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Whatever the outcome of the civil trial between various claimants and Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the newspaper group behind the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, the legal claims shed light again on what former prime minister Gordon Brown called "the criminal media nexus" — a circle of dodgy journalists and corrupt police officers circulating around the hub of the private detective agency Southern Investigations.

These horrific murders may seem like ancient history, but they are at the centre of astonishing legal claims against the UK's largest newspaper publisher and owner of one of the world's most-read online news websites, which is currently bidding to increase its hold on the British media by buying the Telegraph group.

The Daniel Morgan Murder

The murders of Daniel Morgan and Stephen Lawrence took place six years apart, but only a few miles away from each other in south-east London. And they are connected by more than just geographical proximity.

Both murder investigations were stymied by the same cartel of corrupt police officers with gangland affiliations, and ready access to the British popular press.

Anyone who saw the recent TV drama The Hack, or has followed the podcast Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder that I hosted and produced with Deeivya Meir ten years ago, will understand the centrality of Southern Investigations to the spread of the dark arts of "unlawful information gathering" (UIG) after one of its founders, Daniel Morgan, was slain with an axe in the car park of a Sydenham pub in 1987.

After Daniel's murder, his co-founder Jonathan Rees, and the man who took Daniel's place, former "King of Catford" Detective Sergeant Sid Fillery, went on to turn Southern Investigations into the hub of the dark arts — bribing police officers, hacking phones and computers, blagging financial and medical records, impersonation, surveillance and intimidation.

Press and Police Corruption: Mail Hearing Reveals More Connections between Murders of Daniel Morgan and Stephen Lawrence

Witness statements on behalf of the claimants against Associated News plunge us straight back into what Gordon Brown once described as the 'criminal media nexus'

Peter Jukes

They trained some of Britain's most feted journalists, like the "Fake Sheikh" Mazher Mahmood, who was convicted of conspiring to pervert the course of justice in 2016.

As well as billing for hundreds of thousands of pounds a year the now-shuttered News of the World, they worked for Piers Morgan's Mirror Group and (as laid out in my book with Alastair Morgan, Who Killed Daniel Morgan?) claimed to work for other newspapers, including the Daily Mail.

Though Rees and Fillery were both arrested on suspicion of conspiracy in Daniel's murder (Rees three times and Fillery twice), the multiple investigations finally came to a close at the Old Bailey in 2011 when the prosecution collapsed due to multiple flaws in disclosure. No further investigation was possible due to a quarter of a century of police corruption that made the evidence totally unreliable.

Technically, Daniel's murder remains "unsolved", but the details amassed by the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel, which reported in 2021, make it clear that the police are not looking for any further suspects.

Included in the panel report is a detailed account of how the original murder inquiry was stymied by the presence in the incident room, on the night before Rees and Fillery were arrested, of a former disgraced police officer, Jonathan Ross.

According to another police officer, Derek Haslam, who worked undercover for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) for nine years gathering information on Southern Investigations and its network of connections with corrupt police officers, journalists and the underworld, Ross was a "corrupt policeman" who specialised in "selling information to the Mail and othe...

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Neo-Nazi and far-right extremist groups – including two flagged by the UK Government – have embedded themselves in anti-immigration protests across the Westcountry, operating alongside self-described "ordinary mums and dads" with little challenge from politicians, police or the local press.

Over the past year, Byline Times has identified activists linked to neo-Nazi organisations including the British Movement and Blood & Honour working with members of Britain First and other far-right networks. In January 2025, the UK Government froze the assets of Blood & Honour under counter-terrorism regulations. In 2024, the UK Government flagged British Movement as "a cause for concern" in relation to domestic extremism.

As their involvement has grown, protests have hardened, shifting from loosely organised gatherings into marches marked by intimidation, racist chants and hostility towards journalists.

Emerging from online campaigns framed as grassroots opposition to immigration, when those efforts failed to mobilise large numbers far-right actors stepped in, reshaping the movement and giving it a new direction.

In a county of 1.25 million people with fewer than 2,000 asylum seekers and only one asylum hotel, that transformation raises urgent questions about how extremist networks gain local footholds, and why their presence has been allowed to pass without challenge.

Far Right Influence

In the first week of December 2025, as shoppers browsed Plymouth's Christmas market, around 50 mostly male protestors marched through the city centre chanting "save the nation, deportation" and "you can shove your Palestine up your arse!" Initially met by a larger counter-protest organised by Stand Up To Racism (SUTR), police contained the counter-group in one area while allowing the march to continue for almost three hours.

