Australian police have been filmed viciously beating an anti-genocide protester after the protester was already immobilised, pinned to the floor and helpless:

 

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The attack came shortly after the Australian government passed new legislation, driven by the Israel lobby, classifying criticism of Israel as hate speech. It mirrors the legislation and egregious violence perpetrated by state forces against peaceful pro-Palestine protesters in Germany.

Australian authorities and institutions have discriminated heavily against Palestinians and pro-Palestinian speech since the December 2025 Bondi beach attack - which had nothing to do with Palestinians or Palestine.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) propaganda machine is working at top speed again. This time by making cuts to benefits sound like it's for disabled people's own good. The DWP released a shiny new press release bragging about how they plan to reform welfare to "support people into work".

DWP cutting UC health element by over £200

This is, of course, the Universal Credit Bill, which comes into effect in April. The final amendments for which were laid out in parliament yesterday (Monday 9 February). I know what you're thinking, since when were amendments newsworthy? Well, since the DWP realised they needed to generate as much good press around these abhorrent cuts as possible.

What the press release does finally confirm is just how much the DWP will be fucking over new disabled Universal Credit (UC) claimants. And it's by over £200 a month. The department proudly gushed that they will be introducing a lower rate of the health element for new claimants. This means that instead of £429.80 a month, new claimants will get just £217.26. That's a loss of £212.54 a month and £2550.48 a year.

Don't worry, though, standard allowance is going up too and it's higher than inflation for the first time ever! Aren't the government good to us?! For under 25 year olds it'll go up by a whole £21.60 a month or £259.20 a year. For over 25s it'll be going up by a whopping £24.76 a month or £297.12 a year. So you'll only need to make up an extra £2291.28 or £2253.36 a year.

Painting cuts as a good thing and benefit claimants as fakers

Even more cruelly, the DWP is selling this cut as a good thing that will help disabled people.

The press release said:

The system inherited from the previous Government means people receiving Universal Credit for health reasons are paid more than twice as much as a single person looking for work and aren't given the support to move closer to - or into - jobs.

A reminder that disabled claimants get double what a non disabled claimant does is because the DWP have already judged them unfit for work. They know that these people can't find a job without it being detrimental to their health.

The DWP continued:

The reforms - coming into force in April - will tackle these perverse incentives by introducing a lower Universal Credit health element

Because nothing incentivises you like the prospect of starvation and homelessness, does it?

The deserving and undeserving disabled

The government also didn't pass up an opportunity to paint a clear divide between the fakers and the real disabled people. They assured the public that people with the "most severe, lifelong conditions" would still receive the higher rate. Though when they get to decide who fits that criteria, it's obvious that many will suffer. This rate also applies to those with a terminal illness and current claimants.

By not including current claimants, the government clearly hopes disabled people will keep quiet and play nice. This shows just how selfish and vile they are if they expect the community to turn its back on newly disabled people to save our own skins. That sounds much more like politician behaviour.

DWP chief Pat McFadden said:

The benefits system we inherited was rigged with the wrong incentives and wrote people off instead of backing them. We are changing this.

It's absolutely vile that the government are still pushing this narrative that disabled people choose not to work because it pays better. When it's clear to see that many find work inaccessible in a system that cares more about profits than people.

He continued:

These reforms put more money in the pockets of working people on Universal Credit, while ensuring those who can work get the support they need to do so.

This is such a fucking lie, it's insulting. McFadden knows full well that the health element means people are too sick or disabled to work. So to say the DWP wants to support those who can work is implying they're faking it.

Overwhelming evidence that the DWP isn't fit for purpose

To try and make it look like they care, the DWP refers once again to all their bullshit plans to push disabled people back into work. This is despite the overwhelming evidence that the department is a complete farce.

Recently, the DWP was crowing about the rollout of WorkWell, which sells work as a cure for disability. This is despite there being no proof of it actually working at all, never mind well. There's also the fact the Public Accounts Committee absolutely ripped the DWP a new one over their ability to support people into work.

The PAC also drew attention to the fact that the DWP doesn't publish data on work coach numbers. So while the DWP brags that 100,000 advisors will be redeployed in Pathways to Work, we don't actually know how many there are. And if they're planning on putting them in GP offices and moving them onto the skills brief we really need to know how many there are to go around.

The DWP doesn't give a fuck about disabled people

What is clear, despite the DWP saying otherwise, is that they couldn't give a fuck about disabled people.

If they actually wanted to support those of us who could work, there'd be proper detailed plans. Not just passing disabled people around work coaches. They also wouldn't be quietly cutting Access to Work whilst spaffing on about wanting to help us. If they actually cared about people who were out of work because of disability they'd be ensuring we could live our lives without fear.

More than anything, if the DWP actually cared about disabled benefits claimants, they wouldn't be doing everything in their power to demonise us in the press. But then if all of this was true they wouldn't need to use the press to further their agenda by bragging about fucking amendments.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

The Canary has received reports of an alleged backroom deal between Jeremy Corbyn, The Many, and Redbridge Independents. In January 2025, Corbyn announced his endorsement of the Redbridge Independents, declaring:

we are the alternative, we are the community.

However, this excited endorsement has been challenged by anonymous insiders. And, this revelation comes just as The Many accused Grassroots Left of undermining member decisions at the fledgling party's inaugural conference.

But, the Canary have received a report from a source that was present in a meeting between Corbyn, Redbridge Independents, and candidate on The Many slate on Tuesday 26 January — one day before Corbyn declared his public support for Redbridge Independents. The source alleges that Corbyn traded his public endorsement for a commitment from Redbridge Independents to deliver votes for The Many.

If accurate, this would represent a clear attempt to exert political influence behind closed doors.

Corbyn pushes The Many

As Your Party gears up for its Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections that will determine leadership of the party, internal rifts are evident. Whilst Corbyn endorsed The Many, Zarah Sultana has endorsed the Grassroots Left slate.

An anonymous source told the Canary that Noor Begum and Tahir Mirza, two candidates on The Many slate, were present at the alleged meeting with Corbyn and Redbridge Independents. If Corbyn has indeed traded public endorsement for assurances of support for The Many, there must be serious questions over the erosion of democratic principles during the course of these elections.

Furthermore, according to our source, Begum confessed she had been told by Laura Alvarez, Corbyn's wife, that it was imperative that both candidates be elected in the London region. If not, Corbyn and his allies would not have ultimate control of the CEC. As a result, they would not control the party itself.

These are hardly the actions of people committed to member-led democracy. Instead, they are the actions of a group of people clinging to shady Westminster-style backroom politics where what matters is who you know.

Accusations against Grassroots Left

As we mentioned earlier, these revelations come as The Many accuse Grassroots Left of undermining the principle of one member, one vote:

NEW: Some on the Grassroots Left want to overturn conference & abolish one-member-one-vote in Your Party.

The Many will defend OMOV.

Power with the members, not the sects. pic.twitter.com/uQvBb7mq3m

— The Many (@TheManyYP) February 8, 2026

For months, Corbyn and his allies have briefed against Zarah Sultana and those in her team. Namely, the allegation is that Sultana is attempting to take control of the party. As these allegations swirl, it is clear that Your Party is far from guaranteeing member-led democracy.

A party divided: democracy undermined from within

In February 2026, members of Your Party will vote nationwide to elect candidates to its Central Executive Committee (CEC), the body responsible for carrying forward the membership's will through democratic debate and decision-making. Since the party's inception, both sides have accused each other of attempting to seize ultimate control. Furthermore, Zarah Sultana claimed she was pushed out of the process. She denounced it as a "sexist boys club" dominated by unelected bureaucrats.

Reports suggest these struggles for control have been present from the very beginning. Corbyn's team reportedly opposed Sultana's involvement and resisted the proposed co-leader model. However, the announcement of that model inspired hundreds of thousands of people across the country to take notice.

Jeremy Corbyn's Zarah Sultana's YourParty has reached 800,000 and heads toward a million signs up's and has 6 MP's (Independence Alliance MP's are party of it) and counting.

You can join the Biggest Party in UK here.https://t.co/wqcecuaaK2

— JmRoyle #LFC #YNWA #BLM #RejoinEU (@MyArrse) August 12, 2025

Members should have put this divide to rest in November, when Your Party's inaugural conference overwhelmingly backed dual membership and collective leadership. Yet the back and forth accusations suggest that the democratic mandate from members is not being treated as such.

We have already reported how candidates aligned with Jeremy Corbyn have allegedly had to commit to overturning conference decisions regarding leadership model and dual membership. We even exposed the controversial reality that Corbyn's aide, Karie Murphy, chose to block a sortition member once becoming aware of their socialist credentials. Nevertheless, the group appear willing to sink to ever greater depths of shadiness.

NEW: Our Proposals to Empower Members & Get Your Party Back On Track

Over 1,500 UK students, academics, researchers and university staff have signed an open letter demanding UK universities cut ties to the arms trade. The letter claims the links are fuelling "global instability, injustice, and environmental harm".

Demilitarise Education (dED), puts the value of arms-linked partnerships at approximately £2.5bn. This figure represents the combined value of partnerships held by universities in arms companies, including investments, research and academic partnerships, over the past eight years.

This data is held on the Universities and Arms Database, which dED developed and hosts.

Demilitarise Education's arms trade campaign

dED is running a national campaign highlighting the deep and ongoing ties between UK universities and the arms trade.

The campaign has already garnered widespread support. 1,595 academics, researchers, university staff, and students have signed an open letter. It calls for an end to institutional partnerships with arms manufacturers and military-linked organisations.

Through rigorous research, advocacy and collective action, the organisation calls for transparency, ethical funding and an education system with policies committed to peace, social justice and the public good.

Dr Iain Overton, executive director at Action on Armed Violence, said:

UK universities cannot credibly claim to be solely serving the public good while taking billions from the arms trade. These are not neutral partnerships. Defence money shapes research priorities, it legitimises militarisation, and it binds centres of learning into often hidden and distant systems of violence that produce very real civilian harm.

But what this open letter shows is that such institutional consent is not uncontested. Staff and students are no longer willing to accept such complicity as the price of funding. They refuse to allow those who have profited from well-recorded civilian deaths in places like Gaza and Yemen to end up funding our Universities.

Participants not bystanders

The £2,556,647,429 figure exposes higher education institutions as active participants in military supply chains, rather than neutral bystanders. Signatories argue that these relationships implicate universities directly in systems that sustain war, militarisation and global violence. And often there's no transparency, democratic oversight or meaningful consent from university communities.

This intervention comes amid intensifying global conflicts from the devastating genocide in Gaza and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, to the ongoing civil war in Sudan and rising geopolitical tensions elsewhere.

These conflicts have caused widespread civilian suffering, resulting in numerous crises across the stated locations, with millions displaced, health systems collapsing and education infrastructure destroyed.

dED argues that university arms trade partnerships form part of the same global architecture that enables and sustains such violence.

BAE Systems

One of the most involved arms companies in UK universities is BAE Systems. At the University of Manchester, BAE is partnering on research to accelerate combat air systems, including research projects aimed at improving fighter jets.

BAE Systems' weapons and technology have been linked to serious violations of international law. In 2019, the company was accused of "aiding and abetting" war crimes in Yemen.

Components manufactured by BAE for F-35 fighter jets have seen use in Israeli bombing campaigns in Gaza, resulting in thousands of deaths, including hundreds of children.

By supplying regimes engaged in indiscriminate violence, BAE has contributed directly to war crimes, mass civilian casualties, and extensive environmental destruction. Despite reporting on production emissions and business travel, BAE does not account for the catastrophic environmental damage caused by its weapons, including toxic pollution, infrastructure collapse, and long-term ecological harm.

The dED Universities and Arms Database tracks UK university links to arms companies listed in the SIPRI and Defense News top 100. So far, 90 UK universities have been identified as having direct ties. The database allows users to explore how individual universities contribute to arms company activities.

The open letter marks a clear break with institutional consent, as staff and students publicly challenge the normalisation of defence-funded research, arms-linked partnerships and military recruitment pipelines within higher education.

Arms trade 'incompatible' with uni aims

Campaigners argue that universities' stated commitments to the public good, social responsibility and global justice are fundamentally incompatible with their material involvement in the arms trade. As militarism expands internationally, staff and students increasingly identify universities as a key node within the military-industrial complex.

The letter contends that research collaborations, weapons-linked funding streams and defence-aligned innovation programmes play a material role in enabling arms production and export, including into active conflict zones. They also embed militaristic logics within institutions historically understood as spaces of independent thought and public good.

Aleks Palanac from the University of Leicester says:

UK universities cannot legitimately claim to be places of sanctuary for refugee students whilst continuing to actively contribute to the causes of their forced migration in the first place through their involvement in the global arms trade.

Stop the recruitment drive

The campaign also responds to mounting pressure on universities to function as recruitment and talent pipelines for the defence sector. The UK government's 2025 Strategic Defence Review outlines plans to align higher education with military and defence industries more closely. This includes the creation of a Defence Universities Alliance and targeted investment in STEM disciplines to support military technologies and defence roles.

dED criticises the government's proposed "whole of society" approach to defence. This includes increased exposure to military careers among school-aged children and initiatives such as paid armed forces "gap years" for under-25s. The organisation says this risks normalising military service as a default life trajectory for young people. And particularly so in the context of widening inequality and shrinking civilian opportunities.

Jinsella Kennaway, the co-founder and executive director of dED, says:

Over 1,500 members of the UK knowledge community have put their names to this open letter. This is no fringe view - it is a clear mandate from within our universities. This is a stand against the use of education to fund, legitimise and supply the war machine.

Universities must honour their duty to serve the public good by choosing partnerships that build the conditions for peace, not profit from conflict. No ethical integrity can be claimed while arms industry partnerships amplify the lethality of war and stakeholder calls for change are met with silence.

The letter calls on universities to realign their policies and practices with the dED Treaty framework. It demands full transparency over defence-linked funding, research and partnerships, alongside formal commitments to exclude arms companies from university collaborations.

It further calls for an end to recruitment ties with the armed forces and arms manufacturers. And it looks for a renewed commitment to research and teaching that prioritises peace-building over warfare.

Campaigners argue that universities must remain spaces of critical inquiry and humanistic values, not extensions of the military-industrial complex.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

Nottingham East MP Nadia Whittome and her Norwich South colleague Clive Lewis have tabled an 'early day motion' (EDM) demanding a fully independent, public inquiry into the extent of serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein's influence in UK politics:

We need an independent, statutory inquiry into the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and British public figures and institutions.

The public needs to know whether British public figures and institutions had any involvement in or awareness of his crimes, what action they took… pic.twitter.com/B5iHtZjlAF

— Clive Lewis MP (@labourlewis) February 9, 2026

The parliamentary EDM system is down at the time of writing, but their EDM 2749 also expresses solidarity with Epstein's many victims. It reads, in full:

That this House stands with Jeffrey Epstein's victims whose relentless courage and pursuit of justice has led to the publication of the Epstein files; notes with concern the number of British public figures included in these files; recognises that child sexual abuse on this scale is likely to have involved not only those directly perpetrating the abuse but other individuals who were complicit in a number of ways, including by ignoring this abuse or covering for those perpetrating it; and urges the Government to set up an independent, statutory inquiry into the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and British public figures and institutions, whether they had involvement in or awareness of his crimes, what action they took or failed to take, whether they assisted in covering up child sexual abuse, and if due diligence was undertaken in the case of any appointments to public roles.

Keir Starmer has been forced to promise transparency on his decision to appoint Epstein's fanboy Peter Mandelson as senior adviser and ambassador to the US. However, he has also said he will remove information for 'national security' or 'foreign relations' reasons. Both mean that information on Israel's involvement will be heavily, if not entirely, redacted.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Keir Starmer has threatened all his cabinet with the sack if they don't tweet support for him by tonight.
Then, in a record u-turn even for him, his office said he hadn't:

New:
A U.K. government source says it is untrue that cabinet ministers have been told to tweet their support for Starmer or face the sack.

— kathryn samson (@KathrynSamsonC4) February 9, 2026

So far, home secretary Shabana Mahmood, justice minister David Lammy and Angela Rayner have come out in support of Starmer.

However, Rayner — or someone — already set up a leadership campaign website in her name, so some of the support at least may leak away once the u-turn memo circulates.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Sulky drivers illegally staging horse races on public roads have killed a pregnant mare and her "fully formed" unborn foal. The charity My Lovely Horse Rescue were called to the scene in Ballyfermot in the west of Dublin, where they found an exhausted horse named Anne lying bloodied and abandoned in the middle of the road.

