Former safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has landed in hot water regarding her support for Labour’s Sentencing Bill. The 2026 legislation is currently in the news because a clause allowing the earlier release of prisoners will come into effect in September.

The new clause would allow the release of some prisoners after the completion of half of their sentence. This is a marked contrast to the previous requirement of three-quarters fulfillment. However, the legislation has drawn criticism because it could see sexual offenders being released earlier.

Jess Phillips: hypocrisy on full display

Phillips resigned her safeguarding post on 12 May 2026, among calls for Starmer to step down. Four survivors of group-based child sexual exploitation had previously called for her to quit as a condition for their taking part in the National Grooming Gangs Inquiry.

In June, Phillips then urged the government to exclude child rapists from the early release scheme. However, her own previous actions undermined her position. When the Tories tabled an amendment to exclude sexual offenders back in October 2025, Phillips actually voted against it.

On 15 July 2026, the former safeguarding minister appeared on Channel 4 News to explain her seemingly-shifting position. Asked whether she was aware that sexual offenders would be released early when she voted for the bill, Phillips said:

Absolutely, some of these people would get out, so that is why I sought to have risk assessments put in place and fought back against the idea of just instant release.

However, her interviewer was quick to call out the minister’s hypocrisy, asking:

You say you fought back, but in October 2025 Conservatives laid an amendment which would exclude rapists, pedophiles and groomers. You voted against it – why?

And Phillips’ answer? Well:

Because there is a prisons crisis.

Fantastic – so they really are just saying the quiet part out loud now.

‘Capacity crisis’

Phillips’ position here mirrors that voiced repeatedly by floundering justice minister David Lammy. On 12 July, he told the Guardian that Labour needed to press on with the early release scheme as written, to avoid a capacity crisis in prisons:

We would get back to a situation where we were running, at 99, nearly 100% [capacity]. I was with a father whose daughter had been horribly groomed in my constituency just a few weeks ago. It is hugely important that when the perpetrators of this crime are arrested, they can be sent to prison.

We are building prisons, but it takes time – seven years – and in the meantime, we have got to ensure that there is good community punishment.

Both Phillips and Lammy have exposed, inadvertently, a lie at the heart of the carceral justice system. In the UK and around the world we imprison people, not according to some innate righteousness, but according to budget and public appetite.

If the state will suddenly say that prisons are too full and thousands of prisoners will be released early, what mandate did they have to hold them in the first place?

If jail time was about rehabilitation or public safety, what makes a prisoner more safe after half their term than, say, a quarter? Likewise, if prison sentences were motivated by the the innate justice of incarceration, is it not a moral violation to release prisoners earlier?

The theatre of justice

These contradictions can’t be resolved if we think about prisons as being about justice. However, they resolve themselves quite easily if we instead think of the prison system as being about a form of public display – one which gives the appearance of fairness, insofar as the budget at public will is available.

This becomes all the more obvious when we look at the ‘offenders’ whom Jess Phillips and Labour so desperately wants to make room for in our prisons. On social media, Saul Stanniforth commented on Phillips’ Channel 4 appearance, stating:

Got to free the rapists to make room for people who oppose genocide, I guess.

Here, Stanniforth alluded to the mass arrests of Palestine Action supporters under terrorism laws, following the group’s proscription. Many of the arrestees were pensioners who silently held placards stating “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”.

It’s difficult to imagine a world in which a rapist is less dangerous to the public than an octogenarian holding a sign. Fortunately, we don’t have to imagine such a thing. Instead, we simply have to acknowledge that prisons are about the theatre of justice, not justice itself.

Fortunately, alternatives to the carceral system exist – if you’d like to read more, follow the link here.

Featured image via the Canary

By Grace

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On 13 July, Skwawkbox revealed that members of Your Party’s elected executive (CEC) had voted no confidence in three leading CEC figures. The vote was driven by the CEC chair’s suspension of three well-known activists from the CEC for attending a socialist event. Early reports suggested the vote had fallen short of the required two-thirds to remove the officials. But Skwawkbox can now confirm that in fact they were near-unanimous. However, both chair Jenn Forbes and party leader Jeremy Corbyn have refused to implement it.