Their final event in a year which saw monthly protests taking place in Plymouth and weekly protests occurring in Exeter, the December march underlined how far the movement had shifted towards organised far-right activism.

When asked about the presence of known extremists, police told Byline Times that provided people were protesting peacefully, officers had limited grounds to intervene. Yet this lack of intervention saw the movement become a safe-space for supporters of neo-Nazi music collective Blood & Honour, representatives of Britain First, members of the neo-Nazi British Movement, and far right members of local football firm The Central Element.

Sp how did organised far-right activists gain a foothold in a protest movement that presented itself as families concerned about their children's welfare?

The Beginning

Plymouth is the largest city in Devon with a population of around 264,000 people, 96% of whom are white. When their version of the Great British Strike – a nationwide anti-immigration protest organised by former soldier Richard Donaldson – took place in May 2025, protesters were pre-warned about violence in the local press linking it to the 2024 riot that occurred following the Southport attack.

Donaldson's plan was to force a general election by having "500,000 people [walk] out in protest". In reality, barely one hundred people turned out – waving flags and milling around in small groups – countered by a similar number from Stand Up To Racism. Visibly angered by SUTR referring to them as "Nazi scum", several protestors Byline Times encountered presented themselves as "just ordinary mums and dads" worried about their children. Reports emerged of similar scenes across the country.

Two months later, Donaldson's followers began protesting outside UK hotels housing asylum seekers. Still being presented in local media reports as ordinary people "in favour of stricter immigration laws and against the placement of migrants in hotels without communities being consulted", the coverage largely ignored...

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It's been clear for a very long time who Donald Trump really is, whose interests he really serves and why nobody should believe that he is a reliable friend of either the UK, or Europe.

Keir Starmer continues to be reluctant to face up to these realities. In a Downing Street press conference on Monday the Prime Minister insisted that he was "determined to keep that relationship [with Trump] strong, constructive and focused on results".

Such prevarication is understandable. The UK remains hugely reliant upon the United States for its security, with Trump also able to pile huge economic pain on this country, should he choose to do so.

Yet at best Starmer's strategy can only hope to dampen, or delay, what is a growing threat to our continent posed by the US President.

A Year of Living Dangerously in Trump's America

I no longer feel safe to speak or act freely in a country where people are being arbitrarily detained and killed and where the truth is becoming whatever Donald Trump says it is, reports Alexandra Hall Hall

Alexandra Hall Hall

So far it is a strategy that has yielded few tangible results. While the US has not yet completely abandoned Ukraine in its fight against foreign invasion, the President has now switched to threatening his own incursion into European territory, in Greenland.

This threat is in some ways even graver than the threat posed by Russia in Ukraine. If Putin were to take Kyiv then it would be a catastrophic development that would seriously raise the threat posed by Moscow to neighbouring countries, but it would not in itself lead to a wider collapse in pan-European security.

The threat to Greenland is of a different order. Denmark is a member of both the European Union and NATO. Were Trump to follow through on his threats then it would risk destroying the very bedrock of post-war European security. As EU defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius put it, seizure of Greenland would herald the "end of NATO".

Not everyone would be unhappy with such an outcome.

The end of Europe's main security alliance has long been the Russian President's number one geopolitical aim.

So far he has failed to achieve his aim, thanks in part to the resilience of the Ukranian people and the resolve of other European nations and the United States. Yet where Putin has failed, Trump now looks poised to succeed. An alliance that has saved Europe, and the wider world, from outright war for the best part of a century risks being torn apart due to the imperial dreams of an increasingly unhinged US President.

Of course under previous presidents, such a catastrophic threat to global peace would have prevented disaster. However, when you have a US administration which openly portrays European nations as a group of weak and contemptible "random countries" that scrounge off of America, and when you have a man in the Oval office who says he is willing to start a war with those same nations, in retaliation for not being given a peace prize, then we can no longer be sure that sanity will prevail.

A 'Global Peacemaker'

It's worth remembering that none of this is what we were told was likely to happen. When Trump last ran for office, there was no shortage of senior UK politicians and commentators who predicted that his re-election would lead to a new era of peace and prosperity for the world.

Nigel Farage, who is currently the favourite to form the next UK Government, claimed that Trump would be a "global peacemaker" who would make the world a "better, safer place".

