NewsExpress

Israel used thermal mass destruction weapons in Gaza that made thousands 'evaporate' [ 13-Feb-26 3:15pm ]

Israel's genocidal occupation military used thermal and thermobaric weapons on civilians in Gaza that 'evaporated' thousands of people, according to analysis by Al Jazeera.

Israel evaporated thousands of people

The broadcaster's investigation, 'The Rest of the Story', based on forensic data analysis rather than estimates, found that 2,842 Palestinians were "evaporated" by the mostly US-made weapons. Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal described the "method of elimination" used by rescuers at strike sites. This compared known numbers of people inside a targeted building with their remains recovered afterwards:

If a family tells us there were five people inside, and we only recover three intact bodies, we only classify the remaining two as 'evaporated' after an exhaustive search yields nothing but biological traces, citing blood spray or small fragments such as skull fragments.

Basal emphasised that classification occurs only after thorough searches of rubble, hospitals, and morgues produce no identifiable remains. Given Israel's blockade of bulldozers and other clearance equipment, it is likely that many more such deaths remain unclassified.

Military experts interviewed by Al Jazeera said that the occupation uses thermobaric and thermal weapons to obliterate the population across a wide area. These "vacuum" or "aerosol" bombs disperse a cloud of flammable vapour that is then ignited into an enormous explosion that produces extreme heat and a massive blast wave. Horrifying footage of Israel using such a weapon was captured in 2025:

Shocking

The experts told the station that Israel modifies the bombs it uses to make them even more devastating:

To prolong the burning time, powders of aluminum, magnesium and titanium are added to the chemical mixture…this raises explosion temperatures to between 2,500 and 3,000 degrees Celsius.

Crematoria typically use temperatures of 850-1150 Celsius to incinerate bodies.

Israel has murdered around 700,000 Palestinian civilians in Gaza. This figure has been disputed by Israeli propagandists, but tallies with US president Donald Trump's statement that around 1.5 million people remain in Gaza that must be removed for his notorious 'peace' plan. Gaza's pre-genocide population was around 2.2-2.3m.

Featured image via the Canary

Former Labour MP Beth Winter announces she's running as an independent in Wales [ 13-Feb-26 3:10pm ]

Beth Winter has announced that she is standing as an independent MP for the Welsh Valleys in the upcoming Senedd election. The former Labour MP launched her campaign to be MP for Pontypridd, Cynon and Merthyr on social media.

Former Labour MP Winter running as 'independent voice'

Winter announced on the 13 Februay that she wanted to be:

A Community Independent Voice for our Valleys

In a statement posted on social media, she said she was standing because this is her home. Winter says that the valleys' "proud working class traditions" are:

proof that when organised we can take control and keep wealth in our communities.

She doesn't shy away from the fact that people are struggling and are disillusioned with Westminster politics, which doesn't serve working-class communities. This is, of course, like many communities, leaving the door open for Reform:

Today, people across the South Wales Valleys face rising bills, insecure work, poverty, and the growing threat of climate collapse. Too many families are forced to choose between heating and eating, while extreme wealth continues to grow. These injustices and inequalities aren't inevitable. They are the result of political choices, and must be challenged.

People are disillusioned and have lost trust in politicians. The vacuum that has emerged is being exploited by the far right. We cannot allow this to take root in our communities.

An MP actually from the community for the community

Instead of falling for the far-right, Winter is asking people to look at how much grassroots politics is needed in her community

It's clear there's a desire to break from establishment politics that is failing our communities. We need grassroots, community-based politics rooted in social justice, equality, peace and environmental responsibility - with real power and resources in the hands of people in Wales.

Winter makes it clear in her statement that she wants to work with and for the people she serves. In a bold move, with the community in mind, she pledges not to take a huge MP salary if elected.

This is why if elected to the Senedd I would only take a salary equal to my previous trade union employment, with the remainder made available to initiatives focused on community organising, education and training: local campaigns and community wealth building initiatives

She says that if she were elected, she would "not be beholden to any party". Which is possibly not just a dig at Labour, but also at Your Party too.

Smear campaign against Sultana and MOU Operations

Most recently, Winter got caught up in a smear campaign to discredit Zarah Sultana within Your Party. Winter was one of three directors of MOU Operations, which handled the data and finances of YP, along with Jamie Driscoll and Andrew Feinstein.

They ended up at the centre of an absolute shit storm around who controlled membership data after Sultana announced the membership portal was open, then Jeremy Corbyn, confusingly, promptly disowned the portal.

MOU Operations were painted as the ones stopping the funds and membership data being handed over. However, through leaked emails and WhatsApp messages, The Canary revealed that it was actually Your Party blocking MOU Operations.

The leak also showed that MOU Operations had no involvement in the new portal being announced and that Your Party knew this, despite this, several YP members still smearing MOU Operations.

Winter, Driscoll, and Feinstein announced their resignations from MOU Operations on 30 October, saying in a statement

We have been extraordinarily patient, and tried to resolve this quietly behind the scenes. Your Party have claimed in emails and social media statements that we delayed the data transfer. We repeatedly asked them to stop making factually incorrect claims of this nature. They gave hostile briefings to journalists. We behaved with integrity.

Driscoll has since joined the Green Party. With Winter now running as an independent, this show just how little faith the grassroots left has in Your Party.

A real community-minded MP for South Wales

Winter's would-be constituents are already celebrating the move, with comments on Facebook saying she's made the "choice of who to vote for easy". Others celebrated that someone from their own community would be representing them, instead of a "parachuted in" candidate.

Winter is someone who represents working-class socialist politics, we need more like her in this fight against fascism. not just from Reform but from the Labour government too. You can donate to Winter's campaign here.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

British Muslims feel increasingly unwelcome and unsafe, census shows [ 13-Feb-26 2:57pm ]

Just 51.9% of British Muslims say they strongly feel they belong in the UK. This marks a dramatic fall from the 93% reported in a 2016 Ipsos MORI survey. The new figures come from one of the largest ever socio-economic studies of British Muslims.

British Muslims feeling increasingly unsafe

A respondent to the Muslim Census survey said:

This is my country but I am told I'm not welcome. I fear for my family and friends who are Muslim.

The findings, titled The Crisis of Belonging, were published by Muslim Census survey in partnership with Islamic Relief UK and the National Zakat Foundation. They reveal a community grappling with rising Islamophobia, political hostility, and a growing sense of alienation. And this is the case even among those born and raised in Britain:

I was born and educated in the UK, I have over 20 years experience as a qualified solicitor. I have seen attitudes towards Muslims deteriorate dramatically and this has been on a steady decline in the last few years.

Respondents repeatedly describe a country that feels increasingly hostile. They cite media, political rhetoric, and the rise of the far right as driving feelings of fear, exclusion, and insecurity. Many say they no longer feel safe identifying as Muslim in public:

I grew up with racism and Islamophobia back in the 80s. Then life felt good. I felt part of the fabric of society. My contributions felt valued and impactful. Now I do not admit to being from the UK, because the UK government and many people in power and the media make me feel unwanted and less than. Instead I say I'm from Liverpool. The only place in the UK I do feel part of and valued within.

Others speak openly of considering emigration or having a "Plan B" should conditions worsen:

I was born here but no longer feel safe here as a Muslim and am looking to move abroad if I can.

One person said:

I was born and brought up here and have lived a mainstream British life… I have always felt totally British. I feel less so in this decade and do daydream about a Plan B elsewhere.

Another described:

We are seriously considering our plans to leave the UK should a more right-wing government come into power.

Financial hardship

Alongside this erosion of belonging, the census survey of 4,800 British Muslims exposes widespread but largely hidden financial hardship. This often gets masked by misleading income figures and compounded by stigma around seeking help.

The research reveals:

29.4% struggled to pay at least one household bill in the past year.
43% relied on borrowing, including credit cards or family loans, to meet the cost of living.
1 in 12 missed meals due to financial difficulty, including 6% of full-time workers.
Among Black African Muslims, 1 in 5 report going hungry in the past year.

Despite such documented hardship, the uptake of support is strikingly low:

63% of those who went hungry did not use food banks this past year.
When people sought help, they turned first to family or local councils, with just 4.2% using Zakat organisations.
Only 2% of respondents requested Zakat or emergency charitable support in the past year.

Zakat is a compulsory act of worship in Islam, one of the five pillars of the faith. It requires Muslims who possess wealth above a certain threshold (called the Nisab) to donate a portion (typically 2.5%) of their qualifying wealth to those eligible to receive it.

The survey identifies lack of awareness and discomfort from respondents in asking for help as major barriers to accessing support. And yet, whilst poverty and a need for support is widespread, generosity remains exceptionally high. 80.7% of respondents still paid their Zakat this past year.

Rebuilding trust and belonging

As chief executive of the National Zakat Foundation, Dr Sohail Hanif has real clarity on the challenging circumstances facing British Muslims:

I travel across the country every week and meet people from many different backgrounds, faiths, and walks of life. What's clear in the 2026 Muslim Census survey is a shared sense of uncertainty and a feeling that trust between communities has weakened in recent years.

This isn't something felt just by Muslims, but across communities more broadly. Rebuilding trust and strengthening British Muslims' sense of belonging in the UK will take time and effort, but it's essential if communities are to feel connected, confident, and hopeful about the future.

The Muslim Census survey signals a growing recognition across the sector that data must drive decision-making and that understanding the realities of British Muslims is not just an academic exercise, but a prerequisite for effective charitable intervention, community support, and advocacy.

The survey concludes that British Muslims are not a community in crisis. Rather, the community is experiencing hidden need, masked by misleading income figures and divisive narratives in the media and British politics.

Featured image via the Canary

Desperate campaign seeks to smear Greens for opposing Zionism [ 13-Feb-26 1:18pm ]

The political and media establishment are clearly desperate to put a spanner in the Green Party's massive surge since the election of current leader Zack Polanski. The part's firm stance against Zionism has become central to this. And the establishment's latest scramble to smear Greens for opposing Israel's genocidal settler-colonial project in Palestine seems unlikely to be successful.

Green Party "Zionism is Racism" motion attracts smears

There have historically been different strains of Zionism — the Jewish nationalist movement behind the colonisation of Israel. But the dominant form today is a supremacist extremism that empowers racism, apartheid, and genocide. Zionism is not Judaism, no matter how much Israel's leaders and cheerleaders want to blur the line.

Now, Green members are campaigning for a spring conference motion that seeks to acknowledge that "Zionism is Racism" and declare the party as "an Anti-Zionist Party." They also seek a rejection of cynical attempts to "equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism" in order "to silence legitimate criticism" of Israel.

The motion is fundamentally about equality, freedom, and democracy. And if it passes, author Matt Kennard says:

This will be a watershed moment in British politics.

Israel's genocide in the occupied Palestinian territory of Gaza has fuelled a growing movement to end the apartheid state's crimes once and for all. And pro-Israel shills know full well that the Greens, under the leadership of a Jewish leader who stands in solidarity with Palestine, are helping to mainstream criticism of Israeli colonialism.

As a result, the smears are intensifying:

Green Party will likely vote to be first major UK political party that is anti-Zionist at its Spring Conference (Motion A105)

This will be a watershed moment in British politics

So the subversion steps up. This absurd article is the beginning

Anti-Zionism is anti-fascism pic.twitter.com/oP9PfM0X0L

— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) February 12, 2026

Thanks to strong progressive positions, the Green Party has quickly grown to over 190,000 members in recent months. And it has taken clear positions in support of Palestine under Polanski, like calling for the proscription of Israel's occupation forces as a terrorist group.

But the party was previously more timid on Palestinian rights. And clearly there are some members still sympathetic to Israeli colonialism. Because one member has now told the historically racist Daily Mail (of all papers) that they reported fellow members to "counter-terrorism police" over the new motion on Zionism.

Green councillor Andrée Frieze, meanwhile, joined with others to criticise the "tone of, and language in, the motion". But while pro-Israel voices might dislike it, it represents pretty basic progressive positions on Israeli colonialism:

Lubna Speitan—Palestinian Green Party member and a member of the Greens For Palestine Steering Group—has proposed this important motion for the Spring Conference.

I endorse all of it. It should all be Green Party policy. Basic stuff for a progressive party.

Motion A105:…

— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) January 26, 2026

Some observers believe this will be a real test for the Greens. But recent positions suggest that the majority of members will indeed lean into even stronger positions that meaningfully challenge Israeli war criminals and their cheerleaders.

Smears feed off timidity

Today, there are still attempts from pro-Israel propagandists to smear anti-genocide campaigners as antisemites. And such voices routinely claim that seeking accountability and consequences for Israel's genocidal mass extermination of Gaza's population is somehow "hateful".

But the widespread pro-Israel smears against the left during Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party were a learning moment. If you give propagandists an inch, they'll take a mile. So the best way to challenge them is to call out their bullshit clearly and immediately.

No religious discrimination is ever acceptable. But that's not what criticism of Israel is about. It's political, not religious. And the vast majority of Green members have already shown their awareness of that, moving the party to strong positions on the Palestinian people's right to existence, freedom, and democracy.

The smears will not end. But as long as Greens lean into unapologetic support for human rights and opposition to Zionist racism, the smears will fail. And when the smears fail, the chances of finally holding Israeli war criminals and their cheerleaders to account will increase.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

Gaza — truth survives amid Israel's media blackout [ 13-Feb-26 12:27pm ]

Gaza: Palestinian journalists defy media blackout

Israel continues to perpetrate war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza while denying access to foreign journalists.

Gaza's media blackout persists

UN Commissioner‑General for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, condemned the "information blackout" and stressed that its lifting is long overdue. He warned that barring independent media fuels misinformation and obscures the truth. This situation remains critical for Gaza.

His statements thrust the issue of press freedoms into the limelight. The continued ban on foreign reporters is an old tactic the settler‑state has used to evade scrutiny. However, this ban is defective in an age of citizen journalism and social media proliferation.

Palestinian journalists, who continue to risk it all, are filling the void. Under these circumstances, social media has also become a crucial avenue for disseminating news. This includes official statements and announcements from Palestinian factions inside Gaza. It also includes mobile recordings documenting Israeli crimes. Indeed, Gaza remains at the core of global attention.

Citizen-journalists enter the fold

That said, when official sources diminish, information circulated on closed and anonymised social media platforms becomes difficult to verify, especially amidst conflicting narratives. The presence of foreign journalists helps document Israel's violations, its use of illegal weapons, and casualty counting in Gaza.

More than 250 journalists and media personnel have been killed in Gaza since Israel waged its genocidal war in October 2023, according to press freedom groups. This makes it one of the deadliest conflicts for journalists in modern history. They were slain while on duty — carrying out a public service not only to their people but to the world. Calls for investigations into their deaths from international organisations have been relentless. Yet these calls are frequently ignored.

The price Palestinian journalists have paid is not to be taken lightly. They bear the brunt and risk their lives daily. They navigate dangerous conditions, never knowing if they'll see their families again after a day in the field. Under international humanitarian law, journalists should be protected as noncombatants. And yet Israel continues to target them with impunity, wantonly…anyone surprised? Reporting from Gaza continues to highlight significant challenges.

Truth survives

Lazzarini's statement reflects a growing concern that continues to be met with indifference, silence, and inaction from many governments and institutions. Additionally, the situation in Gaza remains alarming on the world stage.

Even so, the blackout Israel is desperate to maintain has not prevented the truth from reaching the world — but it does leave a population that continues to defy Israel's genocide increasingly isolated. Despite this isolation, Gaza endures.

It is our responsibility at the Canary to pierce through the veil of silence and report what is happening behind the lines of fire. This commitment is especially vital in the context of Gaza's ongoing genocide.

Featured image via the Canary

Tax dodging Ratcliffe has some nerve chatting shit about immigrants while living in Monaco [ 13-Feb-26 12:26pm ]

Jim Ratcliffe is a rank hypocrite who abandoned the UK to stash billions offshore. The co-owner of Manchester United football club moved his tax residence to Monaco during the Covid pandemic to dodge an estimated £4bn in tax. He now lives as a tax exile whilst claiming the UK is 'colonised' by immigrants.

A billionaire who moved his tax residence to Monaco during the pandemic so he didn't have to give his money to hospitals, schools, and public services?

Spare me. https://t.co/gN5KEckEPm

— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) February 11, 2026

Oi Ratcliffe - you can't complain about a system you don't pay into

Complaining about the 9 million people on benefits is a bit rich coming from a guy who enjoys the benefits of the UK system but doesn't pay into it.

His move to the the French Riviera in September 2020 was heralded by his time screaming about the benefits of Brexit. He possibly moved because we forced him to pay £110m in tax in 2019.

You might be surprised to find out that Jim Ratcliffe was one of them.
Weird that, innit. pic.twitter.com/4hvrIm7yix

— Simon Gosden. Esq. #fbpe 3.5%

Andrew Windsor accused of having victim flown in on Lolita Express [ 13-Feb-26 11:38am ]

As we've reported, the latest Epstein files have shown the degeneracy of former prince Andrew Windsor. Now, it's alleged Andrew had a victim flown in on Epstein's infamous 'Lolita Express.'

Nick Watt, "The headline in The New Stateman is: Gordon Brown, the police need to interview Andrew"

"Gordon Brown has been looking at all the e-mails, the Lolita express flights, Jeffrey Epstein's place used for trafficking"

"He says British girls were on 90 Epstein flights… pic.twitter.com/3P86nf7BJJ

— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) February 12, 2026

Andrew's in trouble again

Ex Prime Minister Gordon Brown claimed Epstein flew victims from UK airports on the 'Lolita' over 90 times:

The Epstein emails, which record the visas issued, payments made and transport organised for girls and women trafficked across the world, suggest a number of British girls were on 90 Epstein flights organised from UK airports on what was called his "Lolita Express". Among the many aspects that should sicken anyone looking at the emails is that 15 of these flights were given the go-ahead after his 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from a minor. How the flights were allowed to continue should have been fully investigated.

Brown also wrote:

The emails tell us in graphic detail how Epstein was able to use Stansted Airport - he boasted how cheap the airport charges were compared to Paris - to fly in girls from Latvia, Lithuania and Russia. His messages link at least one to Britain and the former Prince Andrew. One email, headed "the girl", described her as "just turned 18, 179cm, very cute, speaks English, I saw her in real 3 years ago… i will send you the video in next email".

This is how the Sun reported on it on 13 February:

Tomorrow's front page: Andy girl 'flown to UK on Epstein's Lolita Express' https://t.co/9p3T9e91GF pic.twitter.com/VOJTzUmuUl

— The Sun (@TheSun) February 12, 2026

This story is building on previous accusations. As reported in the Guardian on 3 February, US lawyer Brad Edwards said of an alleged victim:

We're talking about at least one woman who was sent by Jeffrey Epstein over to Prince Andrew. And she even had, after a night with Prince Andrew, a tour of Buckingham Palace.