They transported her to University College Dublin (UCD) in the hope of providing specialist treatment. However, vets at UCD determined there was too much internal damage for the horse to recover, and therefore made the decision to euthanise.

My Lovely Horse Rescue received reports of the horse being spotted in the Dollymount area, around 15 km away in the far east of the city. This means the racers subjected the heavily pregnant animal to a gruelling trek across an entire city, with the stress of navigating busy main roads. Up to six horses were involved in the race. Anne was seen falling to the ground an hour prior to her final collapse. The charity say Anne:

…slid for at least 30/40 metres. Her injuries align with this.

Images and videos on their Facebook page show the horse with blood on its legs, unable to stand. They say:

Anne was seen being whipped and kicked to get back up. She didn't, she couldn't. Her abusers fled the scene into the bushes leaving Anne to die!!!

The group have appealed for:

…anyone with pictures, dash cam footage to come forward.

Sulky racing — calls to ban so-called 'sport' increase

Sulky racing involves driving horses along a course while they are attached to a two-wheel cart or 'sulky'. Done on official tracks, it is a legal sport similar to horse racing, albeit with the same risks of injury to animals who are being abused purely for human entertainment. An underground scene exists, however, in which racers drive horses along roads. This violates existing traffic laws.

My Lovely Horse Rescue report being routinely called out to instances of injured or dead horses who have suffered their fate as a result of sulky road races. Media have covered several cases of horses killed by racers in recent years. The latest cruelty has prompted fresh calls for politicians to bring in new laws to specifically ban sulky racing.

Aontú's Limerick Councillor Sarah Beasley described herself as "horrified" by the death of Anne and her foal. She said of the 'sport':

It is endangering animals and human lives, because we know that sulky racing is taking place on busy national roads as well as more rural ones. Can you just imagine the carnage that would be caused if one of these sulkys' [sic] careered into the path of drivers or pedestrians? The horrors of this are just unimaginable.

Currently the spotlight is on scramblers and their use on public roads which is also illegal, and action is being taken to stamp this out for once and for all, but sulky driving is equally as deadly, both to the unfortunate animals and the public.

She continued:

We need statutory prohibition of sulky racing and training now.

Cruel 'traditions' should be discontinued

A petition calling for new legislation has amassed nearly 10,000 signatures. Sinn Féin's Chris Andrews highlighted Anne's death in the Senate and called for ministers to deal with "lawlessness" around animal abuse. A previous attempt in 2018 to ban the sport failed. Then Sinn Féin highlighted the lack of clear authority to deal with abuse of horses. Deputy Matt Carthy said:

The problem, however, is that when issues regarding equine welfare are raised with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, they are then pointed in the direction of the local authority, from where they are then pointed in the direction of the Garda and from there they are directed back to the Department.

There is not a clearly defined line of responsibility where people take charge of this issue. In most parts of the country, almost no dedicated staff and resources are allocated to the monitoring of equine welfare issues.

He said a specific bill outlawing the practice would be the:

…ideal opportunity to start dealing with these issues…

Carthy flagged how:

…Ireland is almost unique in having an urban culture in respect of horses.

While he was not using culture as an excuse, others have defended sulky racing via this means. This is much the same approach used by others to justify the continuation of other cruel sports still legal in Ireland, such as hare coursing, greyhound racing and foxhunting.

When these two principles collide - defending an established culture vs ending cruelty to defenceless animals - clearly the latter should prevail. We understand this perfectly well in other cases where toxic practices are condoned with a cultural defence; no reasonable person thinks female genital mutilation should proceed on the basis of ensuring an old tradition continues.

Ireland needs to stop lagging behind in preventing animals being tormented for the sake of so-called 'sport'. Banning sulky racing would be a good start.

Featured image via Ireland Live

By Robert Freeman

On Thursday 5th February, the Canary sat down with Andrew Feinstein to discuss his upcoming book 'Making a Killing'. He is a former ANC member from South Africa who worked alongside Nelson Mandela and has worked tirelessly alongside others to expose the arms trade and its corruption of politicians around the world.

Working in collaboration with others, Feinstein has united the brutal conflicts in Gaza and Yemen in one body of work, allowing readers to connect the dots between the billionaire-owned military machine and world leaders' involvement in the mass murder and devastation of the Middle East.

Alnaouq: 'Who killed my family?'

In the co-author's own words, we asked Feinstein to share with us the backstory that led them to write this book:

So the book is called Making a Killing, How the West Profits from Slaughter in Gaza and Yemen. Where we got the idea for the book from is that a friend of mine from Gaza called Ahmed Alnaouq lost 21 members of his family in the bombing of a family home in an area of Gaza called Deir al-Balah. And he asked me, who killed my family? Who made the bomb that killed my family? Who made the plane that dropped it on my family home? Who gave them the orders? And who profited from it? And that's how we've gone about the book.

So, the book follows what happened to Ahmed's family in Gaza. And it follows another family in Yemen, which was a much more drawn-out conflict. So, in Yemen, again, it was someone who we knew of, an extraordinary Yemeni woman called Radia. She started a human rights organization in Yemen, without which we would never have known about the atrocities committed with British and American and other Western weapons by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. And the extraordinary thing about Radia is that she comes from a family where her father was a public intellectual in Yemen.

He wasn't affiliated politically, and he was hated by everybody because he used to, in the truest sense of the word, speak truth to power, to all power. He was assassinated 14 years ago, so just before the onset of the conflict. And to this day, they have no idea who assassinated him because it could have been so many different groups and people.

To contrast with the story of Gaza, we decided the story of Yemen would be about someone who has not only suffered from the conflict, but who has shown this extraordinary resilience to document the conflict and to demand accountability for the conflict. So, this is what drives both Ahmed and Radia, which is the similarity in the story. And so, the book traces the weaponry that's been used in both conflicts, through specific incidents. And we then trace back who sold it, who manufactured it, everybody involved, and how much money everybody has made out of it. And the figures are stupefied.

And then we ask in the book: So, who killed these people? And how do we ensure justice for all of the people who have been killed in these conflicts?

And it's by demanding accountability for all of those who have profited and people profit not just materially but politically as well. Our political leaders convince us that they spend these extortionate amounts of our money on weaponry, that they sell it with massive corruption into these conflicts and that we are the good guys in the conflicts. And the reality is we're not.

But the politicians present themselves as our protectors and our war heroes and they're making shed loads of money out of it. And that includes the politicians. People like Tony Blair, who is a war profiteer and was when he was in office. He's making money now out of war because of decisions he made in government. Keir Starmer will be exactly the same. And all of these people in this kill chain need to be called to account. So that's really what has motivated the book.

'Most difficult book I've ever tried to write'

We then asked how it felt for Feinstein to write this book, as a Jewish, western man operating in a capitalist society:

I don't find writing easy generally. But this is the most difficult book I've ever tried to write.

Fortunately, I haven't done it alone. There are five of us who've co-authored the book. And so, on the team, people have written different parts of it, and I've turned it into one narrative and one style. But in order to do the book, we've had to follow the conflicts, we've had to examine the weaponry, and we've had to trace back where the weaponry comes from. So in that sense, it's been a horrific thing to do.

And we've had to constantly remind ourselves why we're doing it. Because it's almost like having to focus on the awfulness that our governments have created and been a part of, and are obviously absolutely complicit in. The anger, and to be honest with you, the hatred that I feel, for our morally and materially corrupt politicians and political process has grown exponentially through the process of writing this book.

Feinstein then explained three things he hopes will be achieved through sharing this book with wider society:

So, I suppose there are three things:

The first is that we want people to read this book. Very few people know anything about the Yemen conflict. We call it the forgotten war. It went on for ten and a half years. And it was like Gaza but spread out. It destroyed millions of people's lives and continues to. And of course, people tend to have one of two views on Gaza. And we want people to be able to read a totally factual account with a lot of footnotes so that everything they read, they can see how it's been verified as factual. I hope that some people who have been apologists for the conflict or who haven't thought it's a particularly bad thing on the part of our governments perhaps reassess. So that would be the first thing.

The second thing is we want accountability. We want to ensure that out of this book with all the material in it, there are a series of legal cases around the world trying to get justice from the people who have engineered these conflicts and the people who have materially profited from them. They should suffer the consequences of what they've done, which is to destroy millions of human lives and there are domestic and international laws that apply, that our governments have run roughshod over. And those laws need to be applied.

The third thing is that the book tries to show that these conflicts are not an aberration of our political system, but are actually a reflection of it, and are absolutely integral to and a central part of our political system. And we want people to understand that our political systems in the so-called West are broken beyond repair and are not fit for purpose and are causing immeasurable suffering across the world so that a tiny elite can profit and benefit. And so, I suppose, and not explicitly but implicitly, It's a call for fundamental structural and systemic political change in the world.

Feinstein's advice to those new to advocacy against western brutality

Finally, we asked Feinstein what advice he would offer to someone new to advocacy and unsure where to start in order to act effectively in solidarity:

There isn't a lot of accessible good stuff written about Yemen, to be honest. But there is, there are a couple of writers who've written well on it. There's a woman who lived in Yemen for 55 years called Helen Lackner, whose work we've used a great deal in the book. We've spent many, many hours with her. She's an extraordinary human being. Yemen is one of the most complicated places I've ever tried to understand. Everything is in a constant state of flux and fluidity. Allegiances, alliances, it's just constantly changing. It's extraordinary. So, her work would be an interesting place to start, but I think more important would be to start on the sort of Western meddling in the Middle East and how destructive that's been. And there are all sorts of wonderful writers, people like Robert Fisk, who was the independent Middle East correspondent for decades and decades. I would have said Noam Chomsky but I'm not sure that I will just at the moment.

There's some very good stuff that's been written about this I would also suggest a film was made at Shadow World Investigations, we wrote this 555-page book with almost 3000 footnotes on the global arms trade. But fortunately, there is a 90-minute film. And I would strongly encourage people to watch that just to get a sense of the systemic nature of the arms trade and how it corrodes our politics while causing destruction across the world.

There is also an extraordinary song by LowKey called 'Hand on Your Gun' that says in a song of a few minutes what took us 555 pages. And I would really encourage people to listen to it.

We have done some more accessible stuff. We did a book called 'Indefensible, Seven Myths that Sustain the Global Arms Trade', that just deal in a very conversational way with myths like 'increased defence spending makes us safer', 'corruption only happens over there in the arms trade, not here', all of which is a nonsense. And we then disprove those myths. And you can read it for free on our website at shadowworldinvestigations.org. So that's probably a good place to start and to get a sense of this industry that's responsible for 40% of all corruption in the world, that corrupts our politics, that corrupts all sorts of other countries' politics, and that kills on average, half a million people a year. But the last three years, it's been far more than that.

And then we do events all over the UK all the time. So to come to our events and engage with us, even those who might not agree with us, who have different views to us. Because we like to be challenged. and we believe that we've come to the views that we hold in a very factual, evidence-based way. And I think in the sort of post-truth world that we live in where to be a successful politician, your primary skill has to be to lie constantly and convincingly, it's really important to engage on the basis of verifiable facts. And that's what all our work tries to do, and that's what this book will do. a very factual account of who has profited and how they have profited, and a very factual account of the legal position that they should be answerable for. And I hope that it just raises questions for people about what we should be doing in Britain or the United States or Europe to stop our governments and our countries being involved in the creation of murder and mayhem across the world.

Making a Killing is due to be published in September 2026.

Featured image via the Canary

By Maddison Wheeldon

The Indian government's response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi being named in the Epstein files was that the allegations deserved to be treated with contempt.

We have seen reports of an email message from the so-called Epstein files that has a reference to the Prime Minister and his visit to Israel. Beyond the fact of the Prime Minister's official visit to Israel in July 2017, the rest of the allusions in the email are little more than trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal, which deserve to be dismissed with the utmost contempt.

Nevertheless, Pandora's box is now open. No matter how hard the global ruling class tries to contain it, the proverbial genie has escaped.

Recent documents disclosed by the US Department of Justice show Epstein communicating about Modi favourably.

On July 9, 2017, just three days after Modi's official visit to Israel, Epstein wrote an email claiming the Prime Minister had taken his advice. In the message, Epstein asserted that Modi had "danced and sang" in Israel for the benefit of U.S. President Trump, concluding that the plan had worked.

Just three days before, on July 6th, Modi had shared a "romantic walk" on Olga Beach in Haifa, Israel. It was the first time ever that an Indian Prime Minister had visited Israel, smashing any remnants of Indian post-colonial solidarity with Palestine.

Later, in 2019, Epstein encouraged Steve Bannon to meet with Modi to counter China. Epstein chats have shown US bigotry behind the escalating war against China.

He told Bannon that Modi was a strategic opportunity, asking him to "look at your underwear" to see if it was made in either China or India.

Epstein Files — Indian elite implicated

Hardeep Singh Puri, now a senior BJP (Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party) official, is featured on Epstein's list, with scheduled appointments at least five times between June 2014 and January 2017.

Puri is now busy sending "thugs" to his opposition. Indian opposition MP Mahua Moitra has claimed that Puri contacted her and asked her to delete her social media posts about his name appearing in the Epstein files.

Also do not appreciate @HardeepSPuri calling me to ask me to delete tweet & telling me if "people" come after me now he won't be able to help it. I'll take my chances, Sir. Your thug armies don't scare me.

— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) February 3, 2026

Puri then worked with the International Peace Institute (IPI) in New York, now says he was making the case for India in these exchanges.

Ironically, the people Puri was meeting with were being racist to him behind his back. Norwegian diplomat Terje Rød-Larsen, who once served as President of the IPI, made a racist remark about Puri in a 2015 email to Jeffrey Epstein, writing, "when you meet an Indian and a snake, kill the Indian first!"

Anil Ambani is the Indian tycoon who once held billionaire status but later lost his fortune; he was also an ally of Jeffrey Epstein, seeking his help in March 2017 to connect with Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon with the Indian "leadership."

Tall Swedish Blond

Later that month, Epstein offered "a tall Swedish blonde woman" to Ambani to make it "fun to visit." Ambani  replied, "Arrange that."

Deepak Chopra, an Indian-origin wellness guru, described Ambani as "very rich, very much wanting to be noticed, very celebrity conscious," to Epstein, adding that he met him at a party in Bombay. Oprah and Indian socialist Parmeshwar Godrej also attended the party, Chopra adds.

Chopra is himself disgraced in the files. The Yoga guru emailed Epstein, saying that "God is a construct. Cute girls are real."

The documents also show a connection to Indian royalty. In 2018, a redacted sender says to  Epstein that they are organising an "amazing" birthday party near Rome at their "family castle" for the "Maharaja of Jaipur."

Padmanabh Singh is the 'king' of Jaipur in Rajasthan, India. Although he's not officially considered a king by the state in democratic India. His mother is the BJP's Deputy Chief Minister in Rajasthan — Diya Kumari. 

Dalai Lama Meeting Implied

The Dalai Lama, a Tibetan spiritual leader from China who is currently exiled in India, has denied meeting Epstein, as implied by the released files.

An email in 2012, from a redacted sender to Epstein claims they are going to an event where Dalai Lama will be present.

Japanese entrepreneur Joi Ito suggests a connection to set up a meeting with Dalai Lama to Epstein in an email in 2015. The next day, Epstein emailed Soon Yi Previn, Woody Allen's wife, writing: "I'm working on the Dalai Lama for dinner."

The Indian connection could imply Epstein harvesting all allies he could get to confront a rising China.

Epstein and Bannon — both millionaires — referred to the Chinese government as "peasants". And current US vice-president JD Vance has said the same thing. (Vance rose to prominence thanks to billionaire Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, who also appears in the Epstein files.)

Modi has been a good ally to the West — signing favourable trade deals with Israel, the EU and the US recently. Modi has also told Trump that he will not be buying Russian oil, Trump claims, abandoning BRICS solidarity in favour of alignment with the USA.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

Australia's government has laid out the red carpet for genocide-inciting Israeli president Isaac Herzog. And its police have met mass protests against the visit with violence. Herzog's ex-adviser Eylon Levy, meanwhile, prepared for the trip by dehumanising Palestinians.

Thousands oppose Herzog's visit, and Levy spreads hatred

Thousands of anti-genocide protesters in Australia hit the streets on Monday 9 February. But police got special permission to crack down on dissent. And they used pepper spray, made dozens of arrests, and even threw punches.

Numerous MPs had previously called on the government to cancel the divisive visit, promising to join the protests. The Jewish Council of Australia, meanwhile, had also asked in an open letter for the cancellation of the invitation. Over 1,000 academics and community leaders from Australia's Jewish community had signed.

