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If you’d like to watch a 21-minute video of me banging on about Operation Branchform and whatnot to the Scottish Sun, click the image below.

If you’d rather not, best not to.

Category
analysis, corruption, navel-gazing, scottish politics

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Knuckle-dragging ‘loyalist’ Israel supporters have gathered in Scarva, County Down, to disgrace themselves by flinging sectarian abuse at the Great March for Gaza. The humanitarian march, organised by the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, set off from Lurgan, ten miles away, this morning. After Scarva, marchers walked a further almost twenty miles to Omeath in solidarity with the Palestinian people against Israel’s genocide and occupation:

The thugs were caught on camera by the defiant marchers as they passed:

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Great march for Gaza vs “provocative behaviour”

The march is raising funds for Palestine Aid Ireland and Children Not Numbers. Residents of Scarva had lodged objections trying to prevent the march passing by the village. The Parades Commission had given permission for villages to mount a counter-demonstration, but only on condition that they avoid “provocative behaviour” toward the marchers.

Right. Donate to the march’s charities here.

Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images

By Skwawkbox

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Even eyesight is not taken for granted in the prisons of Israel.

I am a human rights lawyer. I have had a client for four years now, and we have become good friends. I try to visit him as often as possible, sometimes without payment, sometimes for a tiny payment from his family. I have filed many petitions on his behalf without charging for them. I love him and he loves me.

This client has been in prison since the days of the Second Intifada. Back then, he was a 22-year-old young man who helped his friends buy a pistol – a pistol that later, without his knowledge, was used in an act of killing that the ridiculous military court defined as murder on “ideological grounds,” meaning “terrorism.”

Israel has notorious prisons

The Israel colonial military courts are not exactly among the finest courts, and this friend of mine received no less than 30 years of actual imprisonment for his reckless act, meaning “aiding murder.” It is all nonsense from a colonial legal system in which the natives of this land are always guilty and are imprisoned for long years.

I took his case in 2022 and tried to work for his early release from prison. On the face of it, he was the perfect prisoner for early release after serving two-thirds of his sentence: he had no significant disciplinary offenses for about 15 years. He was a gentle prisoner who had never ‘made trouble’ in prison, and even Shin Bet, in could not find one good reason to prevent his early release – so they used a generic objection to the release of “all security prisoners,” since all Palestinians supposedly pose a danger to the state.

Obviously, this is complete nonsense. Beyond what was required, I provided the parole board with an individual rehabilitation plan, which stated that even after my friend’s release, he would participate every week in designated groups for a year and would be under supervision.

Remember! This is conditional release, so if any new information were discovered in his case, the state could return him to their torture camps in a second. Of course, nothing helped, and both the parole board and the court refused to release him, thereby proving that, in practice, the Early Release from Imprisonment Law is a dead letter when it comes to security prisoners. This specific prisoner abandoned, decades ago, any desire whatsoever for violent resistance activity, and any conversation with him would immediately reveal that to anyone who cared to know.

Intensification of Israeli torture

Since October 7 2023, the severe torture by the Israel Prison Service (IPS) has intensified in the security prisons. On that very day, IPS guards entered, beat all the prisoners, and confiscated all their personal belongings. Since then, they have not been allowed to meet or communicate with their families, not even with the Red Cross. Such a move is in violation of the Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory. They are subjected to extremely severe torture, and food and medical treatment are denied to them. Until the petition I filed in 2025, this friend of mine had been wearing the same pair of underwear for two years – the same pair of underwear he was wearing on October 7 2023.

This friend of mine has vision problems. He has only one eye, and the sight in the other has also deteriorated over 24 years of imprisonment. And remember: the only item the prisoners possess is a single copy of the Qur’an, and reading its verses is the only comfort these tormented souls have. During a visit I held with him in November, my friend asked me to get him reading glasses. This is, of course, not my job; it is the job of the prison authorities to provide basic medical care to the people they imprison.

