Politics
York SU hides behind corporate bureaucracy to ratify far-right group
The University of York’s Student Union has officially ratified the Restore Britain Society, despite mass protest from the students themselves. The board of trustees pushed the decision through after consultation with solicitors, claiming legal frameworks have forced their hand. But students are fucking furious.
Corporate bullshit vs student safety
In an official statement on Instagram, York SU claims it must consider every application, regardless of politics. The trust board argues that refusing lawful views exposes the charity to serious risk. Yet they’re willing to ratify a group, knowing that they were holding events like this on campus…
So, they’d rather put students at risk, rather than themselves? I mean, nothing says keeping students safe like ratifying a group that says “let’s get foreigners out” whilst advertising an event with handcuffs and a deportation ban on Instagram…
The SU are weaponizing the fact that the national Restore Britain party holds just one parliamentary seat under Rupert Lowe. Lowe, may I add, who was elected under the Reform party, not his own new fascist pet-project.
But the reality on the ground shreds this clinical, defensive administrative bullshit. This Instagram post alone should be enough to prove the Restore Britain fledglings are about anything but regular politics. They’re fucking fascist.
And at a time when swastikas are allegedly being graffitied on the campus, this is not the time to be encouraging it. Yes, the society deleted the posts, but that’s not the point. 28% of the students at York University are international students, so what kind of message does this give to them? It screams that the SU don’t give a shit about them, that they’re willing to allow a fascist group that hates them to exist in the space in which these students live and learn.
Infrastructure failure
York SU admits that the creation of the Restore Britain Society leaves students feeling unsafe, yet they only offer these young people standard welfare portals and report tools. They also declared that ratification is subject to mandatory equality, diversity and inclusion training. That made me laugh. The mere idea that a fucking PowerPoint presentation will curb blatant xenophobia is a joke.
On the ground, it shows a total failure of physical and mental safety for students. On Tuesday 21 April 2026, around 60 students peacefully protested outside of the SU. Agitators and wannabe auditors from the budding Restore Britain Society stood jeering and filming the crowd. Stewards had to physically block them from filming their fellow students, as they tried to run into the crowd several times.
They even went so far as to follow attendees of the protest after the event dispersed, only stopping when campus security finally asked them to. I say this because, during the actual event, when the harassment was clearly on display, York SU staff and security did sweet FA to intervene. I witnessed with my own eyes how these aforementioned staff members were laughing and joking with the Restore Britain members.
The union promises to call the police retroactively if hate speech occurs. They are completely abdicating their preventative role to protect vulnerable Black and Brown students.
Student media complicity
The York Student Action Network, who organised the protest, also called out the mainstream campus establishment. They allege student media outlet York Nouse provided a centrist view of the events, producing lukewarm perspectives on what effectively places students in harm’s way.
The network alleges that these outlets failed to report on the true extent of the harassment on the day, as well as the depth of the fascist rhetoric. And to make things worse, Nouse completely compromised student safety even further.
They failed to blur the faces of the students attending the protest, despite requests from the organisers. They requested that, if photos were taken, permission be sought from the students in them. Yet it seems the publication really doesn’t give a shit, and proceeded to post them anyway.
This leaves so many young people who stood up against this budding Restore Society at risk. They are left wide open to harassment from it’s members, who have made it very clear that they don’t give a shit about breaking boundaries and approaching people aggressively.
Setting a dangerous precedent
York SU claim they want to fight for the community. They claim they can keep the leash on a society that speaks about deporting all foreigners, on campus, over a fucking round of pub golf. Claiming their hands are legally tied because one bloody MP stands in parliament – who wasn’t even elected under the Restore Britain brand – is wild.
They are allowing the safety and mental wellbeing of 28% of their student body to be shattered, thanks to the jeering cries of a few very sad, very racist young people. The SU claims they’re going to keep students safe, whilst simultaneously validating a society using the “Detain and Deport” banner.
By outsourcing ethics to lawyers, the union invites harassment onto campus. Students will remember exactly who the York University institution is choosing to protect when things inevitably get worse.
Featured images via Instagram & author
By Antifabot
Restore Britain is a Reform UK breakaway party that targets voters to the right of Nigel Farage. While the party is yet to make a dent on national polling, it has taken numerous councillors from Reform. Now, it’s hoping to take a dent out of Reform’s polling in the crucial Makerfield by-election:
I am proud to announce local businesswoman Rebecca Shepherd as our Restore Britain candidate for the Makerfield constituency.