Others, like former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, said that Trump's return would make the world much more "safe and stable" and accused those who warned otherwise of engaging in a "whinge-a-rama".

In the UK media, Trump's British cheerleaders also loudly encouraged and then celebrated his return, with one presenter on GB News quite literally sal...

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A private investigator has been accused of 'hacking' and 'withholding' an iPhone considered critical to the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of rugby and reality TV star Levi Davis, Byline Times can reveal

Gavin Burrows took the device from Mr Davis's grieving family after volunteering his help in their search following the former Bath Rugby and X Factor star's unexplained disappearance in Barcelona in October 2022 – a case that remains one of Europe's most perplexing of recent times.

But after falling out with family and friends of the missing man, who say Burrows later became "highly abusive" toward them, prompting an official complaint to his trade body, the phone's whereabouts – and its secrets – remain a mystery three years later.

"That phone could hold the key to why Levi posted on Instagram before he disappeared saying his life was in danger," Davis's mother Julie said today, referring to a harrowing 15-minute film her son made alleging he'd been a victim of targeted drug rape and organised blackmail after appearing on reality TV shows in the UK.

Miss Davis added: "This is why the family are desperate to have the iPhone back. Myself and others have repeatedly asked Mr Burrows to return Levi's device since spring 2023 so it can be properly forensically examined by the police. He told me that he could not release it to me and then went silent. As far as we are concerned he is responsible for withholding potentially critical evidence."

EXCLUSIVE

Levi Davis – Murdered At Sea?

Part Two of a five part special investigation by Dan Evans and Tom Latchem into a missing person's case with dark criminal undertones

Dan Evans and Tom Latchem

New Version of Events

While the Davis family say Burrows has simply refused to give the iPhone back – and are now publicly calling for its return – Burrows offered a new version of events this week in response to questions from this newspaper.

He claimed that "to the best" of his knowledge a "Spanish consultant operative" gave Levi's phone to the Catalan authorities, although Byline Times can confirm there is no record to support this claim in the official reports of the Investigating Magistrate in Barcelona, Senor Francisco Miralles Carrio.

Burrows did not deny offering to bypass the iPhone's security in order to "help find" Davis and identify a mystery suspect the sportsman cut short a holiday in Ibiza to meet in Barcelona, arriving by ferry on 29 October, 2022, with just a small backpack of belongings before vanishing five hours later.

Instead, he justified the use of "any feasible means to help find a missing person," which he said would "naturally be utilised," insisting: "this is normal procedure in missing person cases," – potentially tainting what might have been a critical piece of evidence in the police's criminal investigation.

According to three witnesses, Burrows started making unsolicited offers to bypass the phone's security in order to access Davis's private information in 2023.

But his relationship with the family and others later deteriorated sharply following lurid and, it transpired inaccurate, tabloid stories that Davis was fleeing a Somali gang over an alleged £100,000 drugs debt and, separately, that police were going to imminently arrest people close to Levi – articles in which Burrows was a quoted source.

Julie Davis said: "Mr Burrows got in touch out of the blue right after Levi went missing. He offered to help us at a time of great need but very soon it became clear he was more interested in using Levi as a vehicle for self-promotion.

"He propagated a number of false and unhelpful allegations about my son to the press, muddying the focus of the search, and in my opinion cutting across police inquiries in the UK and Spain.

"There are many questions around activity on Levi's WhatsApp and other apps which may have records of peopl...

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Nigel Farage has been paid by a cryptocurrency adviser to US President Donald Trump, who worked with Paul Manafort – Trump's former campaign chair, jailed for financial crimes after investigations into his Kremlin-aligned influence operations – to lobby the president on Bitcoin policy.

David Bailey, chief executive of BTC Inc and a senior cryptocurrency adviser to Trump, brought Manafort into his lobbying operation in early 2024. Together, Manafort and Bailey spent the rest of the year working to persuade Trump to embrace Bitcoin and establish America's first Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

Bailey subsequently paid Farage a speaking fee through BTC Inc, months before the Reform UK leader unveiled a pro-crypto policy platform that mirrors the Trump administration's digital asset agenda.

Paul Manafort's role in the development of Trump's entire cryptocurrency strategy raises questions about Bitcoin's role as a vehicle of Russian influence, in particular as a mechanism to weaken national fiat currencies.

It also links Farage to one of the most controversial figures in modern American politics – and raises questions about whose interests are actually being served by Reform UK's proposed Cryptoassets and Digital Finance Bill.