Procedural excuses

The CEC meeting was quorate — it had the numbers required to be official. The minutes of the meeting confirm that it was arranged in accordance with the rules and that Forbes and CEC secretary Dawn Aspinall had been asked to organise it but didn’t:

Forbes, Aspinall, Corbyn and Membership Officer Cassi Bellingham — also the subject of a no-confidence vote — were listed as ‘apologies’, that is, not present. CEC members present voted to waive a ‘standing order’ that no-confidence votes may be taken at annual meetings.

The minutes then record the discussion of the reasons for the lack of confidence:

And they show that the votes against Forbes and Aspinall were carried unanimously, and one less than unanimous in the vote against Bellingham. Under the rules, this should mean the effective, immediate resignation of those in the roles:

The results were communicated to all relevant parties. However, Forbes refused to accept the outcome — insisting that the meeting was not a CEC meeting at all, because she had not called it, even though she had been asked to do so and had not. In a dismissive email to CEC members, she wrote:

I want to be clear, however, that the gathering which took place on Sunday was not a meeting of the CEC, for the following reasons:

• The meeting was not convened by the Chair or Secretary, as is our responsibility under the Party’s Standing Orders (Clause 6) and under the paper agreed specifying CEC Officer Roles and Responsibilities;
• While meetings may be requested under the Standing Orders, they are for the Chair and Secretary to convene, under clause 5.2;
• Not all CEC members were invited to the meeting;
• Neither the Chair, nor the Secretary, nor the Parliamentary Leader were in attendance, nor the secretariat, leaving key roles such as minuting absent;
• The agenda breached previous votes of the CEC on, for example, the distribution of responsibilities within the organisation, and the holding of AGMs.

Therefore, it is not recognised as a properly constituted meeting of the CEC. The fact that a number of CEC members were present does not of itself make a meeting constitutional. Numbers may be relevant to quorum or voting thresholds at a properly convened meeting, but they do not cure defects in convening, notice, agenda, authority or procedural fairness. A group of CEC members is not automatically the CEC acting as a constitutional body.

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The Party can only take formal decisions through its Constitution, Standing Orders and agreed governance procedures. Any purported vote of no confidence in the Chair, Secretary or Membership Officer arising from an informal or improperly convened gathering has no formal standing. Those officers remain in post and continue to discharge their responsibilities…

…We inherited a party in extremely difficult circumstances. Moving forward requires cool heads, discipline, focus and a shared commitment to acting within the constitutional framework we were elected to uphold.

The full CEC meeting will provide the proper forum for these matters to be discussed with the relevant papers, advice and concerns before members. I ask comrades to approach that meeting with care, respect and political responsibility. I would ask for any feedback or suggestions for this meeting to come directly to Dawn and myself, so we can have that discussion collectively in the proper forum.

Where Forbes was dismissive, Corbyn was as close to furious as he ever gets. In a brusque email he accused the CEC members of “destructive behaviour”, being “addicted to infighting”. He claimed that “any sense of natural justice” had been denied to the rejected officers — who, remember, had just suspended three members for attending a socialist event:

Dear members of the CEC,

I am extremely disappointed by some of the destructive behaviour I have witnessed over the last few weeks.

It seems to me that many members of the CEC are not interested in developing Your Party, but are addicted to internal infighting. Rather than actively supporting the party, they undermine those doing the work. Fadel’s email yesterday threatening any member of staff who spoke to a member of the CEC is beyond comprehension.

At my request an email was sent to the CEC to consider contesting the Clacton by-election. Less than a third of CEC members even bothered to respond. Very few CEC members participated in the Trade Union Commission meeting on Friday night. We are a group of people who collectively have deep ties in the trade union movement, but the event seemed of less interest to many than internal politics.

I am very sorry that any sense of natural justice was denied to Jenn, Dawn and Cassi when they were subjected to an illegitimate vote of no confidence, without a right of reply, at a short-notice, ad-hoc meeting to which not all CEC members were even invited.

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We need to end this infighting to have any chance of succeeding. We need to remember why we set up this party in the first place, and why we are involved in politics at all. It is about ordinary people and their right to live in a fairer society. It is not about us. Nobody benefits when we tear each other apart.