Thanks to your support, our full-page ad is in today's Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Over 1,000 Jews and thousands of allies have signed our open letter to say that Israeli President Isaac Herzog is not welcome here.

Help us spread the word! pic.twitter.com/sq1k2he7rf

— Jewish Council of Australia (@jewishcouncilAU) February 9, 2026

As usual, though, Levy struggled to hide his disdain for the people suffering or opposing Israel's genocide in Gaza. Dehumanisation has played a key role in the extermination campaign. And Levy continued this tradition by sharing an animation picturing a toad wearing a Keffiyeh, saying it was a "poisonous invasive species":

Is Israel a poisonous invasive state? Hours ahead of Herzog's visit to Australia, his spokesman (2021-2023) has promoted the visit by posting an animation depicting Palestinians as cane toads, calling them a "poisonous invasive species". https://t.co/ubky81NXDJ

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 8, 2026

Levy has also tried to compare UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese with Hamas due to her opposition to genocide:

What's the difference between Hamas and UN official @FranceskAlbs at this point?

The criminalisation of peaceful protest against the use of animals in scientific testing and research is "draconian, unnecessary and almost certainly unlawful". That's the verdict of animal protection NGO Cruelty Free International, after the House of Lords voted to pass legislation.

Peers approved an amendment to the Public Order Act 2023. This now means that peaceful protest against animal testing facilities could lead to 12 months' imprisonment and unlimited fines. The measure passed with no further debate after the defeat of Natalie Bennett's fatal motion.

Parliament's approval of these changes to protest laws wasn't surprising, as the government used a 'statutory instrument'.  But the debate by MPs in the lead up to the vote demonstrated a clear concern and opposition in parliament. This mirrors the vocal opposition that's come from civil society and the public.

Bennett's motion came after MPs passed the proposals to criminalise peaceful protest outside animal testing facilities by 301 to 110. The fatal motion went down by 295 votes to 62. But prior to that vote a number of peers had raised strong concerns about the appropriateness of the changes.

They sought clarity on the scope of activities intended to be criminalised and pressed the Minister for evidence that existing laws were not adequate. There were also several constitutional concerns that the measure was an overreach and an abuse of the statutory instrument procedure.

The amendments, which reclassify "life sciences infrastructure" (including animal testing and breeding facilities) as "key national infrastructure", will now become law on Wednesday 11 February.

Animal testing protest law is an overreach

Cruelty Free International, along with other animal protection organisations, believes that this definition is a significant overreach. It says it's not reasonable to regard such facilities as critical infrastructure.

The current list of key national infrastructure facilities includes those which support road, rail and air transport. Also harbours and the exploration, production and transportation of oil and gas. As well as onshore electricity generation and newspaper printing.

Set against this list, adding life sciences infrastructure is clearly inconsistent. The measures, therefore, will unreasonably restrict fundamental rights to protest which are protected under UK law and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The government had given two reasons for this change: pandemic preparedness and the need to protect life sciences companies. However, there does not appear to be any basis to the notion protesters would have interfered in any way with the development of coronavirus vaccines. And it's notable that pharma companies which have threatened to relocate away from the UK have said their concerns stem from regulatory or economic pressures, not protests.

Existing police powers already address protest-related concerns. And there's no evidence that these are inadequate. In developing these proposals, the government has failed to consult with animal protection or civil liberties organisations. That's despite this being an area where polling data demonstrates strong public interest.

Cruelty Free International's head of public affairs, Dylan Underhill, said:

We believe these regulations to be illiberal, draconian, unnecessary, and almost certainly unlawful. Criminalising peaceful protest against experiments on animals undermines fundamental freedoms and public accountability, and is an unjustified attack on democratic rights.

Whilst we appreciate the efforts of peers to stop these amendments becoming law and to scrutinise the detail of the measures, we remain deeply disappointed and angry that the government has pursued these highly consequential changes through a process which does not allow for substantive parliamentary debate or public scrutiny.

These amendments contravene fundamental rights to protest that are protected under UK law and the European Convention on Human Rights, and risk setting a dangerous precedent towards an ever-growing restriction of peaceful protest.

We now encourage parliamentarians to seek clarity on the scope of the activities which are being criminalised, and to question ministers on the lack of evidence, the discriminatory nature of the proposal, and its compatibility with the rights of the British people to carry out non-violent protest in relation to a topic on which opinion surveys have repeatedly demonstrated strong public concern.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has stuck the knife into his former backer. Sarwar has called for Starmer to step down over his closeness to paedo-pal Peter Mandelson. And, Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said:

Of course Keir Starmer has to go. He's lost all moral authority and self awareness to do the right thing. It's now a question of when Labour Members will push the button.

Heat grows on Starmer

Whilst the heat is certainly growing on the beleaguered prime minister, Sarwar's remarks have been met with scorn.

Sarwar, levered into his position by Starmer - called for Starmer to quit because, he said, the people of Scotland are "crying out for a competent government" and that Downing Street leadership is becoming a "huge distraction" from Labour's positive work across the country. No clues were provided as to where the 'positive work' might be located.

Sarwar went on:

The situation in Downing Street is not good enough. There have been too many mistakes. They promised they were going to be different, but too much has happened.

Sarwar claimed he had spoken to Starmer before his statement and said it was "safe to say he and I disagreed". He was immediately and rightly called out for his own closeness to "old friend" Mandelson:

He responded that "Mandelson is not someone or something I want to be associated with". Quite. I'm sure Starmer would wish not to be associated with in the public mind either.

But he certainly is. And, now that the Plaid Cymru leader has joined the growing calls for Starmer to go, the heat is very much on.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Forces from Israel have kidnapped a Lebanese official close to the border and killed a father and child in an airstrike. Atwi Atwi of Islamic Group in Lebanon was captured in the village of al-Habbariyeh.

The New Arab reported:

Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya (the Islamic Group) said Israeli forces crossed into the village of al-Habbariyeh in the Hasbaya district after midnight and seized Atwi Atwi, who heads the group's Hasbaya and Marjaayoun areas.

The group said Atwi's family were assaulted during the raid and that they:

held the Israeli military responsible for "any harm that may befall Atwi", describing the abduction as part of "a series of daily violations and barbaric attacks on Lebanese sovereignty carried out by Israel".

They called on the Lebanese government to apply pressure to release Atwi and other detainees. The Lebanese state has not commented.

The Palestine Chronicle said:

The incident comes despite the ceasefire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel that entered into force in late November 2024.

Adding:

Lebanese and international sources say Israel has committed thousands of violations since then, killing and injuring hundreds and causing widespread material destruction.

The Israel military confirmed the raid in its own terms:

In a nighttime operation, forces from the 210th Division arrested a senior terrorist operative from the Islamic Group.

The New Arab described Atwi's group as:

a Sunni Islamist political party founded in 1964 as the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It holds one seat in Lebanon's parliament and was recently designated a "terrorist organisation" by the United States, along with two other Muslim Brotherhood groups in Egypt and Jordan.

Members were reportedly killed:

after joining Hezbollah in cross-border clashes with Israel in October 2023 in support of Gaza.

Israel kill father and child in airstrike

Israel also killed three people, including a father and child, in an airstrike in Yanouh - around four hours north of al-Habbariyeh. Lebanon's LBC International reported:

Three people were killed in a Monday strike in the town of Yanouh, local sources reported.

Adding:

Among the dead were a child and his father, who was a member of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces and happened to be passing nearby at the time of the attack.

But this was just the latest attack.

Chemical warfare

Israel was recently spraying the so-called Blue Line with potentially cancerous chemicals. The Blue Line is a 120km strip which marks the line of Israel withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000. The UN and Lebanese army tested the chemicals. They found high concentrations of glyphosate, which can cause cancer.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said the "deeply alarming" attack may constitute a war crime:

The deliberate targeting of civilian farmland violates international humanitarian law, particularly the prohibition on attacking or destroying objects indispensable to civilian survival.

They added:

Large-scale destruction of private property without specific military necessity amounts to a war crime and undermines food security and basic livelihoods in the affected areas.

Israel is routinely aggressive towards Lebanon. And between kidnap operations, dropping cancer chemicals and killing a child in an airstrike, it is certainly business as usually for the global pariah ethnostate.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

After sending a number of freedom of information (FOI) requests to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Canary has uncovered a shocking range of figures. Across the course of a year, privatised water suppliers across England and Wales robbed welfare claimants of £22.4m in Universal Credit (UC) payment deductions. This comes as the industry itself paid out more than £48.6m to its fat cat water bosses.

Specifically, the staggering sum suppliers deducted from vital social security payments would cover nearly half the executive and key management pay of the 13 largest companies for the 2024/25 financial year.

The damning figures come at a time when soaring water bills are forcing more than a third of households to ration water, and leaving two-fifths cutting back on other essentials.

DWP Universal Credit deductions: water companies raking it in

Analysis by the Canary of the chief executive pay of 13 major suppliers showed that for the 24/25 financial year, water bosses raked in more than £13m in salaries, pensions, bonuses, and other benefits. The data takes into account the bonus bans that industry regulator Ofwat announced in November 2025.

In total, including CEO pay, the 13 companies handed out over £48.6m to key management staff. This typically means a company's directors (including non-executive) and other senior personnel operating at the top of its payscale.

It was during a similar 12 month period that water companies deducted tens of millions from Universal Credit claimants.

Through an FOI request to the DWP, the Canary was able to obtain data for the period spanning the bulk of the financial year from April 2024 to the end of March 2025. The data showed that during this timeframe, water and sewerage suppliers in England and Wales had taken £22.4m from claimants' UC payments.

This was across the course of more than 1.1 million deductions.

In total, the Canary secured 18 months worth of water company deductions data from the DWP. This data spans two of the most up-to-date quarterly statistical releases for UC deductions. This showed that between March 2024 and August 2025, the UK's water and sewerage industry siphoned £32.4m in customers' Universal Credit.

Water companies robbing welfare from its poorest customers

Based on the data provided, we were unable to ascertain how many households water companies robbed of UC. However, the data does reveal what they deducted from claimants each month on average. Overall, water suppliers took around £20 a month from people's Universal Credit payments.

For a single claimant over the age of 25, this was equivalent to approximately 5% of their standard allowance. The amount was below the average for third party deductions, and well below DWP advance payments and government deductions. Nevertheless, it would still be a major hit to claimants surviving on already inadequate payments.

Amid the soaring cost of living, as paltry as UC is, it's still a lifeline for many of the poorest households. Yet water companies are depriving some of the most vulnerable claimants of the vital social security they're entitled to.

Driving people into destitution: a feature, not a flaw

Naturally, it's all completely on brand for the UK water racket. Regional water monopolies preside over the UK public's access to one of the most basic essentials for life. And they are holding customers to ransom with ever-spiralling and unaffordable bills.

In 2024, private water companies pumped 4.7m hours of sewage into UK waterways. Across 2024 and 2025, they left more than a hundred thousand people without potable water due to infrastructure faults. In one instance, a water firm made residents sick from parasite-infested drinking water.

However, a handful of wealthy water company bosses still raked in millions in lavish payouts.

Now, we know that as they did all that, they were also levying punitive welfare deductions. In the process, they pocketed millions of pounds from some of the poorest, most vulnerable people.

Ultimately, big water companies driving people into destitution is a fundamental feature of their sweeping project of wealth extraction.

Galling double standards

And of course, there's another galling irony to all this where Thames Water is concerned in particular. The company has nearly 1,000 times the debt that the industry leached from low income households through UC deductions.

When a water company is swimming in debt due to years of profit-driven mismanagement, the government does nothing. By contrast, when poor customers struggling with extortionate bills are in debt to their water firm, the state actively facilitates the private utility giants parasitising their welfare payments.

Nationalising water holds some of the solutions. It will obviously go some way to fixing this rotten-by-design capitalist apparatus and make water an accessible, affordable, guaranteed right for all. However, alongside it, we also need to do away with the DWP's aggressive debt recovery programme. And more broadly, we need to dismantle the brutal DWP itself. Any welfare system that facilitates wealth-hoarders of private companies in order to plunge struggling households into deeper poverty to line fat cat pockets, is one utterly broken beyond repair.

£22.4m in DWP welfare payments is a drop in the ocean for big water firms. But for the hundreds of thousands among the UK's poorest losing out on it - it'll be a very different story.

Featured image via the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

Your Party's leadership elections have opened on the afternoon of 9 February. The vote closes at 5pm on 23 February.

Your Party - a tale of two 'slates'

In the 'endorsements' phase, during which Your Party members could endorse candidates they wished to see on the ballot, Jeremy Corbyn's 'The Many' was leading in 12 seats, while Zarah Sultana's 'Grassroots Left' led in another 10, alongside two Independent candidates.

The Canary previously spoke to a number of the candidates.

There are 24 seats up for grabs on Your Party's Central Executive Committee. This will serve as the Party's collective leadership following a narrow vote at the start-up party's founding conference. Candidates from 'The Many' slate have announced they will elect Corbyn as the party's parliamentary leader if they win. Sultana has also expressed interest in taking this role [in an interview with Laura Kuenssberg - transcript here].

In the 'Public Office Holder' section, Corbyn topped the poll with 6,740 endorsements, and Sultana placed second with 5,124. Fellow MPs Shockat Adam and Ayoub Khan are standing with Corbyn as part of 'The Many'.

The 'Grassroots Left' slate has focused on the need for "maximum member democracy", as well as opposition to NATO and the monarchy. 'The Many' has emphasised the need for Your Party to face outwards and "campaign on the big issues" such as the cost-of-living and public ownership.

Over 350 candidates

Candidates in the English regions and Scotland and Wales had to gather 75 endorsements from fellow members in their area to pass to the ballot. Those in the public office holders' section such as MPs required 150.

In line with the Party's constitution, there are two seats for each of the nine English regions, alongside one each for Scotland and Wales (in addition to their own national structures). Members in the relevant region or nation may vote for candidates in that region / nation.

There are also four places for public office holders (Councillors, MPs etc), open to voting by all members. There are a total of 24 seats up for election.

11,414 members took part. Over 350 members put themselves forward as candidates. More than 80 progressed to the next stage, the majority of which are Independents.

The endorsements won't, however, be a straightforward guide to voting patterns. Members were able to cast endorsements in a different process to votes in the election.

Hustings for most membership positions took place on the weekend of the 7-8 February. You can see them on the party's YouTube channel. Details of the public office holder hustings, including the Party's four MPs, will appear here.

The elections come after a founding conference for Scotland Your Party, in which members voted to support Independence and stand candidates in the 2026 Holyrood elections.

A Your Party spokesperson said:

Labour have failed the country. To get Britain back on its feet and prevent the threat of a far-right government requires more than just a new face - it requires a new politics. That's what Your Party's leadership elections are all about.

Members from all walks of life have put themselves forward, a testament to the depth and diversity of our mass movement. From today, our members will vote on who leads Your Party into its next phase.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

Police have raided the launch event of an anti-Zionist group and arrested two people. The force said it was "working to understand the plans of organisers". Police raids are to foster understanding now, apparently.

A woman was stopped - in her car - on the way to the event, on suspicion of "inciting racial hatred." Separately, police said they are investigating a social media post, but have not made clear whether the woman was alleged to have written the post, or if merely being en route to the event is considered incitement. The force claims she was the subject of an earlier arrest warrant for speeches and protests, but did not provide details.

West Midlands Police said its officers had also arrested a 42-year-old man outside the venue, but its description of events raises questions about UK police again dancing to the tune of pro-Israel counter-demonstrators. The police said the man:

was arrested on suspicion of a public order offence after a member of the public who had come to observe the event told us he had been threatened.

The Israel lobby has a long history of falsely claiming to have been in danger from peaceful protesters - and of pointing UK police officers to the people it wants arrested and events it wants stopped.

It looks very likely that this raid was a continuation of Starmer's ceaseless war on peaceful anti-genocide and anti-apartheid protest.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

An industrial 'on-site shredding' lorry has been photographed at Downing Street just three days after Keir Starmer warned that his officials needed to review "potentially hundreds of thousands" of pages of documents relating to Starmer's decision to appoint the disgraced Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador and senior Downing Street adviser despite knowing Mandelson had stayed close to serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein.

Starmer has promised full transparency, but is already hiding behind Epstein's victims to withhold sensitive information. The presence of the shredder van may be commonplace at Downing Street, but its arrival today - spotted by Sky News hack Sam Coates - will have many wondering.