Trump's Campaign Chair

Paul Manafort's involvement in shaping Trump's Bitcoin policy represents a remarkable political rehabilitation. The veteran Republican operative was convicted in 2018 on charges including tax fraud and bank fraud, stemming from his work advancing Russian interests.

A bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee investigation concluded in August 2020 that Manafort's activities "represented a grave counterintelligence threat" to the United States. The committee found that while serving as Trump's 2016 campaign chairman, Manafort regularly shared internal campaign polling data and strategy with Konstantin Kilimnik, whom the report identified as a Russian intelligence officer. The US Treasury Department later confirmed that Kilimnik "provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy."

Manafort's work for Russian-aligned interests stretched back decades. From 2005, he held a $10 million annual contract with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska – described as closely aligned with Vladimir Putin – for work that Manafort said would "greatly benefit the Putin Government." The Senate committee concluded this influence work was "in effect, influence work for the Russian Government and its interests."

Between 2004 and 2014, Manafort worked as chief political adviser to Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's pro-Russian president, and his Party of Regions, which US diplomats described as "a haven" for "mobsters and oligarchs." Manafort received millions in undisclosed payments to rehabilitate Yanukovych's image in the West and advance pro-Kremlin policies, including blocking Ukraine's NATO membership.

Trump pardoned Manafort, who has always denied representing Russian political interests, in December 2020.

Trump and Musk Welcome Russian Propaganda After Sanctioning European Disinformation Experts

If there's any question that the US is now more aligned with Russia rather than Europe, recent State Department decisions have removed all doubt

Peter Jukes

Manafort's Return

By early 2024, David Bailey had recruited Paul Manafort to help orchestrate what would become one of the biggest political pivots of Trump's campaign: his transformation from crypto sceptic to Bitcoin champion.

Bailey was first connected to Manafort after a meeting of fellow Bitcoin evangelists in Puerto Rico which included Tracy Hoyos-López – Manafort is her sister's godfather. Manafort then plugged Bailey into the heart of Donald Trump's campaign team.

Over the next few months, Bailey and Manafort worked to educate Trump's inner circle on Bitcoin policy, craft messagin...

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One year into the second Trump Presidency and America is now a very different place. It may superficially look the same from the outside. Many of us are able to go through the motions of our daily lives in the same ways as before. But, everything is changed on the inside.

America has become a place where it is no longer entirely safe to speak freely. Where criticizing the Government can get you into trouble, perhaps even cause you to be fired from your job, or deported. Where engaging in public protest can get you arrested. Where every day you wake up with a clenching stomach, wondering what new Government outrage has happened overnight.

Where every day, hordes of masked men roam communities, terrorize individuals, wantonly grab people off the streets, from their cars, or places of business, rough them up and throw them into detention, on no evidence whatsoever that they are guilty of any wrongdoing. All of this sanctioned by the Government authorities that are supposedly here to protect us.

I can't believe I'm actually writing these words. I can't believe I am actually living in a country where extra-judicial executions, such as happened with Renee Good in Minneapolis last week, killed by an ICE officer, can take place; where forced disappearances have become routine; where individuals with legal residency or citizenship status can be swept up in anti-immigration raids, if they happen to look foreign (translation – black or brown), or be hanging around in a place frequented by immigrants; where even young children can be snatched up and taken into detention.

100 People Detained in UK Immigration Removal Centres Say They Are Subjected to Extreme Physical and Emotional Abuse

Individuals detained at two detention centres report experiencing physical, psychological and emotional abuse at the hands of officers

Nicola Kelly

I can't believe I'm living in a country where the authorities, instead of investigating the officer who killed Renee Good, are slandering her as a "domestic terrorist" and investigating her widow for potential obstruction of ICE agents.

Those of us privileged to live in majority white, suburban, or middle-class communities can pretend to ourselves that life is still normal and that we won't be swept up in this madness. But, it's a delusion.

Today, every interaction is overshadowed by the political climate.

Today, when I meet friends, we don't just catch up with each other's news. We always ask each other, with deliberate meaning, "how are you doing?" – the subtext being, "how are you handling the stress caused by the latest Trump outrage?"

When I meet strangers, we dance delicately around the subject of Trump, to find out whether we are on the same political page or not, before opening up more substantively to each other.