Rebecca has spent most of her adult life living and working in the Wigan borough, where she has built and run her own small business. Through that… pic.twitter.com/3bZ6B1BfrD
— Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) May 18, 2026
As we’ve reported, Restore has already prevented Reform from winning by opposing them – specifically in the Norfolk local elections.
Reform vs Restore
Restore was founded by Rupert Lowe following a falling out with Nigel Farage. As we reported:
The timeline of Lowe leaving Reform is messy. The TLDR is:
- Lowe began criticising Farage (seemingly in coordination with Elon Musk).
- Farage suggested Lowe wouldn’t be anywhere near office without Nigel’s cult of personality (a.k.a. Reform).
- Reform suspended Lowe and reported him to the police for ‘verbal threats’ and “serious bullying” of female staffers.
- Lowe described the accusations as “vexatious”.
- Several months of back and forth ensued.
Lowe got Elon Musk in the divorce, with the South African billionaire posting favourably of Lowe:
Join Rupert Lowe in Restore Britain, because he is the only one who will actually do it! https://t.co/sa5VkSRWXD
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 14, 2026
He’s posted less favourably of Farage:
Advance UK will actually drive change.
Farage is weak sauce who will do nothing. https://t.co/Vnw2uTdRRi
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 26, 2025
Notably, Musk and Farage entered into a war of words on 14 May:
Farage is lying
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2026
Lowe would start tweeting about running in Makerfield the same day:
Ladbrokes have Restore Britain as third favourite in Makerfield ahead of the Greens, Tories and Lib Dems.
Interesting.
— Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) May 14, 2026
It’s likely that Lowe would have run in Makerfield regardless, because he hates Farage. Still, we’re sure it can’t hurt to be on the same side as a ruthless billionaire with his own social media network.
Let them fight
Lowe is seemingly convinced that his mostly-unknown party can win in Makerfield:
Reading how the odds for Restore Britain in Makerfield have tumbled from 50/1 to 9/1 just over the weekend. Stunning progress.
I am becoming increasingly convinced that we can win Makerfield and deliver the biggest shock in British political history. — Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) May 18, 2026
We’re not so sure, and we suspect most of their votes will come from people who get ‘Reform UK’ and ‘Restore Britain’ mixed up.
At the same time, if Restore do start to do well, we’re not sure Lowe will like that. For a start, it will mean the wider electorate get to learn that he once had his groundskeeper shoot his pet dog in the back of the head.
Featured image via Getty Images (Dan Kitwood)
By Willem Moore
Patient-led campaign group Just Treatment and social justice organisation Global Justice Now have written to the UK government setting out why they believe it has acted unlawfully in pushing through changes to NHS drug price control frameworks. It’s the first stage of a legal challenge to a central pillar of the US-UK trade deal on pharmaceuticals.
A statutory instrument, which passed into law in April, gives ministers direct control over the key cost effectiveness threshold NICE uses to determine which medicines are routinely available on the NHS.
Trade deal impacts NHS drug price structure
The government needed this change to deliver on the promises it made to Donald Trump under the December 2025 trade deal on pharmaceuticals. It’s part of a package of changes that commits the UK to increasing NHS spending dramatically on patented medicines over the next 10 years.
But the letter (available here) sets out why the changes are unlawful. And it asks the government to revoke the legislation or face a court battle on the changes.
The claimants believe that the changes effectively end NICE’s independence from political interference, leaving medicine prices subject to political lobbying by Big Pharma corporations and the US government.
They say this poses an existential risk to the UK’s careful framework of safeguards designed to protect patients and the NHS from the excessive pricing demands of the industry. Changes the government has committed to under the Trump deal are estimated to cost the NHS billions of pounds a year by 2035, and have been widely criticised by health experts.
Diarmaid McDonald, director of Just Treatment, said:
The government caved in to threats from Donald Trump and the pharmaceutical industry and signed a deal that experts say could cost the lives of over 300,000 NHS patients. That’s more excess deaths than COVID.
Worse still, they’ve refused to publish their own assessments of the damage the deal will do to the NHS, and they’ve used a parliamentary process designed to make it extremely difficult for MPs to properly scrutinise what they are up to.
But we believe the process they have followed is unlawful, and we are ready to take them to court to defend NHS patients and our democracy.
