trump. Talarico has claimed there are “more than two” biological sexes and said he’s had to “reckon” with his own whiteness and masculinity.

Some of his allies want him to avoid those issues altogether.

“Stay away from it,” said state Sen. Royce West, a Democrat who represents Dallas. “I’m pretty sure he’ll have a strategy to do that, but he’s got to be able to get centrists.”

The same goes for downballot Democrats, who may be hoping to ride the energy of Talarico’s campaign to victory in their own races. The stakes are high: Future control of Congress could run through the Lone Star State, as the post-2030 Census reapportionment is poised to gift additional House seats to Texas while kneebuckling the map for Democrats nationwide. With newly redrawn House maps that favor Republicans and not another U.S. Senate race in the state until 2030, now is the ideal moment for Texas Democrats to notch victories up and down the ballot and send a message that they can play in the state.

“There’s just a ton of evidence to suggest that this is a much more favorable cycle than anything we’ve seen in Texas in the last 30 years. Is it enough to win in November? I don’t know,” said Fischer. “If it’s possible to win in Texas, all of the things are there for us to do it.”

Source link

The storied career of Sen. John Cornyn came to a swift and decisive end at the hands of the GOP voters who once propelled him to power.

The senator was a towering figure in both national and Texas politics, known for his sober temperament, ability to cut deals and role in shaping the Senate GOP conference during the last four presidencies. Then, just about an hour after polls closed Tuesday, Cornyn lost his primary to Ken Paxton, a scandal-plagued MAGA darling who was boosted by President Donald Trump’s last-minute endorsement.

Cornyn’s defeat is rattling the establishment wing of the GOP, who viewed the brutal primary as a battle for the soul of the party. His supporters mourn his approaching absence in the Senate as another example of an institutionalist who fell victim to the rise of the populist right, what they see as the end of an era of compassionate conservatism.

“It just blows my mind that anybody could look at John Cornyn and somehow call him a secret liberal RINO,” said Josh Schroeder, mayor of Georgetown, Texas, and a Cornyn supporter. “If that guy can’t pass a conservative litmus test, who can?”

Cornyn’s loss stands to further deplete the corps of senators willing to work across the aisle on thorny policy issues, from immigration reform to gun safety — potentially contributing further to increasing polarization on Capitol Hill.

While Cornyn was not a frequent bipartisan operator in the mold of former Sens. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) or Rob Portman (R-Ohio), he occasionally dug in to try and find compromise. His loss comes just ten days after fellow Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) lost his own primary to a Trump-backed challenger. Before that, it had been 14 years since the last elected senator lost a primary.

“He’s always been about delivering results for Texas rather than chasing headlines,” said Brian Walsh, Cornyn’s former communications director. “He respects the Senate as his institution and believes deeply in doing the work the right way, even when it’s difficult, or I would say politically inconvenient.”

His participation was often crucial as a member of the GOP leadership team and a key Republican fundraiser who operated with the tacit approval of Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who served as GOP leader for nearly all of Cornyn’s tenure.

Even though his supporters were long skeptical of his odds in the primary, Cornyn chose to go down swinging. He continued to run negative ads against Paxton throughout Texas until the last minute, harping on Paxton’s indiscretions. And he warned during an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday that the attorney general would be an “albatross” on the rest of the Republican ticket “likely to have a negative drag on the down ballot races in Texas, judges, local officials, House of Representatives, you name it.”

But those moral arguments did not sway a majority of primary voters — or Trump, who chose to endorse the attorney general and cited Cornyn’s decision to wait to endorse his third presidential run as proof he was insufficiently loyal.

Paxton’s supporters have long shrugged off his long trail of criminal and ethics investigations, impeachment by the state legislature and ongoing divorce, complete with accusations of infidelity, believing that his commitment to carrying the MAGA torch was more important than corruption allegations or a messy personal life. Paxton, for his part, has tried to focus the campaign on his qualifications for the Senate — and allegiance to Trump.

Paxton also benefitted from a strong anti-incumbency sentiment rippling throughout Texas. The GOP base was ripe for his argument that Cornyn was too enmeshed in the D.C. swamp to justify sending back to Washington even as those attacks bewildered Cornyn’s supporters, who pointed to his long record of voting for Trump’s agenda.