I contacted the prisoners’ officer and asked to bring in reading glasses for him. The prisoners’ officer informed me that only an optometrist who comes to the prison could give such approval. And when will an optometrist arrive, I asked? He will arrive when he arrives, she answered. Several more months passed, and an optometrist came to the prison, examined my friend, and found that he did indeed need new glasses.

Excellent! Now can we bring in glasses for him? I asked the prisoners’ officer, but she replied that “there is a problem with that.” And so more months passed, letters were sent, threats of petitions were made, but nothing helped. Finally, in April, I filed a petition on the matter, demanding that he be allowed to receive glasses. The state delayed for another month and a half, and a few days before it was required to submit its response, the Southern District Attorney’s Office announced that approval had been given to bring in glasses.

Punishment for telling the truth

Obviously, a state of affairs like this — which forced a lawyer to approach the authorities many times and eventually even file a petition with the court — requires an award of costs in favour of the diligent lawyer who worked night and day to oppose the state’s plainly illegal actions. So what do you think, did I receive costs?

Not only did I not receive costs, but the honorable judge decided that I was the one who had to pay costs “in favor of the state treasury” of Israel because I had “slandered” the IPS guards by telling the truth: that Palestinian prisoners are beaten and tortured every time they are brought to court, which is why I asked that he not be brought to court.

Featured image via Getty/Uriel Sinai

By Ben Marmarelli

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The Oxford Union (OU) has announced that its planned debate will proceed tonight, 6 June 2026, at 6pm. The two invited speakers banned by Keir Starmer for speaking against Israel’s genocide will participate virtually:

The event will be held in our Chamber on the 6th of June, at 6 pm BST.

Both speakers will be attending virtually. pic.twitter.com/cCPTq9TXlm

— Oxford Union (@OxfordUnion) June 5, 2026

Oxford Union censorship concerns

The OU has not yet published a link for the debate, but usually streams debates on its YouTube channel. However, it is currently being sued by Palestinian-American writer Susan Abulhawa for deleting key parts of her 2024 debate.

Featured image via OU

By Skwawkbox

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Lucy Powell said: ‘The spread of mis- and disinformation is a real and present danger to our democracy.’ Photograph: Joel Goodman/The Guardian© Photograph: Joel Goodman/The Guardian

This Labour Communist doesn’t support democracy in Britain by the very fact that she is a Communist left-wing MP, because that is what the Labour party is and has always been, Communist socialists; they destroy any belief in a democratic society, as is the case with the Labour party that currently holds power in Britain.

If you look back over the past fifty years, you will see that the communist labour party always uses the word “Democracy” democracy ” when what it really means is we don’t like what you’re saying or doing, and we intend to stop you by any means possible, lawful or as we decide is lawful in your best interests.

So everyone who doesn’t support our Left-wing Communist socialist ideology and aims is ultra right wing, even the 95-year-old granny down the road is a threat and must be neutralized

There is no DEMOCRACY in the United Kingdom now, any belief in democracy is only held by the likes of liberals and the mentally retarded, as obviously, this MP like all Labour and liberal MPs are.

Parliament should be knocked down or turned into a home for migrants, as Democracy in that house is long dead, never to rise again, as the politicians believe in housing and supplying all migrants’ needs before the people of Britain.

This has one political end: the diversification and destruction of everything white British, including its religion and cultural assets, as witnessed by the vandalism of The National Trust, a woke organization that is doing its best to destroy British heritage while calling itself a charity. Stop supporting it.

The blob is an organization run by left-wing supporting traitors who would give up all freedoms in Britain to rejoin the EU dictatorship.

The laws are made for people to follow in a society that respects the freedom of its citizens, that’s gone in the Britain of today buy the very fact that the politicians ignored the people’s vote to leave the EU, Britains vote was to leave the EU but that hasn’t happened most of the laws of the EU are still in place and being used in Britain, Every politician knows you can do nothing to stop the boats and the invasion of Britain by Islamists and criminals all calling themselves asylum seekers which they are not they are economic migrants with no other interest in britain except earning money any way they can and they certainly dont respect our laws or its people.

