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By now, there has been extensive coverage of the fact that the Belfast pogroms took place almost entirely in loyalist areas. This should surprise no one. Loyalism has always been an exclusivist ideology, predicated on the notion that one population deserves to dominate another that is dismissed as less deserving. Historically of course, this viewpoint dictated that Protestants must be allowed to lord it over Catholics.

However, violent sectarianism has largely faded in the north of Ireland, following 1998’s Good Friday Agreement. Instead, loyalism has now applied to immigrants, people of colour and Muslims the bigoted mindset it incubated over centuries.

It’s hard to dominate another group of people without justifying it in some way. Humans, like many other mammals, have an in-built notion of fairness. Seeing others get less without good cause cannot be easily sustained psychologically. Hence many Protestants developed prejudices giving grounds for their superior position. Catholics were said to be lazy, feckless and practicing a heretical religious doctrine.

Belfast loyalists pivot from sectarianism to racism

Years of indulging in this act of self-deceit have easily enabled the switch to applying new fictions to new target populations. Muslims are heathens, satanic even. Immigrants have sparked an unprecedented crime wave, never mind evidence to the contrary. Even children aren’t safe in playgrounds from sinister foreign men.

Combined with this capacity for a supremacist mentality has been the means for exercising the violence necessary to make dominance concrete. In prior decades, it has meant loyalists carrying out ethnic cleansing of Catholics. This was most notable in the 1920s, during the birth pangs of what became known as ‘Northern Ireland’. Loyalist mobs burned Catholics out of their homes, murdered others, and caused an estimated 23,000 to flee. So-called ‘Rotten Prods’ — Protestant trade unionists who stood alongside Catholics in workplaces — were also killed.

Another outbreak of barbarism occurred in 1969, when again loyalist thugs chased large numbers of Catholic families out of their homes, deploying widespread arson again. Belfast politicians have described how the loyalist pogroms of this week mirror those previous horrors. During the ‘Troubles’, loyalist paramilitaries carried out 713 sectarian murders of Catholics.

In its capacity to inspire reactionaries, loyalism is similar to its bedfellow, Zionism. The latter is a racist doctrine of Jewish supremacy that has always permitted extreme violence against the indigenous Palestinian population that stands in the way of their ethnostate.

As it has now reached the inevitable exterminationist phase of its trajectory, it has been celebrated by chauvinists the world over looking to subjugate their own troublesome populations. ‘Israeli’ and Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) flags can be found in loyalist areas across the north of Ireland. Loyalist politicians wined and dined by the terror regime of Tel Aviv came back singing its praises.

The longstanding links between loyalism and the British far-right

The twin primary sicknesses of these ideologies — a deeply inculcated supremacist mentality, and the willingness to use violence to suppress those deemed inferior — have obvious appeal to far-right actors everywhere. There have long been links between loyalist thugs and like-minded British neo-Nazis.

The Ulster Defence Association was known to have links to the vile racists of Combat 18. One of the latter’s founders, Eddie Whicker, helped arm the murderous loyalist terror gang. Combat 18 members were present at the notorious loyalist disorder at Drumcree.

Daniel Grundle (also known as Daniel Douglas) is the leader of current racist group Our Northern Ireland Voice. He described his founding of the group as a “calling”. Grundle reminisced about how in the 1980s his uncle Jimmy Grundle helped set up a version of Britain’s National Front in the north of Ireland.

The links extend to this day. Before Ben Habib’s recent decision to dissolve it, far-right agitator Richard Inman operated as a link between the racist Advance UK and the north of Ireland. Inman obviously thought so highly of the embedded bigotry within loyalism, that he made the Six Counties his permanent base. From there, he has lauded the Islamophobic hate displays of Concerned Parents Newtownabbey and spoken at far-right rallies.

Others, such as former Ulster Volunteer Force member Mark Sinclair and ex-Democratic Unionist Party councillor William Walker have linked up with their ideological peers at far-right rallies. Areas of Scotland still have strong loyalist elements, and they have clearly been inspired by the ethnic cleansing in Belfast. Racists there engaged in copycat crimes against people of colour.

Racist politicians embrace street violence

It isn’t just street thugs who seem enthused by loyalist violence. Those looking to take over the British state have been content to carry on stirring up emotions, even as houses burn. Reform’s Zia Yusuf screeched that:

Some cultures are MUCH better than others.

Restore Britain’s official account vomited out:

Restore Britain will reverse the third-worldification of our country.