Former staff at the palace claim this was a frequent occurrence:

Now we know why myself and my colleagues were forced to allow the unknown females i have frequently spoke about into Buckingham Palace.
If this story is true then along with my evidence it could prove crucial to the Thames Valley Police investigation. https://t.co/sEQxS3TgwP

— Paul Page EX Royal Cop : Son of an Abuse Survivor. (@PaulPag46852754) February 13, 2026

Another blow for the royals

King Charles has said he will cooperate with any police investigation. However, this comes in sharp contrast to the fact that he loaned his brother £1.5m to bury his case with Virginia Giuffre.

Regardless, it appears that the walls may finally be closing in on Andrew. But will we really see this man hauled in front of a judge?

We hope so.

For more on the Epstein files, please read:

The media circus around Epstein is erasing the experiences of victims and survivors (Maddison Wheeldon).
Epstein files show how racialised trafficking erased Black girls from victimhood (Vannessa Viljoen).
Epstein's 'broligarchy' is being ignored by the corporate media (Alice Charles).

Featured image via Ben Brooksbank (Wikimedia)

By Antifabot

Racists stick together as Reform agree with Ratcliffe [ 13-Feb-26 11:20am ]

Images of Nigel Farage and Jim Ratcliffe in front of Old Trafford reform

Manchester United co-owner Jim Ratcliffe recently claimed that immigrants are "colonising" the UK. Critics - and anyone with a brain in their nut - quickly condemned the remarks as racist and deeply out of touch with Britain's own colonial history.

Unsurprisingly, Reform MPs and figures on the far right quickly jumped on the bandwagon. While admitting Ratcliffe's statistics were "mistaken," Reform leader Nigel Farage maintained that the underlying argument holds up when judged against the dictionary definition of "colonise."

Spoiler alert: No, it really fucking doesn't.

Bro Farage literally just approved the term "colonised" to your face and you STILL softball him.

The mainstream media is complicit in the rise of the far right. https://t.co/iSGrPACvak

— JimmyTheGiant (@jimthegiant) February 13, 2026

Distraction tactics from the real 'colonisers'

The Oxford Learners Dictionary definition of 'colonise' is:

to take control of an area or a country that is not your own, especially using force, and send people from your own country to live there.

It's clear that immigrants have precious little control over their rights and freedoms in the UK, so it's objectively clear that this statement is false. That's even after disregarding the fake-news figures Ratcliffe and fellow racists are distributing.

Another mask falls as we hear #ManchesterUnited owner Jim #Ratcliffe showcasing his #racism. He has all that money and power and he still has to punch down. Too many on #socialwelfare too - by his reckoning. Too many rich #parasites by mine.
https://t.co/r5vWOgo0yy

— Kevin Doyle (@kevidoyle) February 13, 2026

As the Canary reported yesterday:

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, co-owner of Manchester United, has come under heavy criticism for saying that immigrants are "colonising" the UK. He said:

"You can't have an economy with nine million people on benefits and huge levels of immigrants coming in. I mean, the UK has been colonised. It's costing too much money.

The UK has been colonised by immigrants, really, hasn't it?"

The racist shithead also claimed that the UK's population grew by 12 million people in 5 years. That's bollocks too, as BBC Verify reported:

"it's actually increased by 2.7 million."

And, that statistic doesn't take into account the economic benefit of immigrants doing all the shitty jobs white people don't want. And that, in turn, doesn't take into account that we're talking about people - people who have a right to safety and welcome.

Rich racists: the actual 'colonisers'

Reform MPs are, of course, eagerly amplifying what can only be described as barely veiled racism.

Man Utd boss Sir Jim Ratcliffe is right on immigration and UK is being 'colonised,' claims Reform UK's Nadhim Zahawi https://t.co/0gPS34NQ0u

— LBC (@LBC) February 13, 2026

In January, we reported on Oxfam's latest research, which identified a direct correlation between shrinking civil liberties and rising billionaire handouts aimed at buying political influence:

In the UK specifically, the wealthiest 56 individuals hoard more money than 27 million ordinary people. In fact, in the UK:

The UK's billionaires have seen in the last year their average wealth grow five times faster than inflation-adjusted earnings.
56 people in the UK - all billionaires - have a combined wealth greater than 27 million other people, 39 per cent of the population. The average growth of a UK billionaire's wealth was £231mn in the last year.
The average UK billionaire will gain more wealth than the value of the UK's average annual salary in less time than it takes to watch a premier league football match
On average a person in the richest 1% in the UK owns 456 times more wealth than a person in the poorest 50%. The poorest half holds just 4.6% of the wealth, while the richest 1% own 21.3%. In 2024 the wealthiest 1% of UK adults had wealth of at least £2,317,452 […]
This year, the total wealth of the UK's billionaires grew by 11bn, an average of £30.3 mn a day. Meanwhile one in five people in the UK live in poverty.

Yet the far-right rarely highlight who profits from soaring costs in food, defence, and healthcare - areas Advance UK Ben Habib argues are making life harder for ordinary people.

Nor do they acknowledge how increased defence spending often destabilises other countries. In turn, worsening conditions that force people to migrate in the first place:

'@Sir_Ratcliffe in a 14 minute interview with @SkyNews explained how policies being pursued in the UK and EU are destroying our ability to feed ourselves, defend ourselves and medically treat ourselves.

He set out how western civilisation is killing itself.

On the other hand…

— Ben Habib (@benhabib6) February 12, 2026

Another Reform cheerleader and former Tory MP Nadine Dorries delighted in coming to Ratcliffe's defence:

Nadine Dorries of Reform UK defends Jim Ratcliffe's disgraceful immigration remarks.

His statistics were wrong, the substance was wrong and the language was wrong- but he was RIGHT.

Errrh?

Complete and utter gibberish. #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/BkBcRsM874

— Deirdre Heenan (@deirdreheenan) February 12, 2026

Thankfully, ordinary people are seeing right through it:

Can there be more of a traitor to the UK than Jim Ratcliffe? He offshored enough tax money to fund 120,000 nurses. People like him are the reason life has become so difficult for so many Brits.

— Robert M. (@3drm) February 13, 2026

Reform keep telling us immigrants are the problem and that billionaires are the good guys who create wealth.
Genuinely think this narrative was the plan Farage Sky & Ratcliffe intended to push and instead it's exposed tax dodging billionaires as the parasite ruining the country

— Sarah (@kokeshimum) February 12, 2026

What is it that first attracted you to billionaire, Jim Ratcliffe?

Reform UK - wealthy elites, cosplaying as working class, for the benefit of billionaires. https://t.co/iRtYHpZicp

— Don McGowan (@donmcgowan) February 12, 2026

If the UK is being 'colonised', it's by super-rich billionaires who have bent politics to their will and are now cashing in on the consequences.

Featured image via Arne Musseler

By Maddison Wheeldon

UK government spent £700k fighting to keep Palestine Action banned [ 13-Feb-26 10:55am ]

Keir Starmer's Home Office has blown nearly £700,000 on court and lawyer fees to oppose Palestine Action co-founder, Huda Ammori's judicial review. The review seeks to overturn the government's ban on the anti-genocide direct action group. In addition, Starmer has used the ban to arrest thousands of mostly elderly and disabled protesters for opposing it.

Human rights groups have condemned Starmer's police-state action, with Amnesty International describing it as a:

disproportionate misuse of the UK's terrorism powers [that] should be overturned.

The court's decision on the judicial review will be announced tomorrow, 13 February 2026.

This cost is nothing compared to the millions spent, since the ban began in July 2025, on arresting the activists who opposed the ban. Furthermore, then-home secretary Yvette Coooper was caught in repeated lies to justify the ban. UK security and intelligence experts had recommended against the ban.

Featured image via the Canary

Court rules Palestine Action ban 'disproportionate' - but still banned for now [ 13-Feb-26 10:47am ]

A High Court judge has ruled this morning, 13 February 2026, that the government's ban on anti-genocide action group Palestine Action was "disproportionate" and breaches the human rights of UK people.

Palestine Action NOT a terrorist group (obviously)

However, the 'proscription' remains in place for at least another week while the government has a chance to prepare submissions on the court's finding. It remains a criminal offence, for the time being, to express support for Palestine Action. Police should, of course, weigh whether it's worth arresting people when no prosecutions are likely, but their record suggests they won't.

Zack Polanski perhaps summed up the verdict the best:

A court has ruled that the government's authoritarian ban on Palestine Action was unlawful.

Time to stop criminalising the people protesting a genocide - and start ending the UK's complicity.

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) February 13, 2026

Meanwhile, on the ground, supporters of Palestine Action were jubilant.

The decision was made by a panel of judges who all have strong links to Israel, underscoring just how far the Starmer regime overstepped human rights legislation. It is almost certain to try to appeal, despite the exposed web of lies it created to try to justify the ban.

Outside the court, supporters were holding signs saying "I support Palestine Action". These were the exact same ones that saw police people in their 1000s last year. Yet on 13 February, as far as the Canary team on the ground could tell no one was today:

The full judgment is available here.

Featured image via the Canary

The Rise of Dental Tourism in the World [ 13-Feb-26 10:32am ]

In recent decades, a huge wave of dental tourism has been expanding worldwide, driven by people seeking quick solutions to their dental problems. Today, social, professional, and personal approval play a significant role in how we are perceived, and a perfect smile is essential for fitting into a society where the growth of the internet and social media has increased the pressure to present a beautiful and confident image.

Taking care of your teeth, keeping them white, and so on has become just as important as any other cosmetic surgery on our bodies. People look for the best deals and the best dentists in a single clinic, dental tourism has become a great option in recent years, when patients cannot find what we mentioned in their countries of origin.

The most popular countries for dental tourism are:

● Türkiye: Without a doubt, this wonderful country has become a great option in Europe because it offers packages for tourists not only to visit exotic and historical places but also to enjoy its dental services at an affordable price.

● Mexico: In Latin America and the North, this country is a great option since dental procedures are very expensive in places like Canada and the United States.

● Vietnam: This country is ideal in the Asian part because they train excellent professionals and are ideal for offering good prices without lowering quality standards.

There are also other ideal countries for dental tourism, such as Costa Rica, Colombia, Dubai, Poland, among others.

What are the most sought-after dental procedures in the world?

ORTHODONTICS: Undoubtedly, crooked or gapped teeth are among the biggest factors that lower a person's mood and dental aesthetics. Orthodontics is an ideal procedure to correct these types of problems, as well as bite malformations. It involves placing a series of metal appliances that, over the months, gradually tighten the teeth and move them into their correct position.
TEETH WHITENING: It is one of the most used procedures since most people in the world suffer from tooth stains at least once in their lives for various reasons, whether the most common ones, such as not having proper oral hygiene or the consumption of tobacco, cigarettes, tea, or mate, among others. Sometimes it turns into tartar and this can only be removed by the doctor using special equipment.
DENTAL IMPLANTS: When we lose one or more teeth, it's possible to replace them through this procedure, which, although more complex, is a valid option. A screw is placed in the tooth root, and once the osseointegration process is complete, a custom-made prosthesis, matched to the natural tooth colour, is then attached.
DENTAL CROWNS: They are used after the implant and act in place of the missing tooth, they are made of a biocompatible material with the mouth, they are made to measure for each patient, they are made with the natural color of the tooth and they are placed permanently, the patient automatically recovers the aesthetic and chewing function of the mouth.
DENTAL VENEERS: These are "caps" so called because of their manufacturing method, which cover imperfections of natural teeth such as stains, cracks, crooked teeth, etc. They are made in the same color and help to make the smile beautiful and perfect.
HOLLYWOOD SMILE: It is undoubtedly most sought after by those who practice dental tourism; its name is derived from the way famous people in film and television have a beautiful and enviable smile. The professionals provide individual assistance to each patient when it comes to this treatment, as each one is evaluated and given the procedures they need to achieve a Hollywood smile.

These are just some of the many dental procedures performed in various clinics, where patients go with the assurance of receiving top-quality care at competitive prices. Among the outstanding clinics, we must mention the dental clinic called Dentakay, located in Istanbul, Turkey, famous for its excellent price packages that include not only treatment but also pre- and post-treatment services, as well as the opportunity for patients to explore historical sites in the country, thus enhancing their dental tourism experience.

By Nathan Spears

Lady Victoria smears Epstein victims, defends his associates [ 13-Feb-26 10:29am ]

Epstein victims attacked by Lady Victoria

'Lady' Victoria Hervey — ex-partner to disgraced Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor — went on LBC to smear the late Virginia Giuffre, who serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein abused for years before she lost her life to suicide in 2025.

Unrepentant

Giuffre dedicated her life campaigning against sexual abuse. Despite that, Windsor, notwithstanding his position in the royal family, denied having had a relationship or contact with Giuffre. The release of the 'Epstein files' revealed the disgraced ex-royal to be the dishonest party. He did know her and the infamous image of them was not doctored as claimed.

Hervey's interview charade mirrors Andrew's unrepentant mindset. Hervey, dismisses these events as a storm-in-a-teacup of lies that were 'unravelling.'

It gets worse, with Hervey claiming that:

just before [Virginia] passed away her lies were unravelling. Like, finally people were kind of realizing 'okay, this girl is making up stories,' and then she conveniently dies.

Challenged on who Giuffre's death was convenient for, she said it was:

Convenient for her.

This is not her first defence of Andrew. But tolerance for anyone cheering for rapists or excusing statutory rape is wearing thin — even the insufferable Piers Morgan shut down Hervey in a recent interview, describing her theories as as "utter s***".

It should be astounding, but isn't, given the context of the contempt shown for Epstein's countless victims by their abusers. Nor given the establishment's ongoing contempt now for their lives, reputations and the justice they deserve. Nor indeed Hervey's own history of responding to Giuffre's death with "lies catch up with you".

But Hervey wasn't finished. She also wanted to pour scorn on the horror decent humanity feels at the string of revelations of the rich and powerful and their sick crimes. According to Hervey, being in the files isn't shameful. Not being in the files is — it means you're "a bit of a loser":

To be honest, if you're not in those files it would be an insult, because it just means that you were a bit of a loser.

And Hervey just doubled down when she was challenged. In an interview shortly after her vile comments, she told Piers Morgan subsequently that she meant anyone "in the upper echelons of society" would be in Epstein's files:

https://www.thecanary.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/hervey-morgan-epstein.mp4 More questions than answers

Certainly, there are a handful of people in the files who aren't tainted by their appearance in the Epstein files. Anti-Zionist academic Norman Finkelstein came out shining, after the files showed him telling an academic who defended Epstein that Epstein and his lawyer Alan Dershowitz should be strangled.

But not the disgraced Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Not the string of sick billionaires and politicians who participated in Epstein's crimes. And perhaps not Hervey either. She appears some thirty times in the latest Epstein release — and not in a 'passing mention' way either. None of it is proof of wrongdoing. None of it is incidental, either. All of it raises questions.

For example, in a frantic email to Giuffre's lawyer David Boies last year, a redacted whistleblower correspondent accused an "OUT OF CONTROL" Hervey of running a " serious gang of coordinated stalkers" to doxx and pursue them:

Or, in another example, seemingly from the same person:

Ward celebrated with HERVEY and KRAUS the night [redacted]'s death. They will not be satisfied until I am dead as well.

I have already served HERVEY and need to serve KRAUS. HERVEY uses the felon on parole, George B Tonks, to harass me full time since she no longer legally can. I had to hire a barrister in UK to serve Lady Victoria HERVEY, and did so [because] of the way [redacted] was being pummeled publicly by this gang. The guy was on parole as a convicted federal felon and I'm a federal whistleblower, so they did nothing. Vanity Fair gave a felon in prison my phone number and said felon NEVER STOPPED THREATENING AND HARASSING. The NYPD, Chicago PD, and FBI have failed us all and now I have been so beaten down the last five years without an ounce of support aside from fellow victims…

…HERVEY speaks to Maxwell in prison. Why is any of this harassment of witnesses legal and always overlooked?

One file includes an email with a redacted sender and no mention of the recipient's identity:

You use ppl with no support systems and make them carry the weight of unimaginable power and retribution! I begged you and SIGRID YEARS to protect NM/me from LADY VICTORIA HERVEY, as you gaslighted having never heard of the royal stalkers! Fergie and Maxwell are behind all of the suffering. LAW ENFORCEMENT IS
NOT HERE FOR VICTIMS. They arc here for elites.

Another Epstein file shows Hervey being accused publicly of being an "MI6 honeypot operative" close to Trump's FBI director Kash Patel. The image used shows a redacted Hervey with Patel, wearing a 'MAGA' cap. Patel is accused by senior US congresspeople of trying to cover up Trump's involvement with Epstein.

Finger-pointing

Another DOJ file shows a chat between an unnamed sender and "Lisa Probation for Stalker", accusing Hervey of participating in illegally-obtained medical information:

Another file:

[Redacted] needs to be restrained legally and once again, I wasn't given enough compensation to even cover my
upcoming surgeries. I had to serve HERVEY in the UK, PREDMORE, etc…how am I to survive? BEDWARDS, you did ALL OF THIS to my tiny private life.

Another, to lawyer Ariel Mitchell, accused Hervey and others of working with the Trump administration, Ghislaine Maxwell's family and the royal to destroy the sender:

Ariel,

He's a felon on parole who was just released in NYC from his ankle monitor. His probation officer had promised
he would not go free, yet LV HERVEY used her "influence", as they continue to try to kill me with threats/harassment/lies/smears/releasing my home address, sharing my ss#, sharing my [redacted] trauma journal!

They work in tandem with this current administration/Maxwell/Royal family.

Another, an email to Boies and others:

They gang stalk and HERVEY/Kraus have eyes set on attacking [musician P] Diddy victims next. FBI JUST WATCHES AS WE ARE EATEN ALIVE! Six full years.

Another, from a UK citizen to an unnamed Met Police detective, describes Hervey as "besotted" with Epstein's enabler and fellow trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, and demands a 'restraining order' against her:

I would like it noted that LVH [Hervey] has many friends as politicians as per her Daily Mail interview.

Again I want a restraining order filed against her. She is NOT a journalist but someone whom is besotted with Maxwell a convicted pedophile charged with sex trafficking who participated in my OWN TRAFFICKING AND HER OWN EGO!!!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14511171/Samantha-Landry-Victoria-Secret-excitement-Trump-MAGA-influencer.html

I WANT ALL HER LETTERS TO MAXWELL CONFISCATED AND USED AS EVIDENCE. ALSO ALL CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN YOURSELF LUCIA AND LVH MUST BE SENT TO DC [redacted] INCLUDING ALL OF [redacted] EVIDENCE YOU STOLE!!

AGAIN MAY I REMIND YOU ALL THAT THIS IS AN INTERNATIONAL SEX TRAFFICKING RING!!!!

I also have have photos of Ghislaine with myself and others in Epstein Island.

See [redacted] email below. I expect you will also contact her because I want every single communication she had with Lucia Osbom and Lady Victoria Hervey!