I suggest we focus on actual things that make a difference rather than on each other. Monday’s meeting of the CEC is the proper place to discuss how the CEC can work more collaboratively, and I suggest broad-based groups supporting the Party’s work on branch formation, housing campaigns and other priorities. Where there are genuine concerns over personal liability or anything else, address those through the proper channels and we can have external reviews and discussion, without all this toxicity.

We need a fundamental change of attitude.

I suggest that for the interests of the party, this correspondence be kept private and confidential to the CEC.

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Yours,

Jeremy

Angry CEC members have said that the disinterest in the Clacton by-election was driven by a feeling that Your Party should not stand, to avoid dividing the anti-Farage vote. Also, they feel unwilling to engage with the CEC under its current management and that Corbyn is refusing to acknowledge just how serious the situation is.

Your Party had an opportunity, with hundreds of thousands of people initially signed up to support it, to become a mass socialist movement that the UK desperately needs. Instead, lust for control killed off that hope and what remains is in chaos.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

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Sadiq Khan has been nominated to join the House of Lords (Alamy)

4 min read26 min

London mayor Sadiq Khan is one of 26 new peers to join the House of Lords as Keir Starmer’s premiership comes to an end.

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As Starmer prepares to leave No 10, Downing Street has published a list of political peerages, including the soon-to-be-former Prime Minister’s ally Christina McAnea – the former general secretary of Unison, who will become a Labour peer. 

Chris Wormald, the former cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, will become a crossbench peer. 

Other notable figures nominated by the Labour Party include former MP and Economic Secretary to the Treasury Kitty Ussher and the former chief executive of the Food Standards Agency Tim J Smith.

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Among those nominated by the Liberal Democrats include chief economist at Nesta and visiting professor at the London School of Economics Dr Tim Leunig, and Dave McCobb – Liberal Democrat director of field campaigns and former Hull City Councillor.

Co-Founder of Carphone Warehouse and sponsor and chair of the David Ross Education Trust David Ross will become a Conservative peer.

The 26 new peers to enter the House of Lords

Nominations from the Leader of the Labour Party:

Alison Garnham – Chief Executive, Child Poverty Action Group.

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Alison Lowe OBE – Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime in West Yorkshire.

Barbara Mills KC – Chair of the Bar Council of England and Wales (2025), family law barrister and Joint Head of Chambers at 4PB.

Cathy Ashley OBE – Chief Executive of Family Rights Group and former Chair of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

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Christina McAnea – Former General Secretary of UNISON.

June Sarpong OBE – Broadcaster, charity campaigner and social equity advocate.

The Rt Hon Ken Macintosh DL – Former Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament.

Kitty Ussher – British economist, former Member of Parliament for Burnley and former Economic Secretary to the Treasury.

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Marcus Davey CBE – Former CEO and Artistic Director of the Roundhouse.

Martin McTague OBE – National Chair of the Federation of Small Businesses.

Nick Stace OBE – Chief Global Impact Officer at Howden Group.

Parvais Jabbar MBE – Human rights expert, co-founder and Co-Executive Director of The Death Penalty Project.

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Roberto Neri – CEO of The Ivors Academy and a Director of UK Music.

The Rt Hon Sir Sadiq Khan – Mayor of London and former Member of Parliament for Tooting.

Saul Lehrfreund MBE – Human rights expert, co-founder and Co-Executive Director of The Death Penalty Project.

Tim J Smith CBE – Former Chief Executive of the Food Standards Agency.

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Nominations from the Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party:

Dave McCobb – Liberal Democrat Director of Field Campaigns. Former Hull City Councillor of 22 years.

Hannah Kitching – Chair of the Yorkshire Liberal Democrats and Town Mayor of Penistone. Former NHS physiotherapist and Barnsley councillor.

Julia Aglionby – Executive Director of the Foundation for Common Land. Agricultural valuer and former Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate.

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Mark Petterson – Director of Warwick Energy Limited. Pioneer of UK offshore wind and long-standing adviser to the Liberal Democrats.

Dr Tim Leunig – Chief Economist at Nesta and Visiting Professor at LSE. Former senior civil servant and economic adviser.

Nominations from the Leader of the Conservatives:

David Ross – Entrepreneur and Philanthropist. Co-Founder of Carphone Warehouse, Sponsor and Chair of David Ross Education Trust, Founder of the Nevill Holt Festival and former Chair of the National Portrait Gallery.