Nick Dearden, Director of Global Justice Now said:
The government has tried to claim this is about improving outcomes for patients and accelerating access to medicines, but everyone knows this is a move forced on the government by Donald Trump and Big Pharma.
This is a government gambling with NHS patients’ lives in a geo-political game with Donald Trump. They risk sabotaging our carefully worked out mechanism for keeping a lid on Big Pharma’s overinflated prices, and they have done so without so much as a debate in parliament.
Rowan Smith, lawyer at Leigh Day, said:
Our clients are deeply concerned about the impact the UK’s pharmaceuticals trade deal with the US could have on the price and availability of drugs and medicines.
They argue that new powers giving the health secretary direction over NICE in matters regarding cost effectiveness risk undermining an important and globally recognised health body, and could materially impact what drugs and medicines are available on the NHS.
In submitting this legal letter, our client hopes that the health secretary will consider revoking the new regulations enforcing this change.
Politicians across the board raising concerns
Parliamentarians have been trying to force a public debate on these changes, but the mechanism the government used to enact them, known as a negative statutory instrument, makes that kind of independent scrutiny almost impossible.
Nonetheless MPs and peers from Labour, Conservatives, SNP, Lib Dems, Greens, and Plaid Cymru, as well as two cross-party committees, have raised concerns.
NICE should be independent of ministerial control, but the deal the UK signed with Trump included commitments to increase the cost-effectiveness thresholds it uses to determine if medicines are good value for money and so available for use on the NHS.
That required the government to legislate to give itself the power to force that change on NICE, and it has already used it to adjust the thresholds. But the letter asserts that the intention of the changes directly contradicts the primary legislation being amended and therefore should only be made using a new primary legislative process.
John McDonnell MP has been leading parliamentary efforts to secure scrutiny of the US-UK trade deal, and started a motion opposing the legislation enacting changes in NICE. He said:
The government has ridden roughshod over the democratic process, the views of MPs and Peers, and the lives of NHS patients to force through a deal with Trump that they claim is in the interests of the UK.
But they won’t publish anything to evidence their claims, and they won’t enable time for proper parliamentary debate on this. It is an extremely dangerous precedent and I hope the government backs down or the courts re-establish the democratic principles our parliament relies upon.
The campaigners have set up a crowdfunder to cover the legal costs of the case, which needs to go to court within three months of the legislation coming before parliament.
Featured image via Alex Wong / Getty Images
By The Canary
A disturbing video from Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally in London has shown a grown man sexually harassing a teenage girl in front of her mother.
Far-right influencer EDobbin went to Tommy Robinson’s march and filmed himself harassing a 15-year-old girl in front of her mum. Even after they told him her age and walked away, he followed her, asking for her “details” and said she should have a “warning sign” on her. pic.twitter.com/Zqkzwqjhcp
— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) May 18, 2026
The video above was filmed at the Unite the Kingdom rally last weekend. As the Canary reported, the rally was a hotbed of racism. On a positive note, however, it attracted fewer than half as many people as the 2025 event did. Let’s get that down to zero in 2027.
Teenage girl ogled by grown men
At the start of the video, ‘influencer’ EDobbin greets a trio of men in Union Jack suits before putting his arm around a passing child and describing her as “my little girlfriend”. After asking what her name is, the teenage girl’s mother said:
She ain’t no child bride.
When asked how old the girl is, the mother clearly answered “15”. Whoever captioned the video wrote “16”, which is the legal age of consent in the UK.
Suggesting that EDobbin definitely heard “15”, he responded:
Fucking hell. How old are you really? Please, I’m going to go to jail in a minute.
After the mother and daughter walked away, EDobbin followed behind, shouting at the teenage girl:
Excuse me, my love. Can I get your details and see you?
The mother responded:
Absolutely not.
EDobbin wasn’t deterred and disgustingly replied:
Oh, mum. Mum, look at that.
By “that”, he meant the child he was sexually harassing — something he made clear by gesturing towards the teenage girl with his hand.
He then said:
Fucking hell. You need a warning sign on you.
The girl’s mother responded again:
She’s got a mother, that’s enough.
EDobbin yelled back:
No, you’re too happy to be a barking one. Woof.
The mother and child were still walking away as this happened, clearly showing they wanted nothing to do with the freak.
Who is EDobbin?