An implicated Daily Mail

Another, heavily redacted file includes an email sent to Daily Mail owner Jonathan Harmsworth, Viscount Rothermere. The email, apparently sent by a trafficked Epstein victim, informs Harmsworth that s/he is adding him to the witness list in "litigation and investigations into Epstein and Co", specifically, among other issues, because Hervey writes for his publication:

Jonathan Harmsworth,

I will be adding you to my witness list in the ongoing litigation and investigations into Epstein and Co where you personally will be held accountable for aiding and abetting Epstein's sex trafficking ring, victim-blaming and discrediting Epstein's victims to aid further those who committed and are committing heinous crimes of rape and sex trafficking accountable.

Seeming as Daniel Bates, Callahan, Lucia Osborne, Victoria Hervey, Alan Dershowitz, and Boris Johnson are enthusiastic journalists of your or in other z class stations, you to will be investigated along with Rupert Murdoch and The New York Post. Because of Callahan, I had to go into isolation and hiding for two years, and you all
put my life in danger when Epstein located me in Barcelona.

It was Sharon Churcher, a Daily Mail journalist who went down to see with a photographer and took her and her husband to the FBI in Sydney. It was the Daily Mail that Published the photo of Prince Andrew.

Over the years, how many millions/ billions have you made plugging the Prince Andrew story? I even made complaints directly to the Daily Mail many, many times at the unfair constant plugging of only one male being held accountable in an entire sex trafficking ring. Why has not one journalist held another man in the Epstein ring accountable?? NOT ONE???

Again, none of these appearances are proof of wrongdoing. But they certainly raise questions about Hervey's evident contempt for rape victims and survivors, including Giuffre.

For more on the the Epstein Files, please read the Canary's article on way that the media circus around Epstein is erasing the experiences of victims and survivors.

Featured image via the Canary

Extremist Israeli colonisers plant trees in Lebanon in land-grab attempt [ 13-Feb-26 12:53am ]

A large gang of extremist Israeli colonisers has illegally crossed the 'blue line' dividing southern Lebanon and Israel to try to stake a claim to land that is not theirs. The far-right 'Awaken the North' group planted trees somewhere on the Lebanese side of the border and demanded the restart of Israeli settlement in Lebanon.

The group was then whisked back into Israel by the occupation military. Israeli authorities went through the motions of condemning the excursion, but no action against the racist group is likely.

In a deranged statement, one of the group's leaders claimed its action was "moral" and "necessary" and that it was reclaiming "our land:"

This is right for security and it is a necessary step from a moral and historical point of view.

One of the group's leaders said that the Israeli colonisers were "putting down roots" in "our country", regurgitating Israeli 'inheritance' propaganda:

We came here today, to plant trees and put down roots in the soil of our country, regardless of the fences. The State of Israel must renew the settlement in Lebanon, this is historically correct, it is right from a security point of view, and it is right from a moral point of view. South Lebanon is a piece of the inheritance of our forefathers, where Jewish settlement existed for thousands of years. In order to ensure the security of the residents of the north, the construction of civilian settlements in southern Lebanon, near IDF posts, must be promoted.

If you look closely at the featured image, you'll find the group has the Lebanese cedar in the centre of a Star of David as their logo. In the words of brother Omar from Four Lions: "I think you're confused bro."

Israel has bombed southern Lebanon daily, despite the supposed 'ceasefire' in place since the occupation's 2024 terrorist attack using exploding pagers. These attacks have murdered dozens of civilians.

Featured image via the Canary

Female MPs tell Starmer party branded 'paedo lovers' — but no word for victims [ 13-Feb-26 12:26am ]

Labour MPs have complained to their boss Keir Starmer that the party and its activists are now dismissed by the public as "paedo lovers". The complaint came during Starmer's emergency meeting with women from the parliamentary party yesterday, 11 February 2026.

The meeting followed a further 'Labour nonceberg' scandal over Starmer's peerage for former adviser Matthew Doyle despite knowing Doyle had campaigned for the election of a Scottish Labour paedophile. This in turn followed the scandal of the various appointments given to the disgraced Peter Mandelson despite his ardent fandom toward serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein — to whom he also leaked confidential state and financial information.

There is no mention in reporting that women MPs raised the issue of the victims of Epstein or Doyle's close friend Sean Morton. Starmer has also refused to say that disgraced former royal Andrew should apologise to his victims.

To the informed, none of this is surprising, either from Starmer or from the women MPs. Labour's 'white feminists' have routinely ignored the plight of victims who are not 'people like us'. Starmer's record as Labour leader is an appalling continuation of the impunity of celebrity paedophiles when he ran the CPS.

Nonceberg

As well as the cases of Mandelson, Doyle/Morton and Andrew, Starmer:

Welcomed the London MP Neil Coyle back under the Labour whip despite Coyle being found by Parliament to have sexually harassed a staffer, as well as racially abusing a Chinese-British man.
Turned a blind eye to then-Chester MP Chris Matheson's sexual harassment: neither Starmer nor the party machine suspended him pending the outcome of the investigation, as would be usual practice to protect the women around him.
Protected at least two further alleged sex pests on his front bench.

The public are right

The angry public on the doorstep is not wrong: Starmer's right-wing, pro-Israel faction is rife with paedophiles:

'Friend of Israel' Liron Velleman has just been convicted of repeated sex crimes against a 13-year-old girl.
In January 2025, former Blair minister Ivor Caplin was arrested in a sting operation as he allegedly attempted to meet a 15-year-old boy for sex. Local police went after local left-winger Greg Hadfield for exposing the explicit content Caplin posted on his X feed — Hadfield defeated the 'vexatious' charge in November 2025. However, no charges have yet been brought against Caplin and a court did not impose bail conditions after his initial bail expired.
Hackney councillor Tom Dewey, an organiser in pro-Israel group 'Labour First', admitted possession of the most serious category of child rape images in 2023. The party knew of his arrest when it allowed him to stand for election. After his conviction, it blocked local women members from its systems to prevent them discussing the case.
In March 2025 Sam Gould, another JLM activist who worked for Starmer's health secretary Wes Streeting, quit as a Redbridge councillor after being convicted on two separate counts of indecent exposure to a 13-year-old girl.
The following month Dan Norris MP, an ally of Keir Starmer, was arrested over allegations of rape, child sex offences and child abduction. Avon and Somerset Police says its investigation is still ongoing.
The same Dan Norris was arrested again for allegations of rape and sexual assault.

And in August 2025, the US allowed Israeli cyberwar official Tom Alexandrovich to fly back to Israel after he was caught in a police paedophile sting. Starmer is fond of both countries.

Starmer's war on Labour-left — in retrospect

And while Starmer's senior cronies were deselecting or blocking potential left-wing parliamentary candidates on any pretext they could find, they were ignoring legal advice to let their mates stand.

Labour's national executive ignored the advice of its barrister that it needed to thoroughly investigate allegations of 'serious' sexual assault against slum landlord Jas Athwal. Then-Redbridge council leader Athwal is now a right-wing Labour MP close to health secretary Wes Streeting. Instead of investigating, the NEC dropped the case and reinstated Athwal to allow his rigged selection as the party's parliamentary candidate in Ilford South.

Starmer ignored whistleblower

Perhaps most seriously, Starmer and his then-sidekick David Evans covered up Jewish whistleblower Elaina Cohen's allegations of serial abuse of women by a party staffer.

Cohen repeatedly warned Starmer and Evans that a staffer working for then-Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood — and allegedly Mahmood's lover — was engaged in 'sadistic' and 'criminal' abuse of vulnerable Muslim women. The victims were fleeing domestic violence, through the now-defunct domestic violence 'charity' that she ran.

Warned time and again, Starmer and Evans did nothing. Mahmood remained on Starmer's front bench as long as he chose to be there. Cohen was sacked from her role as a parliamentary aide.

One of the victims gave evidence, at Cohen's successful wrongful dismissal tribunal, of the horrific abuse she and others had suffered. This included blackmail and sexual exploitation. Her evidence was not challenged by Mahmood or his lawyers. Mahmood admitted under oath to the tribunal that he had also personally made sure that Starmer was fully aware of Cohen's allegations.

Starmer's protection of child sex offenders is a mountain. His contempt for their victims is another. Both have been almost entirely ignored by 'mainstream' media.

For more on the Epstein Files, please read the Canary's article on how the media circus around Epstein is erasing the experiences of victims and survivors.

Featured image via the Canary

UN experts said any death and injury would be the government's responsibility:

Wales passes Homelessness and Social Housing Allocation Bill [ 12-Feb-26 11:44pm ]

The Welsh government has unanimously passed the Homelessness and Social Housing Allocation Bill into law, which experts have labelled "life-changing"

The Senedd passed the new law on February 10, 2026, and it will provide support far sooner than current legislation allows, preventing people from losing their homes and falling into homelessness.

It will also require public services to work together to prevent homelessness and to allocate social housing to those most at risk.

The bill will:

• Expand access to homelessness services and provide additional support to those who need it most.
• Widen responsibility to certain specified public authorities to identify individuals who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and respond effectively.
• Prioritise allocation of social housing to those most in need.

Homelessness — a growing crisis

From April 2024 to March 2025, 13,287 households were homeless in Wales. Local councils only secured accommodation for 25% of these.

The total number of households staying in temporary accommodation was 6,285. Of these, 2,397 (38%) were staying in unsuitable bed and breakfasts.

As it stands, local authorities can only take action 56 days before someone falls into homelessness. The new law will extend this to six months.

The bill also commits to scrapping both priority need and the intentionally homeless. However, it does not give a date for doing so.

As it stands, priority need means that certain groups, such as pregnant women, people with children, young people, care leavers, and victims of domestic abuse, are accepted as being a higher priority for homelessness assistance.

Being 'intentionally homeless' technically means that a person is homeless, or threatened with homelessness, due to something they deliberately did or failed to do.

However, local authorities often use it as a guise for refusing help to people who have to leave unsafe situations, such as traumatised women having to leave mixed-sex accommodation, or young people feeling unsafe in adult hostels.

If a council deems someone intentionally homeless, it does not have to offer long-term housing.

Social housing allocation

The bill has placed all registered social housing providers under a new legal obligation to assist people experiencing homelessness. It has also given ministers new powers to issue orders to these providers, requiring them to comply.

However, some organisations have criticised the bill for failing to outlaw the use of unsafe temporary accommodation.

According to the Bevan Foundation:

At present, local authorities only need to have "due regard" to the various legal standards on the suitability of accommodation when fulfilling their homelessness duties. This includes having "due regard" to whether the property is fit for human habitation and the presence of Category 1 hazards such as damp and mould, excessive cold, fire risk and structural issues like unstable staircases.

The organisation previously published a report on the dangers of unsuitable accommodation. It highlighted how temporary

accommodation causes physical harm to children, along with the fact that local authorities are not meeting or enforcing regulations.

Other amendments related to protecting victims of domestic violence and abuse had been put forward, but not included.

Matt Downie, Chief Executive at Crisis, said:

The new Homelessness and Social Housing Allocations Bill has the potential to be life-changing for the thousands of people across Wales that are facing the trauma that comes from living without a stable place to call home.

But the work does not end here. The Welsh Government and incoming Members of the Senedd after the elections in May 2026 must now invest in the proper implementation of these new laws. It is critical that services have the guidance, funding and resources to really deliver the ambition of the Bill and work towards ending homelessness.

Feature image via Centre for Homelessness Impact

By HG

Apartheid state: Palestinians to die for crimes Israelis only get jail for [ 12-Feb-26 11:20pm ]

Israeli apartheid has shown itself again with absolute clarity. Israel wants a new law which would see Palestinians executed for crimes which Israelis are only jailed for. The latest death penalty bill has been heavily criticised by legal experts on that basis.

Lawyers and security experts subjected the bill to analysis. Haaretz reported on 9 February that those experts think the bill would have "grave international implications" and be unlawful.

Haaretz reported on this wild disparity:

One of the bill's clauses states that the defense minister may allow a military commander to determine that a West Bank resident who intentionally caused the death of a person under circumstances deemed to be terrorism can be punished only by death. The law states that this determination does not apply to an Israeli citizen or resident.

One rule for one group, another for the second.

Killing in the name of…

The Israeli far-right is eager to pass the law. Not that Israeli politics — or the whole ethnosupremacist project in itself — produces much of a left-wing. Of the legal experts who joined the panel to assess the bill:

The only ones who did not express opposition to the law were an Israel Prison Service official and David Bavli, an adviser to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Security minister Ben-Gvir yearns for Palestinians to be exterminated. He visits shackled Palestinians in jail and tells them he wants them to be executed. He does this on camera, for effect.

Tzvika Foghel, chair of the Knesset National Security Committee panel on the bill, is also a far-right figure.

Lilach Wagner, a Justice Ministry official, warned the bill did not reach Israel's constitutional standards. They claimed that even security officials within the settler state apparatus:

took a cautious approach regarding the question of whether the bill fulfills its stated main purpose, while it is clear that the proposal has weighty international implications.

The bill's second and third readings lay ahead. And it does not include Hamas members alleged to have carried out the 7 October 2023 attack — a separate bill will cover those individuals.

Apartheid — extermination policy

Middle East Eye reported on 9 February that a 'Green Mile'-style execution building is already being built to hold and execute Palestinian prisoners:

Training and procedural preparations have also started, while a delegation from the prison service is expected to visit an East Asian country to study the legal and regulatory framework for implementing capital punishment.

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners' Club said the plans were depraved:

The occupation has not been content with killing dozens of prisoners and detainees since the war of extermination began. Today, it seeks to entrench the crime of execution by enacting a specific law for it.

They added:

This law is an addition to a repressive legislative system that, for decades, has targeted all aspects of Palestinian life. It is another step to entrench the crime and attempt to legitimise it.

A 2017 poll suggested up to 70% of Israelis support capital punishment for Palestinians convicted of terrorism. Israel still has the death penalty on its statutes. The Israeli state appears to have executed two people throughout its brief history. In June 1948, Israel shot one of their own, Meir Tobianksi, for treason. Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi, was the second.

Powerful Israeli figures now seem to want to use the prison system as a new front in its genocide against the Palestinians. Of course, in some way it always was. What lawmakers are proposing is a rapid acceleration. There is nothing anomalous about this. The truth is that settler colonial projects lead here with the sureness of gravity.

Featured image via Amnesty International

By Joe Glenton

EXCLUSIVE: Morgan McSweeney's 'inner circle' is still trying to control Labour [ 12-Feb-26 11:11pm ]

Morgan McSweeney is gone, for now. But an MP who served on Labour's frontbench has passed me details of an unknown, unelected group that "rules with a rod of iron" and is still fighting to retain control of the Labour Party.

Morgan McSweeney: still trying to control Labour

Matthew Doyle is the first link in McSweeney's inner circle.

In December, Starmer was criticised for giving Doyle a peerage even though he had previously campaigned for Sean Morton, a Scottish Labour councillor now convicted of child sex offences. Sean Morton, councillor for Fochabers and Lhanbryde, was charged in 2016. In 2017, he stood for re-election as councillor. Doyle travelled up to Scotland, wore a t-shirt that read "Re-elect Sean Morton", and accompanied him to the election count. Then, in 2018, Morton was convicted of a string of crimes that included possession of indecent pictures of ten year-old girls.

On 10 February, and despite originally defending the decision to nominate Doyle for a peerage, saying that his links to Morton had been "thoroughly investigated" before the decision was made, Labour was forced to suspend him.

But here lies the problem: such is the grip that the McSweeney faction has held over Labour, no misdemeanour is too big to be swept under the carpet, and it is only when scandals are picked up by investigative journalists that the Starmer regime feels forced to act.

McSweeney reportedly insisted on the appointment of Epstein-informant Peter Mandelson as US ambassador. Starmer went along with it and Labour MPs fell into line. Everyone knew, they just didn't care.

McSweeney's 'tight' crew

According to the former Labour frontbencher who contacted me:

The inner circle were tight. WhatsApp tight. They talked openly of taking over the Labour Party literally. And to get rid of every existing MP eventually. Morgan seemed to run everything.

The second link in McSweeney's "inner circle" is Matthew Faulding. Faulding worked under McSweeney's close supervision as Labour's director of candidates, ensuring that only Mandelson-Starmer loyalists could be selected as candidates. He has previously been known to stalk the offices of Labour politicians, "striking the fear of death into MPs", according to a party staffer. But Starmer's grip on the reins of power is slipping. And now, after the events of the weekend, even McSweeney can't save him.

The third link in McSweeney's "inner circle" is Matt Pound. Pound was instrumental in Labour Party leadership rule changes that helped Starmer rise to power. He was previously head of the Labour First group, working to ensure the success of McSweeney-favoured candidates in "internal elections". Pound has previously been photographed alongside Marlon Solomon and Luke Akehurst, with the three wearing matching t-shirts bearing the phrase "Zionist Shitlord".

In 2019-20, Solomon was given £11,877 by the Pears Family Charitable Foundation to put on an Edinburgh Fringe show that would "put a comic spin on antisemitism". In 2008, the Pears Foundation established the Britain-Israel Research and Academic Exchange Partnership, "a major initiative launched by the prime ministers of both countries". In 2010, they helped establish the UK-Israel Life Sciences Council. David Chinn attended the launch.

David Chinn is the eldest son of life-long pro-Israeli lobbyist Trevor Chinn. Trevor Chinn was a co-director and major funder of McSweeney's Labour Together Limited. When McSweeney was found to have concealed over £730,000 in donations to Labour Together, he said it was "to protect Trevor Chinn, Labour Together's great benefactor".

Pulling in the money

The McSweeney-Starmer takeover of the Labour Party still needed cash, and Waheed Alli was on hand to provide. Alli was Starmer's biggest personal donor, giving over £30k for the prime minister's clothing and glasses. Now, his name appears in the Epstein Files.

Alli's name appears on a list of guests due to attend an Epstein-hosted dinner in February 2010 and another dinner in August of the same year. In another leaked e-mail from 2012, Epstein tells a friend that Peter Mandelson and Alli are staying at "Shelter Island".

McSweeney enforcer Faulding was working for Alli in the run-up to the general election in 2024. According to the former Labour frontbencher who contacted me, McSweeney's inner circle:

had lists of people approved or pressured before a selection ever began.

He believes that Faulding, however, soon fell out of favour:

his lack of charm leading to complaints about his arrogant out of control behaviour. He was becoming a liability to Morgan.

The problem is, McSweeney has himself become a liability to Supreme Leader Starmer. My source added:

The thugs beneath him are minions who any good leader would dispose of right away.

One of those who rushed to the by-then-doomed McSweeney's defence was Adam Langleben, current head of Labour Party think tank Progress and former national secretary of the Jewish Labour Movement.

The Zionist link

Langleben has previously supported Ivor Caplin, the former Labour minister caught by "paedophile hunters" last year. He has also described ex-Labour MP Greville Janner as his "inspiration". Back in 2021, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse said police deliberately "shut down" investigations into Janner. In 1997, just weeks after his election, Tony Blair gave Janner a peerage.

In The Lobby documentary produced by Al Jazeera, Rose, a director of the Jewish Labour Movement who previously worked at the Israeli embassy, was caught boasting about participating in IDF-developed Krav Maga training. Rose served as a Labour councillor in Barnet alongside Velleman.