Case in Point were a member of a religious sect is allowed to say i carry a knife as part of my religion and the corrupt law allows it on Britain’s streets, but if you were a white British person, you would be arrested for carrying an illegal weapon. But hey, that’s okay, they are only white British.

The police are no longer your friends and neighbours, they are the new communist Stasi The Stasi (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit) was the official state security and secret police service of East Germany (GDR) from 1950 to 1990. Known as one of the most repressive surveillance agencies in history, it employed tens of thousands of staff and a vast network of civilian informants to crush dissent and monitor the population, as is happening in Britain today under the Communist Regime of Labour. Do not support this organisation, turn your back on them and offer no help.

Now the Donkey of the North Andy Burnham sees his opportunity to run the country into the ground with his version of Communist ideology, and that will finish Britain for good, but hey all you who vote Labour and have voted for communism all your lives, don’t complain when there is no money for your pensions, or your benefits as all the money has been spent and business no longer wants to be in britain think not just look at all the businesses going bankrupt and closing because of the communist government you elected or were stupid enough not to vote to keep them out same will happen in the Makerfield by election those who vote for Communism will get communism.

But don’t forget the media you support with your money or viewing, they don’t support you, the people they support communism and the EU values, and their own political ends, most of them and the reporters who work for them, especially the BBC, now wouldant know a truthful story if it jumped up in front of them, thats why you see the headlines right wing, they dont care if your 2 years old your still right wing it makes a better story, no truth but who cares about truth they and there reporters dont.

Nancy Mace thinks she knows why she didn’t get President Donald Trump’s endorsement.

The embattled South Carolina House Republican, who’s in the midst of a bruising race for governor, has a long history of bucking — and then cozying back up to — Trump. But her leading role in releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files was likely a bridge too far for the president, who has spent significant time and energy this year to get revenge against his GOP defectors.

Trump’s recent decision to back one of Mace’s primary opponents, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, in the crowded field will carry monumental weight in the crimson-red state. Past elections suggest that, with the president’s endorsement, Evette has all but secured her place in a runoff, as Mace and three other Republicans continue to scramble for the second spot on the ballot.

Still, the three-term representative says she has no regrets about her Epstein vote — or its consequences.

“That’s the sole reason I didn’t get the endorsement, because I voted to release the Epstein files, and I’m okay with that,” Mace told POLITICO. “I’ve worked very hard to expose pedophiles, and child rapists, and sex trafficking in my state, and will continue to do it regardless of the outcome of the election.”

“It’s full steam ahead, no matter what. I’m not going down without a fight,” she added. “I’m still the MAGA candidate. I support all of MAGA’s policies. I support our president. I’m also an independent conservative.”

Mace is one of the few remaining Republican Epstein files defectors left standing, after the president blitzed Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) out of Congress and turned on former Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

Unlike with the other figures, Trump has not publicly made this particular race about his personal dissatisfaction with Mace, staying relatively quiet until he announced his endorsement of Evette in the final two-week window of the primary. But the late Trump headwind is yet another obstacle for Mace’s campaign, which has been otherwise dogged by controversies and a serious primary field that’s already been difficult for her to navigate.

Mace’s run for governor is her highest-profile race yet — and one that will define the next chapter of her rollercoaster career. She’s had to overcome retributive political challenges from several influential figures in her own party and navigate public questions about her own mental health.

She bested a Trump-backed challenger in 2022, a consequence for condemning the president after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. In 2024, she handily defeated a primary challenge funded by allies of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who Mace voted to oust the year prior. And now, she’s back on the outs with Trump again, though she’s still trying to align herself closely with the president and reiterating her respect for him.

The White House declined to comment and instead referred POLITICO to the president’s Truth Social post explaining his endorsement of Evette, which did not mention Mace. He instead touted Evette’s closeness to GOP Gov. Henry McMaster, a Trump ally.

Observers and Mace’s opponents in South Carolina paint a complex picture of how the race and Mace’s candidacy have shaped out.