As majority whip during Trump’s first term, Cornyn helped shepherd the president’s signature tax bill across the finish line. In 2024, he fell just a few votes short of becoming majority leader against Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). And few Republicans have demonstrated fundraising prowess like Cornyn, the former chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who has brought in more than $400 million throughout the course of his political career.

“Senate Republicans were very eager to see their friend and colleague continue, and Cornyn is one of those guys that would’ve raised money for his fellow incumbents. That’s unlikely to continue,” said a GOP Senate strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Trump, after weeks of standing on the sidelines, swooped in at the start of early voting to back Paxton, a reward for the attorney general supporting his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Cornyn, on the other hand, voted to certify the results.

Throughout the bitter campaign, Cornyn shifted to the right on some issues, adopting the fiery language of the MAGA base, which was seen as an effort to endear himself to Trump in a bid for his endorsement. Most prominently, he ran an ad declaring that “radical Islam is a bloodthirsty ideology.”

When Paxton cleverly declared that he would drop out of the primary if the Senate GOP killed the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act, Trump’s priority election bill, that staved off the president’s planned endorsement of Cornyn. The Texas senator belatedly announced a reversal of his longheld support of the filibuster. And Cornyn introduced a bill two weeks ago to rename a major U.S. highway Interstate 47 to honor Trump. But it came far too late to save him.

But in a hyper-partisan environment, Cornyn’s decisions to occasionally work with Democrats doomed his standing among the rabidly conservative base in Texas.

Cornyn kept to the outskirts of high-stakes bipartisan immigration talks, such as the “Gang of Eight” that sought a comprehensive overhaul in 2013. But he later partnered with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona in exploring a narrower, border-security-focused bill.

He also found success reaching across the aisle in 2022 on gun safety legislation in the aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was modest relative to Democratic demands for stricter gun control. But it was still the most significant federal gun legislation in a generation — and it provoked intense backlash among hard-right voters in Texas.

“We both know that when we’re doing what’s right, it doesn’t matter what other people think,” Cornyn texted Sinema at the time.

Four years later, Paxton made the legislation a centerpiece of his campaign, accusing Cornyn of shepherding “the worst gun control bill in decades.”

Texas will now be swept up in an expensive and competitive Senate race, with Democrats amped to compete against Paxton, who they view as more vulnerable than Cornyn in a midterm environment favorable to their party. Many believe Democratic nominee and state Sen. James Talarico is their best shot in a generation at flipping a statewide seat.

Schroeder, who represents a small town in Talarico’s former district, said the Democrat is capable of pulling off a strong campaign: “He appears to be campaigning from the high road while the Democratic party is just slicing Paxton to shreds because they got a whole lot of ammunition.”

In the aftermath of the brutal primary, some Republicans fear that the state of the GOP is dire – and potentially unable to unify ahead of November with the possibility that some Cornyn supporters will sit out the race entirely or vote for Talarico. After the race was quickly called on Tuesday, Talarico posted on X: “To Senator Cornyn’s supporters: you have a place in our campaign.”

In his concession speech, Cornyn said he will support the GOP ticket: “I’ve fought the good fight, I’ve finished the race, and I’ve kept the faith.”

“I’ll have more to say later.”

Mike DeBonis and Samuel Benson contributed to this article.

Source link

Progressive sex therapist Maureen Galindo lost the Democratic runoff for Texas’ 35th District after being accused of antisemitism and facing condemnations from within her own party.

Johnny Garcia’s victory over Galindo on Tuesday has national and Texas Democrats breathing a sigh of relief.

They had moved en masse to disavow Galindo after she said in a recent social media post that she would write legislation to turn a local ICE detention center into a “prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking.” They had also accused Republicans of trying to prop her up, pointing to a shadowy super PAC with possible GOP ties, Lead Left, that pumped over $900,000 into the race to boost Galindo and attack Garcia.

The district is one of the five that Texas Republicans are targeting for pickups this fall, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has added Garcia, a county sheriff’s deputy, to its coveted “Red to Blue” program to support his candidacy.