In January, former Labour councillor Velleman pleaded guilty to a series of sexual offences against a police decoy he thought was a 13-year-old girl. Velleman sent naked pictures of himself to the 'girl' and asked whether she "was a virgin" and "at home alone". Then, on 10 February, Velleman admitted further charges, including sending the "child" videos of his penis and asking to see her underwear.

Unbelievably, Velleman had given evidence at the committee stage of the government's Child Safety Bill in 2022, where he's listed as a political organiser for Hope not Hate. Labour minister Peter Kyle, who was technology secretary when the Bill came into force, previously apologised to those:

let down by governments failing to keep them safe from toxic online content.

He also happens to be best friends with Ivor Caplin, the former Labour minister caught by "paedophile hunters" in 2025, and whose X account was still followed by Labour frontbenchers including Rachel Reeves whilst replete with a stream of explicit material. Caplin has "congratulated" Velleman online on several occasions, whilst Kyle once sent him a message of thanks at 2 o'clock in the morning!

On 9 February, Jewish News, apparently not reading the room, wrote a gushing piece extolling the virtues of political genius McSweeney, who by my research has only stood for public office himself once, receiving 149 votes in a Sutton West council election. McSweeney of course lived on an Israeli "kibbutz" shortly before joining the Labour Party and has a long history of promoting Israel lobby-backed candidates.

Langleben is quoted as saying:

No one did more to drag the Labour Party out of the darkest moment in its history than Morgan McSweeney. The Jewish community owes him a debt of gratitude.

Words of praise also effused from Michael Rubin, the director of Labour Friends of Israel, a shadowy lobby group within the party which refuses to reveal its funders. He said:

Morgan was essential in dragging Labour back to sanity after the dark Corbyn years.

The adults are not back

Some people might have an issue with the description of appointing Mandelson, the "best pal" of a notorious paedophile, to a top diplomatic role, as "sanity". If this is "the adults back in the room", it's not a room I want to set foot in.

Krav Maga-trained Ella Rose opined:

A lot will be written and said about the role of Morgan McSweeney…We would not have been fit for government without him. Thank you, Morgan.

One thing is true: by accepting the resignation of McSweeney, Starmer lost the final card in his deck. On Monday, the prime minister told his fast diminishing staff at No. 10 that he is "not resigning", but his removal is now simply a matter of time.

Featured image via the Canary

By Jody McIntyre

12-Feb-26

Judicial Review ruling on Palestine Action imminent [ 12-Feb-26 8:42pm ]

The fate of the 2,787 people arrested for terrorism offences for peacefully holding signs saying "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action" in silent vigils in towns and cities in all four nations of the UK, will be decided on Friday 13 February at 10am in Court 4 of the Royal Courts of Justice when the long-awaited Judicial Review ruling will be finally read into court.

Outside the court, supporters of the Lift The Ban campaign will again risk arrest by holding the same signs in a display of the ongoing defiance of the government's authoritarian attempt to treat protest as terrorism. The Lift The Ban campaign - which aims to de-proscribe Palestine Action and end government complicity in genocide - has become the largest UK-wide campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience in recent history.

A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries said:

The Filton 6 verdicts show that only a Judicial Review ruling that strikes down the Palestine Action ban as unlawful will be in tune with the public's understanding of justice. Unlike the government, the public knows the difference between protest and terrorism.

The Filton 6 verdicts have been a huge blow to government ministers who have tried to portray Palestine Action as a violent group. They have repeatedly referred to the single incidence of alleged harm to an individual in the case as justification for banning Palestine Action before the allegation was proven in court.

Yet Palestine Action never advocated causing harm to people and never caused unlawful violence to a person in over 400 actions. Their aim was always to save lives by causing damage to companies like Elbit Systems whose made-in-Britain quadcopter drones have been killing innocent civilians in Gaza.

Our action outside the Royal Courts of Justice will create yet another dilemma for the police - will they arrest us as the result of the Judicial Review is being read out? If the appeal against the proscription is successful, their action looks ridiculous.

If it is unsuccessful, more people will be added to the queue for prosecution in the courts - and people of conscience who want to defend our fundamental rights and freedoms will have no option but to continue to resist this unjust, unnecessary and unenforceable law.

Lobbyists for proscription

As the Channel 4 documentary Palestine Action - The Truth Behind The Ban showed, home secretary Yvette Cooper held meetings with lobbyists for arms companies and Israel that were revealed by Freedom of Information requests. Even the government's own adviser on terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, condemned Cooper's "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" approach to justifying the ban.

We also know about pressure from arms companies and lobbyists for Israel that was put on the government, and that in March 2025 Keir Starmer took two phone calls from Donald Trump about Palestine Action after the group painted "Gaza is not for sale" on Trump's golf course in Scotland.

The decision was made despite warnings that the move would backfire, and despite deep and widespread concerns amongst civil servants, international experts, human rights observers and civil society.

Impacts of the proscription

The decision to proscribe has not only led to 2,787 people being arrested for sitting peacefully, holding signs in front of the world's press. It has also resulted in the the misapplication of counter-terror resources, international condemnation, the exhaustion and lowering of morale of police officers and the possibility that people might be criminalised for showing support for the Palestinian people.

But it has not stopped people taking direct action against the properties of the companies who are complicit in genocide.

The judicial review grounds

Huda Ammori was granted four grounds on which to challenge the proscription in a judicial review which was heard at the Royal Courts of Justice over three days between 26 November and 2 December 2025.

On 30 July 2025 Mr Justice Chamberlain granted two grounds: that the proscription was a disproportionate interference with Article 10 and Article 11 rights Convention Rights, namely the rights to expression and assembly; and that Palestine Action should have been consulted.

Two additional grounds were granted by the Court of Appeal on 17 October 2025: that the home secretary failed to have regard to domestic public law principles and that she did not apply her own policy including the proportionality of the proscription.

Allegations of a judicial stitch-up

Avaaz launched a petition demanding an explanation from justice secretary David Lammy MP as to why the judge overseeing the case was removed just days before it was about to begin. The lack of an explanation has meant the Judicial Review has been dogged by allegations of a 'stitch-up' with questions about the suitability and independence of the three replacement judges demanding to be answered. A former British ambassador suggested the result had been to "load the dice for Israel".

The judicial review

On the opening day of the Judicial Review, Raza Husain KC, representing Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori, noted that the group was the: "first direct-action civil disobedience organisation that does not advocate for violence ever to be proscribed as terrorist." He said the ban was an "ill-considered, discriminatory, due process-lacking, authoritarian abuse of statutory power … that is alien to the basic tradition of common law and the European Convention on Human Rights."

Defend Our Juries' Lift The Ban campaign was cited as evidence of mass civil society disagreement with the proscription.

Intervening in the Judicial Review, United Nations Special Rapporteur Ben Saul warned the ban makes the UK "out of step with comparable liberal democracies" and "sets a precedent" for further crackdown on other protest movements in the UK such as climate protesters.

Amnesty International UK said it represented a substantial departure from established responses to protest movements which use direct action tactics and that it breached our fundamental rights to protest and free speech.

Liberty argued the ban was disproportionate because counter-terror powers have historically been directed at groups whose modus operandi includes intentional violence against people

Best-selling author Sally Rooney told the hearing how she may no longer be able to sell or publish her books in the UK due to her support for Palestine Action.

On the final day of the Judicial Review - Tuesday 2 December 2025 - the government presented part of its defence using the secret court system known as Closed Material Procedure. This method has come under criticism for allowing evidence to be presented without challenge and has been described by Angus McCullough KC as being a system "in meltdown".

Government would have let hunger strikers die

During a rolling hunger and thirst strike running from November to January, Lammy refused to meet lawyers for the families and loved ones of hunger strikers, or even to reply directly to the several letters that they sent. This was despite warnings from medical professionals that participants had passed the point where there was a high risk of death and serious permanent injury.

The State's duty of care toward hunger strikers is heightened, not diminished … Preventable deaths in custody are never acceptable. The State bears full responsibility for the lives and wellbeing of those it detains.

The conditions of Palestine Action-connected prisoners held without trial were earlier criticised by the UN in a letter to the UK government.

Government complicity in crimes against humanity and genocide

Evidence of UK complicity in crimes against genocide continues to mount. In October 2025 the UN issued its draft report Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime detailing the complicity of states including the UK in the destruction of Gaza. Amongst other things, the UK continued to supply arms including components for F-35 stealth bombers, undertook daily surveillance flights over Gaza for Israel, maintained normal trade relations, and allowed Israel to undertake international crimes with impunity.

In December Declassified UK released its film Britain's Gaza Spy Flight Scandal, investigating the hundreds of RAF intelligence flights conducted on behalf of Israel.

The genocide continues but the government is silent

The genocide continues to unfold in Gaza. Since the 11 October 2025 "ceasefire", Israel has killed at least 556 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 1,500. The total recorded death toll since 7 October 2023 is now 71,824.

In October 2025 the UN reported that 81% of buildings in Gaza had been either damaged or destroyed rendering the vast majority of the population homeless and relying on temporary shelters. Israel continues to destroy buildings in Gaza.

Israel recently banned 37 aid groups from working in Gaza. UN experts said:

Banning life-saving organisations from operating in Gaza marks a new phase in a policy that renders life unbearable for a population already devastated by genocide. This strategy will create conditions that force Palestinians into chronic deprivation, threatening their very survival as a group and further violating the Genocide Convention - it must be stopped …

We have entered a new phase in which Israel and its supporters have reached the genocide without witness stage. With journalists being killed, denied access, or forced out, humanitarian organisations paralysed or expelled, and a misleading global sense of 'ceasefire', atrocities are being committed without public scrutiny.

Featured image via Defend our Juries

A decline in Gaza's population of more than 10% could mean the loss of more than 200,000 lives [ 12-Feb-26 7:54pm ]

In what is considered one of the most serious estimates since the outbreak of war in October 2023, the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights has suggested that Palestinian deaths in Gaza may have exceeded 200,000. The estimate is based on data indicating a population decline of more than 10% in recent months.

If confirmed, the figure would call into question current casualty estimates. It would also raise serious concerns about the gap between published statistics and the reality on the ground.

Gaza's population decline opens the door to shocking possibilities

Stuart Casey-Maslen, head of the Academy's International Humanitarian Law Focus Project, told Anadolu Agency that the recorded population decline could indicate the loss of around 200,000 people. He stressed that the figures announced so far "do not reflect the full extent of human losses."

He explained that the officially documented toll includes only bodies that have been found or registered. An unknown number of victims may remain under rubble or in inaccessible areas. He said

We will need time to know the exact number. But it is clear that we are facing a huge human loss, and it is necessary to know how these people were killed.

According to Gaza's Ministry of Health, documented deaths have reached 72,037, with more than 171,000 injured. The ministry notes that thousands of victims have not yet been recovered due to ongoing destruction and limited rescue access.

International report monitors Gaza among 23 armed conflicts

Maslen's comments were included in the Academy's War Watch report, which assessed Gaza and the West Bank alongside 23 other global conflicts over the past 18 months.

The report states that conditions in Gaza remain extremely dangerous. This is despite a decline in large-scale clashes compared to the most intense periods of fighting.

Maslen said the absence of widespread hostilities seen before last year's ceasefire "does not mean that the suffering of the population has ended." He stressed that people "are still dying in Gaza."

He added that wounded civilians in need of urgent evacuation face severe shortages of food, water, shelter, and healthcare. He called for a significant increase in humanitarian aid and guaranteed, unhindered access.

Exceptional destruction and years of reconstruction

Turning to reconstruction, Maslen described the scale of destruction as "exceptional." He said returning life to pre-October 2023 levels will take years, not months, and require billions of dollars in investment.

He emphasised that rebuilding critical infrastructure demands long-term international commitment. This must go beyond emergency relief to comprehensive development planning.

Legal characterisation and pending accountability

In legal terms, Maslen noted that the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry previously concluded that genocide had taken place in Gaza, though it did not specify a timeframe.

He also pointed out that in November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. The charges relate to alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Maslen criticised sanctions imposed on several ICC judges in connection with those warrants. He argued that such measures undermine international justice rather than support it.

He concluded that the attacks carried out by Hamas on 7 October 2023 cannot justify the scale of human losses that followed. He called for genuine legal accountability for events over the past two years.

Between limited official figures and alarming population estimates, the situation in Gaza remains unresolved. The true scale of human loss may be far greater than current records suggest.

Featured image via Wafa News Agency

Social housing regulator finds 'very serious failings' with Northumberland County Council [ 12-Feb-26 7:41pm ]

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) has issued the lowest, most serious rating for social housing landlords, after its inspection uncovered "very serious failings".

The RSH inspects all social housing providers as part of its regulatory inspection programme. It takes into account all four consumer standards. These are: Neighbourhood and Community Standard, Safety and Quality Standard, Tenancy Standard, and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.

The judgment on Northumberland County Council ruled:

Our judgement is that there are very serious failings in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards. The landlord must make fundamental changes so that improved outcomes are delivered.

Social housing — 'Significant inconsistencies'

The RSH also based the judgment on the "scale of the issues" and the "significant impact" on tenants.

Social housing providers are required to have accurate, up-to-date, and evidence-based information about the condition of their homes. This should:

reliably inform their provision of quality, well maintained and safe homes for tenants and to ensure that their tenants' homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard.

Shockingly, Northumberland CC only had up-to-date information on the condition of around 3% of its homes. The council last conducted its stock condition survey in 2012. However, it only completed it for 10% of its houses. This means the RSH does not have assurance that homes meet the decent homes standard.

Additionally, the RSH requires Northumberland CC to meet all legal requirements related to the safety of tenants in its homes.

The judgment states:

Through our inspection we found very serious failings in Northumberland CC delivering this required outcome. We identified significant inconsistencies in reported information relating to health and safety obligations, and limited evidence that Northumberland CC is assured that it identifies and meets all legal requirements that relate to the health and safety of tenants in its homes and communal areas. We found no evidence to support that health and safety assessments are accurately recorded, are routinely monitored or that actions are being addressed within appropriate timescales.

The RSH also found weaknesses in Northumberland CC's ability to undertake repairs and maintenance effectively and in a timely manner. It states:

We found no evidence that it has considered the needs of tenants in the delivery of its repairs service or that Northumberland CC keep its tenants informed with clear and timely communication.

Transparency, Influence and Accountability

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard sets out how landlords must be open with tenants and treat them with fairness and respect, so that tenants can access services, raise complaints, influence decision-making, and hold their landlord to account.

The RSH found that Northumberland CC was also massively failing on this standard, too.

It was discovered that it does not provide meaningful opportunities for tenants to scrutinise or influence services. Additionally, it did not respond to complaints on time.

On the subject of tenancy agreements, the RSH found:

Northumberland CC could not provide evidence that it was offering tenancies or terms of occupation that were compatible with the purpose of its accommodation, the needs of individual households, the sustainability of the community, and the efficient use of its housing stock.

Furthermore, it did not provide any evidence that it was taking appropriate action in response to anti-social behaviour and hate crimes.

Ultimately, the RSH ruled that:

Although Northumberland CC has indicated a willingness to address these very serious failings, and has started the work in some areas, we do not yet have assurance that it understands the potential risks to tenants, and that it has the ability to put matters right.

Based on our assessment of the seriousness of the failings, the risks tenants are exposed to as a result of these failings, and the fundamental changes needed to improve outcomes for tenants, we have concluded a C4 grade for Northumberland CC.

Feature image via NorthumberlandTV

By HG

Capitalism must be dismantled to stop the climate crisis [ 12-Feb-26 7:26pm ]

Writing in the Guardian, renowned economists Jason Hickel and Yanis Varoufakis make the case that tackling the climate crisis first requires dismantling capitalism and its interests.

Hickel and Varoufakis astutely point to the 'extraordinary paradox' we find ourselves. One where we have the technology and resources to produce more than we could ever possibly need. At the same, time inequality is increasing rapidly, leaving millions of people suffering through severe deprivation.

Supporting their argument, they state:

Capitalism cares about our species' prospects as much as a wolf cares about a lamb's. But democratise our economy and a better world is within our grasp

"Our existing economic system, capitalism, is incapable of addressing the social and ecological crises we face in the 21st century." https://t.co/nbKPcpnaVr

— Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) February 12, 2026

Capitalism: the cause of this paradox

Hickel and Varoufakis are sounding the alarm over our continued adherence to capitalist structures and principles. In this piece, they argue that we "have an urgent responsibility" to chart a different course. As they state, we've all learned it makes no difference who we vote for if we don't have systemic change.

Additionally, they point out it's ludicrous to tinker around the edges of a system that works against the interests of the 99%.

Quite aptly, they describe capitalism as:

an economic system that boils down to a dictatorship run by the tiny minority who control capital - the big banks, the major corporations and the 1% who own the majority of investible assets. Even if we live in a democracy and have a choice in our political system, our choices never seem to change the economic system. Capitalists are the ones who determine what to produce, how to use our labour and who gets to benefit. The rest of us - the people who are actually doing the production - do not get a say.

The latest situation in Argentina under far-right Trump-ally Milei only reinforces their claim that ordinary people's quality of life is consistently sacrificed for billionaire profits:

This is what the far right calls 'freedom': turning workers into slaves—12-hour workdays, no severance pay, punished for striking. A country pushed back centuries in just a few years while working people lose their rights.
Milei is a monster. pic.twitter.com/7SzlWyukzh

— Alejandro

BBC demonises homeless man who had to sleep on trains [ 12-Feb-26 6:21pm ]

The BBC has reported that a '"brazen" rail fare dodger' has been fined over £3,600 for not paying for hundreds of journeys. However, it quickly becomes clear that the man is actually homeless and was sleeping on the trains. So why didn't the BBC cover it that way?

BBC paints a homeless man as a criminal

The BBC article reports that Charles Brohiri, 29, "travelled" on Govia Thameslink Railway trains 112 times "without buying a ticket" in just under two years. He was given a suspended sentence and ordered to pay back £3,629. Brohiri had previously been sentenced for 36 charges of failing to pay for a ticket in August 2024. He pleaded guilty to 76 recent charges.

The judge at Westminster Magistrates' Court, Nina Tempia, said Brohiri had a "sense of entitlement" and "acted as if he was invincible."

The BBC also mentions that he continued to travel without paying after initially being charged in court in January, right up until the day before the current hearing. Apparently, there have been a further 16 offences since then.

What it glosses over, though, is the reason why Brohiri continued to commit the 'crime'. He's actually been homeless for the last three years and has had no choice but to sleep on trains, as well as in hospitals and libraries.

State incompetence to blame

His defence, Eleanor Curzon, said Brohiri had attempted to get support but struggled to engage with charities. She said it was:

a combination of a lack of support, a negative mental health space and not knowing how to go about maintaining support from services

Curzon also told the court that Brohiri wanted to make a change in his life, and getting sober three years ago demonstrated that. She also pointed out that he had always complied when caught by authorities.