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General Sir Patrick Sanders KCB CBE DSO – Lately Chief of the General Staff, British Army.

Professor Swaran Singh – Professor of Social and Community Psychiatry, University of Warwick; Consultant Psychiatrist, Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust and former Equality and Human Rights Commissioner.

Nominations for Crossbench Peerages:

The Rt Hon Sir Brian Leveson – Investigatory Powers Commissioner. Former President of the Queen’s Bench Division and Lord Justice of Appeal. Former Chair of the Sentencing Council and Chair of the Leveson Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press.

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Sir Chris Wormald KCB – Former Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service.

 

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Abdul Rashid Wani, a timber trader from Kashmir, vanished from Indian military custody in 1997. While a certificate of his death has finally been granted after 29 years, his family is still searching for answers about what happened to him.

His son Junaid Rashid, who was five at the time of his father’s disappearance and is now 34, told Agence France-Presse (AFP):

The government has now, after 29 years, acknowledged in court that such an atrocity was done. If this had happened earlier, I think Kashmir would look different. Our lives would look different, and my mother’s health would be something else.

He still has haunting memories from the tragedy:

I remember my grandmother telling a colonel at our home, ‘Just give me my son back.’

Kashmir: enforced disappearances

Abdul Rashid Wani’s case is not an isolated tragedy. According to rights groups between 8,000 and 10,000 people have been “enforced disappeared” in Kashmir since the late 1980s. 

The People’s Union for Democratic Rights, said in April following the issuance of Wani’s death certificate that his case “encapsulates the human rights story of the past 36 years in Jammu and Kashmir.”

They continued:

This case is just one of thousands in Jammu and Kashmir where not only has the disappearance been confirmed, but the State forces responsible have been identified and indicted by judicial enquiries, State Human Rights Commission findings and police investigations. Yet, the reality is that no one has been prosecuted till date for any of these crimes and the Central Government maintains a 100% record in rejecting any sanction for prosecution when approached.

The PUDR noted that the judicial inquiry confirmed the abduction and “stated that the agency involved was 2/8 Gorkha Rifles led by an officer named Yadav,” while the magistrate’s ruling later named Major V.P. Yadav as the officer who ordered Wani’s detention.

Half widows

In Kashmir, the wives of the missing men are known as “half-widows” – unable to mourn fully until they know their husbands are dead, AFP said.

They also interviewed Jana Begum. Her husband and their four children were awoken by soldiers hammering on their door at a midnight in 2002. They detained Manzoor Ahmed Dar and she has not seen or heard from her husband since. She said:

It felt like a bird of prey snatched him from us.

The family performed symbolic funeral rites in 2016 after police officers told them privately that Dar had died “during interrogation”, his daughter Bilkees Manzoor said.

Debate in UK Parliament

On July 7, 2026, MPs gathered in Westminster Hall for a debate on “Human rights in Kashmir,” led by Imran Hussain, Labour MP for Bradford East and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Kashmir.

While the discussion was focused on the communications blackout currently in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, MPs also reminded the House that such abuses occur on the Indian side too.

Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East, said: 

I have been contacted in recent weeks by many constituents who are desperately worried for their loved ones in Kashmir, and who are struggling to reach them because of the communications blockade. Does the Minister agree that such communication shutdowns, which have also been used by Indian-occupied Kashmir, are often an attempt by authorities to hide and cover up the crimes and human rights abuses they are committing?

Jeremy Corbyn reminded MPs of Britain’s colonial legacy in the region:

The way Kashmir was treated at the time of Indian independence is an overhanging colonial responsibility for Britain that has never been resolved.

The families of Abdul Rashid Wani and Manzoor Ahmed Dar continue to live with wounds that time has not healed. Theses are wounds inflicted not just by the soldiers who knocked on their doors, but by a colonial legacy that partitioned a land and left its people to bear the consequences.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

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The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has updated its landmark State of Child Health report, which looks at the health of children across 12 indicators.

Nearly a decade after its first publication, this latest analysis has found that children’s health in the UK across all areas is either in decline or has stalled completely.