The loathsome harasser in the video is EDobbin, a man from Rochdale who displays the following information on his Instagram page:
– Truth seeker
– Mud Fossil student
– Flat Earth, Psalms 19:1
– Mindset Architect
– Property Landlord
– Level 3 PT
‘Mud Fossil students’ are people who believe that mountains are the fossilised remains of dragons. This is odd, certainly, but not as bad as him being a landlord.
For one reason or another, he’s had multiple social media accounts banned:
@edobbin_real_one♬ original sound – EDobbin_Real_One
View this post on Instagram
He’s currently touring gyms around the UK because he was banned from the JD Sports in Rochdale because it’s “the Year of the Horse”.
@e_dobbin.live E dobbin KICKED OUT OF JD GYM #edobbin #gym #clip #fyp #meta ♬ original sound – E Dobbin Clips
As laughable as he is, what he’s doing in the video is a million miles away from funny. Being somewhat peculiar is no justification for behaving like an out-and-out paedophile, which is precisely what he did at the rally.
Predictable behaviour from Robinson allies
Of course, this sort of behaviour shouldn’t come as a surprise from an attendee of the Unite the Kingdom rally. Tommy Robinson and his lackeys like to present themselves as defenders of women, but the reality is a million miles away.
For instance, Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) is friends with the alleged trafficker and rapist, Andrew Tate. He also ran defence for Tate when right-wing commentator Lauren Southern accused him of raping her.
Lennon has consistently ignored or even defended occurrences of [sexual exploitation] in his own ranks, proving that he is more concerned with attacking Muslims than actually combatting CSE or challenging sexual violence.
Notoriously, in June 2010 Lennon’s close friend and ally Richard Price was convicted of making four indecent images of children, and possessing cocaine and crack cocaine. The vile images were found on his computer by police after he was arrested for disturbances at an EDL demonstration.
Far from condemning Price’s crimes, the EDL launched a campaign for his release. Lennon himself wholeheartedly supported Price, claiming he had been “stitched up” and that “Price has no idea how they were on his computer.” When Lennon’s claims became untenable, he switched positions and finally condemned him.
In other words, EDobbin is exactly the sort of degenerate you’d expect to find among these people.
Featured image via social media/ Leon Neal/ Getty Images
By Willem Moore
The UK’s Eurovision 2026 entrant has shared his take after failing to secure any votes from viewers at this year’s contest.
On Saturday night, Look Mum No Computer – the stage name of musician and YouTube personality Sam Battle – represented the UK at the contest in Vienna, Austria with his song Eins, Zwei, Drei.
In the end, the UK landed at the bottom of the leaderboard and, for the third year in a row, didn’t earn any points from viewers in the televote, meaning no competing countries had us in their top 10 acts.
Fortunately, Look Mum No Computer was spared the dreaded “nul points” as he secured one single point in the jury vote from Ukraine.
During the announcement over the weekend, the UK’s act seemed to take the blow in his stride and laughed it off, and later posted about the result on Instagram on Sunday.
After celebrating that the “deserved winner” had ended up lifting the Eurovision trophy on the night, Look Mum No Computer said he’d “met a lot of amazing folk” during his experience at the contest, adding: “The most important thing is we all tried our hardest. Regardless of what is against us. Whatever it may be.
“Gotta keep trying your hardest regardless of the foooookennnn outcome!!!”
This year’s Eurovision was once again blighted with controversy due to Israel’s continued participation, despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, with five participating nations withdrawing from the 2026 contest in solidarity with Palestine.
For the second year in a row, Israel’s participant finished in the runner up position during the live final, but it was Bulgaria’s Dara who came out on top by more than 170 points with her musical offering Bangaranga.
Bulgaria returned to Eurovision after a five-year absence in 2026, with Dara’s victory representing the country’s first ever win.
On Sunday morning, it was widely reported that the BBC’s broadcast of the Eurovision final had dropped around one and a half million viewers year-on-year, with 5.2 million Brits tuning in to watch live compared to 2025’s 6.7 million.
In fact, it was the lowest-watched final in more than 15 years, since 2010, according to the fansite Eurovoix.
HuffPost UK has contacted the BBC for comment.
Among these were Ireland, who holds the joint record for most wins at Eurovision, and Spain, who’d previously been part of the “Big Five” countries who contribute the most financially to the contest each year, and therefore don’t need to compete in the semi-final stages.
This marked Bulgaria’s return to the contest after a five-year absence, and the first ever win for the country, as well as the first time the Eurovision jury and televote had chosen the same winner since 2017.