Source link

Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the Senate GOP runoff Tuesday, cementing the influence of the far right in Texas and potentially putting the seat in play for November.

Paxton was boosted by a last-minute endorsement from President Donald Trump in the final days of the race. His defeat of Cornyn, a towering figure in Texas politics and four-term incumbent, is a major MAGA coup.

But establishment Republicans and major national donors have warned that a Paxton victory would lead to a costly general election against Democratic nominee James Talarico. Head-to-head polling shows Talarico with a slight lead over Paxton.

Paxton overcame his deficit in the March primary, where he finished narrowly behind Cornyn, by leaning on his grassroots support among MAGA voters — a base he’s cultivated throughout his tenure in Texas.

He also overcame millions of dollars in attack ads from Cornyn that highlighted his long trail of personal and political scandals. And Trump’s endorsement one week before the primary runoff likely sealed the deal.

Source link

Texas Democratic Rep. Christian Menefee defeated longtime Rep. Al Green in a runoff that was defined by heavy outside spending and clashes over generational change.

The Tuesday result will likely end the long career of Green, a 78-year-old civil rights champion who was running for a 12th term in Washington. He entered the race in the newly drawn Houston-area 18th District after his own district was carved up in redistricting.

Menefee, a 38-year-old Harris County attorney and fellow member of the Congressional Black Caucus, was sworn into Congress earlier this year after winning a special election in January to serve out the remainder of the late Rep. Sylvester Turner’s term. He is expected to cruise to victory in November in the safely Democratic Houston district.

The race was also the latest sign of the power of the crypto lobby’s influence. A cryptocurrency super PAC poured $4 million into the race to back Menefee, turning the incumbent-on-incumbent showdown into the most expensive House runoff in Texas this cycle.

In the end, Green, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, couldn’t overcome the cash disadvantage despite his name recognition.

Source link

Over 70 furious student protesters gathered outside their student union at the University of York on Friday evening. With stunningly articulate voices, they stood up against the University’s decision to ratify the far-right Restore Britain Society. The demonstration on Friday 22 May 2026 showed an irrepressible rage growing on campus. The York Student Action Network (YSAN) organised the two-hour rally after their appeals to the union were ignored, and the Restore Society was approved on Tuesday 12 May 2026.

Disgusting hate speech absolutely ignored

Students are rightly furious that the union has decided to platform an organisation tied to very obvious white supremacy. More than 22 campus societies have already signed joint statements condemning the union’s decision.

Activists have revealed that before the Restore Society gained official status, members of the group organised a ‘Detain and Deport’ golf pub crawl. To top this off, this disgusting little society shared online propaganda featuring the British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley. Come on, this isn’t just a silly little group of right-wing students. This is full-on fascism that the Student Union could not have been oblivious to.

Worst still? Members have allegedly drawn swastikas around campus and used racial slurs. So during the protest, speakers directly confronted the union with megaphones. They simply ask the SU “where do you draw the line?”

Far-right policies will directly target minority students

The parent political party of this little society, Restore Britain, is barely a party anyway. It was launched by Great Yarmouth muppet Rupert Lowe. The party’s official platform pushes a disgusting fascist agenda which specifically targets Marginalised groups, Women and Disabled people. They give off that whole extreme ‘white supremacist, kick them all out and get women back in the kitchen’ vibes.

There continues to be an immense amount of fake news circulating around Restore Britain’s principles of immigration. Here is our position. Read it, and let me know if you agree…

Step one.

Remove the illegal migrant population. Two million? Three million? Even more? Doesn’t…

Advertisement

— Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) March 29, 2026

The party openly and proudly campaigns for total “remigration“. It’s gross manifesto includes plans to actually deport LEGAL residents. This is absolutely spitting on the rule of law and people should be bloody scared of what this means. Supporting Black and Brown people against this affront needs to be our top priority. If they come for one of us, they come for all of us.

Restore also want to strip dual nationals of their citizenship and rip apart our asylum system. During the protest, a speaker listed these exact policies.