With strangers, we use euphemisms to lead into a conversation about current events – "with everything going on", "in today's crazy world", and decode responses carefully to work out where we each stand.

This is how I always imagined people living in authoritarian countries communicated with each other, in lowered tones, or using veiled references, in case someone hostile is listening.

I no longer ask people of obviously foreign origin where they are from, how long they have lived in America or their current status. It's better not to know.

I feel privately relieved and ashamed not to be a migrant, black or Hispanic myself. I imagine this is not dissimilar to how many Germans felt in the early 1930s, when they became uneasily aware that their Jewish neighbours were being harassed by Hitler's brownshirts.

A year ago, I felt able to write articles or post on social media about current events without worrying about whether this might get me, or anyone associated with me, into trouble. Last summer, amidst the hounding of anyone who posted anything negative about...

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Protesters in Scotland arrested for carrying signs in support of the proscribed group Palestine Action have been offered £100 fines instead of prosecution. Critics of PA's proscription say this shows that the use of terrorism legislation on supporters of PA is "ridiculous".

Adam McGibbon was first arrested in October last year for holding up a sign which read "I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action" in protest at the designation of the direct action group as a terrorist organisation and their proscription under the Terrorism Act. He was arrested again on one other occasion and was charged four times under the Terrorism Act.

In late December, McGibbon and two other activists who spoke to Byline Times were sent letters with the offer of a £100 fine in lieu of prosecution for some of their offences in breach of section 13 by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. £100, they noted, is roughly equivalent to a parking fine.

McGibbon, a seasoned climate activist, told Byline Times: "If supporting Palestine Action is so bad and so terrible like Dan Jarvis the security minister said it was in parliament in September, then how come you can get off for the same price as parking ticket?".

"I mean do the Islamic State get this offer?" he added.

The proscription of Palestine Action has seen protests up and down the UK in defiance of the proscription with activists holding signs in support of the group. Police have made thousands of arrests since the proscription of PA in July 2025.

EXCLUSIVE

Palestine Action Arrests Condemned as 'Deeply Alarming' While British Press Remains Silent

The Liberal Democrats described the arrests of campaigners against the ban on the group as a "dangerous precedent" for free speech, yet the British press remains largely silent about it

Josiah Mortimer

Section 13 of the Terrorism Act makes it illegal to wear clothing or hold signs that might be reasonably understood as support for a proscribed terrorist organisation, meaning protesters showing their support for PA by holding signs risk a £5000 fine and six months imprisonment.

While theoretically a relatively serious offence under the Terrorism Act, the authorities in the devolved administrations in the UK appear to be less inclined to prosecute than the CPS in England.

In Northern Ireland section 13 is rarely enforced because statements or items that could constitute support for Northern Irish paramilitaries are commonplace, and police powers are devolved to Stormont.

Catherine Allen, another activist who was offered the penalty said that the fines and the comparatively gentle treatment of the Scottish protesters by law enforcement "could suggest that even the police don't have their hearts in it given how ridiculous arresting peaceful protesters is, and that protesting genocide is not a crime".

McGibbon, Allen and another activist spoken to by Byline Times said they would be rejecting the offer of the fine.

In a letter sent back to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, Allen and some of her fellow activists stated: "the offer of a fine equivalent to a parking ticket or a warning is both revealing and revolting. Revealing because it indicates that deep down the Procurator Fiscal Office in Scotland agrees that we are a million miles from being 'terrorists'. Revolting because it offers a fine like a sweetie – accept this sweetie, the offer states, and then stop asking us to get a moral compass".

The group stated that they were demanding the Scottish police to stop arresting and charging them for their repeat protests.

BREAKING

Palestine Action Ban Branded 'Absurd and Dangerous' as Group Asks High Court to Overturn Proscription

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the High Court in order to oppose the ban on the direct action group, Olly Haynes reports

Olly Haynes

The letter also stated that the g...

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Russian forces began using First Person View (FPV) drones to hunt civilians in Kherson in the summer of 2024, a practice first reported by Byline Times on July 29 that year. Known as the human safari, the tactic deliberately targets civilians, emergency workers, and infrastructure staff and has since been recognized as both a war crime and a crime against humanity, with the aim of forceful displacement.

In response, the Kherson Regional Military Administration has developed layered defences to counter the attacks.

On January 8, these measures, along with the 2025 data, were presented by Head of the Kherson Military Administration Oleksandr Prokudin at a press conference held in a Kherson bomb shelter while undergoing shelling.