Ranging from infant mortality and mental health to obesity, immunisation, and asthma, the report concludes that widening inequalities, gaps in data and chronic underinvestment are putting the health of a generation at risk.

The report found in England:

• Only 84% of children receive two doses of the MMR vaccine by age five, well below the WHO 95% target.
• More than one in three (36%) children aged 10–11 is overweight or severely overweight.
• One in five children aged 8–16 has a probable mental health disorder.
• Children in the most deprived areas are four times more likely to die from asthma.
• Infant mortality in the most deprived communities is more than double that seen in the least deprived areas.

Health of children not improving

Alongside its wider analysis, a recent YouGov poll commissioned by RCPCH found that only 12% of parents believe child health has improved over the last ten years, suggesting that progress has not been felt by families and that much more remains to be done.

RCPCH is calling on the UK government to make child health a national priority, not an afterthought.

The State of Child Health sets out a clear plan to improve children’s health and reduce inequalities:

• Invest fairly and consistently in children’s health services and the workforce.
• Improve the collection and sharing of child health data across the UK.
• Introduce binding national targets to improve child health outcomes and narrow the gap between the most and least deprived.

With a new prime minister soon taking office, RCPCH calls on the government to act before another generation of children gets let down.

RCPCH officer for health improvement, Dr Helen Stewart, said:

The UK’s record on children’s health should be a national embarrassment. Across Western Europe, many other countries are achieving better outcomes for children, yet too many children here are being left behind.

The State of Child Health report shows that we are categorically failing children in the UK, but especially those from ethnic minorities and poorer backgrounds.

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When the Darzi Review was published in 2024, it laid bare the scale of children’s worsening health in England and was meant to mark a turning point. Instead, despite the warnings, little has changed.

Without action, more children will grow up in poor health, entering adulthood at a disadvantage and putting even greater pressure on families and public services.

In their first 100 days, the new prime minister should set out how they will make children’s health a priority through sustained investment, better use of data and clear national targets. Paediatricians have provided the blueprint, now policymakers must listen.

Rachel de Souza, children’s commissioner for England, said:

Children all over the country want to grow up healthy, happy, and able to fulfil their potential – yet too many children are being held back by circumstances beyond their control, and too many families are experiencing tragedy.

Factors such as where children live and family finances shouldn’t determine whether they can have a healthy start in life. But some of our poorest children are facing the greatest barriers to good health.

This important report shows that the country is not only overseeing a decline in children’s health but also failing to uphold their rights.

Improving children’s health and wellbeing must be at the heart of government decision making. We must ensure every child who can be is vaccinated, every mother and baby gets dedicated care, and that every area is held to account for doing so.

We have to tackle problems before they escalate and make sure every child can access the support they need, regardless of where they live.

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Sebastian Rees, head of health at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), said:

IPPR has long argued that the UK has become the sick man of Europe on health. This report from RCPCH shows that this starts at a very early age. For a government committed to giving every child the best start in life, that should be of huge concern and deserves far more attention than it currently receives.

Poor health in childhood doesn’t just have a huge impact on young people and their families in the here and now – it also casts a long shadow. IPPR’s own research shows that poor health in childhood carries through the entire life course, shaping people’s health and opportunities decades later.

This is a complex, multifaceted problem that requires action right across government, but a Children’s Health Investment Standard that protects spending on vital early years services would be a great place to start.

Dr Sunil Bhopal, director of child health research at Born in Bradford, said:

This solutions-focused report shows that many of the challenges facing children’s health are not inevitable.

By tracking the lives of thousands of children and families for over 20 years, our work at Born in Bradford shows that these challenges are often the product of inequalities and circumstances that policy has the power to change.

‘State of Child Health 2026’ combines robust data with the experiences of children, young people and clinicians.

It puts the evidence in front of the people with the power to act on it.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

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This week, the UK is hosting its very first Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). And if the early signs are anything to go by, there’s every chance it could also be the last:

Liz Truss opens CPAC GB. In fairness it’s quite early. pic.twitter.com/sTaGyQNLxL

— Mikey Smith (@mikeysmith) July 16, 2026

Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)

CPAC has been a mainstay of the American right for decades. In recent years, it’s begun to expand beyond the Americas too, with the UK its latest target market.