Featured image via X

By Skwawkbox

Former French education minister Jack Lang has quit a "plum" job running France's Arab World Institute over his links with serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein. His appearances in the latest tranche of Epstein files have triggered a money-laundering investigation by French police. Prosecutors said on Friday that the investigation is a "preliminary" probe into "aggravated tax fraud laundering". It encompasses Lang's daughter Caroline as well as Lang himself.

Lang's name reportedly appears hundreds of times in the new files, though not in connection with sexual crimes. Caroline Lang appears as a beneficiary of a €5m bequest in Epstein's will. Both have denied any wrongdoing. Lang said that he wanted to avoid damage to the institute and would "calmly refute" the allegations before a planned extraordinary board meeting.

In December 2025, Lang joked that he would be in his role at the institute forever: "When I'm somewhere, I'm there for eternity". His resignation came after pressure from the board. He becomes the third senior figure linked to government to resign in less than a week. Keir Starmer senior adviser Peter Mandelson and Starmer's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney quit in the UK to try to protect Starmer.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

The Israel lobby, its political allies and its media actors have been pushing a farcical narrative that last week's acquittal of six anti-genocide activists from the Filton 24 was unsafe. The supposed 'reason' for this unsafe verdict was 'jury-tampering'. The supposed jury-tampering? Placards near the court that reminded jurors of their legal right to ignore the trial's biased judge and acquit.

Filton acquittal to be challenged?

It's nonsense, and recent legal precedent shows it's nonsense. But nonetheless, the Crown Prosecution Service has announced that it will seek a retrial of the six who dared to defeat its first attempt to criminalise and imprison them for trying to stop Israel's Gaza genocide.

It's nonsense because this is not the first time the UK government has tried it - and it was laughed out of court. The dying Sunak government tried to prosecute pensioner Trudi Warner for holding up a placard outside the trial of climate activists. The placard read:

Jurors, you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience.

The government's barrister Aidan Eardley KC told the judge that the prosecution needed to go ahead "to maintain public confidence" in the independence of the jury system. He added that if Warner wasn't punished for holding up the sign, actions to remind juries of their rights were "likely to propagate".

The judge threw the prosecution case out of court, saying it was ridiculous to prosecute someone for reminding someone else of their legal rights. He also pointed out that the same reminder is on a placard on a wall inside the Old Bailey courthouse (emphasis added):

Overall, in my judgment, the claim is based on a mischaracterisation of what Ms Warner did that morning and a failure to recognise that what her placard said outside the court reflects essentially what is regularly read on the Old Bailey plaque by jurors, and what our highest courts recognise as part of our constitutional landscape.

Holding up a sign reminding juries of their right to acquit is not just legal. It is a right that "our highest courts recognise as part of our constitutional landscape".

If it's legal, it can't be jury-tampering - because jury-tampering is a crime. Case closed, except for the tame corporate media like Murdoch's Times.

Show trials

But the reason that the Israel lobby in and out of Parliament and the CPS is trying to have it ruled as jury-tampering is that jury-tampering is one of the grounds that allows people to be prosecuted for an alleged offence despite being found not guilty. And the lobby - from Number 10 down - is desperate to get a conviction, both to cement Palestine Action as 'terrorists' and to deter future resistance to genocide. Canary CEO Steve Topple did an explainer video on how the double-jeopardy exception works:

 

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Based on legal precedent, the government/lobby (same difference) case is bollocks. But will the judge deciding whether to grant a re-trial care?

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Iran has sentenced Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi to another seven years in jail. Mohammadi is reportedly on hunger strike following the conviction. According to the Guardian, Mohammadi's lawyer Mostafa Nili has been in touch with her.

He said:

She has been sentenced to six years in prison for 'gathering and collusion' and one and a half years for propaganda and two-year travel ban.

The paper added:

She had been arrested in December at a memorial ceremony honouring Khosrow Alikordi, a 46-year-old Iranian lawyer and human rights advocate who had been based in Mashhad. Footage from the demonstration showed her shouting, demanding justice for Alikordi and others.

Iran has been rocked by near-revolution since December. Protests which began among small businesses over living costs were reportedly brutally repressed. Figures of dead and wounded are hard to verify due to state-enforced media and internet blackouts. Some estimates put the killed and injured in the tens of thousands.

Nuclear talks in Oman

The blackout also makes claims about the degree of US and Israel involvement difficult to corroborate. Despite this - or as a result - conspiracy and rumour have proliferated.

The new sentence comes as the US and Iran prepare to negotiate over Iran's nuclear programme. US President Donald Trump has deployed a US navy armada to the region.

Iran and the US will meet in Oman. Iran's top security official Ali Larijani visited Muscat ahead of the talks. Anadolu Agency said:

The indirect negotiations between Tehran and Washington were halted following the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June last year, during which the US targeted three key Iranian nuclear sites.

Adding:

While Iranian media have not specified the agenda of Larijani's visit, sources said he is expected to discuss the contours of the next round of talks with the Omani mediators.

Narges Mohammadi: Venezuela connection?

The Nobel Committee condemned Mohammadi's arrest on 12 December 2025:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee calls on the Iranian authorities to immediately clarify Mohammadi's whereabouts, ensure her safety and integrity, and to release her without conditions. The Committee stands in solidarity with Narges Mohammadi and all those in Iran who work peacefully for human rights, the rule of law, and freedom of expression.

They appeared to suggest there was a link between Mohammadi's arrest and the award of a Nobel to pro-US Venezuelan figure Maria Corina Machado:

Given the close collaboration between the regimes in Iran and Venezuela, the Norwegian Nobel Committee notes that Ms. Mohammadi is arrested just as the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the Venezuelan opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado.

They offered nothing further to verify this specific claim.

Iran wants to appear strong in a crisis

Mohammadi had been temporarily released on a medical furlough from jail when she was re-arrested. She had been serving a 13 year sentence for:

charges of collusion against state security and propaganda against Iran's government.

During the recent protests Mohammadi:

kept up her activism with public protests and international media appearances, including even demonstrating at one point in front of Tehran's notorious Evin prison, where she had been held.

Mohammadi has reportedly had multiple heart attacks in jail. Her doctors fear she may also have cancer. This is why she was on medical furlough from her previous sentence. Now she appears to have been returned to prison. And at the precise moment the Iranian government is looking to avert internal crises and head off a threat of regime change.

The implications of this crunch moment for Mohammadi may be dire.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

Matt Goodwin is facing even more scorn, this time for attacking women. In a 2023 blog post unearthed by the Independent, the Reform candidate for Gorton and Denton proposed that people who don't have children should be taxed extra. What's worse, this was specifically meant as a punishment.

Reform pick: Matt Goodwin, Zionist, book eater, and woman hater

On his Substack, Goodwin said:

British family is imploding.

He went on to say that:

The collapse of the family has not only become unavoidable but is having very real and very negative effects on the country around us.

His solution to this was a raft of proposals that would create "a pro-family culture". These would include a national day to celebrate families and getting the king to send a telegram to families when they have a third child. For some fucking reason.

He also wanted "the importance of the family" to be represented in the school curriculum. This was alongside making sure British families were "prioritised" in the building of new houses. He also wanted to remove income tax for women with two or more children, presumably because he sees them as having done their duty.

Most bizarre of all was his proposal on child benefits:

Switching child benefit to incentivise families to have more children.

Which is hilarious when Reform is so opposed to lifting the two-child cap. Though not if you ask the two Reform MPs who accidentally voted for it.

Reform putting women in danger

But then came his plan to not only push reproduction but to punish those who don't have children:

 Introducing a 'negative child benefit' tax for those who don't have offspring

More worryingly, is that Reform agrees with him. A Reform spokesperson told the Huffington Post:

This is an idea that was first suggested by the respected demographer Paul Moreland as part of a range of measures that should be debated and discussed across developed nations if we are serious about dealing with our looming demography crisis.

He continued:

The Labour government has got its head in the sand when it comes to thinking about the long-term challenges facing Britain. We need a grown up, mature debate about how we can encourage people to have more children and support British families.

Of course, Goodwin as short-sighted as ever. Many could potentially be pressured into having kids and trapped in abusive relationships. It would mean that women are seen as only baby machines and not free to have their own lives or careers.

Deputy leader of Labour, Lucy Powell, expressed her disgust at this idea in the Independent:

Matthew Goodwin's big idea is so ludicrous, you'd be forgiven for thinking this is something out of The Handmaid's Tale. It would punish millions of women and strip them of their basic dignity to choose.

Infertile women are not good enough

But that's only the ones that physically can have children.

I can't imagine the pain that this would cause to those who are struggling with fertility. On top of the emotional and physical toll this puts on you will be financial pressures. For those of us who are infertile, it sends one message. You are not good enough and deserve to be punished for failing as a woman.

I had an elective hysterectomy in 2017 after over a decade of pain. I chose my own health over a condition that was making me want to die, for the sake of one day having a baby. Many would call my decision selfish, but I frankly don't give a fuck what people who would rather I were in pain think of me.

As much as I loathe a Handmaid's Tale comparison, this is very apt here. In the novel, working-class women who are infertile are cast out of society. As they have no purpose in a society that values families over all else.

Reform hates women, but we already know this

Goodwin's comments are abhorrently cruel and show just how much society hates people who don't have children. But Reform supporting it is a sign of just how much Christian pro-life values are not so quietly creeping into the UK.

By seeing us as just baby machines, we are telling anyone who can't have a baby, or chooses not to, that they do not belong in society. But Reform is also telling voters plainly that they don't actually give a fuck about women. Plainly put Reform will be dangerous for women, and they're already proudly telling us that.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

Bad Bunny just shook the US with his Super Bowl halftime show. And perhaps the most beautiful moment was when fellow Puerto Rican superstar Ricky Martin sang about US colonialism in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. This was especially poignant because of escalating US terror against Cuba right now.

Bad Bunny, Ricky Martin, and US colonialism

Puerto Rico is a US territory that has been denied full democratic rights. And Bad Bunny speaks to the island's resistance during many years of financial crisis. His song Lo que le pasó a Hawaii ('What happened to Hawaii') expresses a desire that the US doesn't do to Puerto Rico what it has done to Hawaii.

Ricky Martin, who has previously joined Bad Bunny and others on the island in progressive political mobilisations, sang Lo que le pasó a Hawaii at the 2026 Super Bowl. The song says:

They want to take my river and my beach too
They want my neighborhood and grandma to leave
No, don't let go of the flag nor forget the lelolai
'Cause I don't want them to do to you what happened to Hawaii

RICKY MARTIN IN THE HOUSE

Another day, another media shill doing the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) job of turning the public against PIP claimants for them. Most annoyingly, this time it's a physically disabled person who is throwing people with mental health conditions under the bus. But then it is Julie Burchill.

DWP don't need a hand denigrating mental health

Burchill is, by her own definition. a 'Rad-fem, Christian Zionist', she's best known for her abhorrent views on immigration and transphobia. So it figures that she's also horribly lateral ableist too. In a column in the i Paper Burchill wrote:

If you're too anxious to work but go on holiday, you shouldn't get PIP.

Siiiigh, same old bullshit. It doesn't need pointing out (again!) that personal independence payments (PIP) isn't an out-of-work benefit. The article actually barely mentions claimants going on holiday; it's a throwaway comment. But that didn't stop the editor from making it the most clickbait possible headline.

Thankfully, Burchill does correct herself on the employment fact in the piece, but she also adds:

Of course, you can work and still receive PIP - as I do - but I do think too many people are getting it when they could be supporting themselves.

Such as, for instance, a columnist who brags about squandering their wealth.

Punching down again

Burchill is of course, talking about people who she, and vast parts of the media, think don't actually deserve PIP from the DWP - people with mental health conditions. This is just the latest in a long line of the government trying to de-legitimise people with mental health conditions, whilst planning to make it harder for those same people to claim PIP.

Burchill rightly points out how hard it is to get PIP, even if you have a very physically obvious disability. In her case, she's a wheelchair user and can't walk. She said it took her six months to be approved for PIP, however she also took the chance to shit on other disabled people:

I can't help thinking that had I claimed the mental equivalent of a "bad back" - anxiety perhaps - I would have been awarded it a lot earlier

There's more joys in life than work

Burchill's 'article' is mostly a bizarre rant about how, if she's worked nearly every day since becoming a wheelchair user, what's stopping everyone else? Dunno babe, probably less understanding bosses and less flexibility because they're not rich. Calling herself a 'grafter' not a 'grifter', she says:

I can't think of anything worse for anyone's mental health than not having a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

It's really fucking sad that work is the only reason to get out of bed in the morning for many. My dog is my reason for getting out of bed. For some it's simple joys like a good cup of coffee, their fave tv show to catch up on, or seeing friends. I love my job, but I'm also not some capitalist drone whose only joy is work.

The thing about the old 'work is good for your mental health' argument, though, is that it usually comes from people who are supported in their work. It doesn't take into account just how soul-destroying and detrimental to your mental health an awful job with a horrible boss, can be.

Playing into the government's hands

Instead of sympathising with this point, Burchill essentially implies that disabled people should be happy with any old menial job, whether or not it's suited to their needs. Which, of course, fits the DWP's narrative perfectly and helps them push disabled people into work

There's also the point that apparently needs hammering home that PIP has fuck all to do with whether you can work or not. Because, despite stating this, she still spends the majority of the piece conflating anxiety with workshyness. Which, again, is something the government has done consistently.

Hilariously though, Burchill also thinks the government are on disabled people's side here. She calls them 'the chief sponsor of idleness'. It's always those who think they're sticking it to the establishment who are playing right into their hands.

The government and media are doing enough, we don't need one of our own doing it too

At a time when the media and government are doing everything in their power to turn the public against people with mental health conditions, we don't need one of our own on their side too. Though it's made pretty clear that Burchill is one of those disabled people who thinks she will be spared from the hatred because she works hard and doesn't complain:

During my year in a wheelchair, I've had to deal with all of these, alongside other emotions as varied as fear and fury; if I and other severely physically disabled people can learn to process these feelings, why can't those with anxiety do the same

Let me tell you now, Julie, the hate mob doesn't give a fuck if you're on their side or not. They'll come for us all in the end and won't be happy until all disabled people are left to rot.

Deliberate choice to turn people against benefit claimants, again

Burchill's piece was published alongside two others. The first by Carrie Grant who shares her own experience as a parent carer on how the SEND system failures feed into more people needing PIP. The second is by a former PIP assessor who points out how life-changing PIP can be for all claimants.

This could've and should've been an impactful and important series. However the i Paper couldn't help themselves and had to ensure they included a hefty dose of the scrounger narrative too. There are so many campaigners who also claim PIP that they could've asked to write this.

This was a deliberate choice to de-legitimise mental health claimants. 'Look, even REAL disabled people know they're faking!" The fact that it's a disabled person attacking other disabled people - and doing the DWP's job for them - shows just how insidious the media narrative really is.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

A Saudi official has attacked 'foreign actors' for fueling the war in Sudan. Their comment came after a Rapid Support Forces (RSF) drone killed 24 in Kordofan province. Fighting has displaced millions and killed up to 150,00 people.

The war is now in its third year. And the UK and others have played their part in letting the carnage run on.

The Sudan Doctors Network said RSF targeted:

a vehicle transporting displaced people fleeing South Kordofan State. The vehicle was traveling from the Dubeiker area in North Kordofan when it was attacked near Al-Rahad city.

Two infants died in the attack:

The attack resulted in the deaths of 24 people, including 8 children—two of whom were infants—and several women.

Sudan Doctors Network: 24 Killed, Including 8 Women and Children, in Rapid Support Forces Attack on Vehicle Transporting Them from the Dubeiker Area to Al-Rahad in North Kordofan

The Rapid Support Forces carried out another massacre in North Kordofan State by targeting a vehicle… pic.twitter.com/jDmZxJaZnr

— Sudan Doctors Network - شبكة أطباء السودان (@SDN154) February 7, 2026

The Sudanese foreign ministry said on 8 February:

This attack does not represent an isolated incident, but rather a continuation of a pattern adopted by the militia to obstruct humanitarian work and use deprivation of food as a means of pressure against civilians.

RSF are an Arab supremacist militia given to carrying out massacres of the indigenous population of Sudan. They have also been used by the UAE as mercenaries in Yemen. Despite the UAE's denials, Emirati military support is substantial, traceable, and decisive.

RSF and UAE

The Saudi foreign ministry also commented, thought it did not name the offenders. They said:

The Kingdom affirms that these acts are unjustifiable under any circumstances and constitute flagrant violations of all humanitarian norms and relevant international agreements.