Brohiri has admitted his crimes and wants to be given a chance to get into work and be supported back into having somewhere to live. Curzon told the court:

He reiterated to me this morning that if he is given the opportunity to work with probation they can assist him in securing accommodation and employment.

It is really these two factors which will put an end to Mr Brohiri's offending.

BBC thinks homeless man not paying £15k is a bad thing

Thankfully, Brohiri was given a suspended sentence. He has, however, been ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work. Hopefully, he will also be able to get paid employment alongside that, so he can live safely.

While Brohiri has to (somehow) pay the fine, he thankfully doesn't have to pay the £15,120 prosecution fees. The article frames this as a bad thing, naturally. This is the part where they finally quote Govia Thameslink, who say that people not paying fares:

diverted public funding away from improving services for passengers. That is unfair both on taxpayers and on the vast majority of passengers who pay for their journeys.

However, if they hadn't prosecuted a homeless man for the 'crime' of literally sleeping somewhere safe, that money could've been spent on homeless services.

As Adam Smith said on Twitter:

And we're supposed to think our justice system is working? That £15,000 couldn't have been spent actually helping this guy, and many others like him?

No, instead we'll hound someone for money they don't have. Like they do to all of us, these days.

BBC puts corporations before people's lives, as usual

This is clearly a story about how the system is failing vulnerable people who fall through the cracks. The fact that the BBC frames this as a "fare dodger brought to justice" and not a sharp look at the way the state treats poor people tells you everything you need to know about who the BBC serves. And let's be honest, the BBC aren't strangers to twisting the truth to fit their narrative.

When it was discovered that Brohiri was repeatedly 'offending' because he had nowhere to sleep, the effort should've been on finding him somewhere safe. Instead, the system punished him and slapped a fine on a man with no possible means of paying it.

The true injustice in this story is being done to people like Brohiri every day. Not faceless corporations — worth millions — that force the taxpayer to pay for their sham trials. That's what the BBC should be reporting on, instead of sucking off scumbag CEOs.

Featured image via Housing Digital

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

Northern communities are bearing the brunt of DWP and water company deductions [ 12-Feb-26 6:19pm ]

The results are in - and surprise, surprise Northern communities are bearing the brunt of water companies capitalising on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Universal Credit deductions scheme.

As the Canary previously revealed, across 18 months, water firms robbed welfare claimants of £32.4m in Universal Credit.

However, the scale of individual water firms milking this punitive DWP debt clawback mechanism has been a mystery - until now.

Using a combination of publicly available data and Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, the Canary has been able to calculate ballpark figures revealing the likely biggest culprits snatching millions in welfare from some of the poorest households.

And among privatised providers engaged in routine sewage dumping, rampant profiteering, and opportunistic bill hikes, certain companies stood out as clear exploiters of this DWP deductions regime.

DWP Universal Credit deductions: the water companies cashing in

Unlike other services, monopoly suppliers dominate by location. What this means is that water companies serve fixed regional areas. Thanks to this, the Canary was able to estimate how much each company might have taken in UC deductions. However, there are a number of significant caveats to the following data, explained here.

Through an FOI, the Canary acquired UC deductions data for every parliamentary constituency in England and Wales. The data spans the 18 months between March 2024 - August 2025.

However, water company coverage does not exactly match up with regional boundaries. This meant we had to use water company parliamentary constituency data to collate the FOI information into our own dataset. Once we had this, we could make estimates for each water company:

So in total, constituencies that the regional water monopolies cover accounted for approximately £28.7m. However, it's important to note that this will include significant double-counting, since suppliers will crossover in some constituencies.

Together, these regional companies supply water services to 30,099,891 postcodes. Small new entrant companies account for the remaining 159,524.

The most reliable data we have

Then, if we estimate deductions for the joint water and sewerage suppliers only, excluding parliamentary constituencies where the water company was different to the sewerage company, we get the following:

The above data was complicated by the fact that companies wouldn't always cover the same number of postcodes for water services versus sewerage in any one given constituency.

As such, we only used data wherever sewerage postcodes were within 10% of the number of water postcodes.

The bottom line all this speculative data underscores is that it's hard to know with any certainty how much each of the major water companies is extracting in Universal Credit deductions.

The key culprits

Nevertheless, the tentative estimates still provide a general idea of which companies are cashing in at welfare claimant's expense.

United Utilities appears the most prolific user of the deductions regime by some margin. For a start, the company seems to make up the largest chunk of the £32.4m in deductions. Under all calculations, United Utilities nabbed somewhere north of £9m in Universal Credit. Moreover, even proportional to the number of postcodes it covers, the company is the clear forerunner.

In January 2025, regulator Ofwat greenlit United Utilities hiking customer bills by 32% over the next five years. Since it began raising bills in April, it has seen a 131% profit surge.

Meanwhile, Yorkshire Water and Northumbrian Water extracted the next largest sums from customer's Universal Credit. At more than £2.95m and £2.65m respectively, the two northern utility giants also ranked high as a proportion of the postcodes they covered. For Yorkshire Water, it came in fourth behind United Utilities, Northumbrian in second place, and Dwr Cymru in third place as a ratio of deductions to the postcodes they supply services to.

In October 2025, Northumbrian Water was among five companies that lobbied the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for further bill hikes. The company had already secured permission in January to increase bills by 21%.

And of course, Ofwat slapped both United Utilities and Yorkshire Water with boss's bonus bans in November. These were due to category 1 pollution incidents in 2024. In Yorkshire Water's case, it was also down to its "serious failures" over sewage, which had resulted in "excessive spills".

So as these companies provided atrocious services and mass polluted watercourses, they were also running roughshod over some of their poorest customers.

Northern water utilities running roughshod over welfare claimants

What's immediately noticeable here is that, with the exception of Dwr Cymru, the biggest culprits are the companies administering water and sewerage in the North.

It tallies with broader statistics on Universal Credit deductions. During the same 12-month period, the North East had the highest number of Universal Credit households where the government or third parties had made one or more deductions. Specifically, it stood at 53%.The North West followed this, at 50%.

The North East (21.5%) and North West (20.2%) also has the highest number of highly deprived neighbourhoods in England. On the one hand, the high levels of deprivation offer an explanation for the significant scale of water debt. This is because, it logically follows that more people would be experiencing debt thanks to state-sanctioned poverty. However, on the other, it points to water companies and their extortionate bill hikes exacerbating the problem. And of course, eating into customer's social security will also only compound this deprivation further.

Ultimately, the key point is that going after some of the poorest customers for outstanding payments is a choice. Water companies reporting mega-profits aren't strapped for cash - and could easily take the hit. These unscrupulous firms are robbing welfare claimants of their social security to fund eye-watering shareholder dividends and executive pay packages. This needs to be recognised for the absolute scandal it is.

As ever, the most marginalised - particularly Northern - communities are bearing the brunt of this egregious cost of greed crisis fuelled by the DWP. This data shows clearly that it's one in which the privatised water racket is undoubtedly playing a significant part.

Featured image via the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

Manchester United co-owner Jim Ratcliffe shows his racism off to the world [ 12-Feb-26 5:48pm ]

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, co-owner of Manchester United, has come under heavy criticism for saying that immigrants are "colonising" the UK. He said:

You can't have an economy with nine million people on benefits and huge levels of immigrants coming in. I mean, the UK has been colonised. It's costing too much money.

The UK has been colonised by immigrants, really, hasn't it?

The racist shithead also claimed that the UK's population grew by 12 million people in 5 years. That's bollocks too, as BBC Verify reported:

it's actually increased by 2.7 million.

And, that statistic doesn't take into account the economic benefit of immigrants doing all the shitty jobs white people don't want. And that, in turn, doesn't take into account that we're talking about people - people who have a right to safety and welcome.

Manchester United began in 1878 as Newton Heath, formed by railway workers who wanted solidarity and community within industrial labour. The club grew from working-class collectivism. Migrant communities in Manchester sustained it. Players of colour built its modern success. When the co-owner describes immigrants as colonisers, he positions himself against the communities that shaped the institution he now partially controls.

The Politics of His Non-Apology

Keir Starmer waded in to urge Ratcliffe to apologise:

Offensive and wrong.

Britain is a proud, tolerant and diverse country.

Jim Ratcliffe should apologise.https://t.co/7mSnVV33oo

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) February 11, 2026

That would be the same man who made the now infamous "island of strangers" speech.

There is something deeply unsettling about watching Britain distance itself from the language of colonisation while still struggling to confront what that word represents in its own history. The state can condemn vocabulary, yet condemnation does not equal reckoning, especially when the same political culture continues to frame immigration through the language of control, pressure, and strain.

Starmer's objection might sound firm, but it is utterly meaningless when his government are overseeing a hostile environment for immigrants.

His apology doesn't change his stance

Ratcliffe did eventually apologise, but it was predictably a non-apology:

I am sorry that my choice of language has offended some people in the UK and Europe and caused concern but it is important to raise the issue of controlled and well-managed immigration that supports economic growth.

The apology focused on offence rather than on the framing itself. While discomfort was acknowledged, the imagery of invasion was left untouched. He did not withdraw the claim. He softened it. As a result, the premise stayed in place, only dressed in calmer language.

Language like this does not appear from nowhere, particularly not from someone operating at that level of influence. Words reflect assumptions. When a historically loaded term such as colonisation is replaced with managerial phrasing about "management" and "control," the logic beneath it does not disappear; it becomes easier to defend. The adjustment feels strategic rather than reflective.

Meanwhile, the political exchange unfolds in a predictable way. Disapproval is voiced. An apology is requested. Regret is offered in careful terms. Yet ownership remains intact and authority remains intact. The tone shifts, but the structure does not.

Ultimately, this episode exposes more than a dispute over wording. It shows how power can absorb backlash without surrendering position, how language can be recalibrated without the worldview behind it being unsettled, and how accountability can be signalled without materially changing who controls the narrative.

Featured image via the Canary

Lambeth leads the way in launching the Vote Palestine pledge [ 12-Feb-26 5:21pm ]

The Palestine Youth Movement (PYM) joined community members in Lambeth on Thursday 5 February to kick Labour out of their hometown. As a result, local people realised their democratic power in being the first community in the UK to launch the 'Vote Palestine' pledge campaign for the upcoming local elections in May.

Lambeth leading the way

The Lambeth event was led by Mariam of the PYM and London Votes Palestine campaign. Mariam gave an inspiring masterclass in how ordinary people can come together. In turn, she showed how voters across the country can use their democratic power to get the change they want to see in their hometowns.

Activists from Jewish Voice for Liberation (JVL) and Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) joined other local activists and people who have had enough of Labour's ongoing complicity and willingness to ignore Israel's flagrant breaches to countless international laws. Former ANC member and arms trade corruption investigator Andrew Feinstein also attended the event.

In true unity and solidarity, organisers inspired and energised local people to get Palestine on the ballot.

'No divestment: No votes'

Mariam of the Palestine Youth Movement passionately introduced the Lambeth campaign and what it hopes to achieve:

Lambeth Vote Palestine is not just launching here, but it's part of a national campaign that is launching in 12 boroughs across London because people are fed up of Labour councils that are not listening to people that are pushing resolutions for divestment from genocide. It's launching in Manchester, in Greater Manchester, in Newcastle, in Birmingham and in Sheffield. And the first national launch is taking place here today in Brixton in Lambeth.

So, the way that Vote Palestine came together has essentially come from all these local organisers that have tried to push divestment resolutions to get money out of Israel and money into our council and into the people of this council. But we know that Labour councillors have lied to us about just how much political power they have in order to take on divestment. We know that Labour councillors have watered down resolutions that have managed to pass and protests have been tried, resolutions have been tried, all sorts of attention against Labour majority councils have been tried.

And we know that they're not interested in divestment from Israel because it's a party of genocide. It's a party that's done nothing against austerity. It's a party that with Rachel Reeves' latest budget is raising taxes on ordinary working people. And we see this in Lambeth as well. It is a council that has ignored us time and time again.

So up and down the country, We know that the elections are coming in May 2026. And we've gotten started a little bit early, but actually right now, Labour is preparing itself for who's going to be standing in the next election, and preparing its candidates and other parties are doing that as well. But so is Vote Palestine. We are preparing to say: no divestment, no vote. So, we are asking two things nationally, as well as here in Lambeth.

The first is what's called a councillor's pledge. We are asking that any sitting councillor or new candidate signs a councillor's pledge that commits them to getting money out of Israel and money into our communities. No divestment, no votes.

But there's a second portion to this, because this is also a grassroots campaign and a people-driven campaign, one that's going to be powered forward by us giving it a little bit of time every month and getting a big impact out through just a little bit of labour together. And that is the People's Pledge. So we are also asking voters to take a pledge that will say, 'if this candidate has not endorsed the councillor's pledge, we will not be voting for them'. And we're going to take that to councillor's and say, 'hey, you know what? In Lambeth, hundreds of people have committed to the Palestine pledge, to the people's pledge, and these people will not be voting for candidates that have not endorsed divestment, that have not endorsed Palestine.'

Mariam later referred to the response they receive on the ground from constituents in London, adding:

We've been talking to people all over London around what's the issue that needs more funding? And no one says genocide. So this campaign is really about… We're putting Palestine on the ballot. We know that the people are with Palestine. We also know from the last election, with the election of the Gaza Independents, that there is a Palestine-first voter. It's time to show that in the local elections. And we're going to make that known.

From Lambeth, from Brixton, all the way up to Newcastle and the country over, we're going to put Palestine on the ballot and make it a non-negotiable issue. No divestment, no votes.

'At the expense of our NHS, our benefit system, and all local services'

In Lambeth, Feinstein discussed the clear corruption at the heart of our current UK government, namely Keir Starmer's lucrative relationship with billionaire-owned Quadrature:

And the reality is, I've just come from a Zoom meeting with four Palestinian journalists who are fortunate to be alive. What sort of a sick world do we live in? When journalists start a conversation when they introduce themselves by saying, I'm thankful to be alive. Because hundreds of their colleagues are not.

But what relevance does that have for Brixton and for Lambeth? It has every relevance. The reality is that the biggest political donation in British electoral history was paid by a company called Quadrature Capital to the campaign of Keir Starmer for the 2024 local election. That resulted in a situation where Starmer, who didn't once show his face in his own constituency because he knows he would have been drummed out of town, spent tens of thousands of pounds on direct social media advertising. Our independent campaign was allowed to spend £17k in total on everything. Because the political system here is fixed.

Within three weeks of coming to power, Keir Starmer announced two policy proposals. One is he went back on his commitment to a new green economic plan that he'd committed at least £20bn to. And then he increased defence spending by £3.5bn a year until 2027. At which point, defense spending will increase by £15.4bn. Quadrature capital's asset value at the end of those three weeks of Starmer being in power increased exponentially for the expenditure of £5m in their political donations.

And that is why Britain today lives in the best democracy money can buy. Our politicians are bought and paid for. Keir Starmer is a puppet. He is a puppet, not just of Morgan McSweeney, the little worm who is his chief of staff, but he is the puppet of billionaires and corporate interests like Quadrature. Quadrature has invested primarily in fossil fuels and arms company. Of that £15.4bn increase in our defense budget in 2027, a huge proportion of it will land up being used against the people of Palestine.

And that £15.4 bn is at the expense of our NHS, our benefit system, and all of our local services. Because frankly, and I'll ask you to excuse my language here, but as you might gather, I'm a little bit angry about this. People like Keir Starmer and all of our establishment politicians don't give a fuck about us. And if ever that was brought to our attention, it's in the reality that people like them were more concerned about the fact that Jeremy Corbyn could not pronounce Jeffrey Epstein's name properly, which they regarded as anti-Semitic. Then they are about the fact that Lord Peter Mandelson was who is an architect of the Starmer Project, is closest friends with a paedophile, with a man who has abused and sex-trafficked hundreds and hundreds of children for abuse by the old white men who run this world and profit from it.

'Legal responsibility to take action' in Lambeth

Local activist Jan O'Malley gave an eye-opening and inspiring speech about the sheer scale of Lambeth council investment in Israel and its ongoing genocide. Referring to the power of the BDS movement, O'Malley said:

BDS, you all know about BDS, boycott, divestment and sanctions. We are the D in BDS. So how big is this problem? PSC has done a massive amount of work on research on this, which has been a great resource for us all. And they have found that 81 local government pension schemes have collectively invested over £12bn in companies complicit with Israel's oppression of the Palestinians. It's genocide, it's apartheid and it's illegal occupation. And the British government as a party to the genocide convention has a legal responsibility to take action to prevent further genocide.

PSC has sent a letter to every pension committee member across the country, telling them about this legal duty. It's not worth waiting until the ICJ finally concludes there is a genocide, they're meant to prevent genocides. And this means that we take immediate action to start divesting. So, in Lambeth, how big is the problem? Well, the figures that we got from FOIs that PSC did was that the Lambeth Pension Fund had £52.4m invested in companies complicit with Israel. And this included £25m in Amazon, £20m in Alphabet.

They may say, 'oh, we all use them', and at the council meeting, they were joking about that. 'Do you mean we ought to stop us using Amazon and Uber and things in our everyday lives? This is what these unrealistic people who are petitioning us are saying.' But both of those companies are involved in providing Project Nimbus, which is a computing technology system of surveillance, which has been used to target the journalists, the doctors, the people in Gaza that they wanted to target…. it's used and bought and helps and supports the Israeli government and military. Other investments are arms companies like Boeing, Rolls Royce, but also Israeli government bonds, which are actually lending money to the Israeli government, and Barclays, which funds so many arms companies.

Referring to a petition sent to Lambeth Council and its pensions committee, O'Malley finished by saying:

We took our petition. We presented it middle of November last year, thinking the council needed time to check the addresses and everything. And then we had to give them enough time. And they were meant to let us know in 10 days, if there was anything wrong with our petition. They didn't until the day before the full council meeting, when they rejected the petition on the grounds that it was about something that they do not control, and they pointed a little item J in their constitution about petitions which will be rejected. They're saying they've changed their constitution to take out the word control and amend all the weaselly words. They only administer.

So, what has the Pensions Committee been doing every three months when they meet and take decisions? It's a total farce. It's ludicrous. It's dishonest. So shame on Lambeth Council. I was really shocked at this. It took me, I'm quite cynical and I've been demonstrating an activism since I was 14, but I've not known a council behave like this in my lifetime. So it shocked me. I wasn't ready for it. So what are we going to do? We're going to challenge. this attack on solidarity with Palestine, which is what it is, and democracy, which is what it is, by all available means, including in the local elections in May, which leads us to why we're here tonight. And we will support alternative candidates who take the pledge for Palestine. And we will challenge Labour councillors who refuse to take the pledge and collude with this despicable denial of democracy. So let's challenge them on the doorsteps. Let's get busy with Lambeth Votes Palestine.