According to The Guardian, the applause following Pillion’s screening at last year’s Cannes Film Festival “lasted several minutes, with the inevitable awkwardness of seeming dutiful”.
The Alexander Skarsgård film is the norm, not the exception.
In 2024, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis reportedly got seven callous-inducing minutes of standing ovation. Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth managed to elicit a record-breaking 22 mins in 2006.
And Joachim Trier’s 2025 follow-up to The Worst Person In The World rivalled that, with the ovation for his latest film clocking in at almost 20 minutes.
GQ has said in the past that, when it comes to applause at Cannes, “anything five minutes or less is a tepid – or worse – appraisal”.
But how did this palm prison get built, and what is its purpose?
Cannes’ standing ovations are part of an exhausting-sounding hierarchy
According to The Atlantic (who, like The Guardian, call the custom “awkward”), clapping at Cannes is part of the spectacle.
At the French festival in particular, the length and enthusiasm of the clapping is seen as a sign of who thinks which film will be the next “hit”.
But the “pageantry” of standing ovations is fallible at best and unfairly, performatively biased at worst – for what it’s worth, Megalopolis was both critically panned and a box office flop.
Speaking to The Atlantic, professor Scott Page, who’s studied clapping as a form of social behaviour, said: “There is a real asymmetry to who has influence”.
You might be more inclined to partake in a quarter-hour of palm-smashing if someone you really respect and admire is doing so beside you, he suggested.
He added that “if you’re not sure” about a film, and “you think the other people [around you] are smarter than you, then you are going to stand… I imagine Cannes to be a place [where if I ask myself,] ‘How confident am I, sitting near movie stars and directors?’”
The answer, he says, is likely to be “not very”.
Also, I can’t imagine the panic of being the first person to stop applauding, say, a Del Toro film in front of the man himself – peer pressure and etiquette pile up.
The applause length is a marketing tool, too
Speaking to Screen Daily, Barry Hertz, film editor and critic for Canadian national newspaper The Globe and Mail, says that the length of applause a film got at Cannes can sometimes be seen as an interim star rating system until its release.
“Instead of a film getting four stars, it got a ’10-minute standing ovation,’” he says.
But though an anonymous film PR told the publication that “nobody is taking it seriously,” Kent Sanderson, president of indie film distributor Bleecker Street, doesn’t think Cannes’ applause sessions are going anywhere fast.
“It’s a self-perpetuating machine between the festival, the trades and the audiences,” they commented.
The more the Cannes audience claps, the more it’s noted that they clap, the more expected long clapping sessions become; so, it becomes both a sign of disdain and proof of not being “in on” the festival’s culture not to do so.
I’d call it a vicious cycle, but it’s literally already a shoulder-aching, barbed, endless round…
Many will know that exercise seems to reduce dementia risk (a 2022 paper found that walking 3,800 steps a day may lower your likelihood of developing dementia by 25%, with increasing benefits up to 9,800 steps).
Even when it’s not directly dementia-related, movement appears to improve memory and thinking skills which become more vital in later life.
A recent paper, published in Brain Communications, has found that 20 minutes of cycling a day can create “ripples” in the brain that might help us to process and store information more efficiently.
How did cycling seem to affect participants’ memory?
The research involved 14 participants aged from 17-50. They tracked their brain activity before and after 20-minute stationary cycling sessions through an intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG).
The iEEG measures electrical activity in the brain, which provides an added layer of detail.
Previously, scientists had noticed “ripples” in the minds of rats, which were believed to improve their memories after exercise, though these had not been seen in humans before.
But the iEEGs in this research saw similar results after the participants completed their exercise.
Speaking to Medical News Today, study author Dr Juan Ramirez-Villegas said, “Ripples are very brief bursts of highly synchronised electrical activity in the brain’s memory centre, the hippocampus.
“In animals, they are known to play a key role in stabilising memories after an experience. You can think of them as moments when the brain rapidly ‘reviews’ information, helping convert recent experiences into lasting memories.”
They might also help to regulate blood sugar in animals, the study added.
The study found that the higher someone’s heart rate got during the cycling session, the stronger those “ripples” seemed to be.
“This suggests that the intensity of physical activity may influence how strongly the brain’s memory circuits respond,” stated Dr Ramirez-Villegas.
That might not be the only benefit
Aside from the “ripple” effect, this research also seemed to help different parts of the brain communicate better, potentially leading to improved memory.