In a clear swipe at RSF's main backer, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), they added:

foreign interference and the continued actions of certain parties in supplying illicit weapons, mercenaries, and foreign fighters—despite their stated support for a political solution.

They said this foreign influence:

constitutes a primary factor in prolonging the conflict and exacerbating the suffering of the Sudanese people.

This is the latest development in the two oil-rich, Western allied Gulf states' failing relationship.

UAE/Saudi confrontation

The UAE and Saudi relations are are uneasy, to say the least. The two are traditionally allies - and recipients of US and other Western support - but their falling out is being felt throughout the Gulf and the Horn of Africa.

As the Times of India has it:

For more than a decade, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi appeared virtually inseparable. They crushed Islamist movements, dictated oil markets, blockaded Qatar and presented themselves as the ultimate power brokers in the Arabian Peninsula. The two kingdoms were often described as strategic siblings, bound by shared vision, capital and a mutual obsession with stability on their terms.

But that alliance has ruptured. Yemen is one point of contention:

Riyadh seeks a unified Yemen under its influence: manageable, stable and friendly to Saudi security interests. Abu Dhabi, however, is pursuing a different vision through its backing of the Southern Transitional Council.

But that disagreement has also played out in Sudan - with deadly consequences.

Proxy war in Sudan

The Sudan war "amplified the stakes" offering:

both Gulf states an opportunity to project influence in Africa.

For the UAE:

Sudan's Rapid Support Forces, controlling gold mines, smuggling routes and borderlands, became a direct conduit to resources. Gold, logistics and influence could be secured without the bureaucracy of formal state structures.

The Canary discussed the role of Sudan's gold mines here. The Saudi regime "backed the Sudanese Armed Forces":

not out of friendship, but fear. Saudi Arabia recognised that paramilitary backed fragmentation could set a dangerous precedent, threatening its own southern flank and regional ambition

Three years in, the war in Sudan has undoubtedly been exacerbated by Gulf interference. But other regional and global powers bear responsibility too.

Israel and Britain

Israel has backed both RSF and the Sudanese government at different times. Turkey, Egypt, and Russia have a role too. And British-sourced equipment has been seen in RSF hands, presumably a result of UK arms sales to UAE.

On October 2025, Labour foreign office minister Stephen Doughty admitted:

We are aware of reports of a small number of U.K.-made items having been found in Sudan, but there is no evidence in the recent reporting of U.K. weapons or ammunition being used in Sudan.

However he resisted calls for an embargo on UAE and said the UK would use its UN security council role:

to call for an immediate end to this violence [and] ensure that international humanitarian law is respected and upheld.

This mealy-mouthed response is typical. Not least because Campaign against the Arms Trade (CAAT) have reported:

The third largest recipient of arms export licences was the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with £172m of military equipment.

CAAT added:

Of particular concern is the £1,966,582 of exports in the military vehicles and components category, given that UK-made engines have been found in armoured personnel carriers used by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in its genocide in Sudan.

The British Labour government is deeply implicated in the killing in Sudan. And it is aligned with both sides in the Saudi/UAE proxy war. The British will likely continue to prevaricate while people die. But as long as UK arms firm CEOs and shareholders get their new yacht or third home, that seems to be fine by Keir Starmer's Labour.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

Morgan McSweeney is the architect of Keir Starmer's Labour and a top-tier dickhead. On 8 February, he finally resigned - namely because he was the man who proposed that the disgraced Peter Mandelson take on the ambassador to the US position.

It seems the Labour party hasn't changed, however, as politicians are coming out to defend him:

Sorry to see this decision by Morgan, it's a very dignified statement and reflects the character of someone I know to be thoughtful and dedicated to Labour and the security and prosperity of the country. https://t.co/DIDBCSvHsM

— Luke Akehurst (@lukeakehurst) February 8, 2026

Defending the indefensible

If you're not too sure of who McSweeney is, let's just call him the cunt-in-chief behind Starmer. The Canary's Skwawkbox captured who he is perfectly:

McSweeney is a horror. Undeclared donations from the Israel lobby, spying on journalists, covert campaigns to destroy media that highlight his boss's crimes, deep connections with genocidal Israel and a coordinated sabotage campaign to prevent Labour winning the 2019 general election. His fingerprints are on all of it.

How the fuck can you defend that? But weirdly, some Labour politicians have decided to die on that hill.

Giant walking baby and Zionist shill Luke Akehurst is one of those who defended him. Weird, that a man who consistently denies a genocide would have other shit opinions…

Akehurst doing his best to ignore his world crumbling around him

One by one, we're going to pluck these disgusting, paracitical, perverted little creeps out of power

And you're on the list Luke, you Zionist loving little polyp

Tick tock

Laura Álvarez has sparked debate online within Your Party following a comment about a candidate not aligning with Jeremy Corbyn's slate. And the row has helped highlight the urgent need for both transparency and respectful debate in the party.

Álvarez, who married Corbyn in 2012, kept a low profile while Corbyn was Labour leader. But she has spoken a lot about Your Party during its founding process, particularly in support of Corbyn's The Many slate in the party's Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections.

Your Party public spat

The Grassroots Left slate aligns with Zarah Sultana's vision for Your Party. And Álvarez suggested that a candidate for this slate was "unknown in the community" of Islington.

This was apparently a reference to Anahita Zardoshti, the "founder and chair of Your Party's Islington proto-branch". Zardoshti came second in the endorsement phase of the CEC election:

Who's unknown, @LauraAlvarezJC? If you're gonna have a dig at Anahita at least have the good grace to name her.

I'd say the number of endorsements largely speaks for itself as for whether she is 'unknown'… https://t.co/fjXGTSTs49 pic.twitter.com/ZuOLvqW9Wk

— Cllr James Giles (@JamesGilesRBK) February 8, 2026

Just a bit rude to claim you don't know a person when you voted for them to be a council candidate with @IslingtonIndep and invited them to your Christmas party.

Here's a pic of me and @Ana_Zardoshti at your Christmas party with Jeremy to help jog your memory https://t.co/0P0UnoEBE7 pic.twitter.com/y9tcuuPRIK

— Nathaniel (@NathanielYPI) February 8, 2026

Councillor James Giles, a Sultana ally, questioned Álvarez's public comment. But Álvarez responded by saying:

I told you to never contact me again

Laura your ad hominem attacks on me, now on Anahita and the rest of the movement need to stop. And on the other items - I think we all know what happened.

The only thing I did on July 3rd was democratically vote on whether we wanted a sole leadership of Jeremy Corbyn or a…

— Cllr James Giles (@JamesGilesRBK) February 8, 2026

What followed was a number of comments asking Giles not to question Álvarez. But in the interests of transparency, it seems perfectly acceptable to scrutinise personal comments suggesting we should doubt candidates' role in their community.

No one in the public arena should ever be beyond scrutiny

The establishment smear campaign against the left that intensified under Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party left deep scars. It left distrust, anger, and defensiveness. And it left pain.

However, we're at a moment where socialists are building back a meaningful resistance. And with the Green Party successfully tapping into the burning desire for change in the country, a Your Party that shuts down internal criticism or wastes time with factional arguments may not last too long.

There are genuine critiques we could make about everyone. And we don't need to support a specific faction in order to believe that. There needs to be open, respectful debate. Because members agree on most things, and it should be easy to reach comradely agreements on the other areas.

We absolutely should be asking questions about:

• The diversity within the pool of CEC candidates.
• How backroom deals have become too common.
• The questionable organisation of hustings and oversight of the election process.
• How people show up and challenge people they disagree with online, without falling into personal attacks.
• The lack of a level playing field in terms of data control.
• The potential for online misrepresentation of slates' positions.
• What candidates have had to agree to in order to belong to a particular slate.
• How to bridge cultural, age, and class divides to bring people together.
• How to replace the struggle for power and control at the top with community empowerment.

There is a real buzz on the ground about what Your Party could become. People know what they want. And as the statistics show pretty clearly, that isn't factional infighting and public spats. Because there are hundreds of thousands of people who initially expressed interest but have so far stayed away.

The Greens have grown massively under Zack Polanski because there's a clear direction of travel, and there's a willingness to work together with all progressives. If Your Party genuinely wants to grow into a meaningful movement for change, it could learn a lot from the Greens right now.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

Labour and its press allies continue to try to undermine popular Green party candidate Hannah Spencer in the Gorton and Denton by-election. Predictably, the tactics on show are the most hypocritical and tin-eared imaginable.

In an Observer article yesterday, Labour's corporate-lobbyist, NHS privatiser candidate Angeliki Stogia tried laughably to claim that Spencer should stand aside because:

Every Green vote is going to make Reform very happy.

With hypocrisy that should be astonishing but isn't, she also claimed the Greens had shared "misleading" polling showing they are the main hope of defeating Reform UK.

Labour just got caught using a poll based on responses from just 51 people to try to claim it is in a good position. Even Labour fan and war criminal Alistair Campbell dismissed it as "bullshit".

Labour hypocrisy

The hypocrisy didn't end there. Stogia also claimed to be angry that Reform is "spread[ing] division" in the constituency. Reform's whole playbook is division, of course, but Stogia's boss Keir Starmer constantly tries to out-Reform Reform. Remember his "island of strangers" speech, compared to racist Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" incitement? Or how about Labour boasting about how many people it has deported?

Stogia's Guardian-assisted nonsense comes shortly after Labour's deputy leader Lucy Powell begged and stamped her feet to demand the Greens step aside. But the bookies - not known for throwing their money away - make Spencer odds-on (5/6) favourite to win, with Reform next on 13/8. Labour trail miles behind - 9/1 in a three-horse race is dire.

If Labour was really interested in 'stopping Reform', Starmer would be telling Stogia to stand aside and begging the public to support the Greens.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Anika Sweetland, the Reform party's supposed climate expert is anything but.

Here she is on shithouse Lee Anderson's GB News' segment discussing if net zero is a scam:

Good morning fellow Reformers, patriots and climate realists! Last night I had the honour of standing up for our country

At this point, everyone knows the wretched Peter Mandelson shared government information with Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelson wasn't the only Epstein associate with access to confidential UK info, however. The former prince Andrew Windsor served as a British trade envoy, and he was also feeding what he knew to the now-dead paedophile:

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor shared confidential information with Jeffrey Epstein from his official role as a trade envoy. He forwarded an official report from his trips to Singapore, Vietnam, China, and Hong Kong to Epstein just five minutes after receiving it. pic.twitter.com/hpMD07ikFd

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) February 8, 2026

Confidential

The screengrabbed email above is from the latest release of the Epstein Files. In it, you can see that Windsor received reports of visits to Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shenzen.

Did you receive these reports yourself?

Probably not, right; it would be weird if the trade envoy sent their reports to the general British public; it's even stranger to send them to a notorious international paedophile.

As reported by the BBC, Windsor served as trade envoy for ten years (2001-2011). The BBC additionally highlighted that:

Under official guidance, trade envoys have a duty of confidentiality over sensitive, commercial, or political information about their official visits.

In other words, he could (and should) get into trouble for this.

We'd be surprised if he faces any actual consequences, however, given the fact that he's escaped them all of his life. The Royals may have stripped him of his titles, but the entitlement remains. As the BBC report:

Earlier in February, Andrew moved out of his home in Windsor to the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk.

Buckingham Palace had announced in October that he would be moving from Royal Lodge, at the same time his title of prince was removed.

The former prince left the property on Monday night and is currently living at Wood Farm on the Sandringham Estate while his new permanent home undergoes renovations.

We don't know about you, but when we fuck up, our punishment isn't being sent to a managed country estate.

Keeping quiet

The BBC also asked Andrew Windsor to comment on all this. Surprise, surprise; he refused to do so.

Funny that he's no longer so free and easy with the information he'll share.

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

Featured image via Epstein Files

By Willem Moore

On Sunday 8 February, Americans came together to enjoy their annual 'Superbowl'. And when we say 'came together', we of course mean they found new ways to fight the culture war.

Trump, of course, led the charge:

Trump crashes out over Bad Bunny's halftime show pic.twitter.com/XE2shbQRtm

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 9, 2026

Doesn't this guy have a country to run into the ground?

Superbowl styling

The performer Trump is talking about is Bad Bunny, who released one of the best albums of 2025.

There's really no need for us to promote his album, because some of the tracks have had well over a billion listens in the past 12 months.

Many right-wingers are asking 'WhY iS a PuErTo RiCaN pErFoRmInG??', and the simple truth is because the Yanks fucking love him and his music.

Here's a video from his performance:

As we reported on 8 February, Keir Starmer's chief-of-staff Morgan McSweeney resigned in disgrace. What is it they say about rats and sinking ships?

Tim Allen - Blairite leaving the Labour right sinking ship. When self-serving careerists like Allen are crying off, you know Starmer is finished. The writing is on the wall.

— Simone (@Slimbo32) February 9, 2026

How long will Starmer last now?

As Skwawkbox wrote for the Canary:

Keir Starmer's appalling chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, has quit. According to 'mainstream' media, Starmer hopes this will ease the pressure that he has been under from the ongoing Mandelson scandal. If he really thinks this, he's more hopeless than we thought - and that's a tough bar to cross.

We don't think Allan going will help either. At the same time, it's certainly not going to hurt. Like most of his colleagues, Allan is another washed up Blairite with nothing to offer besides spite and failure.

People have highlighted that Allan is just one in a long line of comms directors:

Tim Allan - Keir Starmer's *fourth* director of communications since July 2024 - has quit his role.

He says: : "I have decided to stand down to allow a new No10 team to be built. I wish the PM and his team every success."

— Ashley Cowburn (@ashcowburn) February 9, 2026

A complete inability to hold on to a communications director hasn't done much for Labour's communications. Regardless of who's in charge, it's never reassuring to see four different people fighting over the steering wheel.

Here's what HG wrote for the Canary in September 2025:

Keir Starmer has appointed Tim Allan as Downing Street's new director of communications. Allan is a former trustee of Sex Matters - an anti-trans group.

According to the Financial Times, Allan has previously worked for Kazakhstan and Qatar, along with Vladimir Putin's government.

He also worked as the deputy director of communications for former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair, under Alastair Campbell. Blair even called him 'more right-wing than me'.

A transphobic errand boy to Putin and Blair - this is who Starmer wanted in charge of his comms?

It's no wonder this ship is sinking.

Journalist Kevin Schofield said the following about Allan:

Tim Allan was brought in to No10 in September to replace the highly-effective and widely-respected Steph Driver and James Lyons.

Now gone. https://t.co/hEitd1A0g6

— Kevin Schofield (@KevinASchofield) February 9, 2026

We must have blinked and this period of 'effectiveness' and 'respect' that Starmer's operation enjoyed.

Chaos with Keir

Speaking of Starmer, it was rumoured that he planned to step down today. That no longer seems to be the case - not for the moment at least:

Wait, has he even done a U-turn on his own resignation? pic.twitter.com/rdqaA9hlIj

— Jonathan Pie (@JonathanPieNews) February 9, 2026

We don't know who'll step into the comms role next, but good luck selling this absolute clusterfuck of a government to the British public.

Featured image via Terry Ott (Wikimedia)

By Willem Moore

Keir Starmer's appalling chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, has quit. According to 'mainstream' media, Starmer hopes this will ease the pressure that he has been under from the ongoing Mandelson scandal. If he really thinks this, he's more hopeless than we thought - and that's a tough bar to cross.

McSweeney: a horror

McSweeney is a horror. Undeclared donations from the Israel lobby, spying on journalists, covert campaigns to destroy media that highlight his boss's crimes, deep connections with genocidal Israel and a coordinated sabotage campaign to prevent Labour winning the 2019 general election. His fingerprints are on all of it.

McSweeney's success in the 2019 general election saw hundreds of thousands die under Boris Johnson's 'pile the bodies high' decision to let covid run rampant. His success in the 2020 Labour leadership election led to UK collaboration in Israel's Gaza genocide. Not only that, but a war on Britain's children, its poor and the rights of its people.

But in none of that was Starmer innocent. If he's weak enough to be led by the nose by such a horror - and who would be surprised? - he's unfit for office. If he were proactively involved in those decisions, he's unfit for office. Either way, he's unfit for office. Either way, he belongs in the dock and then in prison.

Either way, he's hated by the public and in the end the buck stops with him. Advisers advise, (prime) ministers decide.

The most hated PM ever?

McSweeney's departure only moves Starmer a big step closer to the exit door and a place in history as the most hated PM ever. Even more than Thatcher, and that's saying something - because he's hated on the left and right alike. Starmer is a dead man walking - but who is there in his party to replace him who's any better? None, at least none with any intention of standing - the party is too stuffed with brylcreem-a-likes and mini-hims for a change at the top to help it.