Reporting on the UK CPAC in June, we referred to it as a “Yank hand-me-down event“. We also noted:

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is a US event at which American Conservatives gather to revel in their own evil. Or it was, anyway. The most recent event was significantly diminished from the conference’s heyday.

The problem America’s right-wing speakers have is that their guys are in power right now. These reactionary speakers do a lot better when they’re reacting to a hostile establishment; not when they’re carrying water for the most corrupt and incompetent government of their lifetimes.

We speculated that the British CPAC could outperform the Yank one, because our homegrown right wingers are out of power right now. Looking at the Liz Truss clip, however, we admit we were wrong – dead f*cking wrong.

It looks like she’s delivering a timeshare presentation to a mid-sized budget hotel.

Or perhaps a booze-free Margaret Thatcher memorial.

Bleak

If you’re interested, this is what Truss said in the clip above:

Cultural and spiritual nihilism.

Always an uplifting start.

She continued:

Open borders and rising unrest.

This week, we will have yet another Prime Minister installed in Downing Street. Andy Burnham. The seventh within ten years.

This is a bizarre thing for Truss to say given that she was the shortest-lived PM among this cavalcade of clowns.

Truss later asked the audience:

What do you all think of Andy Burnham?

The response sounded like what you’d hear in a big Greggs that had just announced the sausage rolls were all gone.

Truss finished:

I’ve been there. I know that nothing will change.

Inspiring stuff.

Truss wasn’t the only one speaking either:

He’s been drinking?

— DENISE ONEILL TheNHS (@DENISEONEILL6) July 16, 2026

Half expecting a really long walking stick to creep on from the side of the stage, hook IDS round the neck and yank him away from the podium.

— Mikey Smith (@mikeysmith) July 16, 2026

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Suspect Jack Posobiec is accustomed to bigger crowds than he found before him at CPAC GB pic.twitter.com/L4ziSQGZ3Z

— Mikey Smith (@mikeysmith) July 16, 2026

Shock jock turner YouTuber Mike Graham is currently arguing the UK government is terrified over the sheer size of his audience. pic.twitter.com/fjmMTOObwE

— Mikey Smith (@mikeysmith) July 16, 2026

To be fair, this moment was pretty funny:

CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp currently slagging off the Tory party, arguing they shouldn’t be allowed to be called conservatives any more.

Liz Truss is, as far as we know, still a member of the Conservative Party

— Mikey Smith (@mikeysmith) July 16, 2026

Yank slop

The UK now has a steady stream of politicians trying to push Yank-slop politics on us. Recent examples include:

• Farage has taken over £80,000 from the US anti-abortion lobby.
• 8 out of 13 speakers at London anti-abortion march were from notorious US hate group.
• Activist urges UK ‘de-Yankification’ to escape Trump’s influence.

We also just saw this:

Hard-right MP Rupert Lowe has sparked fury after dismissing the Dunblane massacre as 'one murder' during a pro-gun rant on the US-based Joe Rogan podcast pic.twitter.com/3sdjgDdMDK

— The National (@ScotNational) July 9, 2026

And this:

The Hateful Eight. pic.twitter.com/bvK3BP0jfd

— t/a Underscores Rn’t Us (@AndyPlumb4) July 15, 2026

There’s an obvious reason why British right wingers are pushing American right-wing politics, and it’s MONEY – the same reason why they do anything. Money can’t buy interest, however, and clearly there’s no audience for this guff; not unless they also start paying people to watch.

Featured image via the Canary

By Willem Moore

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(Peter Byrne / PA Images / Alamy)

6 min read17 min

Britain’s next Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has put domestic issues at the heart of his agenda – but as his soon-to-be predecessor Keir Starmer has found, the world stage is always calling.

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In his seemingly constant flights from summit to summit, Starmer was branded ‘never here Keir’ by critics who accused him of spending too much time abroad. His allies insisted he was restoring the UK’s standing internationally by forging closer relationships across the globe.

Olivia O’Sullivan, director of the UK in the World Programme at Chatham House, told PoliticsHome that foreign trips have become essential for heads of government in an increasingly unstable world.

“There’s sometimes a bit of an idea that Starmer made foreign policy a priority, because he was away a lot. If you look at it, he didn’t travel loads more than a lot of other prime ministers, and it wasn’t exactly a choice as such,” she said.