“It is surprising how after a session of acute exercise, hippocampal-cortical communication seems to be enhanced, a phenomenon thought to be strongly linked to memory processing,” Dr Ramirez-Villegas said.
“This suggests that even a brief bout of physical activity can influence the neural dynamics involved in learning and memory.”
Keir Starmer has said he wants to lead Labour in the next general election, despite mounting calls for him to quit.
The prime minister once again insisted he was “not going to walk away” from Downing Street as he issued a fresh challenge to his rivals.
More than 90 Labour MPs have publicly called on the PM to resign, while the party’s trade union backers have said he will not be leader come the next election, in the wake of the disastrous elections on May 7.
Wes Streeting quit as health secretary with a furious attack on his time in office as is expected to mount a leadership challenge within weeks.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is hoping to win the upcoming Makerfield by-election so he can also mount a bid for the top job.
But speaking on Monday, Starmer insisted his premiership was not over.
He said: “I do want to fight the next election. Obviously, I recognise that after the local election results, the elections in Wales and Scotland as well, that the first task is obviously turning things around and making sure that my focus is in the right place.
“The last 10 days, there’s been a lot of activity, which hasn’t been as focused in my view as it should have been, and I remind myself every day that I was elected to office to serve the people, to serve the country, that’s what I believe in, and that’s what I’ll be getting on with.”
He said he would not “walk away” and would not set out a timetable to stand down if Andy Burnham wins the Makerfield by-election.
Starmer also denied that his time in office was “over”.
He said: “No, we’ve got a lot of work to do, and I was addressing Labour Party staff, actually this morning, reminding them that we were elected into office by millions of people to bring about change in this country.
“That’s our responsibility. My responsibility is to serve people who voted us into office, serve my country, to remind people that we have achieved already in terms of stabilising the economy, investing in the NHS, so that waiting lists are coming down.
“All those things make a material difference to people’s lives, but there’s a lot more to do, and obviously after the local election results, the results in Scotland and Wales, we need to show we can turn things around, and that’s what we’re doing.
“But I’m very focused on what I consider to be my responsibility, my duty, and that is to the country.”
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Ali Ahmadi, Catherine Barnard and Fiona Costello consider the problems caused by ‘advice sharks’ providing fraudulent or poor legal advice to migrants in the UK.
In April 2026, a BBC undercover investigation found a ‘shadow industry’ of law firms and advisors charging up to £7,000 to help migrants ‘pretend to be gay’ and secure asylum in the UK. In 2023, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman had also claimed that people pretended to be homosexual to ‘game our system.’
We are also aware of ‘advice sharks’ charging high fees for poor or fraudulent advice, within the wider immigration ecosystem, particularly to EU migrants.
Why is this happening, and what does it mean for LGBTQIA+ asylum seekers, community organisations, and immigration advisers?
While some individuals may knowingly try to ‘game’ the system, there is little evidence of systematic abuse by asylum seekers. For instance, the Home Office was unable to provide any evidence for Suella Braverman’s 2023 claims. Asylum claims based on sexual orientations or gender identity make up around only 2% (1,377 claims) of total claims. The BBC discoveries may instead reveal how lack of availability of regulated legal advice creates space for unscrupulous advisors and how the Home Office’s assessment process may reward applicants who conform to stereotypical expectations, making it coachable. We consider both issues.
First, legal advice. In England and Wales, immigration advice is regulated by the Immigration Advice Authority ((IAA), formerly OISC)) and the SRA (Solicitors Regulation Authority) when provided by solicitors (under its general regulatory framework). Under IAA accreditation, only qualified advisors who pass competence assessments are allowed to advise at the level they are authorised for. The IAA has three levels (levels 1, 2 and 3), corresponding to the complexity of the advice an advisor can provide. Government guidance requires advisors to be regulated and limits their practice according to these qualifications. The regulation is to protect migrants and asylum seekers from poor, fraudulent, or exploitative advice. Many of the advisers and lawyers identified in the BBC report were allegedly unregulated or operating without a licence.
For most asylum seekers, the primary way to access regulated legal advice is through government-funded legal aid that provides advice and representation to those who cannot afford a solicitor. However, many areas of civil law (e.g. immigration) have been disqualified from the scheme for many years now, particularly since the 2012 Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO), and what remains eligible is financially unsustainable for providers as fees have not kept up with costs. As a result, providers have been leaving the market, creating expanding ‘legal aid deserts’ in England and Wales. For example, between 2005-2018, the number of immigration and asylum legal aid providers dropped by 56%. Recent data shows that there is a legal aid deficit in every region of England and Wales, including London.