Farage obviously delights in the prospect of reactionary rioting. In the wake of the Henry Novak murder, Farage exacerbated an already febrile atmosphere by calling for “pure cold rage“. Neither Nigel Farage nor Yusuf of Reform have used their X accounts to offer any condemnation of the Belfast violence. Likewise the even more vile Rupert Lowe of Restore Britain.

Reform have made no secret of their intent to hurtle towards authoritarianism if they occupy 10 Downing Street. Owen Jones recently enumerated their plans in this regard. As he points out, Farage has spoken of his intent to bring in a:

…British version of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the US deportation force that seizes migrants from homes, workplaces and the streets.

Under Reform:

The government would be granted direct powers over the police and would attack the independence of the judiciary, dressed up as a war on “activist judges”.

The parallels with the fascists of the 1930s are clear. The likes of Mussolini and Hitler used street thugs to help them seize power, then implemented an authoritarian state.

Street violence has many useful traits for budding despots. It makes the state look weak, as it struggles to handle the chaos. Far-right parties project an image of strength, and proclaim they will restore order.

It can be a tool for intimidating left-wing activists. Additionally, rioting thugs can be integrated into the state’s own security forces once power has been seized.

Belfast — A return to the fascism of the 1930s

The left’s best analysts, like Yanis Varoufakis, have long been warning that we are heading for a repeat of that uniquely dark era. Racist riots and mass mobilisations are becoming increasingly common in Britain, and authoritarian policies are already being implemented by British prime minister Keir Starmer.

Reform are happy to let other street thugs pick up the baton handed to them by loyalists. Once in power, they’ll gleefully receive another gift from Labour. By that point, it’ll be too late, and Britain will pay devastating consequences for inviting its own particular variant of loyalism into government.

Featured image via Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

By Robert Freeman

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The disastrous Iran war may be ending. But a humiliated US may look to Cuba as the next victim with Trump’s crony Marco Rubio applying heavier sanctions. The Americans have been making their aggressive intentions clear for months.

US outlet The Hill reported on 11 June that the US State Department:

announced that it will sanction Cuba’s state-owned oil and gas company Unión Cuba-Petróleo (CUPET) amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and the island country.

At the centre of the move was Trump’s Cuban-American henchman and secretary of state Marco Rubio. Rubio said:

the latest sanctions are pursuant of President Trump’s May 1 executive order expanding sanctions on government officials, agents “or material supporters of the Cuban government,”.

The sanctions concern Cuba’s oil and gas company Unión Cuba-Petróleo (CUPET).

Defence secretary Pete Hegseth was at the US military colony Guantanamo Bay on 10 June. As the Canary reported, Hegseth:

told a captive audience of American soldiers that Cuba had better not try and get long-range weapons. The US has been ramping up threats against the island state.

Rubio accused the Cuban government of:

diverting its energy resources “to line their own pockets: reselling countless barrels of scarce energy on the secondary market, hoarding energy supplies for its military, intelligence and repressive forces, and rationing energy as a tool of social control.”

Which is a bit rich coming from an openly far-right government committed to denying its citizens even basic healthcare while spending billions on a failed war in Iran.

An Iran deal could mean US move on Cuba

Meanwhile, a Pakistan-brokered deal to end the US attack on Iran looks close. Al Jazeera reported on 12 June that Pakistan’s PM Shehbaz Sharif had said:

Pakistan is now working closely with both sides to finalize the next steps. Peace has never been this close as it is now.

As the Canary has reported, the US was looking to bring the Americas to heel before it blundered into the Iran war.

Trump’s 2025 national security strategy said as much. The US wants to ensure:

the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States.

And that those pliable governments:

cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations.

Trump and his cronies want:

a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains.

Cuba is the closest dissenting nation to the US in the Americas. And for Trump’s generation it is an unresolved problem. He would return to it to the status of a mafia-run US vassal state. It will be a happy day when the war against Iran ends. But a humiliated US empire is still a dangerous beast. And the people of Cuba may be the first to feel Trump’s post-Iran wrath.

Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

By Joe Glenton

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High-stakes geopolitics aren’t the only external factor threatening to hijack the tournament.

Perhaps ironically for a competition hosted by a U.S. president who is highly skeptical about climate change and says assertions about rising temperatures have been made “by stupid people,” the heat is very likely to be a problem.