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“We are just in an era when international issues are really pressing. There are multiple conflicts. [US President Donald] Trump himself is very volatile and tends to favour leader-to-leader encounters and relationships.”

On taking office and after appointing his cabinet on Monday, Burnham is expected to make the traditional series of phone calls to world leaders. This will likely include his first exchange with Trump, who last month told reporters that all he knew of Burnham was that he was the “mayor of a town” and that he is “extremely liberal”.

On his first day alone, Starmer called Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen, Ireland’s Simon Harris, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Poland’s Donald Tusk and Canada’s Justin Trudeau. Calls with France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz were only made on his second day, along with India’s Narendra Modi, Japan’s Fumio Mishida and Australia’s Anthony Albanese.

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Starmer went on to meet many of them only a few days later at a Nato summit in Washington DC, but Burnham arrives in Downing Street too late for this year’s summit.

As such, his first major international conference is likely to instead be at the United Nations General Assembly in late September. If he attends as expected, this will mark his first in-person encounter with several of the UK’s most important allies.  

“It may be an opportunity to meet Zelenskyy if they haven’t found an opportunity before, and I expect Burnham will want to continue underlining the UK’s support for Ukraine,” O’Sullivan said, adding that it may also be his first meeting with Trump.

“There are some obvious questions around the tariff pacts and investment agreements [with the US] that Starmer was able to secure during his time as Prime Minister.

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“Some aspects of those have been suspended or put on ice – it’s difficult to maintain long-term agreements with the Trump administration. So it’s possible Burnham will want to talk about that, but an awful lot is just being eclipsed by the US-Iran conflict.”

A UK-EU summit scheduled for 22 July 2026 was postponed following the news of Starmer’s departure, with a new date yet to be set. PoliticsHome understands however that it will take place in the early autumn.

“That will tell us a lot about how the Burnham government wants to take forward that relationship,” O’Sullivan said. “They [the EU] will be really keen to see the UK bring some clarity about where it wants to go…

“Not just [on] individual programmes and initiatives, but ‘Where are we going together on a joint approach to defence? What do you want from the trade and mobility initiatives that we’ve been discussing for more than a year now?’”

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Discussions over how the UK can work more closely with Europe on defence comes after the EU last year established its Security Action for Europe (Safe) loan guarantee scheme.

“We’ve wanted to join it, a lot of European countries have wanted us to join it as well,” said Thomas Nurcombe, research manager at the Coalition for Global Prosperity.

“The barrier has been the level of financial commitment that Britain puts in – with one particular country setting quite a high bar for us to achieve, when other European countries want it to be lower, because they want us to be involved.”

Talks over whether the UK would join Safe collapsed last year after France pushed the EU Commission to demand more than €6bn in entry fees from the UK. The price tag was later slashed to €2bn, but no agreement was reached.

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A proposed EU-UK youth mobility deal, which would allow 18 to 30-year-olds to live and work in each other’s countries, will also be up for discussion. The UK’s attempts to cap entrants from the EU at 50,000 per year have been derided as a “non-starter” by EU diplomats and will be a key issue for Burnham to unpick.

1-4 November will then mark the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Antigua and Barbuda. Thankfully for Burnham, the Caribbean nation is rather easier to reach than the last CHOGM summit in Samoa, which required Starmer to take a 27 hour flight via Canada, California and Hawaii – accompanied by journalists.

Later in November, the Cop31 UN Climate Change Conference beckons at Antalya in Turkey. Burnham will face a level of expectation to attend, as British PMs have gone every year since the UK hosted the Cop26 summit in Glasgow in 2021.

“It will be really interesting to see if he goes to Cop,” said O’Sullivan. “I expect he will, and I expect he will continue to make climate a priority, but he might slightly reframe the way in which he does that.

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“We know he cares a lot about industrial strategy, regional investment – it may be that he weaves in those themes and priorities around his approach to climate.”

If Burnham does attend Cop, he may have to fly directly to or from the European Political Community summit in Ireland, which takes place right in the middle of Cop on 12 November.