Systematic institutional failure from York University

A pitiful 20 Restore Britain supporters turned out to counter-protest. And of course they all turned up in suits. They stood behind safety barriers, waving their St Georges’ flags from Temu. Of course they blasted classical music, incorporating one of Hitler’s favourites which of course was “Ride of the Valkyries”.

These counter-protesters actively cheered when protest speakers spoke about Restore’s extreme deportation policies. Campus safety officers actually got off their arses this time, placing them behind barriers. This is because these creeps had actively harassed students on Tuesday 21 April 2026.

Activists at the university say this proves that security staff finally recognise the danger to students these weird individuals present to the student body. So why has the SU given them a ticket to openly intimidate international students and Black and Brown people? Urgh.

Targeted policing for the left

The protest at York also exposed institutional racism from local authorities. Two police vans were present for the rally. Activists report witnessing officers driving directly up to the peaceful crowd. And of course, they targeted a Muslim speaker. Officers leaned out of the vehicles windows during the speech, driving away only when the speakers had finished talking.

The University of York has a lot to answer for. It has failed to issue a statement regarding the protest. They have failed to acknowledge the targeted police intimidation. The message the university is currently giving out is that it doesn’t care about Black and Brown students. That it actively promotes and encourages fascism within the campus.

Free speech in York my arse

Union officials have claimed on their Instagram that they fear legal repercussions if they did not ratify the society. However, other universities have shown they will not cave to right-wing pressure.

The University of St Andrews stood up and rejected a Reform UK Society in April 2026. Massive student backlash and common sense meant St Andrews successfully protected their students from outright racism. And the University of Sussex won an appeal against the Office for Students and bypassed a ridiculous £585,000 fine over this ‘free speech’ mania.

York is now one of two universities in the UK to have ratified a Restore Britain group. Students at York now say they will escalate their tactics until management grows a spine and actually shows real allyship with minoritised communities. And rightly so. When the UK is sprinting towards a fascist government, it’s small groups like the YSAN which will lead the fight against it. Once more, we in a privileged position need to use that privilege to support Black and Brown people. They come for one of us, they come for us all.

Featured images via the author & Instagram

By Antifabot

Source link

Restore Britain is a breakaway party of Reform UK which exists because the latter wasn’t right-wing enough.

Reform has largely just ignored its rival, but this changed in late May when it turned out Restore could stop them from winning the Makerfield by-election. An interesting development since then is that the legions of anonymous Twitter/X accounts seem to have turned on Restore.

The question is whether these accounts are actually British, or if they’re foreign users trying to game Twitter’s algorithm? Because as you can see, some of these people apparently live in Ecuador:

Just a heads up

All of these pro Reform UK accounts are being paid for and are based in Ecuador pic.twitter.com/81adNLktSm

— Basil the Great (@BasilTheGreat) May 25, 2026

Foreign interference… in Restore Britain…?

In 2025, Elon Musk announced that Twitter would be revealing every user’s location data. People anticipated this day, because they suspected many far-right accounts were actually foreign individuals cosplaying as Western reactionaries to farm clicks. Surprise, surprise – this ended up being precisely what happened:

Confirmation that this account is Indian. pic.twitter.com/myNTIrfTPR

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) November 23, 2025

Shockingly, the exposed accounts included the US Department of Homeland Security:

https://t.co/32KUm3JeHL pic.twitter.com/mbFdamoqkb

— j! (@astrrals) November 21, 2025

Reporting on the issue at the time, the Independent wrote:

MAGANationX, for example, includes a bio line that reads “Patriot Voice for We The People,” but was actually started in Eastern Europe, according to the new feature.

Another account, using an image of President Donald Trump in a tuxedo and using the name “MAGA Scope” with an American flag emoji, was found to have been started in Nigeria in 2024.

In terms of the UK, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported on a man who shared AI slop videos of Keir Starmer dressed as a Muslim. Surprisingly, this particular account holder turned out to be “a devout Muslim man living in Pakistan”. The Bureau added:

This man, who we are not naming for his own safety, runs successful accounts pushing Islamophobic AI slop to UK audiences. Videos shared by just one of his Facebook pages had been viewed millions of times and he told us in an interview he earned around $1,500 a month from that page alone.