Attacks and Casualties

In 2025, the Russian Federation military shelled the territory of the Kherson Region 146,000 times, firing more than 235,000 shells at Kherson city and villages. As a result of Russian shelling, 307 civilians in the region were killed, including six children. Another 2,564 people were injured, including 62 children.

Half of the Russian strikes on the community were carried out by drones. Almost every second victim in the region was injured or killed by a drone attack.

About 100,000 Russian drones targeted civilians, children, the elderly, emergency medical teams, city facilities, critical infrastructure, and maintenance staff in the Kherson region in 2025.

130 civilians died in the Kherson region as a result of the Russian "human safari," including three children. Another 1,195 civilians were injured, including 17 children.

"Anyone who moves becomes a target, including pensioners going to the market, children out for a walk, and ambulances responding to emergency calls," said Prokudin.

Inventing Anti-drone Defences in the Ever-changing Environment

Countering drone attacks is a priority for the city and regional military administrations. According to Oleksandr Prokudin, there is no single magic solution, and innovation and creativity remain key to effective defence. No means or system can guarantee 100% protection against drones at this moment. No so-called "umbrella" or "universal dome" capable of protecting 100% of a city from drone attacks yet exists, either in Ukraine or in the world's most technologically advanced states.

Effective countermeasures require a combination of available forces and tools, anticipation of technological developments, and the methods to counter them.

City authorities, in collaboration with the Ukrainian military, strengthened protection against FPV drones and large Shahed-type drones and built a three-level defence system. This included:

A radio-electronic wall operates simultaneously at fifteen frequencies and helps disable and destroy different types of drones, from Mavic to FPV

Physical barriers, including anti-drone tunnels, stop drones from entering key areas

Mobile units are deployed to shoot down drones that bypass these defences

In recent months, Ukrainian units have shot down 230 Russian Shahed drones, and the number continues to rise monthly, according to Prokudin. In 2025, Ukrainian forces destroyed 93,000 Russian small drones, accounting for 97% of the total number.

The drone technology battle is never static: the Russian military constantly improves drone technology, and, in response, the Ukrainian military continuously adapts its defences. Both Ukraine and Russia are deploying fiber-optic drones, as well as AI-assisted and swarming drones. These systems allow real-time data processing, automated target recognition, and coordinated operations, compensating for personnel shortages and contested signal environments. The technology race adds a new dimension to the human safari, making drone attacks faster and harder to counter.

The EU's 'Farage Clause' Shows the Damage Reform Is Already Doing to the UK

As ...

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Reports this week suggest that the EU is seeking a so-called 'Farage Clause' in its Brexit reset negotiations with the UK. Under the proposal, Britain would be forced to hand over compensation to the EU if a future UK Government reneges on any deal struck now by Keir Starmer.

The news comes some eight months since the last UK-EU summit which unveiled the first details of this 'reset' in relations promised by the then new Labour Government.

Everything else announced at last May's summit was aspirational, including statements made about the other three areas highlighted by Labour during the election.

Two of these, mutual recognition of professional qualifications and new provisions for touring artists, were not prioritized by the summit. Only the third UK priority was among those given more prominence, a 'sanitary and phytosanitary' (SPS) agreement on food and agricultural trade. A Youth Mobility Scheme, initially resisted by the UK but desired by the EU, was also among the prominent possibilities.

EXCLUSIVE

The Reform-Backed Far-Right Street Patrols Coming to British School Gates

EXCLUSIVE: Nationalist vigilante groups, with links to Neo-Nazis, and the support of senior Reform figures, have been falsely claiming police backing while attempting to infiltrate local school networks

Nichola Lashmar

Since the summit, little progress has been made on realizing these aspirations. The only new agreement has been for the UK to join the Erasmus+ study exchange programme from 2027.

On the other hand, negotiations for the UK to participate in the EU's SAFE defence procurement scheme have ended in failure. Now, although there are several other issues under negotiation, most attention focuses on an SPS agreement and an agreement to link UK and EU emissions trading schemes (ETS).

The potential deals on SPS and ETS share a particular feature, which is that both would require the UK to agree to 'dynamic alignment' with EU regulations and, with that, some role for the European Courts of Justice (ECJ). Politically, this makes them anathema to Brexiters, and they have come on to the agenda because an ECJ role was the only one of the previous Conservative Government's Brexit 'red lines' which Labour have, very quietly, dropped.