Heat waves have become a persistent part of Northern Hemisphere summers — each one made hotter, longer and more likely to occur as a result of man-made global warming. The locations of several stadiums across the U.S. and Mexico, as well as the peak-summer timing of the World Cup, are expected to put players and fans at risk of overheating.

The problem isn’t just heat, but also humidity. The combination of the two feels far hotter and is measured with wet-bulb temperature, which mimics how the human body cools off through sweating. A wet-bulb temperature of 95 degrees Fahrenheit can be fatal even to healthy people; the football players’ union FIFPRO says wet-bulb temperatures above 79 degrees — which can be reached through a combination of 86-degree heat and 50 percent humidity, for example — will affect performance and health, and 82-degree heat should prompt the postponement of a match.

When scientists last month ran the numbers, they found that 26 of 104 matches are expected to take place in conditions of at least 79-degree wet-bulb temperature. Five matches are estimated to breach the 82-degree wet-bulb barrier. And a peer-reviewed study found that during last year’s FIFA Club World Cup in the U.S., average wet-bulb temperature exceeded 82 degrees in 31 of 57 matches analyzed by scientists.

That study also found that high temperatures were associated with players covering less ground, forcing a change of tactics. Exhaustion sets in faster under high temperatures — at the Club World Cup, 10 players asked to be substituted in a single match. But heat doesn’t just affect gameplay. At the 2024 Copa America, an assistant referee collapsed in the heat and, last month, two people died during sports events held amid a heat wave in France.

As climate change continues to heat the planet, FIFA will have to grapple with the growing threat at every subsequent tournament. The 2030 men’s World Cup in Spain, Portugal and Morocco takes place in a global warming hotspot. The women’s World Cup next year will be in Brazil during a warming El Niño event, expected to supercharge the heating effect of climate change.

And that’s not even counting the other growing climate risks — from wildfire smoke to extreme rain — that threaten to disrupt future events.

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An Israeli influence operation named BlackCore allegedly sought to undermine left-wing politicians and shape elections in the UK and US. The Canary previously reported on a joint French/Israeli media investigation into the shadowy outfit. BlackCore is also accused of setting up a bogus Palestine charity.

Now a French domestic security agency is investigating too. Israeli newspaper Haaretz and French outlet Libération reported on 11 June:

Israeli firm BlackCore, suspected of interfering in France’s local elections in March, is also ‌suspected of meddling in elections in New York City and Scotland, and operating in Angola and Togo, the head of France’s disinformation ⁠detection service Viginum said on Thursday.

In a second article covering another aspect of BlackCore’s operations, also published on 11 June, claimed:

A network of fake fitness coaches, Vietnamese bots, Facebook ads aimed at Brits – and a bogus ‘humanitarian fund’ for Gaza. A Haaretz and Libération investigation exposes a digital operation whose infrastructure leads back to BlackCore, the Israeli influence firm under investigation in France.

Various Israeli influence operations have come to light in recent months. One looks at how the Israeli military shapes media reporting of the Gaza genocide. Another examines leaked documents about a military-run course for English and Hebrew speaking influencers.

The fact Israel runs complex influence operations is well-known. Press reporting on the granular details is less common.

Election interference by Israel

Russia and China are often charged with election interference in the west. There’s no doubt both countries run influence operations just like the UK and US. But the new Haaretz report sheds light on how Israel runs its own.

The new report:

analyzed BlackCore’s digital footprint, uncovered a toolkit of influence-operation systems routed through servers in Britain, Germany, Finland and Lithuania.

Closest to home is the allegation that Israel tried to shape Scottish elections. French security agency Viginum claims:

France’s cybersecurity agency has accused the Israeli tech company BlackCore of interfering in the Scottish elections earlier this year by targeting the first minister, John Swinney.

The disinformation detection agency Viginum said BlackCore had this year used proxy social media accounts to target Swinney, the Scottish National Party, and the Scottish government on four occasions.

Viginum’s head of ‘digital interference’ Sébastien Lecornu said:

This modus operandi was not limited to municipal elections in France. It also appears to have ⁠been used to carry out foreign digital interference operations in other countries or regions, such as Angola, Togo, the elections in Scotland, and the 2025 municipal election in New York.

It was previously reported that BlackCore targeted left-wing candidates in Marseille and Toulouse elections.

Brillant added:

Our investigations did not make it possible to identify the sponsor or sponsors, if indeed they exist, behind this foreign digital interference.

BlackCore — Fake Palestinian charity?!