While it sounds bizarre that Black and Brown people could be driving white supremacy in the UK, you have to remember:

• These people don’t have to worry about racism in a foreign country.
• Our uneven and individualistic global system guarantees there will always be people out there doing anything they can to get ahead.

We have plenty of scammers in the UK, too – the difference is our homegrown talent can pull in a lot more than $1,500 a month:

Anyone seen this Tory lately she has “£122m” belonging us ?

“Baroness Michelle Mone remains under active criminal investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA) regarding suspected offenses related to the procurement of PPE during the Covid-19 pandemic” pic.twitter.com/70F3evAfEg

— Gazberto (@gazberto) May 25, 2026

It’s also far from the case that only foreign accounts are spreading misinformation. In America, the reformed influencer Ashley St. Clair revealed that her former right-wing bedfellows get paid to coordinate their messaging. St. Clair recently discussed this and a lot more about the right-wing grift-o-sphere in a conversation with Hasan Piker:

Anon for Reform

One of the prominent accounts posting in favour of Reform UK is ‘Wolf’:

Rupert Lowe dismisses concerns about splitting the vote in Makerfield.

So why isn’t he standing a candidate in the Aberdeen by-election?

Because it looks like the Tories could win there and I strongly suspect he’s got a deal in place with them.

It’s so obvious what this is. pic.twitter.com/Ro3v1TL0Wg

— Wolf (@WorldByWolf) May 24, 2026

If we look at Wolf’s account, it says they’re in the UK but with an exclamation point by the name:

The exclamation point indicates that the account is using (or has used) a VPN. A VPN allows you to set your location to someplace else, suggesting that Wolf is using one to hide their true location.

I should note that this method of verifying where someone is from isn’t foolproof. I actually have the exclamation point on my account, which is almost certainly because I use a VPN sometimes. Thankfully, however, we released a physical newspaper today, allowing me to demonstrate that I am in fact in the country:

First edition of the Canary print edition!

Find where you can get a copy here:https://t.co/EDhyWLES5W pic.twitter.com/Rm3Usz6UII

— Willem Moore (@willem_moore_uk) May 26, 2026

Be sure to pick a copy up near you!

Back to today’s news, Wolf is far from the only account going all out for Reform. The following is apparently based in Ecuador, but confusingly also has the VPN symbol:

Lowe is the man that talks about banning Halal slaughter but has it in the menu at his son’s wedding.

Restore is a party set up by the establishment to derail Reform. https://t.co/RsLGDXJJix

— UK Patriot (@Yvonne1388552) May 26, 2026

If these accounts are fraudulent, the question is whether their activities are coordinated, or whether individual accounts are simple posting in a fashion which best brings in the cash? Because – let’s be clear – we’re not pointing this stuff out because we’d prefer Restore Britain to Reform UK. As much as these accounts pretend otherwise, they’re both the same party, and that party is the Tories.

Another thing to note is that while there’s a deluge of anonymous accounts blasting Restore right now, they’re not all leaning that way. The ‘Basil the Great’ account we shared at the top supports Restore and is also of questionable origin. Said account is additionally a prominent spreader of misinformation:

That Basil account already deleted the video, but look how they spread misinformation. pic.twitter.com/yPx5kTbA56

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) August 22, 2025

Advertisement

There are also many accounts like this one with obviously AI profile pictures:

If you vote for Labour nothing changes.

If you vote for Greens you get Sharia.

Advertisement

If you vote for Reform you get demographically replaced.

If you vote for Restore Britain you send shockwaves through the establishment and put them all on the back foot.

Use your vote wisely.

— British Bastard (@BritishBastardX) May 24, 2026

Strange times

We live in a bizarre period in which it’s increasingly difficult to know what’s real. The legions of anonymous accounts attacking Restore Britain could be shy Brits; they could be foreign users; they could be AI; they could be all manner of things. The issue is we simply don’t know, and many people don’t care to check.

It’s hard to say exactly how we solve this problem. Do we want to end anonymity online? Almost certainly not, but if these accounts are receiving money to push political messaging, it might not be ridiculous to make them display the actual country they’re posting from at least.