Starmer will be lucky to last until the Gorton and Denton by-election later this month. If he clings on, the almost certain third place - at best - his NHS-privatiser candidate will manage will see him gone.

As the saying goes, "For God's sake man, just go!" And take your rotted corpse of a party with you.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Official documents released by the US Department of Justice show that prosecutors prepared their announcement of Jeffrey Epstein's death a day before it happened.

As Skwawkbox has already covered, the same file release proves that an anonymous message board post, sent before the 'death' was made public by someone who claimed to be a prison officer guarding Epstein, was indeed posted by one of the prison guards on duty that night. The guard said that Epstein had been secretly removed from his cell — alive — and taken away in an ambulance whose arrival had not been pre-booked or recorded afterward.

Epstein — another plot twist

Now, another official file in the release (archived here) shows the draft announcement on Epstein's death prepared by US Attorney's Office in southern New York. Except that the draft is dated 9 August 2019 — a day before Epstein's 'death':

This is not a mere typo, and not just because a bad typist would have had to hit two digits for '10' instead of one for '9'. The draft's day of the week is also wrong — Friday instead of Saturday. Epstein's body was not discovered until 6.30am on 10 August. It seems vanishingly unlikely that someone drafting the announcement would have forgotten what day of the week it was.

The draft was dated Saturday 10 August when it was eventually released. Epstein's 'death' was officially ruled a suicide by hanging despite the prison's failure to produce a noose or ligature. The body examined by independent doctors also had a fracture to the hyoid bone of the body, a sign of manual strangulation rather than hanging. However, many have observed apparent differences in the facial features of the body compared to Epstein, particularly in the nose and, where it would be very hard to hide, in the ears. The government was also found to have heavily edited prison CCTV footage of the area around Epstein's cell.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Gaza is dying every day. Its hospitals are collapsing, its doctors are overwhelmed, and the world remains largely silent.

Children are dying for lack of medicine. Patients are left untreated. Doctors are forced to decide who might live and who must be left to die. All of this is happening in full view of the United Nations and powerful states that respond with words instead of action.

This silence is not neutral. It is a profound moral failure.

Healthcare in Gaza has been reduced to survival triage. Hospitals have become places of delayed death. Essential medicines are running out. Electricity is repeatedly cut. Medical staff work under siege, exhaustion, and constant threat. Civilians are trapped between occupation on one side and international neglect on the other.

World is silent on Gaza

Why does the world remain silent? Because political alliances and economic interests are prioritised over civilian lives. Because Gaza is treated as a distant crisis rather than a humanitarian emergency unfolding in real time.

Every day without intervention becomes another day of systematic death. Doctors in Gaza face impossible conditions. They work through destruction, shortages, and trauma, while international support is delayed or blocked. Pressure on the occupying power remains minimal or symbolic.

This silence is not just political weakness. It is an insult to the idea of a global conscience.

The collapse of Gaza's healthcare system is not a natural disaster. It is a political and humanitarian crime carried out in plain sight. Every hour without medical supplies costs lives. Every day without action deepens impunity.

Gaza is not just a besieged enclave. It is a mirror held up to the world.

It asks a simple question of those who claim to defend human rights: why is the mass suffering of civilians tolerated while the world looks away?

The blood of Gaza is already answering. History will not measure morality by statements or sympathy, but by action. Every delay is another failure. Every silence is another verdict on humanity itself.

Featured image via AFP

By Alaa Shamali

Since 7 October 2023, reports indicate a dangerous shift in Israel's tactics in Gaza. Rather than relying solely on direct military force, Israel has increasingly used local collaborating militias.

These groups operate covertly within Palestinian society. Their roles include intelligence gathering, luring resistance members, and carrying out targeted assassinations under direct Israeli intelligence supervision.

The starting point: filmed confessions

An Al Jazeera investigation, broadcast on What Lies Beneath, marked a turning point. It featured filmed confessions from an agent arrested after an assassination operation in Gaza. The agent said he received direct orders from an Israeli intelligence officer. He was instructed to wear a hidden camera to document the killing.

The operation took place on 14 December 2025. The victim was an internal security officer reportedly responsible for monitoring collaborators.

Footage showed real-time communication between the agent and his handler. Instructions continued until the moment of execution, involving silenced weapons and electric bicycles.

Gaza — why militias instead of soldiers

Experts say Israel's reliance on militias reflects operational difficulty inside Gaza. Dense population and social cohesion make undercover Israeli units costly and risky.

Using local agents allows Israel to minimise losses. These agents are expendable if exposed, unlike regular soldiers.

Security data suggest many militia members were recruited from individuals with criminal backgrounds. During the war, they engaged in looting before being absorbed into intelligence operations.

In exchange, they were granted freedom of movement, protection, and tolerance for aid theft. Their personal interests were deliberately tied to organised violence.

"Yellow zones" and calculated chaos

Militia activity increasingly centres on so-called "yellow zones." There, they intimidate civilians and disrupt internal security.

Sources describe this as a strategy to exhaust Gaza's social fabric without direct military presence. Some groups now function as a de facto "shadow authority" for the occupation. These developments indicate a broader strategy of proxy warfare. Israel is shifting toward covert control, infiltration, and internal destabilisation.

This approach aims to fracture society itself, transforming daily life into a battleground of suspicion and fear.

Evidence shows these militias are now central to Israel's strategy in Gaza. Their continued use increases risks to civilian safety and social cohesion. Exposing and dismantling this system is urgent. It represents one of the most destructive aspects of the hidden war unfolding inside the Strip.

Featured image via WSJ

By Alaa Shamali

Since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023, Israel has enforced an unprecedented media blockade. Foreign journalists and international media outlets have been barred from entering the Strip.

This policy has become one of the longest media blackouts in a modern conflict. It raises urgent questions about Israel's motives and objectives.

Gaza — controlling the narrative and obscuring the truth

The ban on foreign journalists does not appear to be a temporary security measure. Instead, it functions as a systematic policy aimed at controlling the narrative of events in Gaza. Without independent international reporting, official Israeli accounts circulate with little scrutiny. This limits accountability and obscures the scale of destruction and civilian suffering.

In a war that has killed and wounded tens of thousands, the absence of international media has distorted global understanding and weakened factual reporting.

An intentional media vacuum

The ban on foreign journalists coincides with the direct targeting of Palestinian reporters inside Gaza. Together, these actions create a deliberate media vacuum. This severely limits source diversity and restricts reporting to a narrow range of perspectives. It prevents independent investigations based on eyewitness testimony and on-the-ground verification.

Observers argue this vacuum is deliberate, designed to reduce coverage and limit international accountability.

Obstructing documentation and legal accountability

Human rights and press freedom organisations warn that blocking media access hinders documentation of violations against civilians.

Without international journalists present, collecting the visual and forensic evidence needed for legal cases becomes far more difficult. This weakens prospects for accountability in international courts.

The media blackout is therefore seen as a tool to delay justice and entrench impunity. Israel cites security concerns to justify the ban. However, international press organisations—including the Foreign Press Association—say no credible security rationale exists.

The controversy has deepened due to the Israeli Supreme Court repeatedly postponing rulings on petitions demanding media access. These delays rely on classified evidence that cannot be challenged.

Journalists view this as a continuation of the ban under a legal veneer.

Gaza — a clear violation of press freedom

Press unions and human rights groups say the ban violates Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Both guarantee freedom of expression and the right to receive and impart information without restriction.

Media experts warn that normalising such bans sets a dangerous precedent for future conflicts. With Gaza still closed to foreign journalists, the conflict extends beyond military force into media, legal, and ethical realms. The blackout is not incidental. It is a central mechanism to conceal the war's consequences and keep cameras away from one of the worst humanitarian disasters of modern times.

As more than 2.4 million Palestinians remain trapped in Gaza, calls are growing to break the blockade. Allowing journalists in is now seen as a moral and professional imperative—to ensure the world sees Gaza without filters or omission.

featured image via EBU

By Alaa Shamali

At a moment when the ceasefire was meant to open a path back to normal life in the Gaza Strip, Israeli occupation forces continue to impose military control over more than half of the territory. This policy has emptied the declared truce of substance, kept civilians under constant threat, and prevented hundreds of thousands of people from returning to their homes.

Field data indicate that large areas of Gaza have effectively been turned into no-go zones. These lie between the so-called yellow line and zones of direct fire control.

In these areas, repeated shooting and constant intimidation persist, making them unfit for safe living despite the announcement of a ceasefire.

Areas of life under military control

The areas under Israeli control include some of the most vulnerable parts of Gaza. They contain the Strip's primary agricultural lands, which many families rely on for food. They also include most of the main water wells and the central water network supplying the territory. Control over these areas has become a tool of collective pressure, affecting access to both food and water.

As a result, agricultural activity has almost completely ground to a halt. Livelihoods have been destroyed at a time when hunger and thirst are rapidly increasing and the humanitarian crisis is deepening.

Gaza — a ceasefire with no humanitarian impact

Despite the announcement of a ceasefire, conditions on the ground show that humanitarian obligations are not being met.

Shooting continues, and access to residential and agricultural areas remains blocked. Around one million Palestinians are unable to return to their homes. Tens of thousands of families remain forcibly displaced within the Strip, stranded without safety or stability.

The truce has become a formality, as a new reality is imposed through military control, forced displacement, and the prevention of return. This approach is reshaping Gaza's demographic and geographic landscape.

Systematic policy of displacement and starvation

The so-called yellow zone is used as a launch point for continuous fire into residential areas.

This forms part of a broader policy aimed at forcing displacement, preventing reconstruction or resettlement, and using starvation by denying access to food and water as a means of pressure. Humanitarian indicators warn that continuing this policy risks a large-scale disaster. Its effects may extend beyond Gaza, given the near-total collapse of basic living conditions and the worsening situation of displaced civilians.

Gaza — Calls for urgent international action

Against this backdrop, calls are growing for effective international intervention. Advocates are demanding genuine enforcement of the ceasefire, an end to military control by fire, and guarantees for civilian protection.

They are also calling for the right of displaced people to return safely to their homes and for the restoration of the minimum conditions required for life and human dignity.

Featured image via Xinhua News Agency

By Alaa Shamali

Lord Maurice Glasman is the party bigwig behind the Blue Labour movement. To be honest, we're not much of a fan of his. Credit where it's due, though; he's delivered what may be the greatest MSM takedown of New Labour yet:

Lord Maurice Glasman just gave the wildest political interview I've seen in a long time on Sky News.

"The govt and the party has to repent and reject New Labour as an alien body that took over the Labour Party. And this is where it leads: perversion of peadophilia" pic.twitter.com/7RwXXnr67n

— Nels Abbey (@nelsabbey) February 8, 2026

Please be aware that the above should read "perversion and paedophilia", although it's bad however you hear it.

It's over

At this point, it seems that New Labour is finished as a viable political entity within the larger party. We say that because:

• The police are investigating Peter Mandelson.
• Starmer's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney just resigned in disgrace.
• Starmer himself will surely be next.
• Britons view Tony Blair like the residents of Elm Street view Freddy Krueger.
• The loathed Digital ID scheme is dead in the water.

As if this wasn't bad enough, party rivals have now branded Blairism as the political wing of international paedophilia.

There is no coming back from this.

Blue Labour

In 2020, Steve Topple described Blue Labour as follows:

a concept founded by Maurice Glasman based on socially conservative values of 'family, faith and flag' but more socialist economic policies. It is rooted in the values that Glasman perceived existed in the party pre-WWII.

On 6 February, Blue Labour put out the following statement:

This week exposed the moral and intellectual rot at the heart of our party. Glib arrogance, vicious court gossip and a culture of conformity. A willingness to look the other way for factional reasons, blind to how it looks to the outside world.

And for what? In the careerist scramble for a brief moment in the limelight all imagination and curiosity are crushed, and so we are left empty of ideas and empty of soul.

How far we have fallen as a party. This must be the end of New Labour.

At the same time, let's be real; Blue Labour aren't a viable alternative.

As activist Alan Gibbons highlighted, Glasman described Morgan McSweeney as "one of ours". McSweeney is the worst of the worst, so if he's one of theirs, that doesn't say much about them.

Featured image via Sky

By Willem Moore

Anti-corruption is widely treated as an unambiguous public good. Investigations, prosecutions, commissions, and transparency initiatives are assumed to weaken entrenched power by exposing wrongdoing. Yet in practice, anti-corruption often functions in the opposite direction. Rather than dismantling corrupt systems, it fragments and neutralises public scrutiny. Corruption is continuously exposed in pieces but never confronted as a structure.

The defining feature of modern anti-corruption is not silence but saturation. The public is presented with a constant flow of scandals, inquiries, indictments, and document releases. This produces an atmosphere of apparent vigilance. But it also overwhelms any attempt to form a coherent picture of how power actually operates. Corruption becomes ubiquitous in discourse while remaining largely intact.

Anti-corruption: fragmentation instead of accountability

Anti-corruption operates through fragmentation. Individual cases are isolated from one another. Responsibility is narrowed to specific actors. Timelines are truncated. Structural continuity is excluded from the frame. Each scandal is treated as a self-contained deviation rather than part of a durable system of power.

This approach has predictable effects. It prevents cumulative understanding. It makes it difficult to identify persistent networks, institutional protection mechanisms, or long-term patterns of accumulation. The public is invited to react repeatedly, but never to connect.

The legal form of anti-corruption reinforces this logic. Prosecutorial standards require narrow evidentiary thresholds. Journalistic coverage mirrors these constraints. What cannot be proven in court or documented in a single file is treated as speculative, even when the broader pattern is clear. As a result, systemic corruption in practice is rendered episodic in representation.

The Epstein case and managed disclosure

The ongoing fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal illustrates how anti-corruption can generate exposure without consequence. Since Epstein's death, a steady stream of court documents has been released, heavily redacted and carefully staged. Names appear without context. Associations are hinted at but rarely examined. The public receives information, but not an explanation.

Epstein's wealth, protection, and extraordinary access were not accidental.

For decades, he operated at the intersection of elite financial, political, and intelligence-adjacent environments. These conditions could not have existed without some degree of institutional tolerance. Yet anti-corruption mechanisms have focused almost entirely on individual criminality rather than systemic facilitation. They have also undoubtedly ignored the very-real human cost of Epstein's depravity - the countless victims and survivors of his horrors.

Yet, the role of financial institutions, intelligence agencies, and our own political class remains marginal to the official narrative. Instead, the case is repeatedly reopened through partial disclosures that generate periodic outrage without a comprehensive resolution for either the victims and survivors or the public.

This is not a failure of transparency. It is a controlled version of it. Redaction, selective release, and procedural delay ensure that attention is constantly renewed while structural accountability is indefinitely postponed, never to actually fruition. The scandal remains alive, but its implications remain contained in perpetuity.

Post-communist transitions and elite continuity

The same logic is visible in post-communist Eastern Europe, where anti-corruption discourse was embedded into the language of democratic transition. Romania provides a particularly clear example.

After 1989, Romania formally abandoned one-party rule but did not dismantle the elite structures that sustained it. Political authority, bureaucratic expertise, and security networks were preserved and reconfigured. Under the leadership of Ion Iliescu, the state adopted democratic forms while maintaining deep continuity in personnel and power.

Privatisation in the 1990s did not disperse economic power. It concentrated it, with state assets transferred through opaque processes to politically connected actors, many of whom had direct ties to the former regime. This was not corruption occurring within a democratic transition. It was corruption in the constitution of the transition itself.

Anti-corruption initiatives emerged after these processes had already been consolidated. Investigations focused on marginal figures or later abuses, not on the foundational redistribution of property. The most consequential decisions were rendered historical, legalised, and therefore untouchable.

By the time anti-corruption became institutionalised, the core structure of elite power had already been stabilised, and the same equally corrupt figures were making theatre, publicly denouncing practices they themselves relied upon and profited from, and staging prosecutions that carefully avoided the architects of the system. Anti-corruption became a self-purification ritual performed by elites who had already secured their positions and insulated themselves from scrutiny. Corruption was acknowledged in abstraction, while its material foundations were rendered permanent and untouchable.

Moralisation and depoliticisation

A central feature of anti-corruption discourse is moralisation. Corruption is framed as a personal failure: greed, immorality, and a lack of ethics. This framing is politically useful. It allows condemnation without a broader critique of the system, which cultivates corruption, under which it operates and thrives.