The other part of the Haaretz report verges on the bizarre. It centres on an allegedly fake charity named Sadaqah Palestine, which:

presented itself as a non-governmental, non-political nonprofit helping Palestinian families, children and refugees affected by displacement, poverty and war.

The ‘charity’ had:

a website with a credit card donation form and maintained social media accounts on X, Instagram and Facebook, and even had a paid advertising budget on Meta’s platforms.

However:

it did not have… any verifiable existence. No organization by that name appears in the U.K. charity register, nor in similar U.S., EU and Israeli records offline. Its social media following, our analysis found, was largely manufactured, including seemingly fake accounts.

The charity’s digital footprint leads back to BlackCore, which has been described as:

[an] Israeli “elite influence, cyber and technology” firm.

Researchers described the site as:

a honeypot: a decoy built to attract people who wanted to help – in this case, by aiding Palestinians – and to take donors’ money, their personal data or both.

The cynicism involved is hard to fathom:

The page pitched the fund against the backdrop of the collapse of official humanitarian aid in Gaza, noting that as USAID and UNRWA halted most of their operations, ordinary donors had to step in.

And:

It declares its location as Palestine; X’s own metadata places it in the United Kingdom. In its 13 years of existence, the account has never once “liked” anything.

Followers were also fake: a mix of US-based ‘fitness’ accounts and Vietnamese bots. Researchers traced the page to BlackCore via:

Digital certificates – the public, immutable record created every time a website obtains an encryption authorization.

You can read the full reports on the charity and the election interference here and here. They offer a rare glimpse inside an alleged Israeli influence operation. This is notable of itself. The fact one aspect of this operation was to exploit public goodwill over Palestine is especially grotesque.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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Congratulations to Sweden on winning this year’s World Cup … and also to France, Qatar, Uruguay, Norway, New Zealand and Switzerland for the same thing.

No, POLITICO hasn’t been engaging in match fixing, but we have been crunching the numbers to see how all 48 of this year’s World Cup participants rank in several other categories, and the countries mentioned above all did well. There are 10 EU countries taking part.

First of all, we took each country’s FIFA ranking from the world soccer governing body. In April, France was the number one country in the world, with Spain second and Argentina third, all the way down to New Zealand, which was the 85th-ranked country in the world and therefore the lowest-ranked team in the tournament.

Then, we looked at all 48 countries to see how they ranked in terms of five other categories, staring with gross domestic product per person, according to World Bank data for 2024 (the last year for which data is available).

Stay tuned for more data visualizations today and tomorrow.

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Bosnia fans have gathered to chant their support for Palestine before their team’s match against Canada today, 12 June 2026.

Bosnia — Genocide collusion

To Canada’s shame, its government has colluded in Israel’s genocide just like that of the UK and most other western states. The Bosnian fans are on the right side of history:

The match finished 1-1, but only one nation won where it matters.

Featured image via Michael Steele/Getty Images

By Skwawkbox

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Greta Thunberg took to social media to condemn the EU-wide deportation plan, calling on citizens to rally against it.

The European government and institutions are pushing through a law which the far right celebrated as the start of the era of deportations, she said.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Greta Thunberg (@gretathunberg)

European Parliament is planning to vote on it next week, the activist said on Friday, slamming efforts to pass the law “quietly and quickly.” She slammed European politicians for fueling wars and climate catastrophes and then unleashing detention on people who flee from them.

The EU’s controversial deportation bill is heading for a crucial vote next week, as far-right parties and the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) have joined forces, with the bill expected to be passed on June 17.

She called on European citizens to:

Refuse outsourced prisons, refuse far-right policy, refuse a Europe governed by fear. Call your MP, write to your government, tag your ministers in the comments, and let them know that this won’t keep us safe. We keep us safe.

Greta Thunberg — European ICE

Greta Thunberg said Europe had been taking notes from the USA’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Private security companies, detention contractors, surveillance firms, and deportation airline owners will benefit from the new law if enacted, she warned, saying:

Public money is being directed away from housing, school, and healthcare as powerful politicians cut deals with wealthy CEOs, turning deportation into an ever expanding industry.

According to the EU Observer, the bill seeks to make it possible for EU member states to create so-called “return hubs” in foreign countries,  facilities reserved for individuals whose asylum claims have been rejected, who have been ordered to leave Europe, and who cannot return to their home countries for a variety of reasons.