Lambeth community commits to Vote Palestine in Local Elections

'Get these shits out of their offices'

As ever, another powerful speech in Lambeth was delivered by Glyn Secker of what was formerly Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL). First Secker told us that the 'L' no longer stands for Labour, as a result of their pro-genocide actions, but now stands for 'liberation' in solidarity with Palestinians. Secker has long refused to be connected to the hostile state of Zionist Israel particularly as a Jewish man, stating:

We represent a very different perspective on what it means to be a Jew in this country, a very different point of view from the Jewish establishment, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council. I'm going to give you a perspective, a historical one, tied up with where we are now.

Jews in this country represent 0.5% of the population. Muslims represent about 5%. So you might ask, why is the Israeli lobby so damn powerful? Why is their establishment here has minimal concerns with Islamophobia, but maximal focus on anti-Semitism and its weaponization?

But we can do no more than understand racism without understanding imperialism and slavery, than we can understand Islamophobia without understanding oil imperialism, which replaced slavery as a financial driver of the second stage of the development of international capitalism.

The economic foundations of Israel were laid by mercantile Jews, traders, financiers, and then developing into international bankers. the privileged upper-class Jews with a role in developing the first stage of capitalism. To jump very quickly from that to Israel and Zionism, Zionism translated that role into a nationalist form, a little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of hostile Arabism, as a British colonial agent in the Middle East described it at the time. And what happened was the development of Israel took over that role of Jewish capital when the bankers began, the Jewish bankers, Rothschilds and so on, began to give way to the large financial institutions developing in the States.

And so Israel took on that role of American imperial interest in the Middle East. Like the financials before them, they slotted neatly into servicing the dominant economic and political order. And so you have the United States' multi-billion pound transfers to Israel, not just now during the genocide, but it's accelerated. It's been going on for decades, from the beginning of Israel's inception, pretty much. So it's imperative to draw a distinction between Israel and its ideology, political Zionism and Jew. Because I have nothing to do with what's going on there, as far as I'm concerned, and I will not be identified with that. And there are many hundreds of thousands, probably a couple of million of us around the country.

Secker finished with a bit of advice for those out on doorsteps facing the inevitable allegations of antisemitism for refusing to support mass-murder, advising:

So what do you do on the doorstep when you're told that it's anti-Semitic? Well, you just say, there's a whole lot of Jews in this country, who are deeply committed to it, because they're deeply committed against genocide, who are deeply committed against any Holocaust, whoever perpetrates it.

And if it's Jews, well for me, I'm deeply against that from the bottom of my being, because that is not something that I identify with in terms of my integrity and my humanity. So, I can't tolerate, as a Jewish pensioner, drawing a lamb of pension that my deferred wages are invested in weapons companies that are slaughtering Palestinians.

So, I am deeply behind this campaign to get these shits out of their offices so we can disinvest.

Featured image via the Canary

By Maddison Wheeldon

King Charles paid £1.5m to cover sweaty brother's Epstein case [ 12-Feb-26 5:06pm ]

King Charles looking embarrassed as he looks down on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on a yellow background.

Following yet another Epstein bombshell, the royal parasites are in trouble again. It appears that the £12m that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor paid to Virginia Giuffre out of court in 2022 was stumped up by several prominent members of his family. Including King Charles.

The Sun is reporting that not only did the late Queen loan ex-Prince Andrew millions to pay £12m to Virginia Guiffre, but Charles chipped in £1.5m https://t.co/oX2JgpCqFp

— Victoria Derbyshire (@vicderbyshire) February 11, 2026

A royal cover-up form King Charles that hurts women

The pay off happened before more allegations against Andrew surfaced in the latest release of the Epstein Files.

We knew that the queen stumped up a lot of cash to silence Giuffre and get her little nonce out of trouble, but £7m is a wild sum of money. Couple that with the fact that £3m came from the late prince Philip's estate. And now we've found out prince (now king) Charles stumped up £1.5m towards the case too.

Read that again.

Our now-king paid a large amount of money to cover the tracks of an alleged nonce and to silence one brave woman's fight for justice.

And the 'king' will never be prosecuted for this:

The monarch is immune from prosecution, by the way, so there will be no investigation https://t.co/DOCz7XhY8b pic.twitter.com/x4aIaoLTQ1

— Svetlana Lokhova (@RealSLokhova) February 12, 2026

Our royal family is silencing victims

I am absolutely fucking disgusted with these utter parasites. This is a clear sign of one rule for us, another for them.

It shows absolute contempt for us, the lowly serfs that they supposedly serve. It shows if you have enough money, you can hush up even the worst kind of crimes. You can avoid justice and prison if you have deep enough pockets to pay for it.

There's thousands of accusations of crimes against women in the Epstein files. Thousands of names of girls and women we will never know and the royal family are spitting on every single one of them.

And our fucking king has done this. He paid to silence the voices of so many women who need to be heard.

King Charles who famously said, at the age of 29 that Diana was "an attractive 16yr old."

King Charles who was close friends with Jimmy Saville and called him a "national treasure."

Abolish the monarchy.

Featured image via The Canary

By Antifabot

Tommy Robinson accused of using AI for his Jerusalem Post article [ 12-Feb-26 5:01pm ]

Tommy Robinson in front of an image of a child with tape on their mouth

It appears that The Jerusalem Post is allowing anyone to write for them nowadays. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (a.k.a. Tommy Robinson) wrote an opinion piece for them on Wednesday 11 February entitled "Jeffrey Epstein and the system that protected him."

After months of silence on the Files, he finally spoke out.

But there's several issues surrounding this piece that we need to look into. first is Robinson's dramatic shift in prose. It uses clinical, polished language that stands in contrast with his usual street-level shouting.

And many are claiming he wrote it with AI:

It seems Israel's PR crisis has reached rock bottom. This piece by Tommy Robinson for the Jerusalem Post is almost certainly AI written.

Anyone familiar with Tommy's posting knows he struggles with the written word, and anyone familiar with AI slop will recognise the many… https://t.co/wGOE7Kae9n

— Keith Woods (@KeithWoodsYT) February 11, 2026

We also need to ask why this prominent racist grifter is even being given a platform to spew his bile.

His use of AI isn't the issue here

It's certainly plausible that Tommy Robinson used AI for his article. It has all the tells, and to be honest, it would be more surprising if he had written it himself. Robinson can barely string a sentence together on Twitter, so these accusations hold a lot of weight.

But it's not Robinson's lack of literacy skills which are the problem here.

The problem is that, yet again, this racist, little grifter has completely fucked his own argument. By staying silent on the Epstein Files, literally the biggest white-led grooming gang of all time, all future input he has on the matter is null and void.

The Epstein Files have been out for a while. For months we have seen the censored images of women and children blasted across our screens. We have looked at thousands of redacted names of women who will never be able to come forward and tell their stories.

Why the fuck didn't Robinson comment on this then? Why wait this long when you're so desperate to 'protect all women'?

The Epstein files have revealed what is probably the largest grooming-gang in the world.

And the guy running it was fucking white.

That's why he's been so silent. Because it doesn't fit his ridiculously racist propaganda that he shovels down the neck of the British public. He is a hypocrite and a liar who is willing to ignore systematic abuse when the perpetrators look like him.

Oh, and the fact that he was in the files, because Epstein himself was a fan of his.

Tommy Robinson: a legacy of lies and hate

Nobody should listen to a single 'take' this opportunist has, whether it's AI or not. Tommy Robinson's history proves he is a danger to a better world.

I mean, it doesn't really scream 'protect all women' when Robinson attacked a copper who was intervening in a domestic issue between himself and his partner. This cocaine soaked rat has so many convictions it's hard to count. But they include intent to supply, harassing a literal child because he was an immigrant, leading football hooligans into a mass brawl, possessing and using a false passport, mortgage fraud, the list goes on.

Those actions alone mean that this little racist should be buried in the annals of history. But it's made so much worse when this man does nothing but weaponise sexual violence to target migrant communities to stoke division.

For this convicted criminal, the abuse of women and girls was never the point. He only cares about sexual violence when he can turn the narrative and blame Black and Brown people.

Laundering his racist brand

Tommy Robinson is now leaning into a pro-Israel narrative to shield his racism. Hiding behind a literal genocidal state which is killing hundreds of thousands of Muslims is absolutely disgusting, but it didn't stop Robinson going on a tour of the Zionist state. Robinson was called out by The Board of Deputies of British Jews for his trip, with them calling Robinson a "thug" and the "very worst of Britain".

This AI slop in a shit publication shows how far Robinson has fallen. But he needs to fall further and into absolute oblivion. Robinson doesn't give a shit about women. He only gives a shit about lining his greasy little pockets and shouting about innocent black and brown people to his legions of knuckle-dragging followers.

Rather than letting Robinson's new grift flourished, it is time to see him for what he is. A racist little grifter who doesn't give a shit about women and girls being raped.

He only cares about where he can get his next bag and how he can somehow turn the narrative on vulnerable marginalised groups.

Featured image via The Canary

By Antifabot

'The real criminals are in power' — Belfast Palestine heroes go to trial [ 12-Feb-26 4:38pm ]

In an era of state repression and mass murder backed by the most powerful nations on earth, it takes something special to speak truth to power. Nine Belfast activists have done just that. This February they face the full power of the genocide-complicit British state.

The Canary understands three of those charged will go on trial on 13 February. Another will be in court on 16 February and a fifth will face British 'justice' on 20 February.

The charges stem from two road blockades carried out on July and October 2025. In a powerful statement, the group made it clear that the real criminals are those who support Israel's genocidal assault on Palestine.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by BDS Belfast (@bdsbelfast)

Active genocide participants

BDS Belfast pulled no punches in their statement:

Stormont and Westminster have been active participants in the genocide of the Palestinian people.

Yet, it is 9 Belfast activists, from across multiple solidarity groups, who participated in peaceful civil disobedience, who the police are attempting to criminalise.

They added:

The only thing that we are guilty of is standing for the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity.

We will not be deterred

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by BDS Belfast (@bdsbelfast)

The original protests were focused on the role of the so-called 'Gaza Humanitarian Foundation' and the Global Sumud Flotilla respectively and, more broadly, Stormont and Westminster's support for Israel.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by BDS Belfast (@bdsbelfast)

The Canary understands the charges will range from "obstructive sitting" and "unauthorised procession". So peaceful protest then….

The nine plan to plead not guilty to all charges.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by BDS Belfast (@bdsbelfast)

The British state would suppress every trace of human solidarity with Palestinians if it could. And it will do this at any cost to basic freedoms and rights. These activists are heroic figures. The Canary will keep you updated in the case as it progresses.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

Pam Bondi lies to defend Trump's Epstein ties [ 12-Feb-26 4:38pm ]

US attorney general Pam Bondi may have walked herself into a sticky situation after declaring under oath to congress that there is:

no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime.

Pam Bondi: liar

Ted Lieu instantly called this out as a lie under oath. Lieu is vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus and a former Air Force colonel. Continuing, Lieu quoted a deeply concerning transcript from the Epstein Files. This transcript has raised urgent questions about the US President's potential involvement in serious criminal acts. The Epstein Files have revealed a significant and highly suspicious relationship between Trump and convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett also took Bondi to task, arguing that she and the Trump administration cannot distinguish right from wrong.

Pam Bondi, "There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime"

Ted Lieu, "You just lied under oath. There is ample evidence in the Epstein files"

Pam Bondi, "Don't you ever accuse me of a crime"

Ted Lieu, "You just lied under oath, and this is on video tape"

Ted… pic.twitter.com/v2Feci6P4u

— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) February 11, 2026

'Epstein should rot in hell, so should the men who patronised this operation'

Pam Bondi: There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime. Everyone knows that. This has been the most transparent presidency. He's the one that asked that those files be released.

Ted Lieu: I'm going to claim my time. I got your answer. You said there's no evidence.

Bondi: President Trump asked that he sign the legislation.

Lieu: This is time. Time belongs to the gentleman from California. Okay. I'm going to put up another document from… a witness who called the FBI's National Threat Operation Center because I believe you just lied under oath. There is ample evidence in the Epstein file.

Bondi: Don't you ever accuse me of a crime.

Lieu: I believe you just lied under oath, and this is all on videotape. You said there's no evidence of a crime. I'm showing you. Here is a witness statement who called into the FBI's Threat Operation Center. He drove Donald Trump around in a limo. He overheard what Donald Trump said to Jeffrey on his cell phone. He was so angry, he was going to stop the limo and hurt Donald Trump. And he met a girl who said she was raped by Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.

She later had her head blown off, and officers at the scene said that could not have been suicide. No one, no one at the Department of Justice interviewed this witness. You need to interview this witness immediately. Epstein should rot in hell, so should the men who patronised this operation. And as we sit here today, there are over 1,000 sex trafficking victims, and you have not held a single man accountable. Shame on you. If you had any decency, you would resign right after this hearing concludes.

You cannot shame the shameless
Impeach her finished https://t.co/BOGYZ3m3GI

— Where We Going, We Don't Need Britches

Pollard left squirming on Palantir's Mandelson links [ 12-Feb-26 3:08pm ]

Pollard left squirming on Palantir and Mandelson links

Luke Pollard, the Minister for Defence Procurement, was grilled over the Government's deals with US spy-tech giant Palantir. Pollard repeatedly failed to answer basic questions, one time blaming his recent trip to Saudi Arabia's arms fair for his lack of answers.

I'm here in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, supporting UK SMEs and wider industry partners attending the World Defence Show 2026. Defence is an engine for growth, and the UK is proud to stand with Saudi Arabia in difficult times and to build on our partnership and friendship. pic.twitter.com/Ql0iCG5uPH

— Luke Pollard MP (@LukePollard) February 9, 2026

Pollard seemingly absolved Peter Mandelson's links to Palantir from playing any role in the government awarding a contract worth £240 million to Palantir, signed in December 2025. Pollard maintained, repeatedly, that the £240 million deal was merely an extension of the 2022 agreement signed by the previous Conservative Government.

He said:

This Government took over what the Tories started in 2022, but we made it work better for Britain and better for our forces. As the Defence Secretary has said, the contract was his decision, and his alone. Peter Mandelson had no influence on the decision to award this contract

And again:

I have been clear in my answers today that the decision to extend the 2022 contract signed under the previous Government was made by the Secretary of State alone. It was his decision to do so.

The February 2025 Washington meeting between the Prime Minister, Peter Mandelson, and Palantir CEO Alex Karp, was asked about twice, and twice the Pollard could not give a straight answer. The meeting, after all, preceded the December 2025 contract. The minutes of that meeting were not noted. At the time, Palantir was a client of Global Counsel, the lobbying firm Mandelson founded. Palantir is a US company that specialises in artificial intelligence-powered military and surveillance technology and data analytics. Billionaire Trump donor Peter Thiel was a co-founder of the company.

Jeremy Corbyn asked whether Britain should be entangled with a company complicit in the destruction of Gaza, a company that had, in his words, "wormed" its way into UK government contracts and the NHS.

"A trap": Palantir links to Epstein Slammed The £1 NHS COVID contract from 2020 was raised by Labour MP Dawn Butler, and she did not mince words:

When I was in opposition, I raised concerns about Palantir and the £1 deal that was made. It was always a trap to ensure that Palantir got its foot in where no one else could. The co-founder of Palantir is mentioned in the Epstein files. I think that anyone who is mentioned in the Epstein files should be fully investigated by this House and by the police; the scandal is an absolute disgrace.

Green MP Dr Ellie Chowns also had questions. Chowns posed three questions: would the MOD cancel the Palantir contract, launch an independent inquiry into the company's billions in UK framework deals, and confirm whether Mandelson shared privileged information with the firm?

Labour's Clive Lewis had already called the whole affair a stink. Chowns agreed.

The govt is refusing to commit to an inquiry into the MOD's contracts with US-based spy tech giant Palantir despite the web of shady connections between Mandelson, Epstein, and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel - this absolutely stinks. pic.twitter.com/UDVi7P7GmO

— Dr Ellie Chowns MP (@EllieChowns) February 10, 2026

We agree — it is a stinking mess!

Amnesty International UK calls immigration reform 'cruel' [ 12-Feb-26 2:42pm ]

Amnesty International UK has labelled the government's immigration reforms as "cruel", "inefficient" and "costly".

The UK government published "A Fairer Pathway to Settlement: A statement on earned settlement" in November 2025. It sets out proposals to change how our current immigration system works.

Effectively, it would change how migrants who are permitted to become permanent residents are able to do so.

The proposals include:

Making permanent residency less available to people.
Increasing the amount of time most people spend in the immigration system before they may apply for permanent residence.
Reducing that if they have: a higher level of English proficiency, if they are high earners, if they hold senior positions in a public service, or if they have undertaken 'extensive' volunteering.
Increasing that time for people who: arrive on a visitor visa, breach immigration rules, or have ever received public funds.
Completely remove the option of permanent residency for anyone who has: ever received a criminal conviction, has outstanding litigation, or has NHS, tax, or other government debts.

Children born without citizenship

Amnesty is warning that the proposals will cause many more children to be born in the UK without British citizenship. This is because their parents, although long-time UK residents, will not be British citizens or permanent residents.

Amnesty states:

While the children who grow up here will become entitled to that citizenship under the British Nationality Act 1981, that right is not well understood and has over the last few decades become subject to several unjust barriers meaning many children who grow up here are at risk of losing their citizenship rights altogether.

Additionally, the proposals will "undermine integration". Immigration reforms will make the lives of many migrants far more uncertain, for far longer. This will have substantial financial implications, from having to pay more times for permission to stay, to having to pay the very high migrant health charge more often.

Amnesty adds:

At best, people will be made less welcome and more marginalised. At worst, people will be made more at risk of destitution, homelessness, ill-health, and exploitation.

Amnesty also states:

The proposals are likely to increase pressure on the European Convention on Human Rights by not satisfying those who are antagonistic to both that Convention and migrant rights, while increasing reliance on human rights laws by migrant people seeking to protect themselves against the proposals' worst consequences. If so, the impact - particularly given the Government is encouraging hostility to migrant people and their rights - is likely to further threaten commitment to the Convention.

The proposals are highly likely to reward and fuel xenophobia and racism, which are a direct response to the government's hostility towards migrant people.

Of course, this is the exact opposite of what any responsible government should be doing. It risks encouraging even more demand for awful policies, which ultimately, only penalise and demonise migrants even further.

The government needs to take a long, hard look at itself—and ask if it wants to head towards a US-style system, full of fear and hatred, or one where migrants are recognised as being the backbone of any functioning society.

Feature image via UK Government

By HG

Royals' charity reported for Epstein-linked donations [ 12-Feb-26 2:26pm ]

Epstein reportedly accepted funds from Royal-linked charity

The 'Earthshot Prize' eco-charity set up by royal Prince William and David Attenborough has been reported to the Charity Commission for donations linked to serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein. The charity awards five prizes of £1m each to environmental projects each year.

Emirati billionaire Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem's logistics company DP World is an Earthshot 'founding partner'. Sulayem appears in the latest release of the Epstein records in the US, having apparently sent a 'torture video' to Epstein. The child rapist replied in 2009 and he had "loved the torture video". At the time, he was serving his first prison sentence at the time.