Consequently, legal aid is largely inaccessible. In 2022-23, around 63% of the population in England and Wales did not have access to immigration and asylum legal aid in their area. And at least 51% (37,450 people) of asylum applicants were not able to find a legal aid lawyer. A refugee support organisation in the East of England that took part in our research said the Home Office’s asylum dispersal policy which often houses asylum seekers in remote rural areas further limits their access to legal services.
Some are fortunate enough to have access to free legal advice from third sector organisations such as RAMA in Colchester or from Law Centres. Their advisers are IAA / SRA regulated but often struggle to keep up with increasing demand.
But there are parts of the country where there is no paid for or free legal advice. This creates an advice vacuum. This, coupled with long wait times (sometimes years) for a decision on asylum claims, leaves people at risk of exploitation from rogue advisors selling the illusion of a quick fix. This seems to have been what was at issue in the BBC report.
Second, sexual orientation. The BBC research focused on advice given about LGBTQIA+ status. Research shows that there is in fact already a widespread attitude of ‘disbelief’ and ‘denial’ by asylum authorities towards asylum applicants, particularly in the case of sexual orientation-based claims which are presumed ‘fake’. The BBC investigation is likely to deepen this suspicion.
Further, academic research shows that asylum decision-makers often have linear and stereotypical understandings of sexuality that are ‘either partially or entirely unsupported by psychological research’. This means that asylum seekers appear to have ‘greater chances of being believed by conforming to a given stereotype than by telling their true story’, especially ‘if the latter deviates from the official’s expectations’. This may also create opportunities for fraudulent applicants to exploit officials’ narrow understanding of sexuality by presenting familiar narratives of moving ‘from internalised homophobia to pride and acceptance.’ The fraudulent cases may in turn reinforce the stereotypes.
Apostate (a person who left religion) asylum seekers have faced similar issues. For instance, some were asked in their asylum interview to name humanist philosophers and explain the ‘thoughts and beliefs of prominent non-religious thinkers’. Many people would struggle to answer such questions regardless of their beliefs. Instead, such questions may create an ‘insider knowledge’ market for fraudulent applicants, who could be coached to provide rehearsed answers.
The BBC report may also create suspicion among the public and the Home Office about community organisations supporting LGBTQIA+ asylum seekers, despite the fact that most provide essential services and are often the first to identify false requests, and challenge poor or fraudulent advice. Immigration lawyers and advisers may likewise face reputational damage. They may find themselves having to defend not only their clients’ credibility but also their professional integrity.
Fraudulent immigration advice is unlawful and condemned by respected advisors. And so are the broader structural issues within the asylum system. A growing ‘legal aid desert’, uneven geography of regulated advice, prolonged uncertainty, and assessment processes that can reward particular narratives all create conditions in which rogue advisors are able to operate. Addressing these issues therefore requires not only prosecuting individual fraudsters, but also addressing systemic issues that enables such practices to emerge, including by ensuring accessible legal aid, as well as fair and reliable asylum decision-making processes.
By Ali Ahmadi, Research Associate, University of Cambridge and PhD student at Anglia Ruskin University, Catherine Barnard, Senior Fellow, UK in a Changing Europe & Professor of EU Law and Employment Law, University of Cambridge and Fiona Costello, Assistant Professor, University of Birmingham.
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Remember when bread making was splashed all over the internet in 2020? Well, if you’re anything like me, not everyone caught the bread bug during lockdown.
Shockingly, there are still lots of people who don’t know how to make a loaf like it’s their second language.
But, call it the appeal of an analogue life, a seismic shift happened in my life recently that means I have a sudden craving to knead and wait hours for dough to rise.
Maybe it’s the fact I’m sick of being addicted to scrolling on my phone, or even a natural extension of my recent penchant for doing puzzles (aren’t baking measurements like one big puzzle?).
Whatever it is, I now realise I’m years of experience behind the other bakers in my life. Not to mention, I have none of the equipment.
Of course, that meant I had some research ahead of me. To make sure I was well-stocked for my bread making escape, I asked baker and co-founder of Mini Miss Bread, Jeff Charnock, and scoured the depths of Reddit, for a comprehensive list of the gear I need to get started.
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