In the long term, the only way to prevent people from cheating the system is to create a system which doesn’t need to be cheated. If we all lived roughly equal lives, people wouldn’t be scrabbling to get ahead.

In the meantime, be careful who you trust.

Featured image via Leon Neal (Getty Images) / Junko Kimura (Getty Images)

By Willem Moore

Source link

The director of national security for Britain, alongside others with links to MI5 and GCHQ, were part of a “secret policymaking group” that helped create the notorious Legacy Act. The 2023 Act was a concoction by the Tory government designed to shut down investigations into Troubles-era crimes, including those carried out by the British state.

The revelations are reported by the Detail and stem from work by Daniel Holder of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ). Holder spent:

…eight months seeking the release of documents relating to the Senior Legacy Investigations Working Group, which met in mid-2020.

The documents Holder provided are marked “official secret”. Their contents show outrageous plans to bulldoze through the deeply sensitive matter of investigating 3,500 deaths “within two years”, an impossible deadline. The intention was to close:

…down the vast majority of cases within six to twelve months, with an estimated 500 deaths requiring another year of investigation.

It formed part of an approach to:

…shift away from the current criminal justice focus and towards greater reconciliation and information recovery.

Tory plan for army veterans to escape prosecution

This was one of the “suggested talking points for the NIO chair of the secret group”. It represented the approach of the Conservative government, which wanted to avoid more cases of British army veterans being held to account in the courts for murders they carried out in the north of Ireland. Tories have remained vocal as Labour has sought to reform the Legacy Act.

Shadow armed forces minister Mark Francois claimed that veterans would have a “sword of Damocles hanging over them again”. They ought to, if they carried out atrocities. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch recently effectively called for British troops to be immune for prosecution, as she posted a video containing footage of Bloody Sunday.

The secretive group sabotaging work into historic injustices “met on 19 June and 10 July 2020”. It was:

…composed of senior officials from the worlds of policing, counter-terrorism, and the law, including former PSNI chief constable George Hamilton.

Among those on the panel who were either members of the security services, or linked to them, included:

Madeleine Alessandri – formerly Britain’s deputy national security advisor. She held “a number of posts within the United Kingdom’s national intelligence infrastructure”, both before and after her time in the policy group. Later chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee

Chloe Squire – director of national security at the Home Office while on the Legacy Senior Working Group

Shehzad Charania – now works for GCHQ

This essentially amounts to the security services marking their own homework, as legacy cases would involve crimes carried out by said spooks, such as MI5 collusion with the likes of Fred ‘Stakeknife’ Scappaticci.

Victims of the Troubles’ families left out of secretive process

Alessandri argued that:

…addressing the past was vital “for allowing Northern Ireland to move forward as a society and transition fully into a post-conflict society.”

This is true, though the method for this ought to be constructed in concert with Troubles victims’ families, rather than drawn up by secret policy groups full of security services personnel. Among those in the group who had no business speaking on behalf of these families was former Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) chief constable George Hamilton, who said to group members:

…even when you secure a criminal justice outcome, experience has shown that it doesn’t bring the closure people hope for or bring family satisfaction.

Families will welcome information recovery. It is the small vocal minority that will present the legal challenges and we should be ready for that but they do not speak for the silent majority who just want to move on.

The Detail give the response of Mark Thompson of Relatives for Justice, who replied:

I wouldn’t describe the 1,100 bereaved relatives of murder victims including victims of torture who want answers as ‘small and vocal minority’.

Thompson added:

It is not lost on all these families that the very people who made these comments represent the very same state agencies that would be subject to robust independent investigations with full accountability if we were to have such a process.

In a Facebook post, Relatives for Justice said:

MI5 and policing vested interests came together to deny justice to all families, from all backgrounds, affected by all actors, their rights to truth, justice and accountability.

Families have since successfully led the challenges to these shameful efforts

By Robert Freeman

Source link

A Green Party membership coalition has hit back at senior party figures, urging the Greens to stand aside in the Makerfield by-election. Their letter‘s message is unambiguous: the grassroots will not be managed into irrelevance.