Even so, for a long time Labour ministers tried to imply that these deals would be possible without dynamic alignment. But this was never realistic, and it has recently been reported that Starmer's Government is preparing legislation to enable such regulatory alignment in these two areas, and perhaps others. This suggests, although there has been no announcement of it, that agreement on SPS and ETS is imminent.

One issue which may still be under negotiation is what is being reported as the EU's requirement for a 'Farage clause'. This, it appears, would be a guarantee of compensation in the event of a future UK Government reneging on SPS, ETS, or other related agreements. It has a particular salience because both Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch have indicated that if they came to power then they would reverse agreements made with the EU by the Labour Government.

The 'Farage clause' reports are significant because this is perhaps the first time something widely discussed by commentators has been repeated by officials, albeit they are unnamed. It shows that domestic UK politics constitutes a real block on a substantive reset, something which applies even more strongly to more ambitious ideas about joining the EU, or the Single Market, or creating a UK-EU Customs Union. For, so long as there is no settled political consensus about closer post-Brexit relations with the EU, and every possibility that the next government will be ferociously opposed to closer relations, there are significant risks to the EU in reaching agreements with the present Government.

It often used to be remarked during th...

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"I'm f***ing freezing, like an ice cube" says Viktor, a Polish homeless man huddled in Old Street Station to shelter from the bitterly cold weather.

Unlike parts of the UK, London has not been covered in snow by Storm Goretti, though it has experienced freezing temperatures, strong winds, heavy rain and a arctic air that means you don't want to be caught outside for too long.

Temperatures at night over recent days have reached as low as -7 in London. While other people can escape the worst of the cold at home, for rough sleepers like Viktor extreme weather presents a struggle for survival.

Viktor has enough to pay for a hostel tonight, though he doesn't always. He often struggles for funds at the weekend when there are fewer commuters to give him change. On those days he shelters in "phone boxes where it's not that cold. Though it is still cold below the knees. Sometimes I fire up newspapers to warm me up".

According to Crisis, the homelessness charity, around 15,000 people slept rough last year in the UK. Figures from the Combined Homelessness and Information Network show that between April 2024 and March 2025, around 13,000 people slept rough in London.

EXCLUSIVE

The Refugees Turned Out on to Freezing Streets to Clear Rishi Sunak's Asylum Backlog

The Prime Minister's belated rush to clear his legacy asylum backlog is forcing refugees into destitution on Glasgow's freezing streets, reports Nicola Kelly

Nicola Kelly

Charities warn that they are at acute risk from the cold weather. Francesca Albanese, executive director of policy and social change at Crisis, said:

"Rough sleeping is extremely dangerous all year round, but a night spent in freezing temperatures or in the most extreme weather can be deadly. It's vital that people who would otherwise be sleeping on the streets are helped into safe, emergency accommodation".

This is done by a process called the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol or SWEP. Although not a legal requirement, most local authorities have SWEP procedures in place which provide emergency housing for homeless people in extreme weather situations.

The fact that it is not a legal requirement has led to criticism over how London has handled the recent spate of cold weather. London activated its SWEP on January 3, but deactivated it three days later because forecasts predicted temperatures above 0.

The charity Streets Kitchen which does cold outreach, branded the move "life threatening" and told the Metro newspaper that: "For too long, the safety of our city's most vulnerable has relied on a 'humanitarian duty' rather than a legal mandate."

Peter O'Grady, Director of Food For All, a charity which runs a food bank and a soup kitchen in King's Cross told Byline Times that they had seen more visitors since the weather got colder. "It's grim out there" he said. "You wouldn't think this would happen in a country like England which has so much wealth" he added.

TJ, another homeless man who sleeps in a doorway in Old Street, and sits outside a shop is in contact with Street Link, a service which connects homeless people to their local services. He hopes they can find him a room. Living homeless on and off for the last few years, he told Byline Times that this time he'd been on the street since the 21st of December. "It's very wet and cold. But I've just got to do what I do. I suppose I'm torturing myself [sitting here]".

The Mayor's office reactivated the SWEP for the past weekend. A Greater London Authority spokesperson said: "We need to ensure vulnerable people are protected in adverse weather.

"City Hall's rough sleeping team are regularly reviewing SWEP to make sure it continues to fulfil its vital purpose to support those most in need. They are continuing to monitor temperatures this week and have activated SWEP this weekend with freezing temperatures forecast.

"The Mayor is c...