As Christmas nears, Burnham will finally go to Miami for the G20 conference on 14-15 December. O’Sullivan said that having Trump as the event’s host may make for a “slimmed-down” and “unusual” meeting, given his administration’s scepticism towards multi-lateral summits.

The conference will set some of the context for 2027’s G20 meeting, which will be hosted by Burnham in the UK.  

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“It will be interesting to see if there are any themes and approaches from how the US does it that the UK wants to pick up,” O’Sullivan said, “or if the UK chooses to be a bit more focused on getting back on track after a Trump-hosted G20. A lot depends how things unfold in Miami.”

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London: Riverwalk apartment building, Millbank | Image by: PjrTravel / Alamy

4 min read2 min

Patrick Radden Keefe’s powerful investigation into the death of a teenage boy is also a thoughtful examination of organised crime, dirty money and tax avoidance in contemporary London

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It takes less than 20 minutes to walk the 0.8 miles from Parliament to the Riverwalk development by Vauxhall Bridge, where 19-year-old Zac Brettler died after jumping off a balcony from one of the luxury flats in late 2019 into the Thames.

London Falling tells Zac’s story through the prism of a shadowy underworld of serious organised crime, dirty money and the international networks brought to fame in the McMafia television series. Successive governments have committed to addressing London’s role as the “dirty money capital of the world”, and London Falling provides a powerful reminder that the victims are not faceless.

Patrick Radden Keefe reconstructs Zac’s life with remarkable care. Beginning with his family’s history, as the grandchild of two Holocaust survivors, he traces the years, months and final hours leading to Zac’s death. This culminates in a fifth-floor apartment apparently owned by Verinder Sharma – better known as “Indian Dave”, a convicted gangster. Sharma was introduced to Zac by Akbar Shamji – an elusive businessman whose interests span property, cryptocurrency and carefully cultivated self-promotion – who claimed he had no idea who Zac really was.

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Keefe’s portrait of Zac himself, and his parents Rachelle and Matthew, is compelling and sensitive. He reinvented himself as “Zac Ismailov”, the son of a Russian oligarch destined to inherit vast wealth. Keefe resists treating these fabrications simply as personal deception. Instead, he also presents them as an exaggerated response to a culture that prizes status, money and proximity to power. Educated alongside the children of oligarchs and immersed in an online world promising extraordinary wealth through foreign investment, cryptocurrency and entrepreneurial ambition, Zac is less an isolated fantasist than a product of values surrounding him.

Keefe resists treating these fabrications simply as personal deception

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Property is at the heart of the story. Zac pretends to live in One Hyde Park, the Candy brothers development that is underpinned by an extensive network of shell companies. These corporate structures have helped ensure the individual owners remain anonymous, and sparked extensive Private Eye coverage on the brothers’ tax arrangements. Nick Candy famously once described London as the “best tax haven in the world”. He is now the treasurer of Reform UK.

Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the previous government introduced a Register of Overseas Entities, requiring foreign legal entities owning or buying UK property to declare their beneficial owners to Companies House. However, they left a huge loophole by exempting property owned in secretive trusts. A consultation on requiring trust transparency closed in February 2024, and should be high on the in-tray of any minister seeking to ensure we have basic information about who owns and controls property in this country.

As Tom Burgis in Kleptopia and Oliver Bullough in Butler to the World have brilliantly argued, the policy response must go far beyond transparency of property. The UK anti-corruption champion Margaret Hodge is currently conducting a review into asset ownership in Britain. At the height of the Londongrad years our private schools, art, sports clubs, universities, cultural institutions and much more, were far too easily brought up with risky overseas cash

Baroness Hodge will no doubt have far-reaching recommendations that any government should take seriously. Politics is not immune, and the Representation of the People Bill currently moving through Parliament is an essential tool to tighten up the rules and enforcement to prevent dirty money corrupting our democratic system further.

The book ultimately asks a larger question than how Zac Brettler died. Keefe is less interested in resolving the mystery than in explaining how a city could produce the circumstances that led to Zac’s death. In doing so, he offers not only a compelling true-crime investigation but also a thoughtful examination of contemporary London and the human cost of allowing serious organised crime, dirty money and corruption to flourish.

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Joe Powell is Labour MP for Kensington and Bayswater

London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth

By: Patrick Radden Keefe

Publisher: Picador

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