She launched her campaign in the summer of 2025, armed with sky-high name recognition and the ability to tap into grassroots online fundraising, which paid dividends at the outset of the contest. Trump even shared a poll that showed her leading the field — one that Mace told POLITICO last year that she personally sent to the president. But in early September, she joined House Democrats and signed onto Massie’s effort to force a vote to later release the Epstein files — an open defiance of the president’s wishes.

The tide started to shift against her in November, and not only because of the Epstein files drama.

Mace got into a public entanglement with the Charleston Airport Authority over a prearranged escort from the curb to her gate, leading to embarrassing headlines locally and nationally.

Airport authorities detailed in a report that Mace, in a profanity-laced tirade, lit into law enforcement officers and TSA agents for failing to meet her at a preordained pickup location, even as they walked her to her flight.

“I think the airport thing hurt her more than the [Epstein] thing,” said Terry Sullivan, a longtime South Carolina Republican operative, who is unaffiliated in the race. “She’s had really strong debate performances, she’s articulate, she’s right on the issues for these folks, but then she just goes a little haywire.”

Mace, for her part, defended her actions at the airport a few days after it happened in a Charleston press conference, calling the report’s release a “political hit job.”

“Did I drop an f-bomb? I hope I did,” she said at the time. The incident drew harsh criticism from fellow South Carolina Republicans, including Sen. Tim Scott who published a blistering statement rebuking her language and treatment of the officials. Sen. Lindsey Graham piled on, too.

Even now, months later, Mace stands by what she did.

“I get over a thousand death threats a year, and I’m the only one that doesn’t get security when traveling. In fact, the last three times I’ve had an altercation or been accosted has been at an airport, particularly the Charleston airport, because the left has lost their mind,” she told POLITICO.

Then, in February, she accused her ex-fiancé and several of his business partners of serious sexual crimes during a speech on the House floor. They have denied the allegations, and Mace has been representing herself in the subsequent litigation, often swapping the campaign trail for the courtroom.

Controversies aside, ad spending reveals another reason why she’s struggling to break through to the front of the race.

Mace, shockingly, hasn’t spent a single dollar on television ads at all, according to an AdImpact analysis, despite her healthy fundraising throughout the campaign. She’s only dropped $50,000 on digital advertising.

Meanwhile, overall ad spending in the Republican primary has hit nearly $28 million between the candidates’ committees and aligned PACs, nearly $2 million of which has been in negative advertising targeting her specifically. Protect Freedom PAC, an outside group aligned with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, has spent $1.4 million in positive ads on Mace’s behalf.

One candidate in particular — millionaire and political outsider Rom Reddy, who jumped into contention at the last minute — has topped all other candidates and PACs, reaching nearly $6 million in the relatively small state. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) are also in the race and spending real money.

If none of the candidates clear a 50 percent threshold — a likely scenario with five serious contenders on the ballot — the two top vote-getters will advance to a one-on-one runoff race, with a second round of voting scheduled for just two weeks later on June 23.

The weekend after Trump made his endorsement of Evette, Mace said she texted a friend who would understand her predicament: Massie. “I let him know that I didn’t get the endorsement, and we all know why,” she told POLITICO.

But Massie had already taken to social media.

“Although virtually all Republicans eventually admitted by their votes that it was right to release the Epstein files, only three were brave enough to sign my discharge petition to force that vote. [Lauren] Boebert, [Marjorie Taylor] Greene, and Mace have paid an enormous price for doing the right thing,” he said in a post on X. Greene resigned from Congress earlier this year after clashes with Trump over Epstein and the economy, and Trump recently called for a primary challenge to Boebert after she campaigned with Massie ahead of the Kentucky primary.

Massie has already hinted that he could make some kind of comeback in 2028, whether for his old House seat in Kentucky or another federal office. Mace, should she come up short in the primary, is not so sure.

“I’m not running for Congress again,” Mace said. “I said I would do six years because I believe in term limits, and I made the promise that I would leave Congress after six years, so I won’t be running again.”

What about a political career outside of Congress? “I’m going to wait and see how Tuesday looks,” she demurred.