This isn’t happening just in the EU. Reform UK has completely embraced the ICE model.

Zia Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesperson, unveiled plans for a “UK Deportation Command” earlier this year.

Yusuf is currently in the USA, cosying up to the far-right Heritage Foundation, where they drink together from the same elixir of hating migrants.

Thunberg is right: only we can save ourselves. And the threat is Yusuf, the Heritage Foundation, and Europe’s far-right and all their ilk.

Featured image via Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images

By The Canary

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Elon Musk has been all over the headlines today, 12 June, as he tips over the threshold to become the world’s first trillionaire. And inevitably, Musk is a walking, talking argument against the existence of such wealth — which he uses to oppose democracy and amplify the far-right around the world.

The real-life Bond villain (thanks, Financial Times) owes his latest windfall to SpaceX. The company, of which Musk is the majority shareholder, makes its initial public offering at a value of around $1.8tn.

Of course, once any individual’s personal wealth enters the billions — never mind the trillions — it becomes largely hypothetical. We, humanity that is, just aren’t made to comprehend that kind of amount. NBC tried to visualise the total:

A stack of $100 bills worth $1 million stands just over 3 feet tall. Scale that up to $1 billion, and the stack is over half a mile high. At $1 trillion, however, the stack reaches a staggering 679 miles in height, nearly 11 times the distance from Earth’s surface to the edge of outer space.

Elon Musk — Buying up democracy

Personally, we at the Canary still find it difficult to picture that kind of thing. We’re activists and journalists — we work in concepts. Fortunately, there’s a ready example in those terms, too. $1tn will buy you, more or less, one global democracy, or a sizeable chunk of it at the very least.

Back in January, Oxfam released research highlighting that billionaire wealth had reached its highest level in history, breaching $18.3t (trillion) globally. Inevitably, that wealth also brings vast political power. In fact, compared to the average citizen, billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office.

Elon Musk already tried his hand as a fascist politician — after a buy-in donation of over $250m to the Republican Party in 2024. Under Donald Trump, he became the unelected co-chair of ‘DOGE’ (the Department of Government Efficiency).

Of course, the department did absolutely nothing to alter the USA’s national debt, which actually spiked in 2025. However, Musk’s wild slashes to the USAid budget caused a conservative initial estimate of 750,000 deaths around the world. Likewise, that’s not even mentioning the 300,000 federal employees he left out of a job.

All that in the mere 10 months of DOGE’s tragic existence.

Amplifying the fash on Twitter

However, even outside of direct political office, Musk — seen here sniffing around for a party invite from convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein — has still proven himself perfectly capable of buying political influence and stifling democracy.

Actually, scratch that, ‘capable’ is the wrong word — $1tn just makes up for an awful lot of incompetence.

After seemingly accidentally backing himself into a corner and being forced to purchase Twitter for $44bn, Musk gained massive power over (what was once) one of the world’s more popular social media platforms. Over and over again, he’s used that power to amplify far-right voices and talking points.

Since the ill-fated Twitter purchase, far-right accounts have seen a boom on the site. As NBC News found in 2024:

at least 150 paid “Premium” subscriber X accounts and thousands of unpaid accounts have posted or amplified pro-Nazi content on X in recent months, often in apparent violation of X’s rules.

In several cases, the Nazi accounts gained traction because of Musk’s active help. He personally retweeted several prominent ‘race science’ adherents. Mother Jones described him as:

spreading misinformation about racial minorities’ intelligence and physiology to his audience of 176.3 million followers.

Oh, on that note, a quick aside. Musk — pictured here giving a Nazi salute at a far-right political rally — has argued it should be criminal to describe “non-violent” people as Nazis or fascists. Oh, and the same goes for telling people to hate America.

So much for Musk’s famed ‘free speech absolutism‘ (except when he’s defending his AI bot generating child sexual abuse imagery).

Attacks on UK democracy

One of Musk’s favoured pet fascists is Rupert Lowe, founder of the extreme-right Restore UK. Since launching Restore back in February, ten of Lowe’s X posts have received over 10-million views. This, in turn, has caused massive issues for Reform UK, as it faces pressure from the even-further-right.

Another key beneficiary of Musk’s algorithmic patronage is Tommy Robinson, one of the organisers behind the white-supremacist ‘Unite the Kingdom’ (UtK) rally. The white-supremacist agitator/all-round scumbag has openly admitted that Musk previously covered his legal costs.

Likewise, Musk addressed the 2025 UtK rally via video link. He called for “a change of government in Britain” along with a:

dissolution of Parliament and a new vote held.

The Financial Times counted more than 100 of Musk’s social media posts attacking British multiculturalism. More recently, he exploited the tragic murder of Henry Nowak to foment the riots in response. Likewise, he also amplified Robinson’s dogwhistle calls to riot in Belfast earlier this week.

In response, Green Party leader Zack Polanski stated that:

This man is a threat to our democracy. He backs violence and extremism.

Blaming a group of people for the awful actions of an individual leads us to a very dark place.

Musk, Lowe, Farage, Robinson – these men don’t give a shit about this country, they want to rip us apart.

In our deeply broken system, money is power. A billion, let alone a trillion, gives an individual the power to buy things that should never have been for sale. Musk is a living demonstration of the fact that no reasonable society should permit the existence of such obscene wealth.

Featured image via Spencer Platt/Getty Images

By Alex/Rose Cocker

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New defence secretary Dan Jarvis has previously received around half a million pounds in donations from corporate lobbyists. So, as mainstream media outlets say the Labour right-winger “once looked like the future” and “is a fine choice“, let’s look into the dark money that’s been fuelling his political career.

Jarvis and his local Labour Party in Barnsley have done such an awful job at countering Tory damage to the town in recent decades that it turned to Reform in the 2026 local elections. And when you look at where Jarvis’s funds come from, you can understand why the people of Barnsley might not exactly be his top political priority.

1 — Labour Together millionaires

One major source of donations to Jarvis has been key Labour Together donor Martin Taylor. Taylor runs a hedge fund that invests in private healthcare.

Fellow Labour Together donor and proud pro-Israel lobbyist Trevor Chinn also gave thousands of pounds to Jarvis. It seems likely that such support was at least in part because Jarvis was a parliamentary supporter of Labour Friends of Israel who even received money from the lobby group.

Labour Together was a prominent vehicle for undermining Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party and forcing vacuous corporate lackey Keir Starmer onto the country.

Other beneficiaries of money from Labour Together or its donors have included high-profile cronies such as Yvette Cooper, Wes Streeting, David Lammy, Shabana Mahmood, and Rachel Reeves.

2 — The “multimillionaire recruitment tycoon” with interests in private healthcare

EveryDoctor explains that “multimillionaire recruitment tycoon Peter Hearn“:

made his fortune through recruitment firms PSD and Odgers Berndtson

Odgers Group Limited, where he resigned as a director in 2025, has offered:

headhunting services to the NHS as well as the private healthcare sector. The firm has faced criticism for some of the senior executives it has helped recruit to the NHS. Former TalkTalk executive Dido Harding was headhunted by Odgers Berndtson to lead the NHS Test and Trace programme during the pandemic, which was later deemed to be ineffective by MPs.

A fellow director at Odgers was Tory peer Virginia Bottomley.

While Hearn clearly has a massive soft spot for Labour right-wingers Wes Streeting and Yvette Cooper, Dan Jarvis has been the other key recipient of Hearn’s money. They’ve all received money from Hearn’s OPD Group and MPM Connect Ltd. Labour campaign group Momentum once called MPM “dark money“, and Sky reported that:

The company has no staff or website and is registered at an office in Hertfordshire where the secretary says she has never heard of them.

EveryDoctor says Hearn’s OPD Group also “provides services to the NHS“.

With Dan Jarvis, the lobby’s grip on government continues

In 2016, Blairite strategist John McTernan said Jarvis:

so clearly wants to be Leader of the Labour Party.

Many on the right of the party mentioned his name “as a potential challenger to Jeremy Corbyn” early into Corbyn’s time as leader, with some of them even seeing him as “the party’s greatest hope“. Jarvis also reportedly had links to Blue Labour, whose whole argument is basically that Labour should be ‘more conservative‘.

Jarvis has largely remained quiet in the last ten years, just accumulating corporate money and doing little of note for people in his constituency. But his move into the role of defence secretary may be a sign that his star on the Labour right is rising yet again.

Considering that lobbyists’ empty vessel Keir Starmer has pushed Labour far to the right as leader, it’s unsurprising that Dan Jarvis fits neatly into the project.

The question now is, exactly how much will Jarvis’s deep links to the corporate lobby influence Ministry of Defence policy at a time of already increasing military spending?

Featured image via Carl Court/Getty Images

By Ed Sykes

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