Once corruption is moralised, it is depoliticised. Questions of class power, ownership, foreign influence, and intelligence involvement are displaced by narratives of individual wrongdoing. The solution becomes better oversight, stronger laws, or cleaner politicians, rather than heralding a social and political transformation capable of dismantling the networks and interests that corruption serves.

Anti-corruption enforcement is inherently selective. Not all corruption is prosecuted. Not all actors are equally vulnerable. Decisions about whom to investigate, when, and how are political decisions, even when framed as technical or legal ones.

Selective enforcement serves an important function. It demonstrates activity while preserving stability. By prosecuting certain figures, the system signals seriousness. By protecting others, it preserves continuity. The appearance of accountability is maintained without threatening core interests.

This is particularly evident in cases involving intelligence services, large financial institutions, or strategic political actors. These domains are consistently under-investigated, despite repeated indications of involvement in corruption scandals. Anti-corruption stops where power becomes too concentrated.

Corruption as a structural condition

The assumption underlying most anti-corruption discourse is that corruption is a deviation from an otherwise functional system. In reality, corruption is often a structural condition of state formation, economic transition, and imperial power.

Where states are built through rapid privatisation, geopolitical pressure, or security-driven governance, corruption is not incidental. It is the mechanism through which authority is converted into ownership and influence into wealth.

Anti-corruption initiatives that ignore this reality cannot succeed. At best, they manage public perception. At worst, they legitimise the very systems they claim to oppose.

The function of noise within anti-corruption

Anti-corruption campaigns generate a constant churn of investigations, indictments, headlines, commissions, and moralistic discourse. This creates the appearance of transparency while overwhelming the public with fragmented scandals.

The result is paradoxical: corruption is everywhere talked about, but nowhere fully mapped; reframed as periodical episodes of outrage targeting "bad apples", obscuring the structural depth of corruption rather than confronting it.

As a result, anti-corruption is merely a tool for the stabilisation of the system, absorbing dissent, managing outrage and converting structural problems into a sequence of oversimplified scandals that liberal democracies can contain via formal and legalistic measures.

These gestural anti-corruption measures actually reinforce the system of corruption by allowing people to experience the moral outrage and catharsis of seeing the system supposedly hold people accountable, channelling public anger into formal, bureaucratic or judicial channels and thus rendering it impotent.

But most importantly, state-mandated anti-corruption measures fail to bring justice for any of us - not least in the case of Epstein the victims and survivors of his systemic web of abuse.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rares Cocilnau

Jawad Siam is an activist and a resident of Silwan, a Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem next to the old city. As we sit drinking coffee, he points to a plot of land adjacent to his home.

No justice within the Israeli 'legal' system

He tells the Canary:

Settlers took this in June 2017. My father, grandmother and grandfather all lived here in this house. According to my family tree, my family came here at least 400 years ago. We tried to do something. We went to court, but it's an Israeli court and an Israeli judge. It's not possible to win any cases today. I had to pay approximately 800,000 Israeli Shekels (£200,000). The Israelis do this with many families in East Jerusalem, not only in Silwan. They claim this land belonged to them in biblical times, 3000 years ago. They create stories, saying that for 100 years Jews have been living in the area, and things like that.

Since 'Israel' occupied East Jerusalem, in 1967, Jewish organisations have aimed to establish a Jewish presence in the neighbourhood. In an attempt to get Palestinians to leave their homes, Siam explains that settlers offer Silwan residents large sums of money to sell up. But although people do not have much money, they still do not sell their homes. Siam says he was offered $3m, and his neighbours were offered more, but they refused.

He says:

Any person in Silwan, in a minute, can be a millionaire and leave. But the people are stubborn. An old man here was offered $8m but he wouldn't sell.

Illegal Jewish settlers call Silwan "Ir David"- the City of David

These settlers are all armed. They are supported by the occupation's government and belong to the Ir David Foundation-  known as Elad.

Elad operates in East Jerusalem, and calls Silwan "Ir David' , meaning City of David in Hebrew. As well as trying to acquire Palestinian homes, Elad also runs the City of David Archaeological Park.

This major tourist attraction has been built by the occupation in the middle of a residential area in Silwan. It aims to promote the Jewish link to the area, while intentionally erasing Palestinian history, culture, and identity, and the community fabric of Silwan. Many Palestinian homes are being demolished for this park, and international tourism is allowing this to happen.

According to Siam, most houses taken by settlers in Silwan are left empty. Their real project is not about bringing settlers into the neighbourhood, but ethnically cleansing the area of its Palestinian population. He says the occupation dreams of having Jerusalem empty of Palestinians, and are doing their best to connect East and West Jerusalem, while only showing and talking about Jewish heritage.

As well as offering to pay vast sums of money for Palestinian homes, there are also other mechanisms in place, to ensure the population's displacement from Silwan and other East Jerusalem neighbourhoods. Palestinians have their land confiscated and are also evicted from their homes.

Many mechanisms to 'legally' displace Palestinians

In 1881 Yemeni Jews came to Palestine. Siam says they were promised they could live in West Jerusalem, but when they arrived they were not welcome. Instead, the people of Silwan, in the Batn al- Hawa area of the neighbourhood, welcomed them.

When the Jews left in 1928, they left the people of Silwan a letter, thanking them for their hospitality. But thanks to an Israeli occupation law, passed in 1970, any property that belonged to Jews before 1948 can now be claimed by settlers. 34 families, around 130 people, are now expecting imminent eviction after the Supreme Court's  recent decision on a decades long legal case, to dismiss an appeal by residents against their forcible displacement.

The Absentee Property Law, enacted by the occupation in 1950,  is also used to transfer Palestinian homes to settlers. The occupation's discriminatory planning policies are also used to drive Palestinians from Silwan. They are denied building permits, and so live with the constant threat of having their homes demolished.

Sari Kronish is an architect and urban planner. She is also Director of the East Jerusalem department of Bimkom, an organisation which works at the intersection of urban planning and human rights.

Planning system used for political gains, to ensure a Palestinian minority and the Judaisation of Jerusalem

She says as a result of ongoing neglect by the Israeli regime, since 1967, there is a drastic need for improvement in East Jerusalem neighbourhoods. The planning system is being used as a tool for political ends, to ensure Jerusalem is a Jewish city, the Jewish capital.

The urban planning policy is being used in a way that discriminates to achieve the political ends- to restrict when it comes to Palestinian communities, and provide when it comes to Jewish Israeli communities.

Kronish tells the Canary:

Planning should be free of that, but here there is a demographic driver to the planning policy. That's what creates the discrimination. And the legal structures and laws in place that have been set up by Israel are allowing for this to happen. It's completely in contradiction to international law, but in terms of Israeli law there are legal cover ups to everything that's going on. Nothing is in favour of the Palestinians.

But Siam does not believe the occupation has been successful in its project so far. There are still around 60,000 Palestinians in historic Silwan, and there are a total of 1500 settlers.

He says:

We were supposed to be the minority by now, and Jews the majority. They have everything- the army, the power, and the weapons. Although we've tried our best, we haven't been able to stop them. So the way for us to do this is to stay here. They thought they can easily force Palestinians to leave their land, if not using power, by using money. But this hasn't happened.

Siam, like most Palestinians, sees the double standards of the West. Hamas is labelled a terrorist movement, But Ben Gvir, and the right-wing in Israel are not.  who kill and imprison innocent Palestinians on a daily basis. But while he does not believe in Western governments, be still trusts in the various Western movements that could bring about change.

Siam: "It's a Western project here"

It's a Western project here, and we know what kind of democracy Western countries want. We saw it when they talked about the Palestinian free election,  which they said was democratic, and was watched  by the whole world. But when the results came out, they said it wasn't the democracy they wanted to see, because Hamas had won.

Palestinians have paid a high price in order to open eyes. It's not only about the Palestinian cause. A lot of injustice is hidden by the Western governments, inside their countries. We saw it in places such as the UK, with Palestine Action. You cannot express what you want to say. And all the time they're talking about human rights. But what about the eight million Palestinian refugees all over the world?

Siam helps run Silwan's Wadi Hilweh Information Centre, which informs about the problems faced by the residents. It also documents the occupation's human rights violations in the surrounding area. But this centre now has demolition orders, which are expected to be carried out any day now.

Most Palestinians demolish their own buildings to save a demolition fee, which can total the equivalent of £25,000. But Siam has refused.

Another way the occupation makes life as difficult as possible for Palestinians in East Jerusalem is through education. Siam argues the school system for Palestinians here is the worst, not only inside Palestine but also in the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon.

This is because Palestinian education in Jerusalem is completely controlled by the Israeli occupation. Palestinians are not allowed to teach their own history or literature to children at school. If schools do not teach the Israeli system, they are closed down.

The Israeli occupation uses education as a tool of oppression in Silwan

Siam says:

Palestinians are the most educated society in the Arabic world. Before the education system was destroyed, Gaza's school system was much better than here. But Israel does its best to stop Palestinians going to school, and tries to make Palestinians uneducated in East Jerusalem. This is one of the tools they use to turn Palestinians into simple workers, for example, working for them in the Israeli factories.

The occupation has now shut down all UNRWA facilities in the occupied Palestinian territory, and Silwan's UNRWA school closed in June 2025. Most children in Silwan do not have a long term place in a school. Parents struggle to provide education , and around 40% of children have to leave the village to attend school.

Despite the relentless pressure, Siam and those in his community remains defiant. They continue their lives in Silwan, heavily surveillance, threatened with dispossession by settlers, and demolition orders by the occupation. Children go to overcrowded classrooms, not knowing if it will be standing the following day.

Existence is resistance in Palestine, and Silwan is no exception.

Featured image and additional images via the Canary

By Charlie Jaay

A Reform UK councillor in Worcestershire has dramatically quit the party. Councillor David Taylor made the decision as a result of the party's plan to raise council tax — something which the far-right party previously stood against:

Another Reform UK councillor down.

This is significant though. It shows that Reform UK promised to cut tax. He's quit because they have raised it.

In this case it's Worcestershire - and 10%.

Jo Monk must consider her position as leader. https://t.co/6rYz8tjKTr

— Reform Party UK Exposed

The recent Epstein Files revealed a lot of disturbing new information. This included fresh revelations about the close relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Palantir boss Peter Thiel. Combined with other factors, this has got many people questioning why our current Labour government has given Palantir so many contracts. It's especially alarming, because Plantir is deeply enmeshed with the US and Israeli spy networks.

It's not just the government who have given Palantir an easy ride, either, as journalist Carole Cadwalladr pointed out:

Pls read whole piece. Neither Mandelson or Mosley were asked about Mandelson's role in fixing Starmer's visit to Palantir & subsequent £240m deal. It finally made headlines on Weds when a q was asked in Parliament.

But honestly, BBC also has qs to answer https://t.co/SgtsuwNDMd pic.twitter.com/GDX9apoYkk

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) February 8, 2026

Palantir and Mandelson

Louis Mosley is the head of Palantir in the UK & Europe. He's also the grandson of the notorious British fascist, Oswald Mosely.

Louis Mosley spoke favourably of "the return of Donald Trump" in February 2025. In the same speech, he spoke of the need for "free speech". Mosley also said:

In the US, we are seeing innovation and reform that will change lives in that country for the better.

There's no reason we cannot have the same in Britain - and elsewhere across Europe.

Since Mosley said this, the Trump administration has launched a crackdown on free speech and civil liberties which are unprecedented in American history. ICE are instrumental to Trump's plan, with Palantir serving as a key partner to the enforcement agency.

As Cadwalladr rightly points out, the BBC had no business treating Mosely as if he's just some pundit. He and his company have skin in the game. And if British politics goes the way they want it to, these people stand to make billions.

On 4 February, Ed Sykes wrote for the Canary:

Palantir has latched onto the US imperial project and is now a prominent part of it. By extension, this means entering junior partners in the UK and Israel too. And apparent intelligence assets like Epstein helped to ensure companies like Palantir become part of this system of racist brutality and dominance.

The other factor to consider is the link between Peter Mandelson (another Epstein associate) and Palantir:

Mandelson's links with US tech firm Palantir must be fully exposed, campaigners warn.

Palantir is owned by Peter Thiel who wants democracy abolished, and whose money and influence propelled Vance into the White House. Thiel was in close contact with Epstein after the latter's… pic.twitter.com/ESMsZPZe5i

— Nick Reeves #RejoinEU #NAFO #FBPE (@nickreeves9876) February 4, 2026

With Palantir and Mandelson both back in the news, it's worth revisiting this — the Epstein/Mandelson/Thiel connection, and how Mandelson's lobbying company introduced Starmer to the Palantir team https://t.co/Zxcgmb7dKr pic.twitter.com/YDpuLiQZxP

— Peter Jukes (@peterjukes) January 30, 2026

The seedy connections between Labour and Palantir go much deeper too:

In 2022, Woodcock was hired by Palantir.

Epstein met Palantir head Peter Thiel through former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Then, last April, Peter Mandelson arranged for Starmer to visit their HQ in Washington.

Now, the firm are sponsoring Labour Party conference events. pic.twitter.com/Wn5A2c3lzq

— Jody McIntyre (@jodymcintyre_) February 3, 2026

Thiel and Epstein

As noted, the latest Epstein Files have exposed how close Palantir founder Peter Thiel was with the dead paedophile:

BREAKING: Jeffrey Epstein & Palantir's Peter Thiel were discussing a Plan that would destabilize Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt.

"The more of a mess, with just lots of bad guys on different sides, the less we will do." pic.twitter.com/ZCoMjV2CGP

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) February 1, 2026

Do we really want someone who wishes to destabilise the world to be in charge of our NHS data? We don't know if Thiel knows this, but we did the whole 'destabilise the Middle East' thing already, and it led to death, mayhem, and blowback.

Epstein and Thiel also discussed destabilising Europe, which is a little closer to home:

Peter Thiel claimed he had a distant, impersonal business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

But documents show Epstein was a limited partner in his fund - and was treated as more than that.

The well over $100 million he made from Thiel's business was his single largest asset. pic.twitter.com/gnFxVSmAua

— ClearingTheFog (@clearing_fog) February 7, 2026

There's also this:

And Peter Thiel is the one who made @JDVance a senator and installed him as Trump's Vice President, just FYI. https://t.co/Aj2GS7wPEa

— Andrew—#IAmTheResistance (@AmoneyResists) February 2, 2026

And Thiel isn't the only billionaire who was in bed with the degenerate Epstein:

BREAKING: New Image that Epstein sent himself confirms that in 2015, Epstein went to dinner with Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.

Why the hell was he invited to dinner with these three men, being that he basically plead guilty to being a p-do in 2008?

Why wasn't he… pic.twitter.com/Iq19aD23PN

— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) February 7, 2026

Get them out

Zack Polanski is among those calling for the government to cut ties with Palantir:

Mandelson's malign influence runs right through the heart of this Govt.

Not least in the govt's NHS data deal with Palantir - a spy-tech firm co-founded by a man who thinks the NHS should be 'ripped up.'

I've written to @wesstreeting urging him to ditch this dangerous deal. https://t.co/O3ODX7D5W4 pic.twitter.com/r8DppettCC

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) February 5, 2026

As is Labour's Ian Byrne:

The entire issuing of Government contracts to Palentir in light of their links to Mandelson & Epstein should be reviewed.
I raised the suitability of Palantir as an NHS provider to the Tory Govt in 2023 after constituents in West Derby contacted me with serious concerns. pic.twitter.com/vXCjb46v1c

— lan Byrne MP (@IanByrneMP) February 6, 2026

At this point, it's unclear what the argument is for maintaining a relationship with Palantir.

Featured image via Gage Skidmore (Flickr) / Alexander Svensson (Wikimedia)

By Willem Moore

This isn't about gotcha politics, and it's not about partisan sniping.

This is about how Keir Starmer's decisions reveal a deeper rot and a willingness to protect establishment insiders at the expense of core progressive values like justice and solidarity for the survivors of sexual abuse.

This isn't just a scandal

The Mandelson-Epstein scandal isn't just a personal failing. It is a damning indictment of Keir Starmer's leadership and the hollowed-out soul of the Labour Party under his watch. I write about it most weeks. The Canary writes about it every day. Labour is finished.

Complicit Starmer, who campaigned on tackling violence against women and girls, chose to elevate Peter Mandelson to a prestigious diplomatic role. This was a political choice, much like wholeheartedly supporting Israel's genocide of Gaza, or the continuation of perpetual austerity.