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In recent weeks, far-right actors in loyalist areas of the north of Ireland have unleashed a spate of racist and Islamophobic murals, banners and graffiti. The response of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), who have a heavy presence in these areas, has been to remain mute or even challenge police when they remove such displays.

The banners have at times been comical in their ineptitude, like the incoherent AI-generated mural put up by Concerned Parents Newtownabbey (CPN), previously covered by the Canary. There is a serious side too, however, in the hostile sentiment such displays show towards Muslims. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) took action against it, cautioning two men for:

…criminal damage to a property and displaying offensive material.

To his credit, Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) councillor Robert Foster made attempts to have the mural taken down, showing up the DUP.

The PSNI also regard a second mural nearby by CPN as a “hate incident”. Another Islamophobic, AI generated abomination, it again reveals its creators have no decency, creativity or adequate explanation for social decline. It depicts a church on fire, with triumphant, militaristic-looking men in the foreground. The mural is captioned:

Islam is heathen, Islam is satanic. Islam is a doctrine spawned in Hell.

Hateful mural backs infamous racist Enoch Powell

It also says “Enoch Powell was right in 1968” referencing Powell’s deranged, racist ‘Rivers of blood’ speech from that year. In it, the serially incorrect reactionary hallucinated about how in Britain, 15 or 20 years from then:

…the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.

So clearly, demonstrably, Powell was not right, and neither are his modern-day equivalents in Newtownabbey with their own deranged nonsense. In Britain, people of colour remain the most victimised, and white supremacy is on the rise.

More concerning is the actively threatening graffiti that has appeared in other areas of Newtownabbey, a large suburban sprawl on the outskirts of Belfast. One in Abbots Cross sprayed on shop shutters says:

Locals only 1 warning will be burt [sic] out.

For those who don’t speak racist, that’s a barely legible threat to torch the homes of migrants in the area. It also serves as a warning to landlords who might provide their properties to new arrivals to the country. Racists have plastered similar material in nearby Rathcoole. They put up a poster saying:

Take notice. Anyone facilitating the settlement of Muslims or illegals in our areas will be held responsible. We are watching.

Alongside it is a bullseye symbol and the words “All NIHE staff are targets.” This is in reference to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, which manages housing in the Six Counties. The Canary spoke to activists who closely monitor far-right activity, who explained the graffiti is very likely linked to loyalist paramilitaries. As such, it carries real menace and the threat of violence being used to enforce discriminatory housing policy outside the law.

PSNI remove anti-Muslim hate banner, DUP demand explanation

Hatemongers put up another vile banner in the County Tyrone village of Moygashel. Training their children in racism, they put the display beside a children’s playground. It features on one side a brightly lit, supposedly idyllic all-white depiction of local life. On the other, a darkly lit scene of sinister looking dark-skinned men, with a steward preventing them from entering the play park.

Rather than condemn the revolting creation, DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson has been trying to hold the PSNI to account for removing it. He demanded a:

…full explanation regarding the circumstances surrounding the removal of the banner.

His implication is clearly that the police may have erred by taking away the monstrosity. It is part of a pattern for his party, who have offered no meaningful criticism of any of the above. As End Deportations Belfast recently reported, the DUP have even had the temerity to harangue anti-racist activists during Stormont consultations. This, instead of tackling the real issue which is the out of control levels of racist hate crime in the north of Ireland.

Migrant communities and people of colour are currently “stockpiling food in [their] homes” due to fears over potential hate crimes. The far-right are clearly ramping up for a summer of terrorising these groups, and feel emboldened in their messaging by the absence of condemnation from influential unionist politicians.

It would be tempting to ask the police to step in and use the big censorship stick to take down every message hostile to Muslims, migrants and people of colour. However, emboldening the state to clamp down on speech always has more severe implications for the left, and is a dangerous principle to endorse in general.

Fundamentally this is a long-standing cultural problem in loyalist communities, and it needs addressed at a deep level long before police involvement is even necessary.

Featured image via Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

By Robert Freeman

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