Green grassroots hitting back at Burnham

The Canary can reveal a letter signed by Green Party members, circulating in response to a joint statement from high-profile party figures including former co-leader Jonathan Bartley and ex-councillor Rupert Read.

It calls on Zack Polanski to rule out stepping aside for Labour’s Andy Burnham in Makerfield. Over 120 members and counting have so far signed the open letter, launched on 25 May.

They oppose a Green stand-down, even if the Greater Manchester mayor commits to backing proportional representation (PR) — which he’s already disavowed — for the next general election manifesto.

The grassroots response — signed by members from Stockton, Stockport, Alnwick, Northumberland, and Hartlepool Green Party branches, among others — is pointed. In parts, it is scathing.

EXCL: Senior Green Party figures have urged Zack Polanski to consider stepping aside for Andy Burnham in the Makerfield by-election if the Greater Manchester mayor commits to introducing proportional representation

Green councillors, activists and former party leaders have…

— Daisy Eastlake (@daisyeastlake) May 24, 2026

PR’s already off the table

The response comes to an original letter signed by a campaign group within the senior party ranks calling themselves ‘Greens for Proportional Representation in Makerfield’.

Central to the senior figures’ case for standing aside is the prospect of Burnham backing PR. This reform is long championed by the Greens as essential to breaking Britain’s broken two-party duopoly. But the letter-writers are having none of it.

As they bluntly note: Burnham has already ruled out PR. The letter states that its signatories are

confused as to why this point keeps being argued as if it is still on the table.

It’s a significant problem for the pro-stand-aside camp. Their entire strategic rationale rests on a concession which Burnham has explicitly declined to make.

Urging Greens to sacrifice their presence in a historic by-election, for a promise that simply doesn’t exist, isn’t strategic pragmatism. It’s wishful (and, arguably, politically suicidal) thinking dressed up as ‘realpolitik’ or centre-ground coalition-ism.

Burnham WON’T back proportional representation this parliament

Greens want more than PR

Even if Burnham were to change his position overnight, many Green members would remain unconvinced. The letter is entirely frank about why: it’s Labour’s horrific record.

The signatories cite the Labour Party’s complicity in genocide in Gaza; its attacks on trans rights, which Burnham recently doubled down on; and its continued embrace of austerity. These are reasons why PR alone cannot and should not function as a get-out-of-scrutiny-free card.

Not for Burnham, nor anyone still imbricated in Labour’s machinery. This is a crucial point.

The argument from Bartley, Read, and their co-signatories implicitly frames Labour — specifically Burnham’s Labour — as a vehicle somehow worth protecting. Ultimately, that’s their core premise.

The grassroots letter refuses this frame entirely. You do not stand aside for a party that, in their words, you are fundamentally at odds with — especially on the defining moral and political questions of our moment.

Steering away from party members

Perhaps the most stinging section of the letter concerns internal party democracy. The signatories describe the senior figures’ letter as “symbolic of wider tension” inside the Greens, with officers attempting to:

steer decision-making around election campaigning away from grass roots membership [sic].

This cuts to the heart of what the Green Party is supposed to be.

Unlike Labour — whose membership has repeatedly seen its preferences overridden, managed, and suppressed by the parliamentary leadership and NEC — the Greens built their recent surge in membership on an explicit promise: this would be a member-led organisation. People joined, as the letter puts it:

because we were promised a member-led organisation where we can fight against both the far-right and neoliberal establishment.

Nobody, the signatories remind us with quiet fury:

has signed up in the last year to further enable the two-party system.

Greens’ Makerfield candidate withdraws after Israel lobby pile-on

Stakes of getting this wrong

The letter doesn’t mince words about what capitulation would cost.

The Greens’ meteoric membership growth is driven by activists who see the party as a genuine vehicle for socialist and progressive politics, particularly outside of Labour’s grip. As such, it’s fragile in the ways that all political momentum is fragile. It depends on trust.

If members repeatedly see their enthusiasm “stifled” by self-appointed senior figures making unilateral strategic calculations, that momentum will collapse. Perhaps irreparably.

The letter warns that the stakes are too high — for working class people, for the left, for the prospect of any serious challenge to the two-party stranglehold — to absorb yet again:

another 7-year setback in bringing socialism to Britain.

Speaking exclusively to the Canary, the principal author of the Greens’ letter, Georgina Hollifield of Stockton Green Party, said:

The grassroots demand: let locals decide

The Greens’ letter’s conclusion is constitutionally modest but politically significant.

The decision on whether to stand and whether to campaign — which, the signatories correctly note, are separate decisions — should rest with local party members in Makerfield. Not with Bartley. Not with Read. Not with anyone firing off letters from outside the constituency.

This is, at its core, a demand that the Green Party actually be what it says it is.

The Makerfield by-election may not be winnable for the Greens. But the battle over what kind of party the Greens will become? That fight’s very much still on.

Paid-up Green Party members *only* can sign the open letter here.

Featured image via the Canary / X

By Cameron Baillie

Source link

Online abuse and harassment are “constant, corrosive and deeply embedded” for young people across the country. That’s according to a Barnardo’s-commissioned poll of 4,000 young people in the UK about their experiences of online misogyny.

The results from thousands of 13 to 20-year-olds show how they experience misogyny online. Over a quarter (28%) of girls in Scotland said they’d been called degrading names online. And five in seven (72%) boys said they believed they are expected to “act tough and not show emotion”.

Online misogyny is having real world effects

The findings also highlight how online misogyny is having an impact on the offline lives of young people. More than a quarter (27%) of all young people in Scotland had seen a nude photo that had originally been sent privately and had been shared.

Just over one in seven (15%) 13 to 15-year-olds across the UK as a whole had been asked to share a nude photo of themselves. Meanwhile, 17% of respondents in Scotland reported having received repeated messages after asking the sender to stop or ignoring them.

At the same time, boys in the Scotland felt unable to challenge their peers. 18% said that their friends wouldn’t back them if they called out sexist comments. And about five in eight (62%) boys in Scotland said that people would think they are “boring” if they don’t join in with group “banter”.

18-year-old Olly (not his real name) said:

As a young man, I see online misogyny every day. It sets the tone for how boys treat girls and how boys treat each other. There is pressure to laugh it off or stay silent, even when it crosses a line.

Young men set the standard. Challenge it, shut it down, and back those who speak up. That is how we change what is accepted.

Sarah, a children’s services manager for a Barnardo’s Domestic Abuse & Sexual Violence service, says:

A girl we supported was referred to the service after digitally manipulated – deepfake – images of her were created and circulated online.

The images were shared through social media platforms, sometimes via fake accounts created to spread the abuse further. Incidents like this cause significant emotional impact including fear and distress.

A culture of victim blaming can also lead to girls being concerned about how others perceive them, rather than seeing themselves as a victim of serious sexual abuse.

This can sometimes leave them vulnerable to further abuse and exploitation – but with the right support, we do see girls begin to rebuild trust, confidence and find their voice.

Barnardo’s says the children and young people they support are increasingly feeling the impact of online misogyny. 29% of Barnardo’s frontline practitioners said they were seeing more children affected by misogynistic content online, compared to the year before. 29% also said they were seeing an increase in child-on-child sexual abuse and / or children displaying problematic or harmful sexual behaviour, compared to the year before.

Michele Janes, director of Barnardo’s Scotland, said:

Misogyny isn’t always loud or visible to many of us, but these findings show how constant, corrosive and deeply embedded it is in the lives of young people today both online and off. It shapes how boys and girls think about themselves, their worth and their relationships with others.

Young people are telling us that the result can be harmful on all sides, from humiliation and sexualised abuse to feelings of shame and isolation. This is not inevitable – it is learned, and it can be challenged.

That’s why we’re raising the alarm and we want young people’s experiences to be at the heart of conversations about how to tackle misogynistic content online.

As a step in the right direction, we are calling on the government to turn Ofcom’s guidance for online services to improve the safety of women and girls online into a mandatory code of practice for tech companies to create safer digital platforms for all children and young people.

Advertisement

Featured image via Barnardo’s

By The Canary

Source link