Why? Because the umpteen-time-disgraced Mandelson is part of the Labour old guard, a crooked fixer with elite connections that Starmer deemed more valuable than ethical red lines that simply cannot be crossed.

Labour under Starmer loves to tout its commitment to protecting women and combating sexual exploitation. Yet here he is, defending — until he couldn't — a figure entangled with one of the most notorious elitist exploiters of our time.

Keir Starmer was fully aware of Mandelson's ties with the vile, convicted predator when he appointed him as UK Ambassador to the US in late 2024. This really wasn't some obscure detail. It was flagged in official security vetting, including reports of Mandelson staying at Epstein's properties while the financier was in prison and maintaining contact after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

Keir Starmer: ignoring the screams of victims and survivors

If Starmer truly believed in accountability, he wouldn't have needed emails leaking Mandelson's "litany of deceit" to act, would he?

Starmer's appointment of Mandelson was a middle finger to every single survivor of child sexual abuse. He knows it. We know it. We went here with Jimmy Savile. Cover-ups, stonewalling, and the immunity of the elite until the rot bursts open.

You see, Keir Starmer values those grubby, child-raping, establishment ties more than the screams of Epstein's victims and survivors — mostly poor, working-class girls trafficked like commodities.

Politicians of Starmer's type frequently talk about "learning the lessons", yet here is Starmer, making a deliberate choice to shield the powerful capitalist abusers from accountability.

Starmer plowed ahead, gambling that Mandelson's establishment clout outweighed the moral abyss. He took a gamble on cronyism, and lost in the most dramatic fashion imaginable.

Starmer chose Mandelson's "vital" US schmoozing over basic human decency. This scandal strips away the Prime Minister's fraudulent progressive mask, revealing nothing more than a loyal fucking Blairite puppet who prioritises billionaire child rapist networks over the exploited masses.

Surely, this has to be curtains for the permacrisis Labour leader? If not now, when?

If not now, when?

Scandals of this nature have toppled governments before (think Profumo), and survival depends on party unity and public apathy. In all truths, Labour MPs are furious and public trust has completely eroded.

Keir Starmer might just cling on if Labour miraculously closes ranks, but Starmer's internal challengers can smell blood. Of course, Starmer shouldn't cling on because his judgment is fatally flawed, and clinging on to power would only deepen the party's moral bankruptcy.

If you listen very carefully you can hear the echoes of a party fracturing along class lines. If these Labour MPs that claim to feel "physically sickened" and "widespread revulsion" had any spine left, they would lead a no-confidence push, not just a file release. Utter cowards.

I forced myself to watch Keir Starmer's humiliating, grovelling apology speech on Thursday. Like many of you, I try not to listen to much of what he has to say because it always feels like he is doing the bidding for someone else.

The speech itself was an absolute disaster — a transparent, spineless exercise in damage control. Who do you think Starmer was grovelling to? The victims, or the media and the moderates?

I didn't see any genuine contrition. It was a scripted plea from a failed, shit PR consultant, desperately bidding to cling on to power amid a scandal that highlights how Keir Starmer's collapsing government is infested with the same network of elites that protected dangerous predators like Jeffrey Epstein.

Starmer blamed Mandelson for "lies" and "deceit", claiming ignorance of the full extent of the Epstein connection, despite it being publicly known for some time.

Who is this fucking disgusting charlatan trying to kid?

Keir Starmer has to go

This is the same Keir Rodney Starmer who rose through the establishment ranks as Director of Public Prosecutions. If he couldn't vet a high-profile creepy-crony like Mandelson properly, what does that say about his already-questionable competence?

What have we been saying about his competence and his judgement for the last seven years? It's not even just Keir Starmer's incompetence and bad judgment, it's a damning symptom of how far Labour has drifted from its anti-establishment origins.

The victims of Jeffrey Epstein deserve so much better than a Labour Prime Minister who looked the other way.

This disgraceful scandal shouldn't just end Starmer's career, it should bury him politically, shatter his joke of a legacy, and force a socialist reckoning in Labour to oppose the forces of hate before it further becomes another tool of the billionaire class.

Nothing less than a full purge of the centrist tumour that is terminally infecting Labour will suffice, once they have finished deleting their pro-Mandelson tweets.

It's time to go, Mr Starmer, you're not just a dead man walking, you're a corpse in a suit, and we have had enough.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachael Swindon

Morgan McSweeney - the long-term enemy of the Canary - has resigned from government in disgrace. And to quote Canary head of content Maryam Jameela who just messaged me in Signal:

bye bye dickhead

The man behind The Fraud Morgan McSweeney - off

As journalist Paul Holden covered in The Fraud, the Labour Together schemer Morgan McSweeney was the man who spent the last decade manoeuvring to:

• Bring down Jeremy Corbyn.
• Position the Labour right as the leaders of the Labour Party.
• Return to government.

McSweeney managed all three, but he hit step 3 more quickly than anticipated. This is why Labour ended up in power with the political vacuum that is Keir Starmer. It's also why they achieved a majority government with fuck all plan as to what to do next.

Regardless of the finer details, this Labour government is McSweeney's vision brought to life. This means he's lived to see how much the public despise his worldview, with voters leaving the party in droves:

Contrary to popular belief, Labour is not struggling in the polls because they're losing votes to Reform. Even if they recovered all the votes lost to Reform they'd still be on just 21%, down double digits since GE2024.

Instead, the bulk of votes lost have been to the LEFT.

— Stats for Lefties

This week, Labour politicians found themselves tasked with defending the Peter Mandelson Affair. As we've been pointing out for some time, Keir Starmer knew Mandelson was a wrong 'un when he made him the ambassador to the US, but journalists turned a blind eye. Now, the famously slow British media have woken up, and questions are being asked.

One particular question provoked a less-than-reassuring response from DWP boss Pat McFadden:

If your husband/wife asks if you've had an affair and you hadn't, you'd say no, right? You wouldn't say "I don't believe so" pic.twitter.com/RDUutdKwr9

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 8, 2026

The Pat McFadden connection

Before we get to McFadden's worrying response, we should explain the context.

As noted, everyone knew that Mandelson maintained a relationship with Epstein after the paedophile was convicted. What we didn't know until the latest Epstein Files was that Mandelson was forwarding his paedo mate British secrets. He also worked with JP Morgan to bully the UK government into giving the bank a more favourable deal:

Mandelson was seemingly involved in insider trading, while helping Epstein, and by extension Jamie Dimon, intimidate his colleague, Alistair Darling, over a tax on bankers bonuses.

We've genuinely never seen anything like this in British politics before (on this scale).… https://t.co/nyDCgycEtj

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) February 2, 2026

Absolutely treasonous behaviour.

And there's a McFadden connection too. As Jody McIntyre wrote for the Canary on 6 February:

We now know that as Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson passed classified government information to likely Israeli intelligence asset Jeffrey Epstein, even messaging the notorious paedophile on the day former Prime Minister Gordon Brown "finally got him to go." But Mandelson had two deputies at the time, assisting him in his work: David Lammy and Pat McFadden.

Additionally:

In 2008, he was made Mandelson's right-hand man. Indeed, in a fawning article printed by the Guardian in September 2023, Mandelson waxes lyrical on his former assistant, saying: "Pat has seen it all. He is a walking encyclopedia of political and policy knowledge, and experience in government." But had McFadden "seen" Mandelson's communications with Epstein?

During the 2024 general election campaign, McSweeney and McFadden's desks were "right in the middle of the room" at Labour HQ. His wife, Marianna McFadden, was already McSweeney's no. 2. Mandelson said that McFadden and McSweeney would complement each other, opining that "Pat is cautious…[whereas] Morgan is a hard-driven street fighter." High praise all round from the Epstein-informant.

For more on Starmer's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and how he used dodgy tactics to maneuver Starmer into power, read The Fraud by Paul Holden.

If you're not a Mandelson, just say no

In the clip at the top, the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg asks DWP boss Pat McFadden the following:

Did you ever forward emails about government business outside of government - to a private email or to someone else?

McFadden responds:

I don't believe so.

Sorry, come again?

You don't "believe" so?

As in you can't just say 'no'?

Fucking hell.

If you didn't watch the video, his face is ashen when he says this — his voice barely more than a whisper.

McFadden also said he could see why Starmer made the decision to appoint Mandelson — basically because he thought he'd get along with Trump. What goes unsaid, as always, is that Trump and Mandelson were both close friends with Epstein at one time or another:

Pat McFadden defending the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador.

He has to, of course, because if he doesn't he's hanging the PM out to dry, and its clear the Labour right aren't ready to discard Starmer just yet. pic.twitter.com/L7ER9qeEpV

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 8, 2026

They know it's over

A tetchy McFadden also began to lose his temper when Kuenssberg pressed him:

McFadden is right, the media is just as culpable when it comes to Mandelson & that includes Kuenssberg (e.g. he was on #bbclaurak twice in 2024 & LK didn't ask him about Epstein either time)

This is a warning by McFadden, of course. Press me too much & I'll cover you in sh*t too pic.twitter.com/Nxk33SXWN2

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 8, 2026

It's almost as if he knows the jig is up, and he can't contain his resentment.

Oh, and shout out to Saul Staniforth who clipped the above. You can (and should) follow him on X.

Featured image via BBC

By Willem Moore

As we reported yesterday, the police are investigating Reform UK. Their alleged crime is sending out a letter to the residents of Gorton & Denton which wasn't marked with the party's logo. A spokesperson for the party blamed a printing error, but people aren't buying it.

Now, a Tory councillor has pointed out there's a very simple way for Reform to quickly salvage their reputation:

Publish the print-ready proofs. https://t.co/603ATAWoqg

— Cllr. Matt Cowley (@matcow7) February 7, 2026

Reform — Lettergate

Reform UK blamed the absent logo on a printing error, with the printers themselves taking responsibility.

As people have highlighted, this exact same thing has happened to Reform before:

Reform have not made a "mistake" in Gorton and Denton as they did EXACTLY the same thing in Caerphilly last year. pic.twitter.com/IHISoAM9x0

— Socialist Opera Singer (@OperaSocialist) February 7, 2026

People also had a hard time believing the 'printing error' line:

The Reform UK @GoodwinMJ campaign and printer is blaming a "trimming error" for the imprint not being on the letter.

Bearing in mind the letter is A4, what exactly was trimmed.

And why would you print on A4 and trim it? The images show it clearly wasn't trimmed.

The lie is… pic.twitter.com/EJ7q8O118h

— Reform Party UK Exposed

The absolute last conspiracy theory you want to be entertaining is 'X person is actually still alive'; if nothing else, because it's such a cliche. We're at a point, however, where we need to acknowledge what's coming out of the Epstein Files, because god damn:

Why would the Trump administration draft a press release saying that Epstein died a day before he actually died?

Oh. Oh my. https://t.co/Cx2SHzqUCP

— PatriotTakes

Things are looking worse and worse for Keir Starmer. This is especially bad, because things were already about as terrible as it's possible to get for a sitting PM.

Lammy told Starmer

In the latest instance of the badness intensifying, the deputy PM David Lammy has apparently said he told Starmer not to appoint Mandelson. And of course, what we actually mean is "friends of the Deputy Prime Minister" told the Telegraph.

There's just one problem with all this:

That's odd because here is David Lammy describing Peter Mandelson as a "man of considerable expertise" and the "right man" to be the US ambassador.

Looks like he is trying to save his own skin. https://t.co/V1vIlscNws pic.twitter.com/Ve8AoJLdMX

— Chris Rose (@ArchRose90) February 7, 2026

Whispers

Here's what the Telegraph reported:

David Lammy turned on the Prime Minister as allies revealed he had warned against appointing Lord Mandelson as the ambassador to the US.

In a blow to Sir Keir Starmer, friends of the Deputy Prime Minister confirmed on Saturday night that he had not been in favour of bringing the "Prince of Darkness? back into government over his links to Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr Lammy is the first Cabinet minister to break openly with the embattled Prime Minister, whose future hangs in the balance over the Mandelson scandal.

If it was us, we wouldn't simply have 'warned' Starmer; we would have refused to serve in the same government as the 'Prince of Darkness'. They don't call him that for nothing, and finally the media is past pretending.

This is what slippery Lammy said in the video above (emphasis added):

Peter Mandelson is a man of considerable expertise. He's the right man for this moment to be out ambassador. He's been a business secretary, a Northern Ireland secretary, of course he's worked in the European Commission, and he brings all of that to bear working as our ambassador, and of course he's looking forwards to presenting his credentials to Donald Trump.

If Lammy is telling the truth, and he did warn Starmer, then he was lying when he said Mandelson was the "right man for this moment".

Either way, he's a liar.

And you can't trust a liar.

Starmfall

The Telegraph article also reports that Starmer is "devastated" and considering an exit. It further suggests Wes Streeting may have scuppered his own chances of replacing Starmer because of his links to Mandelson (links we've reported on). The problem for Labour is that most of the big players in the current government are connected to Mandelson, because he's been the puppet master behind Starmer's operation.

In other words, there's no obvious way out of this mess for Labour.

Featured image via BERR

By Willem Moore

Reform-led Kent council — one of the far-right party's 'flagships' — has been exposed inventing a claim that it had saved tens of millions as part of its 'DOLGE' 'efficiency' drive. The programme is supposed to be based on the Trump-Musk 'Department of Government Efficiency' (DOGE), with the addition of 'local'. But it follows the DOGE model in different ways from what we're supposed to think.

Just as DOGE claimed huge savings that it then had to remove from its supposed 'achievements', Reform's claim that DOLGE had saved almost £40m from Kent council's budget has turned out to be made up. So clearly made up, in fact, that the council's DOLGE lead Matthew Fraser-Moate has resigned because the council:

had not actually made any cuts.

DOLGE-IE stuff from Reform

Moate's colleague Paul Chamberlain, another councillor involved in Reform's DOLGE team, also quit. In January 2025, he had admitted publicly that there:

just weren't big cuts to make, because services had already been hacked away for years and years.

Well duh.

The claims have now been dismissed as a "blatant lie" after the savings — supposedly made on 'net zero', of course — were found to be entirely based on "hypothetical" projects whose existence is completely undocumented.

The £39.5m figure, part of a claimed £100m saving, was made up (literally!) of £32m from scrapping a scheme reducing properties' environmental impact and £7.5m by not switching to electric vehicles. After months evading transparency, the council eventually admitted that the projects didn't exist but were "potential capital projects" the council might have done in future but had not allocated any funding to.

Despite the admissions, a council spokesperson said that the council "categorically rejects any suggestion of impropriety, fabrication of figures or attempts to mislead".

While making up savings, Reform had been 'spaffing' large sums on parking spaces for its councillors — £600k.

Green party Kent councillor Stuart Jeffrey told the Canary he had been pursuing the matter for ages but there is "no record of savings". Worse, Reform has added to its spendthrift ways by creating a new cabinet position who will "burden" the council's strained finances:

I've been asking the finance team for the detailed impact of DOLGE and there is no record of savings. Reform are simply making it up.

Worse still is that they are doubling down on their personal pocket lining approach by appointing another cabinet member who will deliver nothing while being a burden himself on the council finances.

Featured image via KentLiveNews

By Skwawkbox

A whistleblower's allegations against Trump's Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard have finally been revealed. After a Washington process hid the details for a week following an unnamed whistleblower said he would publish them if they continued to be hidden, the allegations have finally been made public — and they are dynamite.

In spring 2025, the US National Security Agency (NSA) detected a call between a party identified as a foreign intelligence figure and a person described as very close to Trump. The NSA informed Gabbard, but instead of following normal distribution process, Gabbard blocked it. She then printed a copy and took it to Trump's chief of staff Susie Wiles — all according to Andrew Bakaj, the whistleblower's lawyer.

After meeting Wiles, Gabbard told the NSA to kill the report's publication and told it to send all information only to her office.

A spokesperson for Gabbard's office denied the accusation as "baseless" and claimed it was politically motivated. However, the communications between Gabbard and the NSA — and Wiles's receipt for the intelligence report — were sent directly to the Guardian. Gabbard was once a Trump critic, but changed her tune after Trump appointed her as DNI.

Joining the dots, many are publicly linking the 'foreign intelligence' service to confirmations in the latest Epstein file release that Donald Trump is "compromised by Israel", including former political candidate Melanie D'Arrigo:

Tulsi Gabbard and the White House killed a whistleblower report that someone close to Trump was talking to foreign intelligence.

Trump and his inner circle are in the Epstein files, and likely controlled through blackmail by foreign intelligence.

The whole Trump administration…

— Melanie D'Arrigo (@DarrigoMelanie) February 7, 2026

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox