Hollywood actors Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem and Brian Cox are among more than 80 leading film industry figures to sign an open letter, titled "We Are Dismayed", condemning the silence of the Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale) on Israel's genocide in Gaza and its censoring of artists who speak out.

The letter comes on the same day as Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy announced her withdrawal from the festival over the same issue amidst comments by German director Wim Wenders against artists bringing up Gaza.

Berliale maintain silence

Other notable signatories include actors Angeliki Papoulia, Saleh Bakri, Tatiana Maslany, Peter Mullan and Tobias Menzies, and directors Mike Leigh, Lukas Dhont, Nan Goldin, Miguel Gomes, Adam McKay and Avi Mograbi. They say that they "expect the institutions in our industry to refuse complicity" in Israel's slaughter of the Palestinian people.

The 2026 festival is currently underway. Festival head Tricia Tuttle put out a statement in which she backed Wenders:

Artists should not be expected to comment on all broader debates about a festival's previous or current practices over which they have no control.

The signatories of the open letter "fervently disagree" and insist that the "tide is changing across the international film world". They also point out that the Berlinale has commented strongly about earlier "atrocities" in Iran and Ukraine and call for the festival to "fulfil its moral duty" to oppose Israel's genocide and other crimes against the Palestinians. The full text reads:

Open Letter to the Berlinale — Feb. 17, 2026

We write as film workers, all of us past and current Berlinale participants, who expect the institutions in our industry to refuse complicity in the terrible violence that continues to be waged against Palestinians. We are dismayed at the Berlinale's involvement in censoring artists who oppose Israel's ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the German state's key role in enabling it. As the Palestine Film Institute has stated, the festival has been "policing filmmakers alongside a continued commitment to collaborate with Federal Police on their investigations".

Last year, filmmakers who spoke out for Palestinian life and liberty from the Berlinale stage reported being aggressively reprimanded by senior festival programmers. One filmmaker was reported to have been investigated by police, and Berlinale leadership falsely implied that the filmmaker's moving speech - rooted in international law and solidarity - was "discriminatory". As another filmmaker told Film Workers for Palestine about last year's festival: "there was a feeling of paranoia in the air, of not being protected and of being persecuted, which I had never felt before at a film festival". We stand with our colleagues in rejecting this institutional repression and anti-Palestinian racism.

We fervently disagree with the statement made by Berlinale 2026 jury president Wim Wenders that filmmaking is "the opposite of politics". You cannot separate one from the other. We are deeply concerned that the German state-funded Berlinale is helping put into practice what Irene Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion recently condemned as Germany's misuse of draconian legislation "to restrict advocacy for Palestinian rights, chilling public participation and shrinking discourse in academia and the arts". This is also what Ai Weiwei recently described as Germany "doing what they did in the 1930s" (agreeing with his interviewer who suggested to him that "it's the same fascist impulse, just a different target").

All of this at a time when we are learning horrifying new details about the 2,842 Palestinians "evaporated" by Israeli forces using internationally prohibited, U.S.-made thermal and thermobaric weapons. Despite abundant evidence of Israel's genocidal intent, systematic atrocity crimes and ethnic cleansing, Germany continues to supply Israel with weapons used to exterminate Palestinians in Gaza.

In September 2025, more than 5,000 film workers, including major Hollywood stars, refused to work with industry organisations "implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people".

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

After trying desperately to dodge scrutiny of the involvement she and her husband had with child rapist Jeffrey Epstein, Hillary Clinton is now adopting a different approach. Speaking to the BBC, she told US president Donald Trump to "get the files out", accusing him of a cover-up.

Her shift in tack comes ahead of the Clintons testifying before a congressional committee to give evidence about their association with Epstein. The pair had previously fought vigorously to avoid interrogation. Chairman of the Oversight Committee, Republican James Comer threatened the pair with contempt of Congress proceedings if they continued their refusal. This appears to have backed the two into a corner, and they will now appear before Congress in late February.

The BBC point out:

It will be the first time a former US president has testified to a congressional panel since Gerald Ford did so in 1983.

Clinton is now saying the pair have nothing to hide, declaring:

We don't. We have been willing to say whatever we know. We've even done it under oath, but they want us to testify, not everyone else who's mentioned many many times, hundreds of thousands of times in these files. So we've said "fine let us do it in public and we will appear in public and we'll answer all your questions…"

Clintons can't hide close ties to Epstein

When asked if she regretted links to the paedophile and eugenicist Epstein, Clinton conveniently answered the question in a different tense to the one in which she was asked:

You know, we have no links. We have a very clear record that we've been willing to talk about which my husband has said he took some rides on the aeroplane for his charitable work. I don't recall ever meeting him.

Well, obviously you have no links now, given Epstein is either dead or perhaps spirited away to so-called 'Israel'. Meanwhile, Ghislaine Maxwell is still locked up serving a 20 year sentence for her role in assisting mass sexual abuse of children.

However, prior links were extensive. The few "rides on the aeroplane" Clinton refers to are the at least 17 times her husband Bill flew on the revoltingly titled 'Lolita Express' jet owned by Epstein. The former president appears in numerous photos present in the recent US Department of Justice document release. These show him with young girls, including one seated on his lap.

The Clinton Global Initiative honoured Maxwell in 2013 with an award for advocating ocean conservation. This was years after she had been linked to Epstein's crimes. He was convicted in 2008 for procuring a child for prostitution. Underscoring the closeness the Clintons had to Maxwell, they invited her to their daughter Chelsea's wedding in 2010.

Former president's history of abuse

Of course, Bill Clinton has a documented history of both dishonesty and abusive behaviour towards women. While their relationship was consensual, Monica Lewinsky has described his treatment of her as a "gross abuse of power" that left her contemplating suicide. Lewinsky was 22 years old and Clinton 49 when the White House intern and then-US president had "sexual relations". The latter phrase was used when Clinton repeatedly lied about the affair, so there's no reason to trust his word when it comes to his involvement with Epstein.

Bill Clinton has also been sued for sexual harassment by former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones, and accused of rape by Juanita Broaddrick. Broaddrick said Clinton assaulted her in a hotel room in 1978.

Of course, we don't need court cases or congressional committees to tell us that the Clintons have been cruel and violent people. We need only look at their policies. During his presidency, Bill Clinton maintained the sanctions against Iraq that caused infant mortality to skyrocket, potentially killing 500,000 children.

He was crucial in accelerating the neoliberal order at home, with punitive welfare policies having devastating effects on women and children. Clinton's deregulation accelerated the financialisation of the economy that benefited Epstein and other money manipulators.

Hillary is a constant warmonger who has defended 'Israel' throughout its genocide in Gaza. During her time as secretary of state, she helped oversee the bloodbath in Libya which has devastated that country. She was filmed psychopathically cackling after the death of Muammar Gaddafi. Disgracefully she retains prestigious positions, including her role as chancellor of Queen's University Belfast.

Clintons helped make today's billionaire-dominated world

The pair have helped usher in a more unpleasant world, and contributed to an era of unprecedented billionaire wealth. It is that wealth that gives predators like Epstein the power to abuse with impunity, and creates the conditions of poverty in which desperate people can be preyed upon.

Whatever the precise involvement the Clintons had with Epstein, they remain, at minimum, culpable for engineering the climate in which he and his ilk could flourish.

Featured image via the Canary

By Robert Freeman

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani faces a further test of his resolve and principles after the city's police department (NYPD) disclosed that it spies on the city's residents' online.

NYPD fesses up

On 4 February 2026, the NYPD finally admitted that it uses 'sockpuppet' fake accounts - technically 'managed attribution' infrastructure — to covertly monitor New Yorkers' online activity.

Or, as the department dressed it up, to:

allow its personnel to safely, securely and covertly conduct investigations and detect possible criminal activity on the internet.

Mamdani's resolve

As a former state assembly member, Mamdani had supported proposed legislation to outlaw such tactics — the "Stop Fakes Act". The legislation never passed. Now his supporters and opponents alike are waiting to see whether he is willing to face down the police. Will he use his power as mayor to halt these underhand practices.

The test comes after Mamdani chose to endorse Kathy Hochul — "one of the most pro-Israel governors in the country" — as the Democratic party's candidate for the position.

Hochul, a right-winger who allocated massive police funding to attacks on university anti-genocide campuses, also sabotaged a nurses' strike by making it easier for hospitals to hire scab labour.

After a positive start to his tenure, the endorsement led to accusations from appalled left-wingers that Mamdani was betraying the socialist, anti-genocide positions that formed the centre of his mayoral election campaign.

If he now chooses not to confront the city's police, his credibility is likely to collapse.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

In July 2023, Richard Hermer KC, a "close confidante" of Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, proudly declared that he had "dear family members" serving in the Israeli military. One year later, he was appointed Attorney General for England and Wales, the "chief legal adviser to the Crown". But incredibly, he is not the only senior British political figure with relatives in the IDF.

Labour officials and the IDF

Last week, John McEvoy and Alex Morris reported on a Freedom of Information request which revealed that over 50,000 foreign fighters have served in the Israeli military during the Gaza genocide. Britain ranked sixth on the list, with more than 2,000 British dual and multinational citizens confirmed to have participated.

In April 2024, Conservative peer Lord Ahmad defended the "right" of such citizens to enlist in the Israeli military on the basis that occupied Palestinian territories were not recognised as an independent entity by the British government, and that the genocide in Gaza would therefore be classified as "a foreign government's forces… engaged in a civil war or combating terrorism or internal uprisings".

However, since Britain officially recognised the State of Palestine in September, it would seem that the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870, which explicitly prohibited "engagement in the military or naval service of any foreign state at war with any foreign state at peace with Her Majesty", must now apply; something that Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, with her responsibility for "protecting our borders", will surely take a keen interest in!

Shabana Mahmood has gone to great lengths to mirror the anti-migrant rhetoric of Reform UK in recent months, declaring that Britain has "become the destination of choice in Europe, clearly visible to every people smuggler and would-be illegal migrant across the world.", and rehashing popular tropes of a "golden ticket asylum system" and "illegal migration tearing the UK apart".

On the subject of returning IDF militants, however, she has been silent. We do not know the names or ages of the list of 2,000+, or whether or not they intend to or already have returned to the UK. Even more shockingly, my research suggests that the list could include associates and/or relatives of Labour government ministers.

Richard Hermer

In 2023, when Conservative Party MPs accused Richard Hermer, then advising the Labour Party on a BDS Bill being brought before Parliament, of taking "political positions" on the question of Palestine, Hermer was quick to burnish his Zionist credentials, reassuring Michael Gove and co. that he was not "influenced by some form of malign intent towards Israel".

As proof of this, Hermer pointed towards growing up in "a 'Blue-Box' Jewish family", a reference to blue collection boxes that were commonly used to raise money for the Jewish National Fund, the largest builder of illegal settlements in occupied Palestine.

The JNF's UK branch states on its official website: "every Zionist home has a Blue Box." Coincidentally, the UK branch counts well-known war criminals Tony Blair and Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as Britain's Chief Rabbi Ephraim Marvis, amongst its "honorary patrons".

Between 2015-18, JNF UK remains a registered British charity, funnelled £1 million to HaShomer HaChadash (HH), an Israeli militia that operates in the occupied West Bank. Despite this, the Charity Commission refused to take action, saying that "there was no evidence to support the allegations that the charity acted outside of its objects."

The JNF specifies that only Jewish parties can buy or lease its land. Palestinians, even if they hold Israeli citizenship, are explicitly excluded on the basis of their ethnicity. In response to a 2004 legal challenge, the "charity" said: "The loyalty of the JNF is given to the Jewish people and only to them is the JNF obligated. The JNF…does not have a duty to practice equality towards all citizens of the state."

The IDF

Hermer also emphasised (as a way of defending his impartiality, no less!): "I have dear family members currently serving in the IDF." Even when he followed this with a caveat about opposing the "unlawful" occupation of the West Bank, Hermer's reasoning was that it was "deeply damaging to the interests of Israel."

This is the same IDF decapitating children and babies in Gaza. The same IDF who put on Palestinian women's dresses after destroying their homes and dance for TikTok videos. The same IDF that included over 2,000 British citizens as they committed a genocide.

Were Hermer's "dear family members" amongst them? Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, apparently so keen to clamp down on dangerous criminals entering the UK, seemingly doesn't know and/or doesn't care.

Labour's Attorney General added: "I actively support a range of… Israeli organisations." Hermer mentioned previously serving as an officer for the Union of Jewish Students (UJS).

Speaking to an undercover journalist, a former UJS activist named Adam Schapira confirmed that the group receives funding from the Israeli embassy in London and the powerful American lobby group AIPAC. Yair Zivan, a campaigns officer for UJS, later became a press officer for the Israeli military and adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister.

"Love being in Israel"

At the Jewish Labour Movement's annual conference in January 2025, Hermer said that he wished to see a world where you can "love being in Israel", and lamented that "somehow you have to pick one-side or the other." He revealed that he had visited the Israeli state in his youth, and as a member of Starmer's government "on more occasions than he could count".

Hermer and Starmer served in the same law chambers, and he donated to Starmer's 2020 Labour leadership campaign.

After leaving Doughty Street, Hermer worked alongside current Labour MP and former vice-chair of the Jewish Labour Movement Sarah Sackman at Matrix Chambers. As Hermer was made Attorney General, Sackman was appointed Solicitor General. Since 2024, Sackman has received tens of thousands of pounds from lobbyists Jonathan Mendelsohn, Stephen Grabiner, Michael Sternberg, Jonathan Kestenbaum and Trevor Chinn.

Sackman was also funded by Labour Together. Kestenbaum just happens to sit on the board of Labour Together, and Chinn was a major funder and co-director of the think tank in the "McSweeney era", but we can rest assured that these are further minor details Starmer knows nothing about.

Another former director of Labour Together is current Labour MP and cabinet member Josh Simons.

The Labour Together scandal

During his spell at the "think tank", Simons hired private investigators to gather information on journalists researching the corruption of Morgan McSweeney, who had used Labour Together as a private vehicle for toppling Jeremy Corbyn and propelling Keir Starmer into power.

Kate Forrester, the wife of Keir Starmer's then head of communications Paul Ovenden, ran APCO's London office when it was hired by Labour Together, and she has since confirmed that she knew about the investigation, codenamed "Operation Cannon".

One year later, the "public relations firm" hired a new member of staff, Mark Simpson. Simpson just happened to be a former adviser to Keir Starmer. Josh Simons has branded the claims that he spied on journalists "nonsense", but the contract between Labour Together and APCO tells a different story.

The contract instructed APCO to "provide a body of evidence that could be packaged up…in order to create narratives that would proactively undermine any future attacks on Labour Together." Josh Simons ordered the investigation. Morgan McSweeney was aware of the investigation. Is it even remotely conceivable that once again, just like with Epstein-informant Peter Mandelson, Starmer "didn't know"?

At university, Simons called himself a "Marxist" and told a friend that the Israeli state "should not have been founded". Now, he's a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Israel. Simons has mentioned having "friends and family in Israel", a state with compulsory military service, and in a parliamentary debate with Conservative MP Kit Malthouse last June asserted his "right to claim citizenship in Israel".

Two months later, Simons and Sackman were amongst a group of "Labour Friends of Israel-affiliated MPs" who confronted National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell in a "testy and emotionally charged conversation" regarding the government's decision to recognise a Palestinian state.

Israel has infiltrated the entire system

In an October 2023 LBC interview with Sangita Myska, Richard Hermer KC emphasised the Israeli state's "right to self-defence" in Gaza. In fact, occupying powers have no such right within territories they occupy, as confirmed in Article 51 of the UN Charter and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Myska was fired by LBC after a heated exchange with Israeli government spokesperson Avi Hyman in April 2024. LBC instead hired Vanessa Feltz, who has also declared that she has "very close family members, lots of them", living in occupied Palestine. Myska later revealed that a LBC producer once told her: "there's no such thing as Palestine." LBC is owned by Global Media, which is chaired by Labour peer Charles Allen.

Hermer is not the only current Labour figure with links to the Israeli military. Labour MP Damian Egan's partner Yossi Felberbaum is a former Israeli spy recruiter from "Unit 8200". Are his relatives on the list of 2,000+? Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood apparently doesn't know, and doesn't care.

Hermer is not even the first British Attorney General to have relatives fighting with the Israeli army. Suella Braverman, who Boris Johnson appointed Attorney General once in February 2020 and then again in September 2021, also claimed to have "close family members who serve in the IDF". Are her relatives on the list of 2000+? Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood apparently doesn't know, and doesn't care.

Featured image via the Canary

By Jody McIntyre

On 12 February, a joint platform of 10 Central Trade Unions (CTUs) in India organised a nationwide strike to protest the Modi government's anti-labour, pro-corporatisation, and pro-USA policies. Those organising the general strike include the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), and the Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS).

Industrial shutdown

There were disruptions across key sectors such as coal, banking, transport, and agriculture. The workers heeding their calls of the CTUs shut down thousands of coal fields, refineries, factories, and banking operations countrywide, the People's Dispatch reported.

This came as a huge blow for Modi's profit-driven economy.

And despite the scale of the protest, Western media has kept its distance.

Meanwhile, Claudia Webbe, a former UK Labour MP and ally of Jeremy Corbyn, is breaking the silence:

300 million workers just shut down India.

The largest strike in human history, and most of the Western media barely whispered it. That silence is complicity in Modi's war on workers' rights.

India's general strike is the future that the billionaires and ruling class fears most pic.twitter.com/5vh5eRrVfR

— Claudia Webbe (@ClaudiaWebbe) February 13, 2026

Reclaiming India's sovereignty

Claudia Webbe shared a post featuring Brinda Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), who had this to say:

It seems Modi has adopted Trump's 'Make America Great Again' slogan for himself. Instead of 'Make India,' we have 'Make America Great Again'—that is what has come through in the Indo-US deal. It is shocking, and this strike action is timely. Workers and peasants are not fighting for their own interests alone. They are fighting for the interest of India. They are fighting for the sovereignty of India.

Local coverage by Wire Hindi shone the spotlight on protests in Delhi's Jantar Mantar, where workers rallied against the Modi government's controversial labour laws, introduced in 2025, for eroding their rights.

दिल्ली के जंतर-मंतर पर गुरुवार को मोदी सरकार द्वारा हाल ही में लाए गए चार लेबर कोड के ख़िलाफ़ ज़ोरदार प्रदर्शन देखने को मिला. 1/2https://t.co/xiMbtAUa0Q pic.twitter.com/arhmpzq5FB

— The Wire हिंदी (@thewirehindi) February 13, 2026

A "historic success"

The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) posted several pictures and updates throughout the day, declaring the strike a "historic success."

AIKS, among other groups, have not held back in their criticism against Modi's government. They censured the government for crushing workers rights, bowing to US corporations, and threatening India's secular fabric.

#12thFebruaryGeneralStrike a Historic Success

The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) congratulates crores of Indian workers, agricultural workers and toiling peasantry for making the 12th February 2026 General Strike a historic success. The anger of working people against the (1/n) pic.twitter.com/jfItzhDVeg

— AIKS (@KisanSabha) February 12, 2026

According to Maktoob Media, the strike was met heavy handedly after Modi sent in his henchmen.

They made sweeping arrests against hundreds of IT workers, trade union leaders and activists in Bengaluru.

And unsurprisingly, the crack down was captured on camera — we see you.

The Karnataka IT/ITeS Employees Union (KITU) said hundreds of IT employees were arrested on Thursday in Bengaluru, along with other leaders and activists from various Central Trade Unions, during the Bharat Bandh against the Narendra Modi government's alleged anti-worker labour… pic.twitter.com/qYYm1p8ml0

— Maktoob (@MaktoobMedia) February 12, 2026

International endorsement

We have also seen expressions of solidarity emerge internationally. London-based protesters gathered at London's Parliament Square on Thursday evening.

They condemned Hindutva's "fascist bulldozer raj" and demanding the withdrawal of punitive labour and farming policies.

As Brinda Karat put it, India's sovereignty is cracking beneath Modi's divisive policies and the working class, unafraid and unwavering, is reclaiming their nation.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

Keir Starmer's Labour party has deselected three Labour councillors and blocked them contesting May's local elections — punishment for demanding:

an independent inquiry into the election of a paedophile councillor.

When Clare Johnson, one of the three, successfully overturned the centralised deselection, she says the party orchestrated the local branch's selection vote to ensure she couldn't stand.

The councillors' primary crime appears to have been to demand the debate on Labour's 2023 selection of paedophile Tom Dewey. Party officials already knew, when they confirmed his candidacy, that Dewey had been charged for possessing the "most serious" categories of child-rape images.

Dewey subsequently admitted the offences and was convicted and added to the sex offender register. When local women party members tried to discuss the issue, Labour locked them out of its systems to prevent them.

Dewey was an organiser for right-wing pressure group 'Labour First', which supports Keir Starmer and is rabidly pro-Israel. Hackney mayor Philip Glanville was later suspended and forced to step down after images surfaced of him partying with Dewey after Dewey's arrest.

Starmer is still reeling from his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as his senior adviser — and ambassador to the US — knowing Mandelson had was close to the convicted serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelson's protegee Morgan McSweeney resigned last week as Starmer's chief of staff in an unsuccessful attempt to take the heat off his boss. And the heat is well deserved. Under Starmer, Labour has a deep and ongoing paedophile and sex offender problem.

Starmer followed his Mandelson fiasco with another 'Labour nonceberg' scandal over his decision to award a peerage to his former adviser Matthew Doyle. Starmer knew, when he recommended Doyle, that Doyle had campaigned for the election of notorious Scottish Labour paedophile Sean Morton.

Earlier this month, female MPs complained to Starmer that Labour is now known as a party of paedophiles — without mentioning the victims. Labour's 'white feminists' have routinely ignored the plight of victims. Meanwhile, Starmer's record as Labour leader is an appalling continuation of the impunity of celebrity paedophiles when he ran the CPS.

Diagnostic

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

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

This issue is so endemic among Starmer's right-wing, pro-Israel faction as to be basically diagnostic:

• As well as Hackney councillor Dewey, 'friend of Israel' Liron Velleman has just been convicted of repeated sex crimes against a 13-year-old girl.
• In January 2025, former Blair minister Ivor Caplin was arrested in a sting operation as he allegedly attempted to meet a 15-year-old boy for sex. Local police went after local left-winger Greg Hadfield for exposing the explicit content Caplin posted on his X feed — Hadfield defeated the 'vexatious' charge in November 2025. However, no charges have yet been brought against Caplin and a court did not impose bail conditions after his initial bail expired.
• In March 2025 Sam Gould, another JLM activist who worked for Starmer's health secretary Wes Streeting, quit as a Redbridge councillor after being convicted on two separate counts of indecent exposure to a 13-year-old girl.
•  The following month Dan Norris MP, an ally of Keir Starmer, was arrested over allegations of rape, child sex offences and child abduction.  Avon and Somerset Police says its investigation is still ongoing.
•  The same Dan Norris was arrested again in February 2026 for alleged rape and sexual assault.

Sacked whistleblower

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

Cohen repeatedly warned Starmer and Evans that a staffer working for then-Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood — and allegedly Mahmood's lover — was engaged in 'sadistic' and 'criminal' abuse of vulnerable Muslim women. The victims were fleeing domestic violence, allegedly inflicted through the now-defunct domestic violence 'charity' that she ran. Starmer and Evans did nothing. Mahmood remained on Starmer's front bench and Cohen was sacked from her role as parliamentary aide.

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

Labour's sex offender problem is mountainous, as is Starmer's protection of them and his contempt for their victims. All of this has been almost entirely ignored by 'mainstream' media.

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

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

A "chance" meeting with strangers on a night out led to the "callous attack" and murder of a young deaf woman in Romford, last summer, by a man nicknamed "Nasty", a court has heard.

Zahwa Mukhtar, 27, was by herself socialising outside a pub in Stoke Newington Road, Hackney, when she first encountered Duane Owusu, 36, and a group he was with in the early hours of Saturday 16 August 2025.

Within a few hours, Zahwa was dead, having suffered a fatal head injury after being punched in the neck and assaulted by Owusu, who had first thrown her out of a parked car.

Her tragic murder, described as a "senseless killing of a vulnerable young woman" by prosecutor Henrietta Paget KC, was captured on CCTV outside Chadwell House care home, in Romford, and shown to jurors at the Old Bailey on Tuesday.

Owusu, of Althorne Way, Dagenham, denies murder and manslaughter.

Zahwa Mukhtar: killed last year

Ms Paget told the court how Zahwa had gotten into a silver Mercedes with Owusu and four others, including two women, who had driven from a "rave" in another area of Hackney.

Ms Paget said:

The occupants of the vehicle had been drinking and taking drugs, Ms Mukhtar included.

You will hear evidence that she was behaving erratically within the car, flirting with the boys and picking fights with the girls. Nobody knew her, and it appears that her behaviour was causing increasing annoyance.

The group were making their way towards Dagenham with Zahwa sitting on Owusu's lap in the overcrowded car.

As they neared Chadwell Heath, she began filming with her mobile phone. The footage was brief, Ms Paget explained, but was a "trigger" for Owusu, who had been "agitated and acting aggressively" earlier that night according to one of the group.

Jurors saw roadside CCTV footage of him sucking nitrous oxide, or "laughing gas" from a balloon before the car journey, and were told that Zahwa had popped one of the occupant's balloons inside the car.

After telling the driver to stop, Owusu threw out her phone before pushing her from the car. She "landed on her backside on the pavement".

As Zahwa shuffled backwards, the defendant left the car and aimed a kick towards her face and then a second "savage kick towards her head". One of the group who tried to intervene, a woman, was swung out of the way, leaving Owusu free to deliver the "blow that killed [Zahwa]".

Ms Paget said Owusu "punched her hard, to the neck, knocking her to the ground where she lay motionless". She suffered "a fractured skull and fatal brain injury" having fallen backwards.

Instead of helping her, he allegedly got into the car, shouted at others to do the same, and told the driver to drive off, Ms Paget said.

"There was no stopping him"

When Zahwa Mukhtar was attacked, jurors heard Owusu was "so mad there was no stopping him":

Ms Mukhtar was scared and pleading with him to stop.

A minute later the car returned to the scene in Chadwell Heath Lane, where Zahwa lay motionless, "with headlights illuminating her". The car stayed for only a few seconds and nobody left it.

The court heard there was a discussion about Zahwa, and helping her, but nobody did.

She was eventually found unresponsive by a police officer at 5.31am on Saturday morning when two separate passersby alerted police to a woman lying in the road. They thought she was either drunk or had fallen asleep. Despite the efforts of the emergency services Zahwa was pronounced dead at the scene less than an hour later.

Before reaching Zahwa, officers had spent 50 minutes with Owusu and the group in the Mercedes nearby after stopping the car on suspicion of drugs at about 4.40am.

Police found nitrous oxide canisters in the boot of the car, a small amount of cannabis in the defendant's gilet pocket and a "man bag" with a "small bag of white powder in it". No arrests were made, but officers told the group to find alternative ways home.

While Owusu and the Mercedes driver waited for a taxi, their conversation was picked up by neighbourhood security systems, the court was told.

The case continues

Ms Paget said:

Far from showing any concern for Ms Mukhtar, [Owusu's] concern was that their presence in the area had come to the attention of the police.

The pair began to blame one another and Owusu "berates" the driver for not being "militant", calling him "soft" and a "weak link". In response, Owusu was told he "can't control his emotions".

The defendant was arrested for Zahwa Mukhtar's murder on 17 August 2025 and answered no comment to questions during his interview.

Aspiring accountant, Zahwa, worked as a financial assistant at the Young Vic theatre in the Waterloo area of London. Ms Paget described her in court as "bright, bubbly, enthusiastic and very eager to learn".

She was deaf in one ear as a result of contracting meningitis at three years old — so she wore a hearing aid — but "coped well and was adept at lip reading" as well as British sign language.

Zahwa, from Hackney, came from a traditional background, but wanted to live like any other young person in their twenties, the court heard.

"She had tattoos, piercings and enjoyed food and travel, and remained close to her siblings, especially her younger sister," Ms Paget added.

The Old Bailey trial continues.

Featured image via the Canary

By Vicky Gayle

Lambeth Greens have launched a petition calling on Labour-run Lambeth council to cancel plans to award US-tech firm Oracle a contract worth £8m. This is due to the company's financial and political ties to Israel and Donald Trump.

A decision report published last Friday shows Lambeth council is preparing to renew its contract with Oracle. The deal offers £8.1m over five years for provision of digital HR and finance services. The council confirmed the decision on 16 February and it will come into effect on 23 February.

Lambeth Greens are calling on the council not to award the contract due to Oracle's support for the Israeli government and the current Trump US administration.

Lambeth residents can support this campaign through a new petition launched by the Greens.

Oracle - 'you must love Israel to work here'

Oracle works directly with the Israeli government and military, providing technology that facilitates Israel's ongoing genocide and war crime against the Palestinian people.

The company has also attempted to silence pro-Palestinian voices internally, effectively telling employees to 'love Israel' or find a new job.

Founder Larry Ellison has personally donated over $16m to supporting the Israeli armed forces and former CEO Safra Catz donated directly to Trump's re-election campaign.

Ellison recently took over the US operations of social media platform TikTok in a move which Israeli president Benjamin Nethanyahu welcomed. Since the takeover, creators on the platform have accused it of censoring content relating to Palestine.

Greens challenging the council deal

The Lambeth Greens, with the support of cllr Matthew Bryant, are preparing to 'call-in' the decision. A successful call-in would delay the decision for it to be discussed at the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, giving councillors a chance to highlight Oracle's complicity in Israeli genocide and ask the council to seek an alternative provider.

The call-in will also highlight Oracle's poor performance both locally, where their software has left £62.8m of invoices unpaid, and with other local authorities like Birmingham, where problems with their system contributed to the council having to declare bankruptcy.

Lambeth council has stated that it has a 'neutral position on the conflict' in Gaza. The Greens have demanded it changes this position to reflect the strong feelings of the community on this issue and to uphold Lambeth's proud tradition of international solidarity.

A number of other London boroughs use Oracle's services, including Labour run councils Croydon, Waltham Forest and Barnet.

Cllr Martin Abrams , Green Party councillor for Streatham St Leonard's, said:

Lambeth must stand with Palestine and end its financial complicity in Israeli genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleaning. A petition signed by more than 5,000 Lambeth residents clearly shows that this issue is hugely important to the community.

Oracle is unashamed in its support for Israel, proudly providing services to the government and military despite the horrors we have all seen for the past three years and before. The company's founders have donated millions to the IDF and are in bed with the morally reprehensible Trump administration.

By awarding this contract, Labour will be using residents' money to enrich an organisation and its billionaire owners who use their influence to support and sustain the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people by Israel.

This is the definition of complicity. Labour needs to change its unconscionable 'neutral position' on Israel's genocide, reject Oracle and get on the right side of history.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

The rate of people not in employment in the UK has risen further to 5.2%, according to new figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). With that in mind, it's clear why 82% of the UK supports an economic package that includes a Job Guarantee, polling from the Lancet shows. These new figures highlight the ongoing issue of UK unemployment.

Unemployment rises to its highest level yet

Labour's unemployment crisis is impacting young people the most. More than 1 in 6 people aged 16-24 are unemployed — the highest level in a decade. Overall, the number of people not in employment stands at 1.88 million.

But that's not the full picture. Another 9.4 million people are economically inactive — meaning they haven't looked for a job in three months.

At the same time, there are only 734,000 job vacancies. And that's before one considers if people have the skills for the job. It exposes the flaws in the government's neoliberal outlook — the view that the market automatically solves everything doesn't stack up.

This comes into sharper focus when considering 22% of Brits work a 60 hours of more a week, while millions don't have a job.

Job Guarantee, the solution?

A Job Guarantee could be the solution to a disorganised labour market. To avoid some people doing no work, while almost one in four do 60+ hours, roles could be shared. Previous Canary analysis found that if everyone of working age dedicated just five hours a week to public sector work that would cover the lot.

To be sure, 46% of public sector jobs are specialist that require skills like doctors or firemen. But the five hour figure shows that people could do a small amount of work a week to cover the public sector as it currently stands — which would ease unemployment rates.

Free university training should simultaneously deliver the skills for a strategic jobs of the future such as automation and AI. It doesn't mean forcing people into roles but finding the balance between a liberal approach and covering necessary roles. Higher pay packets could encourage people into positions that are strategic for the economy.

Meanwhile, a private market of small to medium size businesses should run parallel.

A Job Guarantee could ensure a modern work-life balance while scaling down damaging and unnecessary production, which 82% of the UK also supports, according to Lancet polling.

Featured image via the Unsplash/the Canary

By James Wright

The neoliberal system leaves 40 percent of Britons with less than £25 at the end of each week, a survey by the Cost of Living Action (COLA) group has found. This is pittance and unlikely to stretch far under the cost of living crisis, where even employed people are finding themselves out of pocket.

Manufactured cost of living crisis

Privatised essentials like energy and extractive supermarket chains are driving the cost of living crisis. British Energy companies alone have accrued £125 billion since 2020, according to the End Fuel Poverty Coalition.

Meanwhile, profits for the German-owned supermarket, Lidl, rose by 297% since 2021. As for Aldi, its operating profit has risen by 50% and 72% since 2020.

While costs have increased due to climate change and other factors, supermarkets are using these  pressures to break even but to fatten profit margins — otherwise known as 'greedflation'.

In other words, the fuel feeding the cost of living fire is the 'privatisation tax' on common essentials — not a natural disaster but a manmade problem.

Public ownership

A publicly owned Green New Deal could tackle the cost of energy. Just 1.2% of the Sahara Desert would be necessary to power the entire world's energy needs. Solar is gradually replacing oil because of cheaper costs. It does not appear to be happening fast enough to mitigate climate catastrophe.

Plus, energy is an essential service that would be cheaper under public ownership.

What's more, non-profit supermarkets could dramatically lower the cost of food and alleviate the pinch for ordinary Brits.

Holistic approach

Speaking about the latest survey, Labour MP Yuan Yang, co-convenor of the Living Standards Coalition, articulated the need for a holistic (all hands to the pump) approach.

The Cost of Living Action campaign has identified a critical challenge for those of us in Westminster to grapple with: that we need a holistic approach in order to create growth while tackling the cost of living crisis. As their campaign has correctly identified, this approach requires increasing incomes, reducing costs, and fairer taxation.

Conor O'Shea, campaign coordinator of COLA, spoke of the grating impact of these inflationary pressures on British society.

Millions of people are struggling with sky-high costs, and left in debt or with next to nothing left after paying bills each month. It's no wonder people are feeling so worried and angry. The government must deliver transformational change that truly responds to the scale of the crisis. That means making the essentials affordable for everyone, ensuring everyone has access to the income they need to live well, and rebalancing the tax system with more and better taxes on wealth.

If these issues are not tackled at the root, Brits will have to tighten their belts — as if they haven't done exactly that over the past decade.

Featured image via Unsplash/the Canary 

By James Wright

Strikes by more than 200 Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) workers have ended with a pay victory, trade union Unite has announced.

The workers, who undertake vital roles including ticketing, passenger assistance and information services for the bus network, voted to accept the deal following intensive negotiations.

Pay rises across the board

The deal includes a pay uplift of at least 3.2 per cent backdated to April 2025 for all staff, plus a non-consolidated payment of up to £1,000. Workers on lower bands will see pay rise to at least £15.10 an hour. This will result in wage increases of between 6.4 and 11.1 per cent.

Pay for all staff will increase again from April 2026 by at least three per cent.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said:

A huge well done to Unite's members at TfGM. They know that collective action works and by standing together and taking strike action they achieved this excellent pay deal.

This is yet another example of Unite's unrelenting focus on improving jobs, pay and conditions paying dividends for our members.

The deal also sees increases in standby payments, shift pattern improvements and new union recognition and facility time agreements. 'Facility time' is where staff get paid time away from their normal role to carry out union work.

The workers began striking in October 2025 and took 18 days of industrial action in total.

Unite regional officer Samantha Marshall said:

This deal could not have been achieved without the hard work and dedication of our reps and members. As this result shows, those wanting better wages and working conditions should join Unite and get their colleagues to join as well.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

According to a recent academic study, the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip does not stop at mass murder and the destruction of infrastructure, but extends - according to American researcher Henry A. Giroux - to the systematic targeting of education, culture, collective memory and Palestinian identity.

In his study entitled "Scholasticide: Waging War on Education from Gaza to the West,' published in the Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies, Giroux proposes the concept of 'scholasticide" as an analytical framework for understanding war as a structural project that is not limited to physical destruction, but also targets the intellectual and cultural foundations of Palestinian society.

Israel is targeting the conditions for survival in Gaza

The study argues that military operations are not isolated events or incidental consequences of the conflict, but part of an integrated process that strikes at the conditions for the survival of society, including the institutions that produce and transmit knowledge: schools, universities, libraries, museums, and cultural centres.

Giroux writes:

War crimes do more than destroy bodies; they erode morality, memories, and the deeply rooted habits of public consciousness. The brutality of Israel's military actions in Gaza is painfully evident in the images of children's bodies, torn apart amidst bombed mosques, hospitals, and schools.

His work ties the destruction of Gaza - in all its many facets - with the broader aim of Israel normalising such destruction. That normalisation comes in the form of arrests, house demolitions, widespread bombing and the targeting of civilian facilities, including schools and hospitals, are presented, according to his analysis, as routine measures or security necessities, creating a cultural and ethical climate that accepts and reproduces oppression.

He also points out that any attempt to document violations or legally characterise them as war crimes is met with smear campaigns and ready-made accusations, which negatively affects freedom of expression, especially in the academic sphere:

The ideological assault on free speech and academic freedom lays the groundwork for the physical destruction of institutions essential to critical education as a practice of freedom and liberation

Figures reveal the extent of educational losses

The study is based on UN and human rights reports that point to widespread destruction in the education sector, including:

• A large proportion of schools in the Gaza Strip have been damaged.
• All universities in the Strip have been bombed or vandalised, resulting in the suspension of studies for tens of thousands of students.
• Large numbers of students, teachers and university professors have been killed or injured.

Giroux believes that these facts cannot be interpreted as collateral damage, but rather as part of a policy that effectively undermines the knowledge structure of society and threatens its ability to recover.

Definition of 'cultural genocide'

Giroux defines cultural genocide as the systematic destruction of education, culture and intellectual infrastructure with the aim of erasing collective memory and preventing society from producing and transmitting knowledge. This process includes:

• The destruction of educational institutions, archives and libraries.
• Killing or displacing teachers and intellectuals.
• Targeting cultural and historical sites.

He adds that this pattern is not limited to the Palestinian context, but extends, according to his analysis, to universities in the United States and Europe, where controversy over freedom of expression and the punishment of academics and students for their political positions is growing, reflecting, in his view, a broader crisis in the independence of education.

Focus on children

The study pays particular attention to children, arguing that depriving them of education in the aftermath of war has profound psychological and social consequences. Giroux describes this impact as 'slow violence' because it does not immediately manifest itself in images of destruction, but leaves long-lasting scars on the fabric of society and its hope for the future.

The study also addresses the relationship between some Israeli universities and the military establishment and security industries, arguing that this entanglement contributes to the transformation of knowledge into a tool that serves the military system and influences the nature of the academic discourse produced about the conflict.

A global test of the meaning of education

Giroux concludes that what is happening in Gaza is no longer a local issue, but has become a global test of the value of education and human rights. When schools are targeted and the right to education is undermined, the question becomes broader than geography: what is the meaning of justice if the very conditions of knowledge are destroyed?

He emphasises that defending education and freedom of research is not a narrow political position, but a moral obligation to protect the future of societies, warning that silence on the destruction of knowledge could open the door to a world reshaped on the foundations of oppression and ignorance rather than justice and human dignity.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alaa Shamali

As Ramadan begins, trade union UNISON is highlighting how thoughtful workplace adjustments and open conversations can help Muslim employees balance faith, wellbeing and work.

The holy Muslim month of Ramadan is due to begin on the evening of Tuesday 17 February, or Wednesday 18 February, depending on the moon.

Eid-al-Fitr, the celebration that marks the end of Ramadan, is expected to fall on the evening of 19 March or 20 March.

The Ramadan fast

During the month of Ramadan, Muslims spend a period of 30 days abstaining from food, drink (including water) and smoking during daylight hours, as a means of celebrating and reflecting on their faith.

Iftar, the meal that breaks the fast when the sun has set, is often shared with family and the local community. Traditionally, the fast is broken with a date.

During this important holy period for Muslims, UNISON reminds both workers and employers that it is within the Equality Act 2010 for all employers to ensure flexible working and provide reasonable adjustments for workers wishing to observe Ramadan. This includes fasting, prayers, charity and reflecting on the Quran.

Small, thoughtful adjustments, shaped by open conversations, can make a meaningful difference for Muslim employees observing Ramadan.

UNISON spoke to two Muslim members, Raza Sadiq and Nadia Al-Farid, about how their workplaces support them during Ramadan - and what more employers can do.

Ramadan is more than fasting

Ramadan is not just about abstaining from food and drink. Many Muslims give a percentage of their wages to charity during this month and become more involved in community work. As Raza explains:

It's not just about you personally, it's about community.

Nadia describes how families often invite students who cannot afford proper meals to share iftar (the breaking of the fast) or attend the mosque together for extra prayers. The month strengthens community bonds and encourages generosity.

But alongside this spiritual focus comes physical impact. Many Muslims attend additional late-night Taraweeh prayers, then wake early before Fajr to prepare and eat before the fast begins. This can mean significantly less sleep.

'It's just small tweaks'

For Raza, a careers adviser at Skills Development Scotland, workplace support does not need to be complex. He tells UNISON:

It's just small tweaks. A room that people could go and worship in - that would be ideal.

He believes that colleagues taking time to learn about Ramadan, or simply speaking to Muslim coworkers, helps to build bridges and create a more inclusive environment. After once giving a presentation about Ramadan, he returned to his desk to find a colleague eating a ham sandwich beside him without much thought. He laughs about it but reflects:

It just shows a lack of understanding - it's just thinking and having self awareness.

Because fasting, late-night prayers and lack of water can lead to tiredness or dehydration, flexibility is key:

If someone is asking to swap a shift or start at a different time, colleagues helping is really important during this time.

Practical adjustments matter

Nadia, a clinical support worker in microbiology at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow, highlights the importance of suitable prayer facilities:

Our ritual cleansing is wudu - we must do it before we pray. We can't pray in a room that has religious symbols, for example crosses or human figures.

Access to a quiet space near washing facilities is essential.

She also points to temperature control as an important but often overlooked adjustment during Ramadan. Working in lab coats in rooms that can reach 25-30°C while fasting is challenging:

Having AC, even reducing the temperature by one or two degrees, can make the difference between dehydration and just feeling a little thirsty.

Support from colleagues also makes a difference. She explains:

It helps when colleagues are supportive when we feel a little tired, to allow us to take a moment.

Coworkers often share tasks involving heavy lifting and step in when she feels lightheaded or unwell:

Anything that involves heavy lifting they are more likely to say, you can do the lighter stuff… Instead of it being a lone task they will accompany you.

Open conversations build understanding

Nadia is clear that asking respectful questions about Ramadan is not offensive:

It's absolutely fine. Some people think if you're religious, you don't want to talk about it. But it's not a personal question.

She also gently dispels common misconceptions. For example, seeing others eat does not invalidate the fast. "It doesn't bother us at all," she says. In fact, fasting can deepen appreciation and patience. She adds with a laugh:

During Ramadan, we are supposed to hold fast to our tongue… so maybe don't be irritating.

Nadia and Raza emphasise that individual circumstances, rather than blanket policy, should shape the reasonable adjustments. Family responsibilities, caring duties, and job roles all affect what support looks like. Nadia says:

The reasonable adjustments framework should be implemented and led by the employee rather than the employer. Two people don't have the same reasonable adjustment frameworks.

Ultimately, supporting employees during Ramadan is about understanding, kindness, and flexibility. Small, thoughtful changes - a quiet room, temperature adjustments, shift swaps, a supportive team - can ensure Muslim staff feel valued, respected, and able to observe their faith without unnecessary barriers.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

In amongst Reform's patently ridiculous announcement of its new 'shadow cabinet', the far-right party has announced Suella Braverman as its education, skills and equalities spokesperson.

In her first move as part of the new role, Braverman announced that Reform would rip up the Equality Act on day one. You'd think an equalities spokesperson would be less zealously committed to legalising discrimination, but that's par for the course for the far-right party.

Braverman whines about diversity

As the Canary's Rachel Charlton-Dailey noted, Reform aren't the official opposition, and thus have no right to be running around announcing shadow cabinets anyway. The whole thing is a PR exercise for egomaniac Nigel Farage.

In a continuation of the bizarre, shortly after being awarded this imaginary role Braverman announced that her party would eliminate the role of equalities minister altogether. She then set off on a rant about the UK being:

ripped apart by diversity, equality and inclusion policies.

Braverman also stated that her (new) party would repeal the Equality Act on its first day of office. By way of reasoning, the ex-Tory minister claimed that she wanted to get rid of the:

divisive notion of protected characteristics.

As a quick reminder, those divisive protected characteristics are age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.

'A sledgehammer to hard-won rights'

Parliament instituted the Equality Act back in 2010. It prohibits the victimisation of individuals on the basis of those seven protected characteristics. It forms the basis of anti-discrimination law in the UK, preventing - for example - an employer from sacking somebody upon finding out the employee is gay.

As such, it's not exactly hard to see why a party founded on the idea of bashing immigrants wouldn't be a fan. However, Braverman also claimed that she didn't want to eliminate workplace protections altogether.

In spite of that flimsy reassurance, the Trades Union Congress was quick to call Reform out on its game. TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said:

It's official - Reform UK think discrimination should be legal.

Scrapping the Equality Act would be a sledgehammer to hard-won rights working people fought for over generations.

If you're discriminated against because you're a woman, black, disabled, pregnant or gay - that's fine with them.

This is a blank cheque for bad employers to mistreat their staff.

And it wouldn't stop there. Scrapping the Equality Act would just be the start.

From ripping up equality protections, to backing fire-and-rehire, to opposing a ban on zero-hours contracts, Reform UK have made it clear whose side they're on - and it's not working people.

Hypocrisy and lies

Braverman herself is hardly a stranger to trampling over human rights. As the Tory home secretary, she was a vocal promoter of the infamous Illegal Migration Act. In a clear breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, the act would have enabled the government to transport unlawful migrants to Rwanda.

In spite of her own parents' status as immigrants, Braverman named immigrants an:

existential challenge for the political and cultural institutions of the West.

Of course, the ex-Tory is no stranger to rank hypocrisy either. She once insisted that the Conservative Party needed to do "everything we can" to win Tory voters back from Reform, before slipping off to join the far-right party instead.

Then again, Farage himself previously vowed that his retirement home for washed-up Tories would never take in Suella Braverman.

So, to recap, Reform didn't want to take in Braverman, and Braverman wanted to win votes back from Reform. Then she joined the far-right party after all.

Following that, Reform appointed her to the post of equalities spokesperson, so Braverman promptly announced that she'd abolish her own job - and the public's protection against discrimination into the bargain.

Is anybody else's head spinning here?

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

Martin Lewis has accused the Labour Party of turning student loans into a tax on young people.

At the Autumn budget, Labour froze the student loan repayment thresholds for Plan 2 loans at £29,385 from April 2026.

Lewis pointed out that this was either a targeted tax rise on young people, or a:

retrospective rewriting of the terms of a private contract.

Student loans are being turned into a tax

Either way, Rachel Reeves claimed the freeze was "fair and reasonable" - which is, of course, bullshit.

Mainly because rich kids who had the bank of mummy and daddy to pay their tuition fees up front are now exempt from this additional tax.

There are five student loan plans in operation. These cover most postgraduate courses, Scotland and three mainly English student cohorts. Namely, entrants pre-2012, those between 2012 and 2023, and those post-2023.

The current student loan controversy refers to plan 2 loans. Around 6m people took these out in England and Wales between 2012 and 2023.

According to the Guardian:

For a plan 2 graduate, every pound earned between £30,000 and £50,000 already faces 20% income tax, 8% national insurance and 9% loan repayment - a 37% marginal rate. Freezing the plan 2 threshold, as Ms Reeves proposes from 2027, penalises these graduates by holding down the point at which repayments begin (roughly £30,000), so that as wages rise, a growing share of their income faces the 9% charge. This ensures more income is taxed at 37% for longer as incomes go up.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, this is equivalent to a tax rise.

£53k of debt per student

Graduates now have an average debt of £53,000. For some doctors, that figure is over £100,000. Which is messed up, considering Rachel Reeves said that the Government will use the repayment freeze to fund the NHS and keep prescription charges under £10.

As the Guardian points out:

If someone earns £60,000, they should be taxed because they earn £60,000 - not because they went to university in 2014 rather than 2009.

Campaign platforms, Organise and Rethink Repayment, previously accused the Government of acting "like a loan shark".

Roxy Khan-William, head of campaigns at Organise, told LBC:

The evidence increasingly points to the hallmarks of mis-selling: complex terms, optimistic assurances, underplayed risks, and later rule changes that materially worsen outcomes.

In effect, the Government is acting like a loan shark.

Most banks would not approve a £50k high-interest loan for the average 18-year-old. Yet that is exactly how the Government is treating the student loans system.

Except there is no contract, no fixed terms, and no interest rate, and most graduates never recall seeing the terms and conditions.

Shitting on young people

On my previous point about Rachel Reeves talking shit - when she finished her undergraduate degree in 2000, the average student loan debt was £3,000.

The government only announced tuition fee rises in 2004. So when Reeves finished her postgraduate degree that year, they were still capped at £1,125 per year.

Both of her loans were Plan 1. This means the interest rate is linked to inflation, so there is no real cost to borrowing.

Reeves benefited from low tuition fees and not having tens of thousands of pounds in debt when she left university. Yet now she wants to take a shit on young people?

Another rule for the rich

Wealthy families can essentially buy their kids out of this ridiculous tax. From the vast connections that come with money, to private school, not having to work through education, to the mental health benefits of growing up in financial stability, it's fair to say that kids born into rich families already have enough of a leg up.

And whilst there's no doubt that many rich kids turn out to be massive pricks, why should they be exempt from taxes?

Reeves may as well start handing out step ladders at graduation.

How many other ways does Labour want to say "we hate poor people"? Gone are the days when Labour was the party of the working class. 

And let's face it, yes, they hate poor people - but the only reason anyone is poor in the first place is because of the incompetence of consecutive governments.

Featured image via the Canary

By HG

Nigel Farage announced the Reform UK shadow cabinet today, with former Tories taking front and centre. This is despite the fact that Reform UK has just eight MPs, so is in no need of a shadow cabinet.

As the racist party are not the official opposition, so they don't get to name a shadow cabinet. But, why would the facts stop Farage? At a flashy event reminiscent of an American election campaign, Farage announced the first members of his "shadow cabinet".

New Tory cabinet for Reform

And surprise, surprise, it's full of Tories

Robert Jenrick has been named as their shadow chancellor. Jenrick defected from the Tory party last month and has stolen the role from both Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf.

Jenrick, who lost the Tory leadership to its current leader, Kemi Badenoch, is expected to give a speech outlining his economic plan sometime this week. By that point, he might've actually come up with one.

The most recent Tory defector, Suella Braverman, will take on more than one role. As well as education and skills, she will also handle equalities. Though this is Reform, so that means she'll be hellbent on destroying any sort of equality. Namely, she wants to get rid of the Equality Act.

Richard Tice isn't too glum about being sidelined as Chancellor. As well as deputy leader, he'll now be 'in charge of' (and we use that term loosely) business, trade, and energy. His biggest focus is on getting rid of net-zero targets to focus on oil and gas.

And then finally, we have Zia Yusuf as Reform's 'home secretary'. Again, there's a heavy use of quotation marks here, because they aren't the shadow cabinet or opposition.

Definitely not a one-man band

One person noticeably missing was Reform laughing stock Lee Anderson. Ol' 30p will apparently remain as "chief whip", but it's interesting he wasn't announced for a welfare role when he's apparently been their "welfare spokesperson" for months now.

Presumably it's because he can't so much as move without making a fool of himself. Most recently, he was mocked for campaigning in the wrong place,

As well as no DWP "shadow" minister, there was no health secretary announced. This surely shows what Reform's priorities are. You can only assume this is because Reform are so snugly in private healthcare's pockets.

Farage said a big reason for naming a "cabinet" was so the world didn't see Reform as a "one man band". Which would be more believable if he wasn't constantly fucking everywhere. But then it's not like he's got many people to sub in is it?

Despite apparently not wanting to be the star of the show, Farage announced each member of his cabinet in the centre of a big stand at a podium. Instead of letting them speak at his podium, they all had their own smaller podiums. These were also, naturally, slightly further back.

Reform are not to be taken seriously

The naming of Reform's shadow cabinet confused a lot of people, but probably none more so than 30p Lee Anderson. Just three weeks ago, Anderson rebuffed rumours of an almost correctly predicted shadow cabinet.

When a Tory, Luke Robert Black, remarked that this was "savage" towards Anderson, he replied

Thicko alert. We cannot possibly have a shadow cabinet, we have spokespersons. I was made DWP Spokesperson last year. Carry on being a useful idiot for the Tory party, but you won't get that safe seat you want. They're laughing at you.

This tweet is currently still up, but let's see how long it lasts. Instead of addressing this, Anderson tweeted this afternoon that the new cabinet was "the Beginnings of a World Class Team."

This latest announcement from Reform UK is just the latest in the long line of them assuming they have any sort of authority or power in Westminster.

More than anything, it shows how entitled they all are. But to the country it's just another silly stunt by Farage, and even more reason to not take Reform seriously.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

The UK have signed a deal with California to collaborate on green energy initiatives and boost investment.

However, US president Trump has been vocal in his opposition to the agreement. As such, the move is an unusual tactic for Starmer's Labour, which has so far sucked up to the far-right dictator like its life depends on it.

The UK government announced that the California deal will connect the UK's clean energy sector with the Californian market. Beyond this, the agreement will also see the two governments share expertise on issues like protecting biodiversity and resilience in the face of extreme weather.

Energy secretary Ed Miliband signed the memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the deal with Californian governor Gavin Newsom on 16 February in London. The MoU itself affirmed that both governments:

support the goals of the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, recognize the urgency of addressing global climate change, and aim to strengthen bilateral cooperation to decarbonize their economies, protect residents from the worst effects of climate change, promote sustainable growth, secure the resources needed for the energy transition, enable research exchange and technology advancement, and develop skilled and modern workforces

Trump tantrum

The UK-California MoU is one of 12 similar agreements with other US states. These include the Democrat-led Washington and Republican-led Florida.

However, the deal has immediately enraged Donald Trump. He stated that it was "inappropriate" for the UK "to be dealing with him (Newsom)." Governor Newsom has been a notable opponent of Trump's rule within the Senate, particularly regarding both climate policy and immigration.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration backed the US out of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. However, Newsom has used his recent transatlantic tour to assure European leaders that Trump's climate hostility is "temporary" in the grand scheme of US politics.

Notably, the UK-California deal specifically commits the US state to follow the UN Framework Convention, in spite of Trump's withdrawal.

'Gavin is a loser'

In an interview with Politico, Trump displayed his typically childish displeasure:

The UK's got enough trouble without getting involved with Gavin Newscum. Gavin is a loser. Everything he's touched turns to garbage. His state has gone to hell, and his environmental work is a disaster.

The US dictator continued:

The worst thing that the U.K. can do is get involved in Gavin. If they did to the U.K. what he did to California, this will not be a very successful venture.

Devastating wildfires recently ravaged California, with Trump accusing Newsom of mismanaging the state's response. A spokesperson for the Californian governor, meanwhile, highlighted that the Trump administration was withholding disaster funding, stating that:

The Trump Administration refused a routine wildfire recovery meeting — a rejection we've never seen before — even as LA families near a year without long-term federal financial help. The message to survivors is unmistakable: Donald Trump doesn't care about them.

Starmer the suck-up

The move to anger Trump is an unusual one for the Labour Party, which has thus-far been a keen ally of the US far-right.

Recently, Starmer dutifully deployed aircraft carriers to the Arctic Circle. The move seen by some commentators as an act of deference to Trump's 'defence gap' narrative, with which he tried to justify the annexation of Greenland.

Last month, Starmer failed even to condemn Trump's blatantly illegal attack on Venezuela and kidnap of president Maduro. Beyond this, Labour have repeatedly claimed that the USA "keeps us safe" under the Trump regime.

In September 2025, the Labour government celebrated a £150bn deal with Trump. Meanwhile, commentators described the agreement as a thinly veiled mechanism for US firms to asset-strip UK wealth. The list goes on and on.  

However, regarding the UK-California climate agreement, we at the Canary aren't exactly convinced that Starmer is finally growing a backbone. If he thinks this one small move to ruffle Trump's feathers will make up for a litany of fawning in the face of the far right, he's got another think coming.

Then again, there's always the possibility that Labour didn't consider that dealing with a vocal Trump opponent might piss off America's fascist-in-chief. You'd think that kind of thing might be obvious to anyone with an ounce of political wherewithal, but this is Starmer's Labour we're talking about.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

Workers at a Cumbria packaging firm will vote on strike action after rejecting an 'insulting' pay offer.

Pay offer = pay cut

More than 100 workers at Futamura, in Wigton, turned down the company's 1.2 per cent pay offer by a majority of 94 per cent. Trade union GMB is demanding a 3.8 per cent pay increase, in line with inflation. This is to ensure members do not suffer yet another real-terms pay cut.

The union has engaged with the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) to help bring the company back to the table.

Futamura makes cellulose film for packaging.

The dispute mirrors other situations where pay has failed to keep pace with inflation. And it comes against a backdrop of long-term "pay depression" going back 20 years.

Michael Hall, GMB Regional Organiser, said:

This 1.2 per cent offer is nothing short of an insult. GMB members have spoken loudly and clearly. Enough is enough. Futamura workers deserve a fair pay rise that simply keeps up with the cost of living.

The company should be listening, not digging in. GMB has been patient and our members have been patient. But Futamura has refused to make a fair and reasonable pay offer.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy has announced her withdrawal from the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) because of filmmaker Wim Wenders' "jaw-dropping" comments on Israel's genocide in Gaza.

Roy described Wenders' comments as "a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds before us in real time". Wenders said at a press conference on 12 February 2026 that the art world should "stay out of politics":

We have to stay out of politics because if we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics. [Filmmakers should be] the counterweight of politics, we are the opposite of politics. We have to do the work of people, not the work of politicians.

Arundhati Roy speaks out

The "shocked and disgusted" Roy was unequivocal in her opposition to Wenders's nonsense:

To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping," said Roy in a statement announcing she would be exiting the Berlinale jury. "It is a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds before us in real time - when artists, writers and film makers should be doing everything in their power to stop it.

It is, of course, inherently political to say that art should not be political, because silence aids the oppressor. The Israel lobby always attempts to cow politicians, news media, and artists into either silence or active collaboration. All too often it succeeds.

The festival previously marketed itself as the most political major film festival, but capitulated to the Israel lobby after the start of Israel's genocide in Gaza. Humanitarian campaigners called for a boycott of the 2024 festival for its refusal to denounce the genocide and Israel's other crimes against the Palestinian people.

Roy's full statement reads:

In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones, a whimsical film that I wrote 38 years ago, was selected to be screened under the Classics section at the Berlinale 2026. There was something sweet and wonderful about this for me.

Although I have been profoundly disturbed by the positions taken by the German government and various German cultural institutions on Palestine, I have always received political solidarity when I have spoken to German audiences about my views on the genocide in Gaza. This is what made it possible for me to think of attending the screening of Annie at the Berlinale.

This morning, like millions of people across the world, I heard the unconscionable statements made by members of the jury of the Berlin film festival when they were asked to comment about the genocide in Gaza. To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping. It is a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds before us in real time - when artists, writers and film makers should be doing everything in their power to stop it.

Let me say this clearly: what has happened in Gaza, what continues to happen, is a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel. It is supported and funded by the governments of the United States and Germany, as well as several other countries in Europe, which makes them complicit in the crime.

If the greatest film makers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so, they should know that history will judge them. I am shocked and disgusted.

With deep regret, I must say that I will not be attending the Berlinale.

Arundhati Roy

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Crisis-hit UK PM Keir Starmer is fast-tracking gigantic spikes in war spending. He says it is to defend the country. In reality, Starmer is yet again sucking up to US president Donald Trump. The UK government needs to get its head out of 1997 for all our sakes.

Starmer wants £14bn a year spent on war and the military. That is to say, £14bn more going into the pockets of arms firms and their fellow travelers.

The Guardian reported:

At the Munich Security Conference at the weekend, Starmer argued for higher and more sustained defence spending to meet the threat from Russia. "We must build our hard power because that is the currency of our age," he said. "We must spend more, deliver more and coordinate more."

Currently the UK spends 2.3% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence. The increase would take that figure up to 2.6%.

But it could go higher still:

The BBC said No 10 was considering an increase to 3% of GDP by the end of this parliament in 2029 to meet Starmer's ambition, although it is unclear if this will turn into a concrete plan given the many obstacles.

Politico explained the rate of acceleration:

The British prime minister last year pledged to spend 2.6 percent of GDP on defense by 2027, and 3 percent by the end of the next parliament in 2034.

Ministers are now considering accelerating those plans to hit 3 percent by 2029, as first reported by the BBC and backed up by two government officials.

Starmer is Trump's minion

Stop the War Coalition said the move was simply about appeasing Trump's demands for higher spending among European allies:

This is part of a massive European arms drive aimed at appeasing Trump as he demands Europe pay more for its own defence.

The additional cost comes at a time when we are told to accept cuts to pensions, to wages and to public services, while much of what is spent will go directly into the coffers of US arms manufacturers.

The coalition warned the militarist foundations were being laid for a major war in Europe:

It is clear Europe is creating a climate in which war with Russia is more likely, a war where nuclear weapons could be used with catastrophic consequences.

We need new ideas

US secretary of state Marco Rubio's said as much in his Munich Security Conference speech. As part of his weird colonialist rant, Rubio warned the European 'civilisation' was under threat.

He also said:

And this is why we do not want our allies to be weak, because that makes us weaker.  We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength.

Adding:

We want allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization, and who, together with us, are willing and able to defend it.

Starmer wants to stay close to the US - despite Trump's erratic behaviour. The UK PM is from a school of British political thought which ran out of steam decades ago. That Blairite ideology was defined by a puppy-like obedience to US power. It didn't serve the UK then and it sure as hell doesn't serve us now.

This country needs fresh ideas. A good one would be to stop being snivelling vassal of the United States.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

An employment tribunal has reaffirmed that anti-Zionism is a "protected characteristic" under equality legislation in relation to the workplace. It then denied protection to two Muslim women disciplined by an Israel-supporting bank for opposing its genocide-friendly investments.

The finding reconfirms the landmark decision of a 2024 tribunal that sacked Bristol professor David Miller's anti-Zionism is protected by anti-discrimination workplace law. It also notably rejected the claim of the Israel lobby's so-called 'IHRA definition of antisemitism', which Lloyds Bank tried to invoke.

Anti-Zionism is a principled stance

However, the tribunal judges decided that the two women's anti-Zionism had not yet reached the level of a "philosophical belief" at the time they sent messages to colleagues demanding that Lloyds stop investing in companies profiting from Israel's genocide. Instead, they said that at that point it was "political opinion" not protected by legislation. They hold it as philosophical belief now, the judges ruled, so they would have upheld their claim if the disciplinary action happened now. The judges strongly criticised Lloyds Bank's actions but rejected the women's claim.

Under equality legislation, according to mediator Acas, a "philosophical belief" must be "all of the following":

• genuinely held
• not just an opinion or point of view based on current information
• about a significant aspect of human life and behaviour
• clear, consistent, serious and important
• acceptable in a democratic society - it must respect other people's fundamental rights

The European Legal Support Centre, which supported the two women's case, said that in spite of the adverse outcome the judgment was positive:

This judgment adds to the growing body of cases confirming that anti-Zionism is capable of amounting to a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010. While the claims did not succeed on the particular facts, the Tribunal made clear that beliefs supporting Palestinian rights can be worthy of respect in a democratic society, and that weaponisation of disciplinary action may give rise to unlawful discrimination.

Ms Sohail and Mrs Khalid should be recognised for their principled decision to pursue this case, which has helped clarify the law and strengthen protections for workers who seek to express deeply held beliefs in the workplace.

The so-called 'IHRA working definition of antisemitism' has been rejected even by its author as unfit for purpose. It has been rejected by legal experts, including Jewish experts, as legally useless for anything but attacking critics of Israel. It is frequently presented as the gold standard and used to protect Israel from criticism.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

US Senator and professional Southern Good Ol' Boy Lindsey Graham says the future of warfare looks like Israel's genocidal attack on Gaza. For once South Carolina's most swivel-eyed hard-right Zionist is bang on the money. And the evidence is right under American noses…

Graham told an audience in Tel Aviv:

The wars of the future are being planned here in Israel.

He insisted that

the most clever, creative military forces on the planet are here in Israel because they have to be to survive

Adding:

So what we're looking at is that Israel is advancing down the road to new weaponry far beyond us. And it would be nice to have a process where we could be partners.

Self-evidently, a lot of this is is garbage, including the myth of 'poor little Israel' fighting to survive in the midst of its enemies. The nuclear-armed settler-colonial state has been backed and armed by - and for the benefit of - Western imperial powers since the very beginning.

Lindsey Graham chats shit from Minnesota to Gaza

Graham is right though that the genocide in Gaza contain a blueprint for future warfighting. In fact, we can even see that taking place inside the US.

As +972 reported on 12 February:

ICE operations increasingly resemble Israeli occupation. That's no coincidence.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are US president Donald Trump's own paramilitary force. Officially their remit is to detain undocumented migrants. In reality, they are being used to discipline Trump's enemies - using Israeli-linked tactics and AI.

Using apps like ELITE and Fortify, ICE's occupations in places like Minnesota have mirrored Israeli methods.

The technologies supporting their operations illustrate how thoroughly ICE is following in Israel's footsteps: both ELITE and Mobile Fortify bear a striking resemblance to mobile targeting applications Israeli forces have integrated into their policing arsenal over the last decade.

Graham may be a clown, but even the most ridiculous court jester can stumble upon profound truths.

And in a shock no nobody who has been following the news lately, Graham singled out the UAE for special praise:

Graham told his audience that butcher of Gaza 'Bibi' Netanyahu wanted him to tell the UAE's leaders what a great partner the oil state had been to Israel.

I want to go there tomorrow to and acknowledge MBZ's leadership and suggest that America improve his capability to defend the UAE and the region.

The UAE, like Israel, is currently deeply implicated in genocide. The UAE is supporting Sudan's Rapid Support Forces in a war which has killed and displaced millions over the last three years. Here are a whole raft of articles on Sudan we've done lately.

Blowback

Lindsey Graham has never seen a genocide - or met a genocidaire - he didn't like. But at the heart of his commentary there is a fundamental truth: Israel has laid the groundwork for a new scorched earth way of war powered by a deranged cocktail of old-fashioned colonial racism and new-fashioned technology.

For my first piece back at the Canary in 2025 I wrote about what Hannah Arendt would call the imperial boomerang. You can read that here.

But Arendt was merely drawing on something Aimé Césaire had developed. Césaire, a seminal anti-colonialist writer, said of Europeans that before the tactics and technologies of empire exploded back into the imperial core as 20th century fascism:

They tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, … they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples.

It's awfully late in the day, folks. But if I was you, I'd get reading…

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

The following is a repost of a piece by Areej Alghazzawi which Amnesty International published on 16 February.

Silent Traumas

Trauma follows us like our shadows during daylight. At night, trauma envelopes us until we feel like we are drowning.

Trauma also lives inside us like a disease. Good people in Geneva, New York, and The Hague say there is a cure, but we can't inject their statements.

14-year-old Shorouq Thabet is the only survivor of her immediate family, who were all killed during Israel's genocide. When I first asked her how she was, she simply responded with "nightmare".

Adulthood is being forced on Shorouq, and she fights it by fantasising about being a young child again, when her only worry was wondering where her doll had wandered off to.

She longs to hear her parents' voices; even their arguments could bring some comfort. They were killed in Deir Al-Balah following an Israeli attack on 17 March 2024. It was the last time she would sleep beside her mother and feel that special warmth. It was the last time she'd play with her younger sister, Shahed.

Destruction everywhere and in everyone in Gaza

Shorouq has been in therapy for some time now in the hope of learning to resist the darkness. Until now, there has been no relief. The smell and sight of destruction that is everywhere, and in everyone, in Gaza, open up the wounds again within seconds of leaving her therapy sessions.

On the night of the Israeli strike, she told me she had a strange feeling - that danger was in the room with them. She asked her mother to turn on a flashlight and hold her closely.

At some point, she said she managed to sleep, but when she woke, she was in a hospital. Her mother had survived the attack and was covered in blood:

She was frantically checking on me, my sister, and two brothers, Mohammed and Ahmad. I could see her but not feel her. I was going in and out of the darkness.

It was the first time she had seen her mother in such pain. Her mother's face, covered in blood, is the last memory she has of her.

Her mother didn't survive, nor did her father, little sister, or older brothers. The full details of her family massacre were only told to her when she was out of the hospital after seven days of urgent medical attention.

Everybody was crying. Nobody was talking.

Now she lives with her uncle Wael and his wife. I saw many people gathered at their home when Shorouq arrived. Everybody was crying. Nobody was talking.

A few days later, Shorouq told me:

At that moment, surrounded by so many unhappy people, I felt a change. I felt myself turning into an adult, with responsibilities. Now is not the time of dolls and dreams.

Try as she did to resist the pain, it was clear that young Shorouq just wanted to say a last goodbye to her sister and play together one more time.

Her lack of closure has been explored in her therapy sessions. The therapist asks her to draw what she feels. Sometimes, an empty paper expresses everything she feels.

She told me:

I used to love playing with dolls with Shahed. After the massacre, I lost my interest in everything. I actually still have a small piece of my doll that I found under the rubble.

In her free time, when she is not in school, she feels the pressure, and the flashbacks come back. She tells me she is consumed with uncontrollable thoughts. Now she is enrolled in an additional school. The time spent studying is an attempt to escape from her memories.

The detachment may be helping. Recently, Shorouq told me:

I hung a drawing on the door in my room. It's a drawing of a warm home with open windows. Each morning, I look at that because it looks like peace.

Areej Alghazzawi is a junior accountancy student at the Islamic University of Gaza. She hopes to become a teacher and an accountant. She had one year left of her studies before Israel's attack put her hopes on hold.

Alghazzawi is currently displaced but still in Gaza and, along with her family members, struggling every day to survive.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

The mainstream media are choosing to ignore blatant anti-semitism and Islamophobia from Rupert Lowe's new racist party, Restore Britain.

Hey I wonder if this party unambiguous believing that Jewish people can't be British will receive much press attention. pic.twitter.com/j4dB7YuP2f

— linkshund (@linkshund) February 17, 2026

During an interview with Talk TV, Charlie Downes, campaigns director and spokesperson for Restore Britain, stated that Reform UK do not have a clear picture of who the British people are.

Then, in a follow-up post on X, Downes stated:

Restore Britain believe that Britain is a people defined by indigenous British ancestry and Christian faith.

Essentially, Restore Britain has shown itself to be anti-anything that isn't white Christian.

You've never clearly explained what British is

You say ethnicity, then waver into some cultural ties, then go to the way of life, then dip into religion, and end up with Christianity

Excuse me, Celtic Britons were there before. How do you dismiss that blood line?#RestoreGate https://t.co/QawK1tbNXw

— JustCallMeMum

In their latest in a long string of U-turns, Labour have announced that local elections will now go ahead as normal in May 2026.

The ruling party had previously called to postpone elections in 30 locations across England. This was ostensibly intended to allow time and capacity for a sweeping restructure of local government.

However, the parliamentary Labour party (PLP) reversed its decision after learning that it would likely lose against Nigel Farage's legal challenge to the delay.

Labour: 'doubled-up bureaucracy'

The government originally laid out plans to restructure local authorities back in 2024. This included proposals to merge some district and county councils into a single unitary authority, and to combine some adjacent councils into one.

In 2025, nine local authorities successfully applied to postpone elections whilst they carried out the reconfiguration.

However, in December 2025, Labour wrote to councils asking if they wished to delay the 2026 elections. 30 local authorities accepted the offer. These included 21 Labour-led councils, five Conservatives, two Lib Dems, and one each Green and Independent.

In January, Reed told the Commons:

We must move at pace to remove the confusion and waste of doubled-up bureaucracy. I have asked councils to tell me where holding elections this year to positions that will rapidly be abolished would slow down making these vital reforms, which will benefit local people, and I have listened to what councils told me.

However, that 'doubled-up bureaucracy' is now precisely what's facing local authorities. Only now, Labour have made themselves look spineless and anti-democratic into the bargain.

'Punishment voting'

The high proportion of Labour councils among those that chose to delay led many commentators to accuse the PLP of desperately clinging on to power in the face of what could otherwise be a major string of losses for the party.

Following this, Nigel Farage brought a legal challenge against the delays, which would have been heard on 19 and 20 February. The Reform UK leader was expected to argue that the plans violated democratic rights.

Sources close to the government have stated that Reed was warned back in January that the postponements would be vulnerable to legal review. However, it's only in the last few days that lawyers informed the local government minister that Labour would likely lose against Farage's challenge.

Farage clearly believes that the local election U-turn has played right into Reform's hands. On 16 February, he gloated:

You can look at Norfolk, Suffolk, East Sussex and West Sussex, and you can say, well, these are the Tory heartlands. But I think there's going to be a degree of punishment voting going on when these elections happen. So I fancy our chances there.

Labour now also find themselves facing down a £100,000 legal bill from Reform, for their trouble. And, they've just made things much harder for local councils anyway. Local government minister Steve Reed has promised £63m to the affected councils to help with the unexpected administrative costs. Council leaders will now have to rehire polling station venues, and scrabble to find returning officers - or even candidates - at short notice.

The Local Government Information Unit stated that:

This most recent announcement means that 30 councils will now have to run elections within an even more constrained timetable. This risks the successful delivery of elections in all of these places, not to mention the additional strain it will needlessly add to the workloads of dedicated staff.

U-turn after U-turn

The reversal of the plans to delay the local elections also comes as a humiliating blow for the embattled Kier Starmer. The PMs list of high-publicity policy U-turns now includes Personal Independence Payment cuts, the Universal Credit health element, winter fuel payments, audit reform, and ground rent abolition.

Faced with a similar list of his pathetic flip-flopping from the BBC's Jeremy Vine, Starmer said:

I am a pragmatist. I am a common-sense merchant.

Personally, we at the Canary think that 'spineless charlatan unfit for office' would be more accurate. But then, the Labour leader never has said anything that accurate, has he?

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

Portugal has established itself as a frontrunner in sustainable tourism, blending its rich cultural heritage with eco-friendly practices. Many travellers appreciate the abundance of holiday villas in Portugal that align seamlessly with these initiatives, highlighting a commitment that sets a benchmark for other nations.

In recent years, Portugal has become synonymous with sustainable tourism, drawing visitors who value environmental stewardship. Enjoying Portugal villa holidays provides a way to protect the countries landscapes by engaging with responsible travel across various sectors. These holidays have gained popularity among those seeking an eco-conscious getaway. As you explore this picturesque country, you'll discover how its green initiatives are transforming the travel experience while safeguarding its cherished ecosystems. For travellers seeking a villa in Portugal that embraces sustainability, the options continue to grow.

Why Portugal is a top holiday destination

Portugal consistently ranks as a top holiday destination due to its favourable climate, stunning coastline, rich gastronomy, and reputation for safety. The Algarve and Lisbon Coast are particularly renowned for their breathtaking beaches and vibrant cultural scenes. Additionally, the Portuguese countryside offers tranquil retreats with picturesque landscapes, making it ideal for travellers seeking both relaxation and adventure.

These regions provide diverse experiences that cater to different preferences, from exploring historic cities to enjoying outdoor activities like hiking and surfing. Portugal's commitment to preserving its natural beauty while offering modern amenities enhances its appeal to tourists worldwide. This balance of tradition and innovation ensures that visitors can enjoy a memorable holiday experience in this captivating country. Booking holiday rentals in Portugal has become a preferred choice for those who appreciate both privacy and the chance to experience the local culture authentically.

Beyond its natural attractions, Portugal boasts a welcoming atmosphere that makes visitors feel at home from the moment they arrive. The Portuguese people are known for their warm hospitality and genuine friendliness, creating an inviting environment for international travellers. The country's excellent infrastructure, including well-maintained roads, reliable public transportation, and modern airports, ensures seamless travel throughout the region. With its affordable cost of living compared to other Western European destinations, Portugal offers exceptional value without sacrificing quality, making it accessible to travellers with varying budgets.

Many visitors also opt for a holiday villa in Portugal when seeking more authentic experiences in smaller towns. Whether exploring coastal hotspots or venturing inland, a Villa holiday in Portugal provides exclusive comfort and opportunities for cultural immersion.

The benefits of holiday villas over hotels

Choosing a holiday villa in Portugal offers numerous advantages over traditional hotel stays. Villas provide more space, privacy, and flexibility, making them perfect for families and groups. Guests can enjoy private pools, expansive outdoor areas, and fully equipped kitchens, allowing for personalised experiences tailored to their needs.

Holiday villas also offer greater value by accommodating larger groups at a lower cost per person compared to hotels. This option allows travellers to enjoy luxurious amenities and scenic locations without compromising on budget. By opting for a Villa holiday in Portugal, visitors can immerse themselves in the local culture while enjoying the comforts of home.

Booking through specialists versus large platforms

Booking a holiday villa through trusted villa rental specialists in Portugal offers distinct advantages over using large platforms. Specialists provide personalised service and expert knowledge of the local area, ensuring guests find the perfect accommodation for their needs. They often manage professionally maintained villas, guaranteeing high standards of cleanliness and comfort. For travellers who prefer holiday villas in Portugal, specialized booking services frequently deliver unmatched value and peace of mind.

These specialists also offer exclusive access to unique properties and insider tips on local attractions and activities. By choosing a specialist, travellers benefit from a tailored experience that enhances their holiday, providing peace of mind and ensuring a memorable stay. Whether you seek a villa in Portugal near the coast or a quiet countryside retreat, these experts can match you with the ideal accommodation. This approach contrasts with the often impersonal experience of booking through large platforms, where customer service and local insights may be limited.

Portugal's global leadership in sustainable tourism

Portugal's comprehensive approach to sustainable tourism positions it as a global leader in balancing visitor satisfaction with environmental preservation. By integrating government policies with community-led initiatives, the country has created a blueprint for responsible travel that other nations can emulate. The success of Portugal villa holidays serves as a testament to the effectiveness of these strategies in attracting tourists while safeguarding natural resources.

The ongoing commitment to sustainability ensures that a holiday villa in Portugal remains an attractive option for discerning travellers who prioritise eco-friendly practices. As nations worldwide grapple with the challenges of balancing economic growth with environmental protection, Portugal stands out as an inspiring example of how thoughtful policies and community engagement can lead to lasting positive change.

By Nathan Spears

Outrage is rightly growing at the decision of the UK government to award a huge NHS contract to genocide-collaborating US software firm Palantir. The company's CEO Alex Karp is just one of its unhinged top executives - but he's way (way, way, way) out there. And he's perfectly prepared to say out loud that there are few, if any, tactics he's not ready to resort to. Including spraying piss laced with a deadly drug onto journalists he doesn't like:

https://www.thecanary.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/FOTcMQy2d3hzP9W71.mp4

Karp: "You need a higher purpose, and I think you often need a lower purpose."

Andrew Sorkin: "What's your lower purpose?"

Karp: "I love the idea of getting a drone and having light fentanyl-laced urine spraying on analysts that tried to screw us."

Fentanyl is a deadly opioid drug 50-100 times stronger than heroin. US president Donald Trump uses fake claims of shipping it as an excuse to murder fishermen and kidnap Venezuela's president - with the help of Karp's company. Dealing in fentanyl is terrorism, according to Trump. Karp, however, wants to spray it on innocent critics - but clearly that's ok because he's a Trump backer.

It ought to be unbelievable, but isn't, that this isn't an aberration for Karp - or even his wildest comment. In 2025, he boasted of how his company kills people for profit. He is also a fan of genocide who has claimed that the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians Palantir helped Israel murder in Gaza are "mostly terrorists":

Palantir shouldn't be anywhere near the NHS. It should be banned altogether in the UK and in a sane world Karp should be on trial for genocide.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

A Swiss Olympics commentator has done what no British counterpart will do - challenge why genocidal Israel is allowed to compete.

Stefan Renna, who works for Swiss Radio and Television (RTS), pointed out that bobsled racer Adam Edelman calls himself "Zionist to the core". Edelman has also made numerous social media posts supporting Israel's Gaza genocide. Renna even used the g-word - genocide - that terrifies UK corporate 'journalists', referring to the findings of the UN International Commission of Inquiry, adding:

I am familiar with this terminology. Edelman described Israel's military intervention as the most moral and just war in history.

Renna reminded viewers that Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych had been banned from wearing a helmet featuring photos of those who died in the war in his country. And he even dared to point out the hypocrisy of the Olympics committee banning Russians who supported that country's war in Ukraine - yet welcoming openly genocidal Israelis:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Canary (@thecanaryuk)

Renna's point was well made, legally watertight, and morally flawless. So of course he has been viciously targeted by the Israel lobby for his 'rant'. Oh for a fraction of his backbone among the cowardly and hypocritical UK 'mainstream' media.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Travel in China often depends on reliable mobile access for maps, payments, and bookings. Installing an eSIM before departure helps avoid airport SIM lines and last-minute setup delays. A clear checklist keeps the process smooth from purchase to activation, so let's explore.

Device Compatibility Check

China eSIMs work only on devices that support embedded SIM technology, so checking this first prevents frustration later. Most recent flagship phones include this feature, but older or budget models may not. Settings menus usually include an option to add a mobile plan under the cellular or network section. A quick check before purchase saves time and avoids refund requests.

Unlocked devices allow foreign data profiles without carrier limits that block installation. Software updates may improve compatibility or fix small bugs in network settings. Manufacturer websites list supported models and system requirements clearly. This step lays the foundation for a smooth setup before the trip.

Purchase And QR Code Access

After choosing a plan, providers send a QR code by email or through their app dashboard. This code links the phone to the new data profile during installation. A stable WiFi connection helps during the download stage, especially for large profile files. Saving the QR code image prevents loss if emails get buried.

Payment confirmation emails usually include installation steps and support links. Some providers also offer manual entry codes in case the camera scan fails. Keeping these details in cloud storage adds an extra layer of backup. Buying the plan before departure removes airport stress.

Profile Installation Steps

Phone settings include a mobile or cellular data section where new plans can be added. Selecting the add plan opens the camera for QR code scanning. The device then downloads the eSIM profile automatically in the background. Naming the profile helps identify it later among other lines.

Installation usually takes a few minutes, depending on connection speed. Keeping WiFi active during this time avoids interruptions or incomplete downloads. Restarting the phone after installation can help finalize the setup. Profiles stay stored even before activation begins.

Data Line Settings

Phones often allow multiple data lines when more than one profile exists on the device. Choosing the correct line ensures the correct network is used upon arrival. Disabling home SIM data prevents unexpected roaming charges from the primary carrier. Setting the new profile as primary supports smooth mobile use.

Signal bars may appear only after arrival in China when the device connects to local networks. Some phones show the plan status as inactive before entering the coverage zone. Checking data roaming settings inside the eSIM profile helps avoid confusion. Correct setup prevents most network errors.

Activation Timing

Most China eSIM plans activate on the first successful network connection within the country. Turning on the new line only after landing starts the validity period correctly. A stable connection at the airport helps confirm that the service works properly. Early activation abroad may reduce available usage days.

• Turn on the eSIM line after landing
• Confirm the mobile data option is selected
• Check signal bars and the data icon
• Test a map or message app

Tracking the activation date helps manage remaining usage days. Support teams can assist quickly if the service fails to start. Proper timing avoids wasted validity.

App And APN Settings

Some providers include automatic network settings that work without extra input. Others may require manual APN details that appear in the instruction email. Entering the correct values ensures stable data access across networks. Incorrect APN settings often cause connection failure.

A phone restart can refresh the network connection after manual entry. Testing web browsing confirms whether the setup works correctly. The internet speed depends on local coverage and network congestion. Keeping instruction screenshots helps if a reset becomes necessary.

Check the Troubleshooting Basics

The signal may take a short moment to appear after arrival, especially in underground terminals or crowded transport hubs. Toggling airplane mode can quickly refresh the connection when the network is not available at all. A device restart often resolves minor issues with network registration or profile loading. 

• Turn airplane mode on and off
• Restart the device
• Confirm the correct data line is selected
• Check that data roaming is enabled

Customer support chat assists with technical questions in real time when steps do not work. Screenshots of settings help explain problems more clearly to support teams. Avoid deleting the profile unless support recommends it as a final step. Most issues resolve with small adjustments and patience.

A clear checklist makes eSIM setup simple before travel in China and reduces stress during arrival. Device checks, QR code storage, and correct activation steps ensure smooth mobile access. China eSIM plans provide reliable data for maps, payments, bookings, and communication. With preparation complete, digital tools stay ready throughout the journey.

By Nathan Spears

LGBTQIA+ advocacy group The Rainbow Project (TRP) have "unequivocally" condemned Northern Ireland Executive health minister Mike Nesbitt's decision to further perpetuate the discrimination of trans people. Nesbitt has chosen to suspend the region's participation in a clinical trial of puberty blockers.

In a statement, TRP said:

This decision runs contrary to the Executive's stated agreement to participate in this trial, and demonstrates that the apparent need for evidence-gathering and more research are being abandoned in favour of political game-playing and culture wars.

TRP's Policy Campaigns & Communications Manager Alexa Moore added:

The Executive claimed that its ban on puberty blockers was based on evidence: this decision is very clearly based on politics. This clinical trial was held up by Executive parties across the board as a means by which to gather the evidence for the use of blockers, assess their safety and efficacy, and make a decision on their use on that basis.

Trans communities are bearing the brunt of a political culture that views us as a stick with which to beat political opponents, not as real people with real lives and real healthcare needs. This decision demonstrates that no amount of evidence, no amount of research, no amount of suffering within trans communities will trump the need for politicians to score political points against each other at our expense.

Puberty blockers are, as the name suggests, are a class of drugs that can delay the onset of puberty. They can be used by transgender youth as a means of ensuring their physical characteristics match their gender identity. Their use for under-18s is currently banned in Britain and the North of Ireland. The clinical trial underway across Britain will ostensibly allow further insight into their efficacy.

Nesbitt driven by hatred against trans people rather than evidence

First minister Michelle O'Neill also characterised Nesbitt's move as political, saying it is "more about inter-unionist rivalry", and describing it as "disgraceful". It should be noted that O'Neill's party Sinn Féin are little better, however. They backed the 2024 outlawing of puberty blockers. That move resulted in various Pride events banning the party, along with others who voted the same way. Criticism of Nesbitt's latest move is absent from the well populated news feed on the Sinn Féin website, and from O'Neill's social media feeds.

Nonetheless, there's little doubt Nesbitt's move is politically motivated. The health minister is an MLA for the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). The post on the party's Facebook page announcing the u-turn clearly indicates the political manoeuvring behind the decision to throw trans people under the bus.

The graphic shown twice mentions the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), seemingly contrasting the UUP's latest assault on trans rights with a supposedly liberal approach of the DUP. The post singles out the latter for their previous work developing gender health services for children, before going on to boast of the UUP's move to ban sale and supply of puberty blockers. In reality the DUP are not at all friends of the trans community, and regularly use them as playthings for a pathetic culture war.

The political nature of Nesbitt's move was further revealed by the nonsensical answers he gave in the Assembly chamber on Monday February 16. He repeatedly claimed to be following the science and expert opinion. If that is the case, why cease a trial that would enable proper scientific conclusions?

He also asserted that his move was to ward off the:

…issue developing into another executive row.

It has now become just that, as opposition parties denounced Nesbitt for his u-turn. People Before Profit's Gerry Carroll described the suspension as:

…a decision motivated by moral panic and transphobic politicking - not the interests of young people.

Lack of proper care causing suicides among transgender youth

The health minister's rash decision comes in the aftermath of fresh evidence about the harms of denying young transgender people proper healthcare. A freedom of information (FOI) request by the Good Law Project (GLP) found that:

…in 2021-2022 suicides of trans children in England surged to 22, a marked increase from 5 and 4 the previous two years. This spike follows the decision by NHS England to pull down the shutters on gender affirming healthcare for young trans people following detransitioner Keira Bell's case against the Tavistock.

Tavistock was a centre for providing healthcare catering to trans people. The GLP previously reported on how minutes from Tavistock's board meetings indicated they withheld information on deaths "due to reputational impact". It is illegal to refuse a freedom of information request on these grounds. Whistleblowers who wanted to reveal the spike in suicides were threatened with disciplinary action by Tavistock management.

Health secretary Wes Streeting's response has been a policy of shooting the messenger. He has attacked those reporting on the way his health service fails transgender youth, rather than fixing the problem.

Streeting is no doubt concerned about attacks from the right should he advocate on behalf of trans people. His Stormont counterpart is the same, driven by fear of the DUP and Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV). Their cravenness will only spell more hardship for an already maligned and marginalised community.

Featured image via the Canary

By Robert Freeman

The fake video a number of European governments are using to demand the resignation of Palestinian rights champion Francesca Albanese was created by a UN-accredited Israel lobby group.

The Orwellian-named 'UN Watch' claims to exist to hold the UN to its charter. In fact, it is an outright Israel lobby group - but one with access to the corridors of the UN in Geneva. It has unequivocal anti-Albanese form - it tried and failed in 2025 to prevent her re-accreditation as UN special rapporteur for occupied Palestine.

Having failed via the open route to oust Albanese, it is now accused - with evidence - of trying to do it by creating a fake video of her. The video supposedly showed Albanese describing Israel as the 'common enemy of the world'. This would have been accurate, but was not actually what she had said in her speech.

As former UN human rights commissioner Craig Mokhiber observed, the "despicable" UN Watch has decades of form and has no place anywhere near the UN, but is also invited by US politicians to address them. Mokhiber demanded the withdrawal of its UN credentials:

Notorious Israel regime proxy group, "UN Watch", set up in the 1990s by former Israel lobbyist and US ambassador Morris Abrams to harass and smear UN human rights defenders on behalf of the regime, is reported (below) to be behind the fabricated video used to attack UN Rapporteur… https://t.co/sFVADfatdI

— Craig Mokhiber (@CraigMokhiber) February 14, 2026

Notorious Israel regime proxy group, "UN Watch", set up in the 1990s by former Israel lobbyist and US ambassador Morris Abrams to harass and smear UN human rights defenders on behalf of the regime, is reported (below) to be behind the fabricated video used to attack UN Rapporteur
@FranceskAlbs.

This despicable group has carried out such dirty tricks at the UN on behalf of the regime for decades with absolute impunity. It perfidiously poses variously as a "watch dog" or human rights group, spreads lies, and smears all critics of the Israeli regime as "antisemites." And still the UN grants it "ECOSOC consultative status" credentials that allow it UN access to harass and smear UN personnel and disrupt UN proceedings. Like the regime itself, the impunity of this harassment cell has been secured through the active support of the US government (missions) in Geneva and New York.

And Israel lobby-corrupted members of Congress periodically allow them to brief US congressional committees where they regularly slander UN personnel and processes. Its UN credentials must be withdrawn and its impunity must end now. Defenders of colonialism, apartheid, and genocide and serial harassers of UN personnel have no place in the corridors of the UN.

And the evidence appears strong that the lobby group is the origin of the fake video. As policy expert Martin Konečný pointed out, the first appearance of the video online appears to have been in a post by UN Watch director and Israel propagandist Hillel Neuer:

Time to ask who is the original source of the manipulated video of @FranceskAlbs that several European governments jumped on to demand her resignation?

It appears to come from pro-Israel propagandist @HillelNeuer, executive director of @UNWatch. (Says also Grok.

Keir Starmer has denied knowing that the shady 'Labour Together' sabotage outfit that put him into Labour's top seat was spying on journalists. But his office and front bench were knee-deep in it. And the details keep coming out.

Labour Together goes after Murdoch hacks

Labour Together's spying on journalists has been public knowledge for months. But those were independent, left-wing journalists and authors. So none of the 'mainstream' media or political establishment cared much. But now it's public that it was using the same PR firm to dig — and allegedly make up-dirt on two hacks working for press baron Rupert Murdoch. So it's suddenly 'become' a scandal.

So far, so predictable. But as more information comes out, Starmer's denials look increasingly hollow. We already know that his disgraced, recently-resigned chief of staff Morgan McSweeney ran Labour Together for much of the critical period. We know also know that his cabinet minister Steve Reed was involved up to the elbows. So was Reed's fellow cabinet minister Lisa Nandy. And Josh Simons, now a Starmer front-bencher, ordered the £30k spying campaign.

But yet another tight-link to Starmer has come out.

Courting APCO

In September 2025, Starmer's strategy director Paul Ovenden was forced to resign after his obscene messages leaked to the hard-right media.

And in breaking news, we now know that Ovenden's wife, Kate Forrester, was Director of APCO Worldwide — the firm Labour Together hired to spy on and smear two Sunday Times journalists who were investigating its "slush funds and secret donations".

BREAKING: Kate Forrester, wife of Keir Starmer's disgraced ex-Director of Strategy Paul Ovenden, was Director of APCO Worldwide — the private investigator hired by Labour Together 'think tank' to trash Sunday Times journalists who exposed its slush funds and secret donations. https://t.co/66UfdYm5rx pic.twitter.com/A7YGCPYCIj

— Joe Rich (@joerichlaw) February 16, 2026

If Succession or Billions came up with this kind of psycho-drama plot, people would say it was too far-fetched. In Keir Starmer's 'Labour', reality is too wild for fiction.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

"We want are country back" may be the regular refrain of the British far right, but it seems their candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election in Manchester, Matthew Goodwin, isn't afraid of a bit of foreign cash.

Or a lot of foreign cash.

British far-right, courts Hungarian far-right

According to a new exposé by the Goodlaw Project, Goodwin has been taking as much as ten grand a month from a Hungarian far right institution that serves as a propaganda machine for fascist Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán.

Even worse, from a British 'fash' point of view, it's not even ten grand in 'fine English pounds' — but 10,000 euros. The horror.

Of course, the UK far right is no stranger to a bit of hypocrisy, either. Just ask the various child abusers behind the 'grooming gang' moral panic - or the immigrant-smugglers protesting outside asylum-seeker hotels. But they don't like being outed and put on the spot about it.

Poaching wealthy donors

Goodwin's not the only one taking wads from Hungary's so-called 'Mathias Corvinus Collegium' (MCC). MCC has been ladling moolah onto the British far-right, but Mr G seems to have been a leading beneficiary.

Some residents of Gorton and Denton may not have been put off voting Reform by Goodwin being a posh southern academic who wants girls to get pregnant younger. But they might just be put off by him taking cash from Johnny foreigner.

In Euros, to boot, Goodwin's cashflow speaks volumes.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

On 12 February, the government announced that it will soon publish guidance for schools regarding trans pupils. The press release states that schools must take a "very careful approach" when a pupil "asks to socially transition".

'Social transition' refers to the non-medical aspects of transitioning. It can include changing one's name, wearing different clothes, and using different pronouns.

The press release goes on to state that:

It clearly sets out that single sex spaces must be protected. Without exception, no child should be made to feel unsafe through inappropriate mixed sex sport, and there should be no sharing of school and college toilet facilities over eight years old or mixed sex sleeping arrangements on trips.

It is also vital that schools and teachers are aware of any child's birth sex to be able to take appropriate action where needed, so the guidance will also make clear that this must be accurately recorded in school and college records.

Single sex spaces "must be protected" — with the 'from trans kids' left implicit. No child should be made to feel unsafe — with the 'no cis child' unsaid but clearly in mind. These statements frame trans children as a threat, and as potential deceivers.

Even the framing of "asking" to transition socially implies that it's not utterly ridiculous for a school to refuse to use a pupil's chosen name and pronouns. But then, that's the level that the UK has sunk to. Any aspect of transness is now considered a legitimate topic for debate.

'Political football'

Joining in on the game of political football that is trans existence, education secretary Bridget Phillipson said:

Parents send their children to school and college trusting that they'll be protected. Teachers work tirelessly to keep them safe. That's not negotiable, and it's not a political football.

That's why we're following the evidence, including Dr Hilary Cass's expert review, to give teachers the clarity they need to ensure the safeguarding and wellbeing of gender questioning children and young people.

Likewise, the draft guidance itself also states repeatedly that it is supported by Dr Hilary Cass. Cass wrote the Cass report, which was filled with spurious abuses of science in the name of denying healthcare to trans children.

The press release stated that the draft guidance was:

Backed by Baroness Cass, whose review warned that strong evidence about the impact of social transition remains limited, the guidance says children's wellbeing and safeguarding must be at the centre of every decision and schools cannot take a one size fits all approach.

Cass was completely inexperienced with trans healthcare before she was chosen to write her review. However, she was at least a medical doctor. By contrast, her expertise regarding social transition - which has nothing to do with gender medicine - is less than worthless. It follows that Labour set so much store by her opinion.

'Losing any hope'

Meanwhile, experts and campaigners who are actually invested in the wellbeing of trans youth have condemned the draft guidance.

Cal Horton, a researcher specialising in trans youth, stated that:

Trans children need to be supported and respected in order to be safe at school, in order to access their right to education, in order to enjoy their childhood.

Instead, we are seeing a complete ban on access to appropriate toilets, PE, accommodation on school trips, a complete erosion of their rights.

It will lead to children avoiding the bathroom, avoiding exercise, missing out on school trips, dropping out of school, losing any hope of education, equality, friendship, happiness.

Likewise, advocacy organisation Trans Actual was scathing in its reaction:

It's absurd for this Government's proposed guidance to suggest that schools need to seek clinical advice if a young person wants to change their name, uniform or hairstyle.

Being trans is not a medical condition nor is it an unwanted life outcome to be guarded against, it is a healthy way that many people choose to express themselves.

All young people need safe and supportive schools yet this Government's proposed guidance risks leading to trans young people being outed to their families against their wishes.

As it stands, this guidance does nothing to help schools to include trans pupils - nor to address the epidemic of anti-trans bullying promoted by misogynist influencers.

The guidance will not become law until September of this year. However, if this draft is anything to go by, the final document will continue Labour's current streak of kicking trans people and calling it fair play.

At its heart, this document refuses to treat trans schoolchildren as the vulnerable minority they are, and instead figures them as an active threat to the cis majority.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

The fallout from the Epstein files has been relentless. Those implicated in the dirty saga include UK Royals, members of our political class, the mainstream media, the "broligrachy," and others.

Still, one area corporate media coverage has ignored is the convicted sex-trafficker's feigned interest in polio eradication in the Global South. But why would a notorious predator and trafficker bother to involve himself with healthcare management in South Asia?

No champion of polio eradication

Among the tranche of files released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Epstein appears in a video speaking with an off-camera interviewer whose voice resembles Steve Bannon's. Responding to the interviewer, Epstein justifies his ties to "dirty money," claiming to have helped with polio eradication in India and Pakistan — a convenient cover for a sex predator.

The Epstein files also include confidential reports on polio eradication efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, marked "CONFIDENTIAL — DO NOT CIRCULATE."

The emerging pattern is one the Canary has repeatedly reported on. Epstein used his deep pockets to court Western diplomats, global philanthropists, and political figures. His alleged interest in polio work was another power grab. He was using cash to climb the ranks. It was never about vaccines.

He positioned himself in global health by feigning noble interests. The release of the DOJ files proves this was nothing more than a mask to hide his predatory depravity.

Epstein-Gates connection

The DOJ files show that the Gates Foundation was implicated in these lobbying efforts. The organisation — long at the forefront of global polio immunisation efforts — provided substantial funding for these IPI-led campaigns. An email exchange between Rod-Larsen and Epstein in September 2013 showed them discussing how to structure Gates Foundation funding for IPI's polio work. And another email from the same year, sent by a senior program officer at the Gates Foundation, the IPI was described as well placed to:

identify potential influencers/high-level contacts that can move the work forward and recommendations for how/whether BMGF, GPEI UN partners (UNICEF/WHO) and others should engage with such contacts.

The same email chains shows Epstein committing to $1 million per year for polio programmes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Northern Nigeria, and Somalia — a whopping $15 million over five years. He instructed that Bill Gates' name should not appear on a proposed peace center.

But by March 2015, the relationship had run its course, due to the reputational risk attached to Epstein's criminal behaviour, and the funds Epstein promised which Gates never received.

Leveraging polio eradication for political gain

Epstein's interest in polio projects in Pakistan was enabled through associates at the International Peace Institute (IPI), including senior staff.

Terje Rød-Larsen, its former president and ex-diplomat to Norway, is mentioned multiple times in the files. He stepped down from his role in disgrace after his ties to the convicted child-rapist made global headlines. Moreover, Rød-Larsen, as the DOJ files suggest, was a key ally of Epstein. He is currently under investigation by Norwegian police.

Rød-Larsen and IPI director, Andrea Pfanzelter, received intelligence briefings from a Pakistan-based field operative Nasra Hassan. They forwarded these reports to Epstein. The paper trail begins in April 2013. Emails from Hassan to Rød-Larsen describe meeting with Pakistani tribal leaders and government officials, and their changing position on polio eradication. Commenting on a chat had with a senior member of the Taliban, Hassan said:

It appears that religion-based refusal [of polio vaccination] is a very tiny.

However, the declassified files suggest interest in polio eradication ranked second to political ambitions. In June 2013, Hassan sent an email warning that Bill Gates' public outreach to Pakistan's ex-prime minister and opposition figure, Imran Khan, for polio support could jeopardise back-channel talks with the Pakistani Taliban:

This will harden the Pak[istani] Taliban's position.

She noted that while the Taliban appeared more receptive to polio programmes, they remained opposed to Western involvement. She reminded Rød-Larsen that the group banned polio vaccinations in the Waziristan region in 2012:

alleging the campaign was a cover for espionage.

Hassan reiterated the need for discreet talks, stating that:

This opposite effect [the possibility of losing Taliban support] emphasizes the IPI position that polio related efforts by politicians MUST be discreet and low-key.

Epstein names Imran Khan a "threat"

Hassan's warnings about Imran Khan's public role — specifically his rejection of US imperialism — were echoed years later by Epstein himself. That's little surprise given Epstein's infiltration of Western diplomatic circles. He wooed politicians who cosied up to US — cue Peter Mandelson, Ehud Barak, among a long list of politicians he collected.

That's little surprise given [stuff about Epstein's political interference]"

Hassan's warnings about Imran Khan's public role were echoed years later by Epstein himself.

In 2018, as Drop Site News reporter Ryan Grim noted, Epstein described Khan as "very bad news."

Grim linked this to Khan's political downfall, noting that the US State Department, with help from the Pakistani military, pushed him out of office in 2022.

Khan is subject to ongoing persecution by the military establishment in Pakistan. His party has been suppressed, and he remains behind bars.

Among his opponents, former Indian diplomat, Hardeep Singh Puri, now a senior BJP official in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, also features in the DOJ files. There were email exchanges between Puri and Epstein. There were five scheduled appointments between June 2014 and January 2017. Unsurprisingly, Puri has defended himself against alleged ties to the sex predator.

Jeffrey Epstein in 2018 was claiming that @ImranKhanPTI was "really bad news," citing Pakistan's nuclear weapons. The State Dept pushed him out of office with help from the Pakistani military in 2022. pic.twitter.com/isDA4dePMj

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) November 14, 2025

Unanswered Questions

Despite the documentary trail exposing Epstein's attempts to insert polio-related initiatives, by leveraging his wealth, many questions — as raised by Pakistan's Express Tribune remain unanswered. What was Epstein's actual role in this network? Did he have ties to intelligence agencies? And why were detailed reports on Taliban leadership and polio access appearing in his inbox?

In the words of Express Tribune reporter, Shireen Qasim:

The emails raise a fundamental question: was the polio work undertaken by operatives like Hassan genuine humanitarian effort that happened to provide access to sensitive locations and information, or was the humanitarian work itself a cover for intelligence gathering - with field reports being systematically forwarded through institutional channels to someone like Epstein who had no public health credentials?

Consider the March 2013 email from Boris Nikolic, Epstein's science adviser, asking how to deal with violence in Nigeria and Pakistan, who could mediate with the Taliban and Boko Haram, and whether these groups might ever be open to polio eradication.

It is not a stretch to imagine that was no humanitarian angle to Epstein's interference in South Asia. A man with no background in public health, no government position, a documented history of manipulation and blackmail, and a suspicious interest in polio eradication? Added to that, a sickeningly powerful man with the connections to manoeuvre political instability? The red flag is flaming

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

Pressure group Northants Crips Against Cuts has told us of an upcoming protest against Reform-led West Northamptonshire Council. Despite promises of tax cuts, the local manifestation of Nigel Farage's constantly chaotic outfit is planning to raise council tax and slash services.

Campaigners will protest in Northampton on Saturday 21 February from 2pm at the top of Abington Street outside BBC Northampton.

Statement from Northants campaigners

When Reform UK took control of West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) in 2025, the party promised national tax cuts worth £90bn a year. Eight months later, that pledge lies in tatters. WNC under Reform is no different from when the Tories were in charge.

WNC now plans to raise council tax by 4.95%, meaning the average Band D home will have to shell out nearly £2,000 a year. This brazen U-turn brings more financial misery to people across West Northants.

£32.1m in council cuts and new charges

WNC aims to cut £32.1m from its budget by slashing funding for services and putting up charges, including £10.9m from adult social care. Among these are £2m axed from adult services, £900,000 from learning disability, and £300,000 from temporary housing, as well as new parking charges and insufficient funds to fix the roads.

The council claims that these cuts are "efficiencies," but we see them for what they really are. WNC is launching bare-faced attacks on vulnerable people. The council plans to bring in a handful of one-off grants to appease outraged residents, but these grants will soon run out, leaving our local services in a dire state.

Reform UK, like all the major parties, has chosen to balance the books on the backs of ill and disabled people. Under its new budget, WNC plans to rake in an extra £4.4m by raising charges for social care. People who rely on these services, shamefully referred to as "clients", have already been squeezed to near breaking point by year after year of brutal cuts.

The council cynically claims that people:

have a choice about whether they wish to use these services or not.

More lies. For vulnerable people, these resources are not a choice, they're a vital lifeline. For some, access to adult services is a matter of life and death.

Scapegoating ill and disabled people

WNC loves to blame disabled adults and children for its failures. This year, the council is set to go £10.5m over budget, and has been quick to point the finger at adult social care, housing, and special educational needs.

What they don't talk about are the millions wasted on town centre vanity projects, many of which were hit by poor planning, delays, and were never needed in the first place. The council has overspent £5.1m on the market square revamp alone, and loaned £3m to H&M to move back into the Grosvenor Centre. Reports say they wasted nearly £200,000 on the ice rink, then misreported the figures. Yet somehow, their shortfall is the fault of vulnerable people.

Councillors insist government legislation blocks them from using capital from one-off projects to fund vital services. If that's the case, why doesn't Reform UK launch a national campaign to scrap those restrictive laws and give councils more autonomy over their finances? This is supposed to be the party's whole argument. Reform claims it wants to get rid of excessive legislation, slash red tape, and bring in "common sense" politics.

Councils like WNC have shown that this is nothing but empty rhetoric. Reform only wants to cut red tape when it allows them and their wealthy mates to get even richer, or to launch more vile attacks against asylum seekers. But when the red tape lets them shirk their responsibility to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, suddenly it's their new favourite excuse. Once again, this is pure hypocrisy from our Reform-run council.

We need full funding now

Local groups have proposed a brief pause to WNC's budget cuts. Of course, none of us wants these cuts to go ahead. But a pause is not enough. After years of austerity, most local resources are severely underfunded. What good is a year or two of no cuts when so many services are already on their knees?

This plan relies on the council spending its reserves. But what happens when the money runs out? WNC will be free to pass even more severe cuts, only now we will have lost our safety net, leaving us even more vulnerable than we were before.

The only way to solve the cost-of-living crisis is to fight for full funding for all local services.

We are not asking for anything lavish. Healthcare, housing, education - these are basic human rights. We live in one of the world's richest countries. Our council spends millions on town centre vanity projects. Our government spends billions funding wars and genocide abroad. Billions are lost to tax avoidance. So why do we have 14.3 million people living in poverty?

We call for all West Northants councillors to take urgent action. Stop the cuts. Full funding now. No more pointing fingers at sick and disabled people.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

One of the leading institutes for the training of psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors is facing a raft of claims from former members of staff. They accuse it of victimisation, whistleblowing and constructive dismissal because they stood up to racism.

The Metanoia Institute in West London has 1,500 students in its undergraduate, postgraduate, and research programmes.

It claims on its website to be:

known for delivering relational, high quality, part-time, university-validated and professionally accredited training in counselling, psychotherapy, counselling psychology, and related disciplines.

Many of its former students have gone on to work in NHS services.

Legal challenge against Metanoia Institute

Five former members of professional staff, Dr Eiman Hussein, Dr Maya Mukamel, Dr Malgorzata Milewicz, Dr Jane Hunt and Cathy Lasher, will commence their legal challenges against Metanoia Institute in a hearing at London Central Employment Tribunal on 24 February 2026, which is due to last for 18 days.

A further claim of racial discrimination was ruled out of time at a preliminary hearing, because the claimants did not originally have expert representation. But the five claimants, psychological therapists, researchers, and trainers, will give evidence that during their time at Metanoia Institute they raised serious concerns about practices that they:

believed and experienced as harmful to students and staff of colour.

Psychotherapist and claimant Dr Eiman Hussein said:

Despite our efforts to address the racism that exists in Metanoia Institute internally, the responses we received were profoundly disappointing with devastating impacts. This Employment Tribunal is our last option to ensure what happened is truly seen, heard and legally tested.

Psychologist, psychotherapist and claimant Dr Maya Mukamel said:

What we both experienced and witnessed at Metanoia Institute speaks to a broader pattern within psychotherapy training institutions, where racism is rife but where the realities and impacts of it are rarely named openly and too often denied or swept under the carpet in an attempt to isolate and silence those who speak up about it.

Psychologist, psychotherapist and claimant Dr Malgorzata Milewicz said:

Our group of claimants, which includes some of us who are white and white presenting, recognises our responsibility to challenge racism within our institutions and professional communities.

Standing alongside our Black, Brown and colleagues of colour is an ethical obligation grounded in anti-oppressive practice. We must examine power, confront our own complicity, and listen when harm is named without defensiveness or retreating into neutrality.

Zita Holbourne, chair and co-founder of Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK said:

The tenacity and determination of these five courageous women in the face of the most horrific treatment by their former employer because they 'dared' to stand up to Metanoia Institute is to be applauded.

But this case is about more, it is about putting psychotherapy training organisations on notice that we will not allow them to create discriminatory and hostile environments for students and workers and they must be accountable and take urgent action to root out and prevent harmful discriminatory practices.

The Metanoia Institute claimants have received support in their legal challenge from their trade union, the Psychotherapy and Counselling Union, the Black, African and Asian Therapy Network and Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK and have gained widespread support from others.

The union has pointed out that there is often a "structural imbalance" in such cases. Institutions tend to have the security of insurance and pre-existing legal support. However claimants face huge financial risk and emotional burden.

A crowd funder has generated over £30,000 towards legal fees to date. This is an indication of the shared concern about racism at Metanoia Institute and interest in this case.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

Green leader Zack Polanski says a Green government would sign up to NATO's Article 5 and go to war if necessary. A Sky News interviewer challenged Polanski in an attempted gotcha rather reminiscent of the Corbyn-era.

Polanski told interviewer Trevor Phillips that he took national security very seriously:

That's the first job of a prime ministers, and its the first job of a party leader.

"I would absolutely commit to that."

Green Party leader Zack Polanski tells @TrevorPTweets he would sign up to NATO's Article 5, despite Keir Starmer's claims that he wouldn't.#TrevorPhillipshttps://t.co/9zBRF9VlR2

Content warning: this article contains extensive discussion of suicide

The Good Law Project (GLP) have published the results of a freedom of information (FOI) request which showed that suicides among trans youth spiked massively in 2021. This was immediately after the UK government suddenly halted almost all gender-affirming care for young trans people.

This is particularly significant given that, in 2024, the government published an 'independent' review dismissing the increase in suicides as statistically insignificant.

The review acknowledged 5 suicides. However, thanks to the FOI, we now know that there were at least 22. 22 young people took their own lives because their healthcare was suddenly ripped away by a bigoted, ideologically driven government.

In the week following the GLP's publication of its findings, the BBC has remained completely silent on the government's utter betrayal of trans youth. Instead, it chose to publish an interview with Dr. Hilary Cass, the woman responsible for continuing to deny healthcare to young trans people.

She claimed that children have been "weaponised" by both sides of the trans debate. She also denied preventing kids getting the medical care they needed.

At this point, I can hardly even blame her. I'd probably try to deny everything and blame everyone else too, if I had contributed to deepening the crisis for trans youth.

Tavistock, Bell, Cass

Back in 2020, the UK High Court ruled that it was "unlikely" that trans children could give informed consent to treatment with puberty blockers. Immediately afterwards, the NHS almost completely ceased puberty-blocking treatments.

A year later, the Court of Appeal overturned that decision. However, the NHS refused to resume its previous treatments. Instead, the then-Conservative government criminalised the prescription of puberty blockers for trans healthcare.

Following a review by Dr. Hilary Cass, the new Labour government also chose to uphold the criminalisation of puberty blockers in 2024. Dr. Cass is not a gender specialist. She had absolutely no experience or publications in trans healthcare, until the government chose her to decide the fate of trans youth.

Her report ignored basic scientific principles, applied impossible evidence standards, and was underpinned by the idea that being trans was itself undesirable. Rishi Sunak appointed her to the House of Lords for her trouble.

Whistleblowers

In 2024, the GLP raised whistleblowers' alarms that the number of suicides among patients at the Tavistock clinic - the UK's youth gender clinic - had risen sharply following the withdrawal of care. At the time, the whistleblowers stated that:

the seven years before the High Court decision there was one death of a young person on the waiting list for Gender Identity Development Services (GIDS). In the three years afterwards, there were 16.

In response, the government commissioned yet another independent review. The reviewer, Professor Louis Appleby, acknowledged just seven deaths in the three years following 2020-2021. The Appleby Review also criticised the GLP and other reporting on the issue, stating that:

The way that this issue has been discussed on social media has been insensitive, distressing and dangerous, and goes against guidance on safe reporting of suicide.

Cover-up

However, the GLP's recent FOI request revealed that the actual number of suicides among trans youth surged to 22 in the year 2021-2022. That's compared to just 5 and 4 in the two years immediately prior to the Bell ruling.

The GLP's press release explained that:

This new data was released via a freedom of information request made to the NHS-funded National Child Mortality Database (NCMD). The NCMD revealed that 46 trans children died by suicide from 2019-2025: 5 in 2019-20; 4 in 2020-21; 22 in 2021-22; and 10 in 2022-23. The NCMD adds "the numbers reported in more recent years will likely be underestimated, due to a higher proportion of child death reviews that have not yet been completed".

It went on to state the the Appleby report's sample size was notably small, focusing on a subset of children who were already at the Tavistock:

Forty-four of these deaths were within the time frame analysed for the government report by Professor Louis Appleby on suicides and gender dysphoria. That's almost four times more than the number accounted for by the Appleby report, which stated that only 12 young people (over and under 18) who were current or former patients of the Tavistock took their own lives from 2018-2024.

The Appleby review chose to focus specifically on some - the review itself is not clear - patients connected to the Gender Identity Development Service service at the Tavistock, so would not have accounted for all 44 deaths recorded by the NCMD.

'People at the extremes'

To put that another way, the government massively under-reported the suicides that resulted directly from its decisions. Then, it also blamed whistleblowers for drawing attention to the crisis.

In a normal country, such a massive betrayal of public trust and basic human decency might at least make a single headline.

Instead, the BBC chose to publish a puff-piece interview with Cass, one of the architects of the pitiful state of trans youth healthcare in the UK. In the interview, Cass repeated the spurious claim that children become trans because of gender stereotyping and homophobia:

I think what has kind of misled children is the belief that if you are not a typical girl, if you like playing with trucks, or boys who like dressing up or that you have same-sex attraction that means that you're trans and actually it's not like that but those are all normal variation.

And, following the Appleby report's example, she bent over backwards to point the finger at trans-positive campaigners. The BBC reported that:

The vast majority of people in the middle of the debate were silent while the "people at the extremes" and rhetoric in the media had been "frightening for young people," the clinician said.

She added that some activists for trans rights had been "so strident that it's made it more difficult for trans people themselves who are just trying to live under the radar", while equally people who had taken the view no-one should ever transition had "similarly made it difficult".

What people like Cass will never acknowledge is that trans people shouldn't have to live under the radar. They equate trans people advocating for ourselves with obnoxious activism because they can't abide our speaking up. Our extremist belief is that trans kids are not an aberration, and they deserve healthcare like everyone else.

The issue is that trans adults don't get to look away. We don't get to turn our faces from the trans kids being treated as political punching bags. We can't ignore the suicides within our community.

Those deaths resulted directly from the decisions of the High Court, the Tories and the NHS. Cass and the Labour government upheld those same decisions. If I believed these people had a conscience to speak of, I would hope that knowledge never let them sleep again.

We won't roll over and be silent, because we remember what it was like to be trans kids ourselves. Cass would know that, if she ever had any intention of listening to trans people. But then, listening to us would involve acknowledging our humanity.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

A coalition of Greater Manchester groups has announced a major campaign calling for opposition to Britain First's upcoming 'March for Remigration' in the city.

The far-right fascist party, has previously announced its intention to host the march in Manchester city centre on 21 February 2026.

'Resist Britain First'

Organisations from across Greater Manchester have launched a campaign, 'Resist Britain First', to oppose this march. It's calling for people and groups across the country to stand together and oppose the march.

A spokespserson for Resist Britain First said:

Britain First's 'March for Remigration' is a racist dogwhistle calling for a white supremacist ethnic cleansing of the United Kingdom by the forced expulsion of non-white people.

Britain First's previous march led to multiple recorded instances of racism, homophobia, and violence by attendees of the march.

We call on people across the UK to come to Manchester to resist this racism on our streets and show that you do not support this bigotry.

Britain First is led by Paul Golding and Ashlea Simon, both of whom have made horrific racist statements in the past.

Simon once stated that "English people can't be black" as "English blood is white". Meanwhile Golding, a former member of the National Front, was convicted for his vile harassment of a mosque. Golding has also previously been accused of sexually assaulting one of the attendees of his marches.

Amongst those that organised Britain First's last 'March for Remigration' in August was Lee Twamley, someone who himself has a conviction for people smuggling.

Golding publicly attended a Remembrance Sunday event at the Cenotaph drunk wearing women's underwear on his head. Resist Britain First believes that all this information makes it clear that the party's claim to be 'Britain First' is steeped in inconsistencies. They are racist thugs.

This comes against the backdrop of the Gorton and Denton by-election in Greater Manchester. Reform UK is happily amplifying the racist rhetoric of job-slashing Man United owner Jim Ratcliffe.

The full list of Greater Manchester based groups in Resist Britain First includes:

• Young Struggle Manchester.
• RS21 Manchester.
• Manchester Feminist Coalition.
• Greater Manchester Tenants Union, South Branch.
• No Borders Manchester.
• Northern Police Monitoring Project.
• Red Roots Collective.
• Anti-Fascist Action Manchester.
• South Asian Liberation Movement.
• Manchester Trans Liberation Assembly.
• Salford Anti-Fascists.
• Stockport Anti-Fascists.

Featured image Resist Britain First

By The Canary

Marco Rubio, the U.S. Secretary of State and a bulwark of the Trump administration, gave a "disquieting" imperialist speech at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday to deflect from the Epstein files fallout.

Journalist Ben Norton called the speech "a blatant call" by the US empire to resuscitate Western colonialism and recolonise the Global South.

This is insane.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio just gave one of the most explicitly pro-colonialist speeches I have seen in the 21st century.

The US empire wants Europe to help it recolonize the Global South.

Rubio praised Western colonialists for "settl[ing] new… pic.twitter.com/tl4NojNdmP

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) February 15, 2026

Marco Rubio peddles neocolonialism

Rubio appealed to the UK far-right by explicitly crediting "English settlers" for America's language, political system, and legal framework. He also appealed to German nationalists by praising "German farmers and craftsmen" for building the American heartland and jokingly upgrading beer quality.

Our story began with an Italian explorer whose adventure into the great unknown to discover a new world brought Christianity to the Americas - and became the legend that defined the imagination of a our pioneer nation. Our first colonies were built by English settlers, to whom we owe not just the language we speak but the whole of our political and legal system. Our frontiers were shaped by Scots-Irish - that proud, hearty clan from the hills of Ulster that gave us Davy Crockett and Mark Twain and Teddy Roosevelt and Neil Armstrong.

Our great midwestern heartland was built by German farmers and craftsmen who transformed empty plains into a global agricultural powerhouse - and by the way, dramatically upgraded the quality of American beer.

The reaction to Rubio's imperial nostalgia and his thirst for a new wave of colonisation has been swift and daming.

Lebanese-American journalist Rani Khalek damned Rubio for American exceptionalism:

"What the US empire did to Gaza, Venezuela, and currently Cuba is what it wants to do to the entire Global South." https://t.co/wpQpa7xSNe

— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) February 15, 2026

Author Joe Guinan warned that the U.S. is building a neo-fascist movement in Europe:

And the National Security Strategy of the United States Government is to promote the rise of allied far right movements in European countries - a neofascist International organized around white supremacy and eugenics. https://t.co/9FIrMiCnGr

— Joe Guinan (@joecguinan) February 15, 2026

Former Indian diplomat Kanwal Sibal stated that the speech was effectively a declaration of war against the non-Western world:

This is effectively a declaration of war against the non- West.

What Rubio is saying is that the world's pressing matters will be identified by the US, the US will use its power to deal with them and the outcomes will be determined by US national interest.

Very disquieting… https://t.co/nTHiW6DrX4

— Kanwal Sibal (@KanwalSibal) February 14, 2026

Professor Matteo Capasso quipped: "Average proud representative of Rubio's 'civilization' speech in Munich," tagging a picture of disgraced paedophile Jeffrey Epstein:

Average proud representative of Rubio's speech civilization in Munich… pic.twitter.com/X1aDSWwovL

— Matteo عمر 马韬 (@capassomat) February 15, 2026

Academic Dan Kervick called for resistance to the growing fascism.

Rubio delivered a fascist supremacist manifesto in the birthplace of the Third Reich and they all rose to cheer.

We must resist.

— Dan Kervick (@DanMKervick) February 15, 2026

UK's Rubio Also Drumbeats War

Starmer, the UK's gutless fraud, called the US an "indispensable power" in his Munich speech on the same day.

The US remains an indispensable power. Its contribution to European security over 80 years is unparalleled. And so is our gratitude.

At the same time, we recognise that things are changing. The US National Security Strategy  spells out that Europe must take primary responsibility for its own defence. That is the new law.

Starmer's subordination to the US was clear. He told Europe it must be "ready to fight" and "stand on our own two feet" - not as an independent strategy, but as a response to US demands:

 

Starmer also appeared to target the UK Green Party's ambivalence towards NATO. He dismisses those who question NATO or the US alliance as "peddlers of easy answers… on the extremes of left and right" who are "soft on Russia" and "weak on NATO."

In the 1930s, leaders were too slow to level with the public about the fundamental shift in mindset that was required.

So we must work harder today to build consent for the decisions we must take to keep us safe.

Because if we don't, the peddlers of easy answers are ready on the extremes of left and right and they will offer their solutions instead.

It's striking that the different ends of the spectrum share so much. Soft on Russia. Weak on NATO. If not outright opposed. And determined to sacrifice the relationship we need on the altar of their ideology.

How did the right wing respond?

A MAGA fan account celebrated Rubio receiving a standing ovation in Germany after telling Europe to return to Christianity and oppose migration from the Global South:

Keir Starmer has told the Munich Security Conference that he'll send the navy's aircraft carrier group to the Arctic. The move is meant to appease US president Donald Trump who recently threatened to annex Greenland. In his speech on 14 February Starmer said:

I can announce today that the UK will deploy our Carrier Strike Group to the North Atlantic and the High North this year led by HMS Prince of Wales, operating alongside the US, Canada and other NATO allies in a powerful show of our commitment to Euro-Atlantic security.

Starmer also said he would increase the number of Royal Marines in Norway, alongside other measures:

Doubling our deployment of British commandos in the Arctic. Taking control of NATO's Atlantic and Northern Command in Norfolk, Virginia. And transforming our Royal Navy by striking the biggest warship deal in British history with Norway.

You can listen to the full speech here:

Right on cue, defence minister Al Carns  - a former marine and rumoured coup candidate for Labour leadership - appeared 200 miles above the Arctic Circle:

-30°C. 200 miles above the Arctic Circle.

In the strategically vital High North, Britain's Surveillance and Reconnaissance Squadron train where few others can.

Minister for the Armed Forces, Col @AlistairCarns, joined them in Norway.

On 12 February, the Ministry of Justice announced plans to use predictive policing to overhaul the youth justice system. Tucked away in the 25-page document was a proposal to use "machine learning and advanced analytics" to "support early, appropriate intervention" in youth crime.

Whilst the white paper was vague on the particulars, only promising further news in the spring, a Times article went into greater detail on the plans. Beneath an inflammatory headline promising machines that would predict "the criminals of the future", the column explained that:

Artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to predict the criminals of the future under government plans to identify children who need targeted interventions to stop them falling into a life of crime. […]

Academic research has found patterns can emerge from data collected by health visitors checking on newborn babies, although it has not been decided whether the government programme would go back so far to determine whether someone was at risk.

Now, it would be easy here to point out that this pre-crime policing is horrifyingly dystopian. It sounds like a crude mashup of phrenological skull-measuring and Minority Report. 

And that's true, it is horrifyingly dystopian. But it's also a present reality that racialised individuals in the UK have been subject to for decades.

Predictive policing and 'criminals of the future'

Regarding the AI plans, a government source stated that:

We are looking at how we can better use AI and machine learning to essentially predict the criminals of the future, but to do so ethically and morally. It's about ensuring the data from the NHS, social services, police, Department for Work and Pensions and education is used effectively, and then using AI so you can go above and beyond what we can currently do.

This is going to be pretty transformative on how we put money and resources into prevention. We keep getting the same profiles of criminals in the justice system but we're intervening far too late.

This isn't about criminalising people but making sure the alarms in the system are better understood and data and AI modelling can do that much better.

Minister for youth justice Jake Richards explained further:

I'm determined to harness the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to gain better insights into the root causes of crime. This will allow us to focus on the earliest of interventions for individuals and families, offering better outcomes for children and keeping our communities safer.

But we must hold and use this personal data carefully, and that's why I've commissioned this specialist expert committee to look at the efficacy of this work, but also the ethical and legal consequences.

The Times goes on to state that data show that neurodivergent, poor, and ethnic minority kids are more likely to commit crimes. Four in every five children in youth detention are neurodivergent. Before they're even 18, 33% of kids with a care background receive a police caution.

The article states all of this that neutral tone that only the discerning bigot's newspaper of choice can manage. And, of course, it's a deeply misleading abuse of the truth.

Biases past and biases future

In reality, these marginalized kids are the ones who are more likely to be picked up by police, cautioned, or prosecuted. Police profile their arrestees - they have a (racist, discriminatory) idea of who a criminal is, and then police people accordingly. And surprise surprise, the people treated as criminals keep getting arrested.

That's a world away from being "more likely to commit crime".

Whilst AI decision-making is sometimes perceived as unbiased and emotionless, this couldn't be further from the truth. Rather, it simply hides the - very human - biases in its training dataset behind a veneer of cold 'fairness'.

In her report on AI biases in policing, the UN's Ashwini K.P. - special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism - specifically called out predictive policing. Back in 2024, Ashwini explained that:

Predictive policing can exacerbate the historical over policing of communities along racial and ethnic lines. Because law enforcement officials have historically focused their attention on such neighbourhoods, members of communities in those neighbourhoods are overrepresented in police records. This, in turn, has an impact on where algorithms predict that future crime will occur, leading to increased police deployment in the areas in question. […]

When officers in overpoliced neighbourhoods record new offences, a feedback loop is created, whereby the algorithm generates increasingly biased predictions targeting these neighbourhoods. In short, bias from the past leads to bias in the future.

Pre-crime criminalisation

However, as I mentioned earlier, this feedback loop isn't a problem specific to AI itself. Rather, it's inherent to the very idea of pre-crime policing - and it's an oppression that racialised individuals in the UK have been dealing with for decades.

Take, for example, the Met Police's 'Operation Trident' of the 1990s. This sought to prevent gang-related violence in London, and instead resulted in the mass racial profiling of Black youth. An Amnesty International report on Trident's 'Gangs Matrix' database stated that:

The type of data collection that underpins the Gangs Matrix focuses law enforcement efforts disproportionately on black boys and young men. It erodes their right to privacy based on what may be nothing more than their associates in the area they grow up and how they express their subculture in music videos and social media posts. Officials in borough Gangs Units monitor the social media pages and online interactions of people they consider to be 'at risk' of gang involvement, interfering with the privacy of a much larger group of people than those involved in any kind of wrongdoing.

Later, in 2003, the UK government created the Prevent counter-terrorism strategy. Ostensibly, it seeks to prevent people from being radicalised into extremist ideologies. In reality, it disproportionately targets Muslims - including Muslim children - for surveillance and hostile treatment as a dangerous 'other'.

Then, in 2023, the Shawcross Review of Prevent baselessly claimed that the strategy should target Muslims to an even greater degree, rather than far-right extremism. In itself, this was a perfect microcosm of bias-confirmation in action. At the time, the Canary's Maryam Jameela wrote that:

Pre-crime strategies like Prevent presume full agency and power at all times, for all Muslims. In order for such a thing to happen, there needs to be a cultural belief that Muslims are figures of suspicion because they always hold the potential to be terrorists. Underpinning this presumption is that Islam itself harbours something sinister. Repeated governments have, over the years, created a culture of criminalisation that only views Muslims as being in a constant state of pre-crime.

Now, and for all Jake Richards' protestations that his AI plans will use data ethically to create better outcomes for children, it certainly sounds like more of the same discriminatory dross. We've seen already what these people's ethics and care look like.

There is no way to predict criminality that isn't driven by our previous biases - machine learning or not. All that this 'new' strategy can do is push yet more marginalised youth into the no-man's-land of pre-criminality. And all the while, vulnerable kids will be shown directly that their every move was always already under scrutiny.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

New TUC analysis reveals that the average woman effectively works for 47 days of the year for free and only starts earning from 15 February compared to the average man. The analysis reveals that the gender pay gap currently stands at 12.8%, the equivalent of £2,548 a year for the average woman worker.

That means that at current rates of progress, it will take 30 years - until 2056 - to close the gender pay gap.

The union body says a number of factors are driving the pay gap - including women having to work part-time to accommodate for extended caring responsibilities throughout their lives, therefore taking a significant pay cut.

The TUC says the government needs to do more if it wants to meet its ambition to close the gender pay gap. More opportunities for people to share caring responsibilities, improved access to flexible working and better access to childcare must all be part of the solution.

Gender pay gap spans across industries

The pay gap persists across different industries, and even in jobs dominated by female workers, such as education and care:

• In health care and social work the earning gap is 12.8%. This means that the average woman effectively works for free for 47 days.
• In education the earning gap is 17%. So the average woman effectively works for free for 62 days.
• In wholesale and retail the earning gap is 10.5%, meaning 38 days that the average woman effectively works for free.
• The longest wait for Women's Pay Day comes in finance and insurance. The gender pay gap (27.2%) is the equivalent of 99 days, meaning women work for free until 9 April 2026.

Gender pay gap by age

The TUC analysis shows that the gender pay gap affects women throughout their careers, from their first step on the ladder until they take retirement. The pay gap is widest for middle-aged and older women:

• Women aged 40 to 49 have a gender pay gap of 16.2%. So they work 59 days for free until 28 February 2026.
• Women aged between 50 and 59 have the highest pay gap of 19.7% and work the equivalent of 72 days for free, until 13 March 2026.
• Women aged 60 and over have a gender pay gap of 17.7%. They work 65 days of the year for free and effectively start earning from 7 March 2025.

The TUC says the gender pay gap widens as women get older, due to women being more likely than men to take on unpaid caring responsibilities throughout their lives, limited childcare and social care provision, and too few good quality flexible jobs.

Older women take a bigger financial hit for balancing work alongside unpaid caring responsibilities throughout their lives - often looking after children, older relatives, and/or grandchildren.

Need for change

Gender pay gap reporting: the TUC says government plans through the Employment Rights Act to make employers publish action plans to tackle the gender pay gap are welcome. But it says they must be more ambitious and robust to make a real difference.

The union body also says these plans will serve as a blueprint for broader action on forthcoming ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting, which the government has pledged to introduce. And it stresses the importance of getting the framework right from the outset.

Parental leave: the TUC says that the government must ensure the parental leave review delivers increased access to paid parental leave so that mums and dads can share care better.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said:

Women have effectively been working for free for the first month and a half of the year compared to men.

Imagine turning up to work every single day and not getting paid. That's the reality of the gender pay gap. In 2026 that should be unthinkable. With the cost of living still biting hard women simply can't afford to keep losing out. They deserve their fair share.

The Employment Rights Act is an important step forward for pay parity for women. It will ban exploitative zero hours contracts, which disproportionately hit women and their pay packets. And it will make employers publish action plans for tackling their gender gaps. But these plans must be tough, ambitious and built to deliver real change, otherwise they won't work.

Let's be clear - the government needs to turbo-charge its approach, or women will continue to lose out.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

The Pentagon deployed AI technology linked to Palantir to kidnap Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. The AI program concerned, Claude, is integral to Palantir systems used by the US military. The settler-colonial state of Israel is Claude's biggest per capita user.

Tech firm Anthropic developed the program. Claude is used within Palantir systems wielded by the Pentagon. Sources told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on 15 February the use of AI in the 3 January raid showed how:

AI models are gaining traction in the Pentagon.

But there is a problem. Anthropic has strict rules on military usage:

Anthropic's usage guidelines prohibit Claude from being used to facilitate violence, develop weapons or conduct surveillance.

The sources said:

The deployment of Claude occurred through Anthropic's partnership with data company Palantir Technologies, whose tools are commonly used by the Defense Department and federal law enforcement.

Anthropic's programs can be used:

for everything from summarizing documents to controlling autonomous drones.

But could Anthropic's 'ethics guidelines' have been breached?

Questions are being asked of Palantir

Questions were asked within the firm after the Caracas raid:

Following the raid, an employee at Anthropic asked a counterpart at Palantir how Claude was used in the operation, according to people familiar with the matter.

An Anthropic spokesperson said:

We cannot comment on whether Claude, or any other AI model, was used for any specific operation, classified or otherwise.

They added:

Any use of Claude—whether in the private sector or across government—is required to comply with our Usage Policies, which govern how Claude can be deployed. We work closely with our partners to ensure compliance.

The Open Tools tech website said Claude is a chatbot:

Claude, a chatbot developed by Anthropic, has seen diverse adoption patterns across the globe, with notable variances based on national economic statuses and technological infrastructure.

Open Tools reported that Israel in the highest per capita user of the program:

The Anthropic AI Usage Index (AUI) places Israel at the top of the leaderboard for Claude usage per capita, signifying not just a quantitative but qualitative edge in how AI is utilized across sectors in the country.

The WSJ reported Anthropic's strict rules on 'defence' use might see the Pentagon divest. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the US military's relationship with Anthropic was "under review":

Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight.

Sources told WSJ the guidelines might endanger the $200mn contract awarded in summer 2025. Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei has:

 publicly expressed concern about AI's use in autonomous lethal operations and domestic surveillance.

These are the "two major sticking points"

Defence secretary Pete Hegseth has said the US doesn't want to use:

AI models that won't allow you to fight wars.

Donald Trump's shadow war in Latin America isn't over, despite attention moving elsewhere after the 3 January Caracas raid.

Drones, raids and Israel

Nicolas Maduro is in a New York jail. Vice-president Delcy Rodriguez is running Venezuela in his absence. Venezuela's left-wing government is still in power - if only in theory. Venezuela is shipping oil to Israel, for example.

The US was still hitting 'narco' boats in the Caribbean as of 13 February:

On Feb. 13, at the direction of #SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known… pic.twitter.com/y50Pbtexfi

— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) February 14, 2026

The US boarded another tanker loaded with Venezuela oil on 15 February. This time in the Indian Ocean:

The vessel tried to defy President Trump's quarantine —hoping to slip away. We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance, and shut it down. No other nation has the reach, endurance, or will to do this.

We defend the Homeland forward. Distance does not protect you.

Overnight, U.S. forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding of the Veronica III without incident in the INDOPACOM area of responsibility.

The vessel tried to defy President Trump's… pic.twitter.com/Tran3cLR9g

— Department of War

One of London's last local newsagents has been forced to close, after Transport for London (TFL) raised its rent by over three times. Brixton News has operated within Brixton tube station for 36 years, until TFL skyrocketed their rent from £40,000 a year to £125,000.

TFL putting profit over people

Pritesh Patel, who owns and runs the kiosk with his brother, told The Londoner that the lease was originally £8,000 a year in 1990. Since then, it's increased every three years.

Patel told The Londoner:

at some point, in five to ten years, we would have got to a point where we'd have to say, 'we've got to walk away', because the rents would've just kept increasing.

He explained that their profits aren't enough to keep up with ever-increasing rents. Despite being a newsagent's, most of their income comes from drinks and snacks. Which is also a sad statement about the decline of print media.

Patel said

You can't pay stupid rent when you're taking that.

While Brixton News stood alone until closure, it wasn't always that way. When they first moved in there was also a record store, a camera and photo shop, a cafe, and dry cleaners within the ticket hall. Upstairs used to be home to an arcade which housed a Chinese supermarket, hairdressers, and a pharmacy.

This all changed in 2000 when TFL kicked out all of the businesses as part of the station's redevelopment. Though the arcade upstairs has remained closed and empty. Brixton News was only allowed to stay because TFL shut the ticket hall, so passengers needed a place to top up their Oyster cards in person.

Pure greed

TFL have insisted that the rent hike was to accommodate an increase in premises size. This doesn't appear to be something the Patels wanted or the kiosk needed.

TFL told The Londoner that they:

have the opportunity to increase the size of the retail unit currently occupied by the newsstand, and asked Pritesh in January 2024 if he'd be interested in the larger space. He decided not to stay, and we wish him all the best in his future endeavours and would welcome him elsewhere on our estate.

So basically, rather than keep a longstanding business in the station, they're going to increase it anyway to see who else they can attract. Probably a big business that can afford the ridiculous rent.

Patel said:

I've interacted with nearly everyone in the area at some point: sometimes I've done them a favour, and we've chatted, we've talked. It's just having somewhere you can come and have a conversation. Something local.

Because it's more than just a kiosk, Brixton News is a focal point for the community of Brixton. Having been there so long, Pritesh knows the faces and the regulars. In turn, customers told The Londoner about their sadness at the shop's closure.

Community is an obstacle for TFL

As London increasingly becomes a hollowed-out shell of faceless corporations, local run businesses that the community can trust are vital.

There's no justification for taking away such an integral part of the community. Except for the fact that for a conglomerate like TFL, community gets in the way of profits. So instead of connection and sense of belonging, they see something that needs to be stamped out. Which is an absolutely vile way to run a company which is literally supposed to connect London.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

A group of Muslims, Jews, Christians and people of no religious faith will display placards outside the Supreme Court and the Home Office, in an act of peaceful civil resistance to injustice. They are calling for an end to the Genocide and an end to the government's appeal of the judicial review ruling that the proscription of Palestine Action was illegal and disproportionate.

They stand as a group outside the Supreme Court at 1pm and the Home Office at 2pm on Monday 16 February.

Unity Against Genocide

As a multi-faith group, Unity Against Genocide stands in solidarity with the people of Gaza and the West Bank. Unity Against Genocide is standing in part to counter a narrative that seeks to divide us and silence opposition to the genocide.

Participants also continue to stress that the UK's complicity in the continuing genocide of Gaza and annexation of the West Bank and Jerusalem must stop.

They support the thousands of people arrested after displaying signs in the Defend Our Juries campaign for the de-proscription of Palestine Action.

The Judicial Review ruled in favour of Palestine Action on 13 February. However the government has stated that it will appeal this decision.

Unity Against Genocide will stand outside the Home Office to send a clear message to Shabana Mahmood, that this appeal will be met by continued and escalated protest against the proscription of Palestine Action, and the unwarranted curtailment of free speech and for our right to jury trials.

Unity Against Genocide is separate from the group Defend Our Juries, which has taken regular action since the ban on Palestine Action was enforced. But the activists have taken a stand in solidarity against increasingly oppressive government legislation.

Holding the UK government accountable

Unity Against Genocide demands that the government:

• Drops the appeal against the judicial review which ruled in favour of Palestine Action.
• De-criminalises support for the rights of the Palestinian people.
• Issues immediate bail for the Filton 24.
• Stops foreign interference in government & institutions.
• Refuses to participate in Trump's "Board for Peace" in Gaza.

Unity Against Genocide acts to hold the UK government accountable for war crimes. And it demands an end to the corrupting influence of Israeli lobbyists and their proxies on UK government policy.

Since 7 October 2023, over 71,000 Palestinians have been killed; some estimates give a far higher figure. While Hamas has released all hostages, Israel continues to detain nearly 10,000 Palestinians, including children and medical workers, most without charge.

Israel has violated the ceasefire more than 1,200 times, reduced Gaza to rubble, and escalated illegal settlement expansion and settler violence in the West Bank, displacing thousands and killing dozens.

Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism

In the UK, those who speak out against the gross human rights violations being committed by Israel continue to face growing censure. Journalists, academics, healthcare workers, teachers, and authors, among the many Jewish critics of Israel and Zionism, have been disciplined, dismissed, surveilled, and criminalised.

Criticism of Israel, or of the settler colonialist ideology pursued by its leadership, is being increasingly conflated with antisemitism by those seeking to silence dissent and erase legitimate political debate.

Dishonestly conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism is clearly being deployed as a means of weaponising antisemitism and creating a tool to silence legitimate criticisim and condemnation of atrocities being committed by Israeli operatives.

Groups like Unity Against Genocide and Defend Our Juries are not the cause of increased antisemitism and Islamophobia; it is due to the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.

There is a significant and growing number of Jewish people who define themselves as non- or anti-Zionist. They do not believe that Israel's systematic commission of crimes against humanity have anything to do with Israel's right to self-defence or protecting Jews in the diaspora.

Why take action?

The Jewish people taking part in this action say, loudly and clearly, "Not in our name!"  To suggest, as some seek to do, that there is but one Jewish community and that community is composed entirely of supporters of Zionism, settler colonialism, illegal occupation, illegal annexation, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland, infanticide, and genocide is, in itself, anti-Semitic.

Muslim people taking part in the action are standing in solidarity with those who have for decades in the UK been disproportionately stigmatised and targeted by terrorism legislation, being subjected to mass surveillance, 'Prevent' referrals, and policing that treats whole communities as inherently suspect. Presented as neutral security measures, these laws have normalised Islamophobia and caused lasting harm to Muslim communities.

We are witnessing a terrifying erosion of civil liberties in the UK. The continued imprisonment of the Filton 24, prolonged detention without trial, and the criminalisation of peaceful protest, mark a ratcheting up of authoritarianism and repression by the state.

Participants explain their motivation

Nasreen Ahmed:

As a Muslim I feel a strong responsibility to stand to stand against the genocide, especially when my government is complicit. If we do not continue to speak up, there is a real danger that all Palestine solidarity activism in the UK will be criminalised.

Mike Laywood:

It is so important as a Jew to not only be supporting Palestine Action and opposing genocide, but to be acting together with Muslims and Christians.

Rajan Naidu (75, Quaker):

It is our responsibility, as people who want justice and peace for all, to do all in our power, peacefully and determinedly, to end the genocide being inflicted on the Palestinian people of Gaza and the West Bank by the occupying forces of the State of Israel.

I concur with this statement, re Palestine Action, from Quakers in Britain.

The proscription of a direct-action protest group continues a worrying trend of state repression against dissent including the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023. The UK is the only country in western Europe to have its civic freedom classed as "obstructed" by Civicus.

Featured image via Defend Our Juries

By The Canary

Local activists have prevented supporters of Israel's genocide and French purveyor of mass murder Thales from giving a talk at a Queen's University Belfast (QUB) conference. The weapons manufacturer had been set to give a talk at the NI Blockchain event at the university's Computer Science building. However, around 25 anti-genocide campaigners stormed the room and ensured the presentation could not take place. Embarrassed organisers swiftly ushered attendees out, leaving activists free to hang up Palestine flags and plaster the place with 'boycott Israeli apartheid' stickers.

Thales are well known to have links to the 'Israeli' military. Until very recently, they produced various drones through its then subsidiary UTacS, which was jointly owned by Elbit Systems. Elbit is the backbone of the genocidal settler-colony's weapons industry. Thales recently sold UTacS to the Zionist arms firm.

Strong links between Thales and Israel

In a report entitled "Exposed: The UK firms supplying Elbit Systems", the always excellent Declassified UK reported on how:

Thales in Crawley has exported radar components to Elbit in Haifa. On 6 November 2025, the company also sent an "I-Master airborne surveillance radar" to Israel.

The I-Master "delivers all-weather surveillance, pattern of life monitoring, change detection and wide area-coverage", according to Thales. "It detects and locates moving and stationary targets at long stand-off ranges over land and sea".

It was exported under the ML5b licence, according to the shipping document, which covers "target acquisition, designation, range-finding, surveillance or tracking systems".

Thales claim the materials it sends to the settler-colony are:

…intended for re-exporting purposes to a European end user.

Declassified UK point out how meaningless this is, as the British government does not have a means of checking whether Israeli Genocide Forces use anything sent to so-called 'Israel'.

This shipment seems to directly contradict a statement Thales gave in December 2025, in which they said:

Thales has not delivered any defence equipment, or any equipment enabling the operation of a defence system, to the Israeli armed forces or to Israeli manufacturers.

Thales has not exported any weapon or any lethal system to the Israeli armed forces, either directly or through third-party manufacturers.

This was in the wake of opposition from parents who opposed local schools partnering with the criminal company to boost its recruitment. Thales also has a factory in East Belfast which is a regular target for pro-Palestine protesters.

Students call for QUB to end its complicity

The protest at QUB was led by Connolly Youth Movement activists. In a statement, they said:

Anti-imperialists from the Connolly Youth Movement, QUB Palestine Assembly and BDS Belfast, disrupted Thales' talk at the conference and the war criminals immediately packed up and left. These arms manufacturers raise millions in profits off the back of genocide and have no place on our campuses.

This shows the power of collective, direct actions which ensure that these vultures have no room to breathe. This action is part of a long-running campaign to pressure QUB to sever all its links with Zionism and arms manufacturers, driving them off our campus and divesting from all complicit institutions.

The university continues to partner with these vile merchants of death. At a protest in October 2025, students highlighted its ongoing relationship with BAE Systems, which helps to manufacture the F-35 warplane used to murder innocent Palestinians. They said:

Queen's boasts of "Partnering with BAE Systems on video based semantic analysis of crowd behaviour" and provides placements for students.

They also highlighted similar arrangements with Caterpillar, notorious for supplying the bulldozers used to wreck Palestinian homes. QUB also insists on maintaining indirect investments in 'Israeli' companies.

But we're still not done - despite cutting ties with Epstein associate and alleged rapist George Mitchell, the university persists in keeping fellow Epstein fraterniser Hillary Clinton as chancellor. The former US secretary of state is a perpetual warmonger and committed Zionist. QUB's continued backing of Clinton, and its support for 'Israel' - a practitioner of mass sexual abuse - shows it does not care about basic morality, truth, or even its own reputation.

It is instead an institution that cares only about money and proximity to power, even if it's done on the backs of rape victims and dead Palestinians.

Featured image via the Canary

By Robert Freeman

Clean Up Britain have come up with a new way to make claimants' lives hell. The national campaign announced on Twitter that they think unemployed people on Universal Credit should be forced to clean up litter - or else lose their benefit.

Litter picking MD talks utter rubbish about Universal Credit claimants

In the video, Clean Up Britain managing director, John Read, stands in a fly-tipping site. He talks the same amount of shit as he's stood in when he says:

people who are recieving Universal Credit should be required to do at least four hours litter picking every single month.

He clarifies in the video that he just means unemployed Universal Credit claimants.

This is bad enough, but within Clean Up Britain's 10 point action plan comes the real kicker. They think anyone who refuses to pick up rubbish should lose their benefits.

This, of course, is a vague as fuck soundbite that doesn't contain any nuance. So it ignores many factors.

The first being that this is already (or should be) a paid job. People are paid to be litter pickers by councils. But with council budgets stretched, this would give them an excuse to cut jobs and make people do it for free. It's a very slim possibility, but if this happened, someone could lose their job as a litter picker, have to claim Universal Credit, and then be forced to do their old job for free.

Using unemployed people as slave labour

In the video, Read says that if all the job seekers in the city did this, this city could be transformed. The important context here is that the city he's talking about is Birmingham.  The reason those streets are full of rubbish is that the bin collectors have been on strike for the past 11 months.  They're striking against pay cuts and for better pay progression.

So to propose that people work for free to clean up Birmingham is not only an insult to unemployed people, but to striking workers too.

Finally, unemployed people shouldn't be expected to work for fucking free. There's the argument from many that they're working for free, they're working for their benefit. But that's not the gotcha my right-wing Twitter trolls think it is. The whole point of unemployment benefits is to support people while they're out of work, looking for gainful employment. This could be employment, but instead it will be used to punish poor people.

And that's the biggest problem with this: many of the British public would see this as something unemployed people deserve. And the government, which is already using the media to turn the public against claimants, would run with it. This would be used as a threat and punishment to further shame people who can't find work.

Punishing the wrong people

Missing from this is, of course, disabled people. Would those who struggle in cold temperatures, can't do physical tasks or have neurodivergent and mental health issues be forced to make their conditions worse? There'd probably be some clause in about "severe disabilities", but this would miss out many disabled people. Especially if the way they're trying prove many conditions aren't real is anything to go by.

Litter picking has long traditionally been a part of community service sentenced after someone has committed crimes. So this would put unemployed people in the same category as literal criminals. Which isn't that much of a stretch considering the DWP already treats claimants worse than criminals.

There's also the fact that once again, we are blaming the wrong people for the destruction of the country and making them suffer the consequences. As well as their bullshit plan, Clean Up Britain also tweeted some stats about the national debt

BRITAIN is a three-quarters bankrupt country (at least). We can't afford to be spending £1 BILLION a year on cleaning up litter.
We owe £2.9 TRILLION
We pay £275 million a day just in interest repayments
EVERY person in Britain owes £42,000 as their share of the national debt

Whilst we do have a huge national debt, it's completely untrue that we all owe the same amount. The rich undoubtedly owe much more than a minimum wage worker. When the average minimum wage worker earns around £23,000 a year, and CEOs are on around £97,000 a year, how is this possibly fair?

Nobody deserves to work for free

More than anything, this is showing what the rich really think of unemployed people. That they don't deserve real opportunities, so they should be forced to clean up the trash like them.

At the end of the day, people on Universal Credit are already made to feel shit about themselves at a time when they're at their most vulnerable. Nobody should be forced into unpaid work all because they're struggling to survive. And nobody should be made to feel that this is all they're worthy of.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

Meta, the parent company for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, plans to introduce new face scanning tech while people are distracted by current political turbulence. The Trump-adjacent corporation plans to package the feature in new smart glasses. An internal Meta document seen by the New York Times (NYT) says:

We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.

The media outlet provides further info on what the tech would allow:

The feature, internally called "Name Tag," would let wearers of smart glasses identify people and get information about them via Meta's artificial intelligence assistant.

Smart glasses are typically paired with AI, enabling voice activated interaction with the specs. Users can instruct the device to send a text message, take a photo or record a video. Some models feature an LED that changes colour to indicate the wearer is recording.

Meta: disaster capitalism following in ICE's wake

The cynical internal memo likely references the tumult currently sweeping the US amidst the mass criminality carried out by the brownshirts of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Trump's personal paramilitary goons have been violating laws left and right as they beat and kill their way around the US, under the pretext of an immigration crackdown.

ICE have already made extensive use of face scanning tech. Meta's glasses would represent another privacy violating move, capturing massive amounts of personal data which may ultimately find its way into the hands of an authoritarian state. Meta has form when it comes to handing over info about customers to governments.

Metadata - which shows who called who and when - has been used by authorities, including seemingly by so-called 'Israel' for its genocide in Gaza. WhatsApp records are one means used by the terrorist entity to determine which Palestinians are marked for death in its genocidal AI programs Lavender and Where's Daddy. Paul Biggar of Tech for Palestine put a series of questions to Meta about how they should be policing rogue regimes like 'Israel' using its data. These included:

How will Meta prevent private information being used by governments to kill WhatsApp users and their families?

Will Meta immediately rescind access to any WhatsApp information from the Israeli government, army and law enforcement?

It appears no answer was forthcoming. Meta's plan to roll out the tech during politically chaotic times has echoes of the 'shock doctrine' described by author Naomi Klein. It outlines a process of 'disaster capitalism' in which natural disasters or political upheaval are seized upon by corporations to ram through major changes that benefit them.

It represents another example of practices first deployed by hegemonic powers abroad, only to be revisited upon a population at home. Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been an eager licker of the Trump boot, and clearly sees this as an opportune time to introduce the privacy violating tech.

Corporate and state surveillance powers must be opposed

A previous version of the glasses were able to successfully identify faces and reveal huge amounts of personal info about those it scanned. Two Harvard students paired the specs with a smartphone app they created, enabling them to almost instantaneously identify strangers.

The scan was then sent to the app, which trawled the internet for information about people, bringing back details like their job and home address within seconds. A built-in version of this tech would be even more powerful, creating even greater privacy concerns.

The British government intends to extend its use of facial recognition tech, going from 10 vans with the system, to 50. Civil rights groups are challenging this in the courts, describing it as "stop and search on steroids". The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) are looking into its use, which would be a disaster in a region where violation of rights by state authorities has previously had devastating consequences.

Fascism is often described as the fusion of corporate and state power. Both these power centres are ramping up their ability to surveil us, enabling them to amass enormous power. The prospect of them uniting to utterly crush dissent will be an ever more tempting prospect. Their efforts to advance spying powers must therefore be snuffed out in their infancy.

Featured image via the Canary

By Robert Freeman