Sulayem's email address is illegally redacted in the publicly available files. However, US congresspeople who viewed the unredacted files subsequently named him as Epstein's correspondent. Sulayem also appears in the files emailing Epstein about the sex he had with another young woman.

Anti-monarchy group Republic lodged the complaint with the Charity Commission. The group's CEO Graham Smith told the commission that the situation involving Epstein had undermined public trust.

the seriousness of this matter requires a full and comprehensive investigation.

Smith said: Discussions regarding the links to Epstein should not be ignored.

William has lots of questions to answer about what he knew about Andrew and Epstein and now he must explain his relationship with Sulayem. It is not credible to believe the Foreign Office, security services or other advisors were not aware of Sulayem's character and would have been able to advise accordingly.

Earthshot has a duty to do due diligence, to ask questions about donors and where money is coming from. Did they do that here? If so, did William over rule their better judgement? In the context of this widening scandal we need answers.

William was also allowed to promote his project on a Government-funded visit to the UAE. Smith added: Due to the Epstein connection, there are serious concerns that must be addressed.

Earthshot is not a UK Government project, so why was he using visits to the Middle East to promote the charity?

The Windsors have faced repeated heckling in recent weeks for their inaction over the king's disgraced brother Andrew. William was also questioned yesterday, 11 February 2026, about the issue during a visit to Saudi Arabia. None of the royals have ever apologised to Epstein's victims for Andrew's part in the serial trafficking and exploitation.

For further details on the Epstein Files, please read the Canary's article on how the media circus around Epstein is erasing the experiences of victims and survivors.

Featured image via the Canary

KCL walkout against repression as Israel escalates genocide and annexation [ 12-Feb-26 2:00pm ]

King's College London (KCL) banner hanging in front of uni buildings

Students, staff and trade unionists will rally at King's College London (KCL), Strand Campus, on Thursday 12 February at 2pm. It's part of the national workplace day of action for Palestine.

Organisers say the rally comes amid Israel's genocide in Gaza, the de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank, and the:

escalating repression of Palestine solidarity activism in the UK.

Repression at KCL

The protest will demand the immediate reinstatement of Usama Ghanem. He's an Egyptian KCL student who has been indefinitely suspended and had his student visa revoked. He now faces the threat of imminent deportation to Egypt, where his life is at risk.

Organisers say Usama's case is part of a broader crackdown targeting pro-Palestine staff and students, including disciplinary action and intimidation. At KCL, more than twenty students - primarily students of colour - have faced disciplinary procedures linked to Palestine activism. However, far-right and Zionist groups have repeatedly targeted demonstrators on campus.

The rally is organised by KCL student societies, KCL UCU, and University and College Workers for Palestine, and endorsed by the Stop the War Coalition.

A spokesperson for University and College Workers for Palestine said:

Repression in the UK is not separate from what is happening in Palestine. It is part of the same system of dispossession, apartheid and genocide. Universities are disciplining and deporting activists while Israel destroys Gaza's education system and annexes the West Bank.

A KCL staff member talked about the broader context of Usama's suspension. They noted that the college:

escalated disciplinary action against pro-Palestine students, closed down hard-won fora on divestment and the reconstruction of Gaza's education system, rejected all divestment demands, and unilaterally introduced new protest restrictions.

At the same time, it has failed to challenge Zionist and fascist groups like Stop the Hate and Betar, allowing them to intimidate and assault staff and students with impunity.

Thursday's rally will demand of KCL:

Reinstate Usama Ghanem.
Stop the repression and deportations of pro-Palestine activists.
Fascists off campus.
Divestment now.

London trade union branches with banners and delegations are due to attend at KCL. A major pledge campaign launched by supporters has already raised over £17,000 in under two weeks. It will support legal action connected to Usama's case.

Featured image via the Canary

Trump regime is monitoring lawmakers who view Epstein Files [ 12-Feb-26 1:52pm ]

As we've reported, the recently released Epstein Files have shone an unflattering light on many powerful people. President Donald Trump is among those exposed, which is why it was unsurprising to see so many unnecessary (and illegal) redactions in the released documents.

Providing some additional transparency, members of congress have been given permission to view un-redacted files at a Department of Justice (DoJ) facility. Alarmingly, however, we've now discovered the following:

It is totally inappropriate and against the separations of powers for the DOJ to surveil us as we search the Epstein files. Bondi showed up today with a burn book that held a printed search history of exactly what emails I searched. That is outrageous and I intend to pursue this… https://t.co/nyZjmHoGUq

— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) February 11, 2026

'Burn book'

As we reported, the Epstein Files Transparency Act put it into law that the DoJ must publish all the documents related to the dead paedophile. The law allows for redactions to protect victims, but no one else. Despite this, the DoJ redacted the names of Epstein's associates and potential co-conspirators.

As a result of members of congress having access to the un-redacted Epstein Files, we've learned information such as the following:

BREAKING: Congressman Jamie Raskin says Trump's name shows up in the unredacted Epstein files 1 MILLION TIMES (it was 38,000 in the redacted files) - Axios

— Secular Talk (KyleKulinskiShow@bsky.social) (@KyleKulinski) February 10, 2026

The above would mean we only have access to 3.8% of the times that the files mention Donald Trump. Trump was not a victim of Epstein, and so his name should not have been redacted.

More has come out too, including the names of "powerful men" linked to Epstein:

BREAKING: RO KHANNA JUST UNVEILED THE NAMES OF 6 POWERFUL MEN WHO WERE REDACTED IN THE EPSTEIN FILES

Here they are:

• Salvatore Nuara
• Zurab Mikeladze
• Leonic Leonov
• Nicola Caputo
• Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem
• Leslie Wexner

Why did the Trump DOJ cover for them? pic.twitter.com/qIh6Xtn0dC

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) February 10, 2026

Others highlighted the improper redactions:

Hey ⁦@DAGToddBlanche⁩, I saw the unredacted version of this email, and there is no reason it should be redacted from the public.

Unless, of course, you are trying to protect your master @realdonaldtrump. pic.twitter.com/unEuN0GGRj

— Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) February 11, 2026

Yesterday @RepRoKhanna and I found a list of names and photos in the Epstein files that DOJ had improperly redacted.

DOJ promptly unredacted the men's names as well as several women in the list that we didn't flag. The two redacted names are victims. https://t.co/fLLzGW9rR7 pic.twitter.com/DTfK30Kppk

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) February 10, 2026

We also learned the identity of a the man who sent an email referencing a "torture video":

War criminal next door? Over 2000 Brits served in Israel's genocidal military [ 12-Feb-26 1:32pm ]

Gaza genocide saw the participation of thousands of Brits

More than 2000 Brits served in Israel's genocide in Gaza, new figures have shown. Declassified UK obtained the troubling information through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. The number is vastly greater than previously reported figures.

The investigative outlet reported that:

The data outlines the number of people with dual and multiple nationalities who were IDF service members as of March 2025.

It shows how 1,686 British-Israelis and a further 383 people with British, Israeli, and another nationality served in the IDF amid the annihilation of Gaza.

Reporting by Declassified UK suggested this was also a global issue, with recruits from across the world joining the ranks of the IDF.

They were among over 50,000 IDF soldiers with Israeli and at least one other nationality.

The largest cohorts come from the US, Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany.

The figure previously known was just 54.

Prosecutions must follow

Paul Heron, a lawyer with the Public Interest Law Centre (PILC), said prosecutions should be pursued wherever possible:

There must be no impunity where credible evidence links British nationals to grave breaches of international law.

The UK has clear duties to prevent genocide and avoid assisting unlawful military action.

He added that investigations into events in Gaza are essential for justice.

Where dual nationals have served in units implicated in atrocities, the authorities must investigate promptly and, where the evidence meets the threshold, pursue arrest and prosecution like any other serious crime.

The figures seen by Declassified UK line up with claims by one IDF soldier that thousands of Brits had served in the Israeli military:

Londoner Sam Sank fought in Gaza between December 2023 and January 2024 and later told the Times:

based on the number of his friends in the IDF, which includes a Scot in his own small unit, [he] believes there are hundreds, if not thousands, more Britons fighting in Israel."

Public Interest Law Centre (PILC) and the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights submitted a war crimes dossier to the Foreign Office in 2025. The document detailed British citizens alleged involvement in alleged war crimes.

Heron said "No one is above the law":

In our report to the Metropolitan Police, we set out credible evidence that 10 British nationals served in the Israeli Defence Forces and were involved in war crimes and acts giving rise to genocide.

War crimes unit

The British police have a war crimes investigation unit. When asked by Declassified in 2025 if they would be referring Gaza allegations for prosecutions they did not respond.

International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) told Declassified:

No one in the UK wants to live next door to a potential war criminal.

And yet, British people who fought in the IDF are allowed to return to this country and live freely amongst us, despite fighting for an army that is committing genocide.

UCJP said inaction was "inexcusable":

It is utterly inexcusable that the UK government is failing to take action to hold citizens accountable for potential violations of international and domestic law.

The British government and judiciary need to move on IDF war crimes allegations—and move fast. British citizens taking part in Israel war crimes should be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Both as a matter of principle and as a matter of pubic safety.

You can read the full Declassified UK report here.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

Israel's green mile — where Palestinians are sent to die [ 12-Feb-26 12:32pm ]

Israel fast-tracks death penalty against Palestinians

In recent days, Israeli media outlets revealed plans by prison authorities to inaugurate an execution facility—nicknamed the "Israeli Green Mile." These facilities will resemble death chambers, reserved for Palestinians accused of terrorism.

Their death sentences will reportedly be carried out within 90 days of the final judicial decision.

This step represents a new escalation of violence against Palestinian detainees. Israeli outlets are concerned—as they say—with the psychological burden on executioners, with no regard for the innocence of those wrongfully detained. Israeli agents of death, who participation will reportedly be 'voluntary,' will reportedly undergo psychological and operational training—murder dressed up as due process.

Legalised killing grounds

The Palestinian Prisoners' Club has warned of the danger of transforming prisons into "legalised killing grounds". They contend that Israeli prisons are no longer detention sites, but have been transformed into spaces for torture, starvation and slow execution, as part of a retaliatory policy that legalises murder.

Prisons as tools for systematic killing

Since October 7, 2023, Palestinian detainees have endured horrific abuse at the hands of Israeli guards. Their treatment has reached new depths of depravity. Detainees are routinely denied medical care, deprived of sleep, shackled by their limbs, and subjected to sexual violence and a litany of sadistic torture methods. Collective humiliation is also part of the Israeli play book — forcing Palestinians to chant Zionist slogans, or kiss the Israeli flag.

Israeli Channel 13 quoted Israeli sources saying that the law will initially be applied to prisoners from elite battalions of the Islamic Resistance Movement—Hamas in other words—accused by Israel of carrying out the 7 October attack. It will later be rolled out in the occupied West Bank.

Execution without due process

This escalation is based on a bill submitted by the Jewish Power party, led by the fascist national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. They proposed amending Article 301(a) of the Israeli Penal Code to allow the death penalty to be imposed on anyone accused of killing an Israeli for 'hostile or nationalistic' motives. This will be without the possibility of pardon.

The bill also grants military courts in the West Bank the authority to issue death sentences without unanimity and oversight.

Following the bill's approval in its first reading, Ben-Gvir said that:

the only sentence awaiting those who kill Israelis is execution.

His remarks lay bare the retributive nature of the bill.

International warnings and Israeli disregard

UN experts are calling on Israel to withdraw the bill, stressing that the application of the death penalty in the occupied territories violates international humanitarian law and that the Israeli military legal system lacks legitimacy under the rules of occupation.

However, the right-wing Israeli government continues to push the bill as part of a broader package led by Ben-Gvir. Under the false banner of 'strict deterrence' they intend on reinforcing policies of repression and collective punishment.

Pundits also view the bill and state-backed push for execution wards as a response to Israel's failure to achieve its military objectives in Gaza. As a direct consequence, Israel is desperately appealing to, and appeasing, the extreme right in Israel. Where will they draw the line?

Featured image via the Canary

It's possibly the most snowflake anyone has ever been since Lee Anderson celebrated the conviction of his heckler.

Nanny state Farage is ranting about what you should call milk [ 12-Feb-26 11:26am ]

If you're old enough, you'll remember the British press constantly moaned about the 'nanny state' in the New Labour years. This is the term for when the government interferes in people's every day business to an unhealthy degree. And as we've seen this week, Nigel Farage is going to be the nanny state personified if he becomes PM.

First he was going after work-from-home; now he wants to tell you what you can and can't call oat milk:

When I first made this TikTok video in 2024 you all laughed at me.

Well, today the Supreme Court has ruled that 'oat milk' can no longer be called milk.

You're not laughing now are you! pic.twitter.com/WFQaEgNulO

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) February 11, 2026

How about minding your business, feller?

We are laughing now, to be fair

Farage is referring to the Supreme Court ruling which decided you can't call oat milk 'milk' anymore. We have two thoughts on this:

We're really spending time and money on this?
We'll continue to call it oat milk out of habit, but we don't care either way - we have more important things to worry about.

In the video above, Farage says:

So I'm in a smart hotel in London; I've got a cup, I want some milk. Let's have a look. We've got semi-skimmed, I don't like that. Oat milk? What on Earth's that when it's at home. Almond milk. All I want's proper bloody milk, not left-wing options - proper milk. What's wrong with me asking for that?

You are an old man in a public breakfast room shouting at the coffee table; this isn't normal.

We're going to print this in big, bold letters so that it gets through:

IF THE THOUGHT OF OAT MILK UPSETS YOU, YOU ARE TOO EASILY UPSET.

This is absolute snowflake behaviour.

And going further, there is nothing 'left-wing' about oat milk. Almond milk did not feature in the Communist Manifesto. Organised labour have never gone on strike to secure the right to coconut milk. Cashew milk is not a key tenet of Xi Jinping Thought.

Farage is doing two things here:

Thinking that anything which wasn't common in his childhood is wrong by default because his brain is decaying.
Thinking that anything he doesn't personally enjoy is 'left wing' because he's right wing.

As we mentioned, Mr Nanny is also telling people where they can and can't work. HG reported for the Canary:

Nigel Farage is going after work-from-home, in a hypocritical attempt to make it look like he's ever worked a day in his life.

Of course, Nigey isn't telling us that he previously employed his wife to work from home.

To make matters more infuriating, Reform UK also happens to employ people who work from home.

These people are going to be all up in your business while telling you to mind yours.

This your guy?

As is obvious from Farage's tweet, he's spent the past two years stewing on this. Do we really want this petty, small-minded dweeb in charge of the country?

Because let's be real - at this point, he's gonna want revenge for a lot more than just his opinions about milk.

Featured image via Trademark Room

By Willem Moore

"A landlord's charter" — Irish housing bill slammed for rent rises [ 12-Feb-26 10:52am ]

Opposition parties and housing activists have denounced a new housing bill passed in the Dáil. People Before Profit (PBP) TD Paul Murphy described it as a "landlord's charter written by a landlord's government".

On the face of it, the housing bill seems to introduce a series of useful new protections for tenants. These include:

No-fault evictions only allowed in very limited circumstances—for landlords with four tenancies or fewer who face certain forms of hardship such as financial difficulties or separation from a partner.
A new minimum tenancy of six years that operates on a rolling basis.
The whole of Ireland is treated as a Rent Pressure Zone (RPZ). This means that rents on tenants in-situ can only be raised by a maximum of 2% each year.

However, the right of landlords to raise rents for new tenancies or every six years is likely to still mean tenants pay extortionate sums, the key existing problem of the Irish housing crisis.

Housing rights groups hammer new bill

This was the thrust of Murphy's stance when he said:

This is a bill for rip-off rents. That's the purpose of it. It's not an accidental outcome of it, that's the purpose. The government strategy explicitly is to get rents to rise higher in order to attract more investment.

The government is indeed clear about this, with the minister for housing, local government and heritage James Browne saying:

I want to grow the supply of rental homes available - attract more landlords and retain existing landlords in the market. Providing the policy conditions for a sustained increase in supply is essential because it will help ease price pressures across the rental market, and will widen the pool of available rental properties, thereby facilitating greater choice for individuals and families.

So rather than proper public investment in housing, the government continues to trust in the private sector to solve a problem it has thus far totally failed at.

Tenants union CATU emphasised this, with organiser Helen Moynihan saying:

We have a really precarious housing setup that already overly relies on the private market, and now we're looking at legislation that will make that even more precarious. So we're especially concerned about the fact that landlords can raise [rent] to market [rate].

It's just it's really important not to get confused about this word supply. Houses that are not affordable for ordinary everyday workers do not increase supply. And this is the increase of the kind of properties we're going to see. They're not affordable for us. They're not supply for your everyday worker.

Housing charity Threshold pointed out how those moving home will be unfairly penalised:

Threshold is concerned that the option for landlords to set market rents between tenancies may result in an unintended consequence whereby renters, particularly those who need to move home, end up paying high rents within three to four years and see their overall rental security undermined.

We are not aware of any modelling done to determine the impact this change could have on market rent levels. The recent Threshold and Housing Rights NI all-island survey of renters shows that approximately 25% of renters in the Republic of Ireland left their last rental tenancy voluntarily. Market trends already show tenants who move home pay higher rents, this will only be exacerbated by the proposed legislation.

Rushed through — 'a truly appalling way to make legislation'

Protesters rallied outside the Dáil as the housing bill was 'debated', though in reality only:

…nine of 69 amendments that had been put forward by opposition parties were discussed.

The government accepted none of these, and Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin described the ramming through of the bill as a:

…truly appalling way to make legislation.

Party leader Mary Lou McDonald raised the spectre of Irish people once again fleeing abroad as so many previous generations have, saying:

Seven thousand Irish medical professionals were registered to work in Australia last year. If your bill goes through, we will lose many many more. Because the rent hikes will be off the charts.

Predictably, landlords were unhappy at even the limited concessions being made to tenants. The Irish Property Owners Association (IPOA) said:

At the Irish Property Owners Association, we're concerned that, as it stands, the Bill could unintentionally push more private landlords out of the market and reduce rental supply even further.

They continued:

Tenants need security and certainty, and that matters. But landlords also need clarity, fair treatment and confidence that they can manage or sell their properties when circumstances change. If too many landlords feel boxed in, the reality is they may sell up - leaving fewer homes, less choice and more pressure on renters.

In other words, won't someone think of the poor landlords, the people who typically own multiple properties? They may have a point, though—if landlords get fed up, supply may indeed evaporate. That's not an argument for giving in to their demands. It's a reason to scrap a system that treats housing as a commodity, and relies heavily on the whims of those looking to turn a profit from something that should be a basic human right.

Featured image via Unsplash/the Canary

By Robert Freeman

Where are Gaza's dead? [ 12-Feb-26 10:12am ]

In war, death is usually a number. Not every casualty in Gaza has been identified however. The graves of women, children, and men lay empty and the burning question is not how they died but where they are? Where are their remains?

A documentary by Al Jazeera Arabic — The Rest of the Story — names the phenomenon 'evaporation.' They document 2,842 cases of Palestinians who have disappeared since October 2023. The victims have received no burials. With no bodies found, there have been no funerals either. Members of the Gaza Civil Defence who feature in the documentary underline Israel's use of lethal thermal and thermo-pressurised munitions. This is used to account for the missing.

Counting the missing in Gaza

According to Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Gaza Civil Defence, these latest figures are the result of intricate fieldwork.

Recovery specialists have been matching the number of people inside the building that were targeted with the number of bodies recovered.

For example, when a family reports that five people were in the house, but only three bodies are found after extensive searches, the remaining two cases are recorded as missing persons.

Thermobaric weapons

Military experts have highlighted differences between thermo-pressurised weapons from conventional explosives. They reportedly scatter a cloud of fuel that ignites. This creates a fireball and a powerful shock wave within enclosed spaces. The result is multiplying the effects of heat, suffocation, and detonation compounded into a single moment.

It also refers to the use of explosive materials containing a mixture of TNT and aluminium powder, which raises the temperature of the explosion to very high levels within seconds. According to health officials in Gaza, featured in the documentary, exposure to extreme heat and pressure can lead to rapid tissue decomposition. This happens especially in enclosed spaces, where the effect of the heat wave is magnified.

Munitions galore

The report named specific types of bombs, including MK-84, BLU-109 and GBU-39, noting their technical characteristics. This applies both in terms of their ability to penetrate buildings before detonation and to generate intense internal shockwaves. It also reported finding metal remnants at some sites attributed to these munitions.

Legal experts who spoke to Al Jazeera Arabic condemned the use of weapons that do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. This, if proven, would constitute grave violations of international humanitarian law.

The issue of the responsibility of arms-exporting countries was also raised, given the continued flow of ammunition during the war. This comes in parallel with provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice. It opens up the issue of accountability beyond the battlefield.

The search continues

But behind the numbers, the story is one of despair and indignity, as families continue to search for their loves ones — or least what remains of them.

A mother waiting for her son's body to bury him. A father carrying a small bag of remains said to belong to his children. And hundreds of homes that have found nothing to say goodbye to.

In Gaza, loss is no longer a scene of mourning. Sometimes loss is a complete void, a heavy silence, a question hanging in the air — how can a person disappear without a trace?

Featured image via the Canary

Sky goes full, deranged propaganda mode against anti-Zionist Jews [ 12-Feb-26 12:57am ]

Sky News has run a frankly deranged — and antisemitic — article that attempts to demonise Brighton's anti-genocide activists. To the educated eye, it reads like an extract from an Israel lobby playbook. This should perhaps not surprise. Antisemitism is rife in the British media — just not in the way audiences are routinely told to expect.

The article features a seven-minute video that Sky also shared on its social media. The video barely bothers even to 'both-sides' the issue. It gives no more than a cursory nod to the idea that activists asking Brighton households to boycott Israeli products might not be antisemitic. Then it goes on to showcase, at length, the 'fears' — its interviewees seem anything but afraid, of course — of 'the Jewish community' at these supposedly terrifying young people and their clipboards:

Sky's @LisaAtSky reports from Brighton, where volunteers are going door-to-door asking people to boycott Israeli products.

Brighton's Jewish community fear the actions of these volunteers could encourage antisemitism.

McSweeney is not just one rotten apple - the whole cart is rancid [ 12-Feb-26 12:40am ]

An ablative heat shield is a protective system that jettisons material to dissipate heat from the underlying structure. They're used on oil rigs and spacecraft. And in politics. Boris Johnson used Matt Hancock as one. After failing to turn up at Cobra meetings, Johnson and his government discharged Covid-infected patients into care homes, causing thousands of early deaths. His callous "let the bodies pile high" comments and corrupt VIP WhatsApp lanes left him in the firing line. So he sacked health secretary Matt Hancock. Not for incompetence, but in a conveniently leaked video where Hancock snogs a woman he was having an affair with in his office. He'd appointed her to a £15,000 paid non-exec director role, too. Johnson could then jettison the Hancock liability without drawing attention to the Covid fiascos. Hancock kept his £91,346 MP's salary. And took his £16,000 ministerial resignation payout. And £320,000 for going on I'm a Celebrity. If you'd been sacked for corruption, inappropriate behaviour in the workplace, and lethal incompetence, how much would your golden parachute be?

We should ask the same question about Morgan McSweeney.

McSweeney: gone but not forgotten

Those rich donors colonising our public services will see him right. His media mates are trying to rehabilitate him already - Guardian articles saying he was the genius who "masterminded landslide 2024 election win". What rubbish. Johnson created chaos without any help from McSweeney. A lettuce beat Liz Truss. The Tories handed Labour their loveless landslide. McSweeney's efforts lowered the Labour vote.

The whole Starmer project, engineered by the likes of Mandelson and McSweeney, is a big gravy train of corruption. Starmer is right in the middle of it. They were aided and abetted by client journalists.

Do you remember when Keir Starmer was "forensic"? That didn't last long. Then they were the "grown ups". Making "tough decisions". Like accepting £100,000 of freebies. They're trying to rehabilitate him how. He is a "decent" man who was "lied to" by that nasty Peter Mandelson. How could they have known that a man who resigned twice for corruption was corrupt?

After Mandelson's second ministerial resignation, Tony Blair appointed him as Britain's EU Commissioner. In 2008 the story broke about Mandelson meeting billionaires Oleg Deripaska and Natheniel Rothschild on an £80 million yacht. Along with George Osborne. Deripaska owned the world's largest aluminium business. Mandelson had lowered EU tariffs on aluminium from 6% to 3%, worth tens of millions of pounds to Deripaska. I found that in a Google search.

What a genius

In 2023 the McSweeney faction manoeuvred to stop Labour members from being allowed to select me to continue as Mayor. Starmer said "we want the highest quality of candidates." A lobby journalist told me, "It's amazing - they're blocking you who's actually done some good and Peter Mandelson, who's best mates with Jeffrey Epstein, still has influence." That was 18 months before Starmer appointed Mandelson as ambassador to the US. If journalists knew, the Cabinet Office Security Vetting service knew. Which meant Starmer knew.

So what they will try next is to say it's just one rotten apple. Mandelson was dodgy. And while McSweeney was ambitious, he was just serving his party. And Starmer, when he resigns, will be rehabilitated as a decent chap, just too honest and straight laced. Which is total hogwash. They are all up to their elbows in it. And have normalised it. These are not merely three weak individuals, unable to control their greed. The system attracts and rewards and promotes these characters. The Labour right is a machine that transfers our money to very rich people.

The Tony Blair Foundation took £257 million from Larry Ellison, whose Oracle firm is hawking AI to governments. Shortly afterwards, Starmer announced 18,000 NHS England redundancies, which would be filled by AI. There are legions of other examples.

Governments will struggle

I was on BBC Politics North this weekend. I was asked about why left behind towns in the North East were struggling.

Low wages, poor transport and a shortage of good jobs persist year after year. The underlying cause, I said, it the money being taken out of these places. In the North East alone, Northumbria Water made £291 million profit last year. All disappears off to a Hong Kong billionaire. Northern PowerGrid North East, £333 million profit last year, all disappears off to a North American billionaire. That money reinvested here would create more work, more jobs, more money circulating in our local economy. That's just two privatised utilities. Add in banks, finance, land ownership, care homes, big tech - and we're a debt farm built to enrich billionaires. Our money is going to people on big yachts, not small boats.

No government will be popular until this is fixed. They only reason Starmer is still in post is Labour MPs are waiting until after May's local election wipe out to jettison him like an ablative heat shield. No new leader wants a catastrophic defeat in their inbox.

Public ownership is immensely popular. It would be simple to do. It costs effectively nothing - just enforce the regulations, and the share price will plummet to zero. So the real question is why won't a struggling Labour government do it?

The only way is Green after McSweeney and Labour

I joined the Green Party because they will. Over 130,000 people have made the same decision. In Newcastle we'll take swathes of seats from Labour. It's shaping up to be a straight fight between the Greens and Reform, just like the Gorton and Denton by-election. The Greens will reverse wealth extraction. Reform will turbocharge it, like a vacuum hose sucking money from your bank account.

The cracks in the neo-Labour edifice are growing. So one cheer for the demise of Mandelson and McSweeney. But I'll keep the other two back for when we get a government that serves the people.

Featured image via the Canary

By Jamie Driscoll

Birmingham NEC are hypocrites. If you're gonna peddle death, fucking well own it [ 12-Feb-26 12:17am ]

I'm still getting used to this life. Walking through Birmingham International train station at 8am on Wednesday 4 February to the NEC, sleep-deprived. A stranger clocks me. A double-take. I'm imagining things. Oh wait. No. He's following, phone raised, snapping pictures. Earpiece? Check. ID? None. A plain-clothes somebody, or nobody.

We're expecting trouble later

A flimsy justification when challenged before scuttling off. I wish I'd thought to record it, but like I say, I'm getting used to this still.

Another adventure…

I was at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham. In-between hosting Springfair and The Artisanal Food and Ice Cream Show 2026, management are desperately trying to pull off the most delicate and audacious of audacious magic tricks. They're both trying to host the SDSC Arms Convention whilst simultaneously making sure nobody notices.

Of course, local activists were intent on shining a light on proceedings. The arms fair has moved from Telford due to protests - but where the arms go, the people follow. And, based on how hard it was to even find, the NEC was clearly aware of the PR implications.

Birmingham NEC

Security was obviously tight. I arrived on Tuesday to find protesters, quite literally penned in on a piece of grass outside. Security took turns escorting them to the toilets every half hour, and one person was periodically chaperoned to get hot drinks. At one point, it wasn't clear if I'd even be permitted back through the building to the station. Fortunately, sense prevailed so I abused my press pass to visit the ice cream convention on the way back through.

Birmingham NEC: murder in the morning. Ice cream in the arvo.

It was surreal: just a couple of walls stood between people peddling death and the best pistachio ice cream I've ever eaten.

People posed for pictures with the Ben & Jerry's cow, tens of metres away from… well, that's part of the problem. It's hard to say what's going on in there. I applied for a press ticket but never got a reply. Walking through the centre, the silence was deafening: Springfair branding everywhere, toys and games. The ice cream convention spelled out in huge gold lettering…

But nothing for the weapons fair. How odd! Almost like they were ashamed…

Birmingham NEC

It was a theme. The sheer number of people who told me they were 'there for the ice cream', only to duck into the weapons convention, was laughable. If you're going to a weapons fair, own it. If you're ashamed, why go? And it's the same for Birmingham NEC. If they are ashamed of hosting it, why do it? Do they believe in the cause? Do they think it's okay to sell munitions that blow up people on the other side of the world? If so, why not write it in three-foot gold letters? Why did security ask me - belatedly - not to photograph the welcome sign in the window?

Scared of some hippies and drums

And why police a protest of tree-huggers and hippies as if they're a dire threat? It was ridiculous. Security seemed genuinely surprised people weren't grateful to be herded to the toilets. Since when is that normal? I've been going to protests for years. I've never seen a venue behave this way.

On Wednesday, arriving protesters were met by security escorts. They "didn't want people to get lost." Okay.

By 9:30am, several activists were physically carried out for handing out leaflets and dumped at the entrance.

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Security in general was farcical. Please don't photograph those windows? Bit late for that bud. You honestly think the first thing I did when I landed Tuesday wasn't to take a picture of the huge fuck off "welcome" sign?

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I want to the very clear, I don't think that people wearing yellow bibs, earning minimum wage while standing in the cold should be the target. It's not their fault their bosses are shit. Most probably agree that bombing kids is a shitty thing to do. People don't get an option about their engagement with a coercive capitalist system that demands blood sacrifice every week in exchange for the basic necessities needed to keep existing.

The security managers making the decisions?

The ones sharing photos with the police; the ones laughing while making propeller motions at a staged die in highlighting the use of drones in the genocide ongoing in Gaza? That's another matter. When, as was relayed to me, one of the security managers went out of his way to tell protesters he knew where they are from because he saw them in a right wing auditors videos… When another walks up to an NUJ journalist and tries to intimidate them by quietly telling them how much they enjoyed the pictures on their Instagram? Yeah, fuck those guys. Royally and sideways. They deserve some shit being flung at them.

Back to the protest

In the pen, the XR drummers arrived. The promised snow hadn't materialised and spirits were high, waiting for reinforcements. The final straw for security arrived just after one o'clock from Birmingham New Street; The Red Rebel Brigade. Once they had made their way through the centre and reached the protest site, the doors slammed shut. Clearly too much publicity. Apparently there were now "too many people". Who the fuck is that scared of 7 people in velvet bath robes?

A bus arrived. Protesters were huddled and told there would be no more access; everyone would have to walk the long way around or be driven. The day was cut short. Those who walked were led through car parks out of sight of the public to the station. Everything organised to avoid anyone ever realising that theres death being bought and sold here or that anyone was opposed to that notion.

That's what this is about. The Birmingham NEC; a British institution trying desperately to eat its cake and then still have it; to host these events but avoid any scrutiny for having done so. Nestled in one of the most authentically working-class areas of the country; being pimped out to the highest bidder. Hiding its complicity behind free spoons of gelato. What would Ben & Jerry's say? We couldn't reach them for comment, but I think it's a fucking disgrace.

Industrial levels of incompetence on display for all to see at Birmingham NEC

The handling of this protest is a recurring theme. The decision-makers aren't bad people by default - generally they are just really bad at their jobs. How anyone thinks this is the way to manage PR is beyond me. I find myself screaming "Barbara Streisand" in my head a lot.

It's all so counter-productive. All this bollocks about "facilitating a protest"… You're trying to minimise and hide it. And worse - attempting to intimidate journalists? What would have happened if you'd just allowed it? Some people would have banged drums, walked around in red gowns, and caught a train home. There isn't much to write about there.

But when you go out of your way to hide it, badly, you turn it into a story. When you stalk a journalist's Instagram, it's pretty weak. This is snowflake behaviour. From people hosting international arms dealers.

Birmingham NEC

If the Birmingham NEC is hosting the SDSC Arms Convention, they should be proud enough to shout it from the rooftops. It should be on flags, banners, and their website. It shouldn't be hidden between plush toys and Ben & Jerry's.

And they shouldn't be afraid of people asking basic questions about the ethics of hosting an event that sells weapons. Those weapons aren't getting made for shits and giggles. They aren't getting made for fun; they are made to be used. To be dropped on people in Gaza and to be shot at people in Kashmir and Sudan. They kill people and the Birmingham NEC has their blood on its hands.

The NEC had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

Featured images via Barold

By Barold

Your Party urged to investigate conference organiser's rule-breaking [ 11-Feb-26 11:17pm ]

The Social Justice Party (SJP) has been supportive of Your Party (YP). But it has also raised some concerns about accountability for rule-breaking, telling the Canary it wants YP to:

urgently conduct an internal investigation into a serious allegation that a Your Party conference organiser abused their authority and deliberately broke the sortition rules.

The SJP clarified that its own elected representatives have:

been involved in discussions with like minded groups, such as The Collective, about building a new party of the left since 2024.

And it added that:

SJP members want Your Party to flourish and in order to do that it must operate in a manner that is fair, democratic and transparent.

The allegation of rule-breaking comes amid Your Party's elections for its first Central Executive Committee (CEC). There have also been concerns about transparency and accountability during this process.

Alleged rule-breaking at Your Party's founding conference

Members wanting to attend November's founding conference in Liverpool had to go through a sortition process, with YP's website saying this sought to:

assemble a representative group of people by effectively drawing lots, giving everyone an equal chance of being chosen

The SJP, however, discovered that one of its former members had:

received a personal invite from a conference organiser to attend Your Party's Founding Conference.

This was despite the sortition process not choosing this member.

The SJP undertook an internal investigation, which:

concluded that it was beyond reasonable doubt that a Your Party conference organiser had broken the sortition rules

SJP chair Eric Barnes told us that, when the member arrived at the conference, they were allegedly:

issued with a pre-written speech and advised where to sit in the conference hall - in the same section as sortitioned participants - in order to maximise their chances of being selected to speak during a conference debate

A conference organiser, meanwhile, had also:

arranged for them to stay in a hotel and offered to pay for their accommodation and travel expenses. Although the SJP member did not actually speak during a conference debate they said that they were aware of another non-sortitioned person, who also gained access to the conference floor via a personal invite, who did speak

SJP will officially complain after CEC election

The SJP told us that it doesn't currently "have confidence" that an official complaint to Your Party would receive fair and impartial attention, because:

At present Your Party is controlled by a small group of unelected people overseeing processes that as yet have not been formally agreed.

The party believed it was in YP members' interests to comment now because:

Your Party is intending to use sortition as a mechanism for future member voting purposes, therefore Your Party members need to be aware of potential interference.

And it confirmed it:

will be submitting a formal complaint to Your Party once the new CEC leadership team has been elected enabling them to carry out their own investigation.

It explained why, saying:

Rule 7.1 of Your Party's interim membership rules states 'Members must not act in any way that brings the Party into disrepute'.

The SJP are concerned that a Your Party conference organiser broke the sortition rule, which is clearly an act that would bring the party into disrepute, and will be pursuing this complaint until it is satisfactorily resolved.

Barnes also expressed concern that these rule breaches may not have been the only ones. And he insisted:

It is even more galling that properly sortitioned delegates were barred from conference because they were deemed to be members of another political party. We trust that the new CEC will bring an end to these backroom manoeuvres and set Your Party on a path of genuine democracy.

The Canary approached Your Party for comment on these allegations, but received no response by the time of publication.

Featured image via the Canary

https://www.thecanary.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/ORTm4fT9muUgFGgt.mp4

US empire makes sure Venezuelan oil gets sent to Israel [ 11-Feb-26 10:57pm ]

As the US blocks countries from sending oil to Cuba, it has also made sure that Venezuelan oil gets to Israel for the first time in years.

US diverting Venezuelan oil away from Cuba, and towards Israel

After Washington's illegal invasion of Venezuela in early January 2026, during which it abducted the country's president Nicolás Maduro, the US took control of the oil leaving the Latin American nation. That meant it could ensure once and for all that Venezuelan oil wouldn't go to Cuba anymore.

But this imperialist oil game wasn't just about strangling Cuba, apparently. It was also about ensuring Venezuela's oil could go to US allies, like the genocidal settler-colonial state of Israel. As Drop Site News has reported, the US has now overseen:

a crude oil cargo to Bazan Group, Israel's largest refinery.

The US has also received oil, along with India, currently under the far-right government of Narendra Modi, and Europe.

Watch: Colombia's socialist president Gustavo Petro describes how he just dodged assassination [ 11-Feb-26 10:31pm ]

Colombia's socialist president Gustavo Petro has been in the US's crosshairs since he denounced Trump and his "clan of paedophiles" for abducting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

Today, he narrowly avoided assassination when attackers overran the planned landing site for the helicopter in which he and his family were travelling.

Petro later described how the family had to fly out to sea for hours before finding a safe place:

No group has yet claimed responsibility, leaving open the likelihood of another US-sponsored murder attempt, ignored by most western media.

Featured image via the Canary