Byline Times Audio Articles

Read our Monthly Magazine

And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

The Trump administration chose Minnesota as ground zero for an operation that can best be described in the parlance of Washington DC as 'counter-programming'. That's shorthand for the use of Government power in an intentionally newsworthy way to change the media narrative away from another inconvenient story.

In this case, they are executing a complex political approach which echoes a sophisticated Russian military strategy called 'reflexive control'. Developed in the Soviet Union, the primary goal of this strategy is to dominate the information space in order to force your opponent to voluntarily make bad decisions.

When the US Government floods a major city with law enforcement agents, people with cameras on their cellphones are going to be there to oppose the movement, news outlets are going to cover the chaos. Soon after will follow the organizers, the activists, and the provocateurs who amplify these narratives.

Reflexively, the media narrative will move towards this stimulus – and rightfully so – given the Government's illegal actions.

EXCLUSIVE

'Trump Has Already Rigged the 2028 Presidential Election': US Defence Insider

Regardless of how people vote, the chances of a Democrat Government coming to power in 2029 is now virtually nil, argues Brynn Tannehill

Brynn Tannehill

However, the voluntary bad decision Donald Trump wants to trigger is simple.

He wants for the information space to stop focusing on his sex trafficking cover-up, his trillion dollar healthcare cut to fund equally massive tax cut to his elite political donors, and the White House's enormous consumption tax levies while dictating by Executive Order the transformation of America's heretofore strong economy into right-wing socialist paradise for loyal oligarchs.

And that is how the Trump administration is using its counter-programming efforts to achieve reflexive control over the media narrative, the discussions of activists and the broader national conversation about politics.

Trump and his regime are desperate to move away from their cover up of the Jeffrey Epstein files exposing a trans-Atlantic pedophile ring, desperate to deflect from their multiple major policy failures that are economically oppressing hundreds of millions of Americans.

And this is the White House's only plan.

Distraction Tactics

What we are witnessing in Minnesota is the deadly use of counter-programming on a level not even seen during the first Trump administration.

Minneapolis, surrounding the banks of the mighty Mississippi River, is part of its thriving Twin Cities metropolitan area, including the Minnesota state capital city of St. Paul lying just to its east along a bend of the river.

Home to about 3.8 million residents, the Minneapolis region holds a global political relevance far greater than the size of its population owing to its concentration of the headquarters of 14 prominent companies in the Fortune 500 from 3M to Ecolab Inc to Target.

Minneapolis is globally known for its notoriously awful relations between police and citizens of color, in the wake of international protests set off by one of its officers' murdering George Floyd, while his co-workers complicity watched for nine long minutes.

What we are seeing in Minneapolis and throughout Minnesota is nothing short of using the full might of the American federal government's law enforcement powers to just redirect the national political narrative.

How big has the operation grown?

Recently, I learned from Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey – who went viral for saying "ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis" – that the city only has roughly 600 sworn law enforcement officers on its city police force, and the ICE task force occupying the city numbers over 3,000 federal agents.

Trump's Downfall Will Come Much Quicker Than Anyone Thinks

The growing backlash against ICE's killing of Alex Pretti will be ...

Read our Monthly Magazine

And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Read latest edition

Members of a leading far-right and fascist organisation were radicalised via YouTube's 'autoplay' function, taking them from right-wing and libertarian content into a rabbit hole of neo-nazism, a new study has found.

A researcher in the criminology department at City St George's University analysed podcasts, interviews and articles by 40 members of the group Patriotic Alternative describing their "red pill moment" when they became members of the far right.

33 out of the 40 PA activists analysed by the study cited social media as important to their radicalisation, with three quarters citing YouTube as a key instrument in their political journey.

Patriotic Alternative was launched in 2019 by Mark Collett, a former BNP organiser who recommends Mein Kampf to his followers. At the core of the group's ideology is a belief in the concept of a "white genocide" and a "great replacement" of white people committed by Jewish and liberal elites, who they believe undermine the white race by allowing immigrants into European nations.

The study which sifted through 1000 hours of material from PA activists, found that the users eventually drawn to PA began their political journey as consumers of online content from the likes of British right wing YouTuber Sargon of Akkad and were moved on to content from Patriotic Alternative by YouTube's autoplay function.

A PA activist who went under the pseudonym "Hope on the Horizon" described his 'redpill' journey, stating that: "[Y]ou go through all the different Sargon era and Ben Shapiro and all that sort of nonsense, you know, the sort of civ nat rebellion sort of rubbish. And then eventually you come across the people like [PA leaders] Mark Collett, Laura [Melia]. And then you find things like [12-hour-long, neo-Nazi propaganda film] Europa: The Last Battle, that sort of stuff. And then, you know, you've hit the bottom of the rabbit hole, there's nowhere else to go".

Patriotic Alternative: The Threat from the Far Right

A revitalised Europe wide white supremacist movement is growing in the UK, gaining recruits through social media and online gaming

Michal Grant

James Owens, a PA activist who was branded "Britain's most racist YouTuber" by The Times, who used the pseudonym "The Ayatollah", noted that the "algorithm is definitely real", crediting it with his radicalisation and recalling that while he had been doing his washing one evening, YouTube fed him the six-hour pro-Hitler propaganda film The Greatest Story Never Told.

Dr Tony Karas, the researcher behind the study, told Byline Times that the members of PA he studied "narrate their [political journey] almost entirely in terms of content they consumed".

"PA sustains their involvement [in the far right]. The fact that they can chat to people in their little Telegram groups and meet up online. But I think the content and the power of the parasocial relationship is really important".

Sargon of Akkad, the pseudonym used by YouTuber and former UKIP candidate for the European parliament Carl Benjamin, was the most frequently cited gateway channel into Patriotic Alternative content, according to Karas.

Patriotic Alternative's recruitment tactics have targeted young internet users in the past. One report from Anglia Ruskin University found that the group had been attempting to recruit young members through video game live streams.

In 2019, Collett made £7,265.93 from his videos on YouTube, with the platform taking a 30% cut of his total earnings.

EXCLUSIVE

'Wipe Jews Off the Face of the Earth': Racism and Antisemitic Slurs of Viral YouTuber Exposed

A recording exclusively obtained by Byline Times exposes YouTuber and Infowars alumnus Paul Joseph Watson using racist, homophobic and antisemitic slurs

Byline Times Team

Patriotic Alternative has lost momentum since 2023, with several of its members defecting...

Read our Monthly Magazine

And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

I predict that Donald Trump's fall from grace, when it comes, will be swift and definitive, just like former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's fall after partygate.

I remember living through Johnson's premiership in a state of permanent shock and outrage. Shock, that someone so puerile, self-serving, and manifestly unsuited for high office could be elected as Britain's Prime Minister. Outrage, that so many people around him who should have known better – Ministers, advisers, fellow MPs, senior civil servants, journalists – were willing to go along with his serial lying, cavalier disregard for the norms of British democracy, dangerous affiliation with Russian contacts, and wilful misrepresentation of the implications of Brexit, despite the massive danger all these things posed for every aspect of the British state, purely for the sake of their own careers and self-interest.

I have felt the same shock and outrage throughout the first year of Trump's second term as President.

It is not so much that I expected him to become a more competent and honourable leader second time round. His vanity, arrogance, bigotry, ignorance, dishonesty, and greed are too deep-seated for him to ever change.

EXCLUSIVE

'Trump Has Already Rigged the 2028 Presidential Election': US Defence Insider

Regardless of how people vote, the chances of a Democrat Government coming to power in 2029 is now virtually nil, argues Brynn Tannehill

Brynn Tannehill

Nor did I expect those in his immediate orbit to attempt to curtail his worst instincts, as happened in his first Presidency. It was obvious that he was going to surround himself with sycophants and toadies this time round, to avoid being subject to any kind of restraint on his behaviour or actions.

I did, nevertheless, cling on to the hope that the other two branches of America's government – Congress, and the Courts, would continue to do their jobs properly, and insist on their rights and prerogatives being respected.

I did cling on to the hope that at least some in the Republican Party would find just enough spine to raise at least some objections, when he nominated utterly compromised or unfit individuals to critical positions in his cabinet, including Pete Hegseth as Defence Secretary, Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, Kash Patel as head of the FBI, Pam Bondi as Attorney General, and Robert Kennedy Jr as Health Secretary.

I did cling on to the hope that more than one or two of them might be willing to speak out when Trump's actions clearly crossed a constitutional line, or were actively harmful to America's interests, such as his crazy notion to seize Greenland at the cost of destroying NATO.

I did cling on to the hope that the battered, unpopular Democrat Party, might be able to shake themselves out of the doldrums, and conduct more effective opposition in Congress.

I did cling on to the hope that even in the compromised Supreme Court, the more serious judges would recognize the dangers of allowing the President to continue to accrue so much executive power without pushback.

I also, naively as it turns out, assumed that the major organisations most badly affected by Trump's erratic policy making – such as businesses damaged by his tariff policy, universities by his clampdowns on free speech, companies dependent on migrant labour, lawfirms and media companies bullied by his lawsuits – would not cave so rapidly to his demands, or remain so cravenly silent.

Though there have been some honourable cases, particularly within the Department of Justice, of people stepping down from their positions in protest at his administration's unlawful actions, I had also assumed that there would be far more mass resignations from his government, as his outrageous actions mounted.

Unfortunately, it turns out that, amongst America's elites, fear and self-interest are powerful ba...

Read our Monthly Magazine

And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

While the Labour leadership deploy their time and effort to block the best-placed candidate, in Andy Burnham, to win a crucial by-election and keep Reform at bay, normal people with normal lives struggle to get on and get by.

Labour's leadership claim that this is what they are focussed on – making our lives better. But the reality is quite different. This is the short story of who, what and why some in the party seem hell bent, under no pressure from anywhere, on actually making our lives even harder.

What is the good society and the good life? Too often we struggle to just keep up, to keep our heads above water, to survive the day, to have the luxury of time to even contemplate how life could be transformatively better. But without a lodestar, a utopian vision of what could and should be, progressives offer little hope or sense of direction. To be a dreamer, in a world ruled by scarcity, fear, insecurity, the clock, endless and mindless consumption, coercion and control, is deemed to be wasted idleness. But nothing good happens, has ever happened or ever will, without a dream.

Enter the Governments Non-Dreamer in Residence, Steve Reed the Secretary of State for Local Government, who took it upon himself to crush the dreamers in councils with his pre-Xmas Scrooge like rebuke to even consider a four-day working week. He said full time work for part time pay could be an indicator of "failure".

As such Reed joins his soul mates at that bastion of progressive campaigning the Taxpayers Alliance in their predictable and dreary campaign to stop people having more time and instead keep their noses to the grindstone.

Control over the working week is of course part of a centuries long battle between capital and labour. From the enclosures, through to the fabrication of the Protestant work ethic, the poor laws and the creation of the never ending turbo-consumption race that can never be won and should never have been started, people have battled for the right to spend more of their time how they want to.

What Keir Starmer Should Have Done With Andy Burnham

The PM's decision to block Burnham from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election risks handing the seat to Nigel Farage, and ultimately triggering his own downfall. It didn't have to be this way, argues Adam Bienkov

Adam Bienkov

"There are many definitions of the good society" wrote the American economist JK Galbraith "the treadmill is not one of them". But today we learn, to work, to buy. Many do more than one job to make ends meet. Parents pass like ships in the night with barely a moment to do the precious things in life, like the time to read a child a bedtime story.

The remorseless and relentless grind of growth without purpose, the so-called 'hard-working families', the denigration of the so called 'scroungers' as opposed to 'strivers', the politicians who kick down and kiss up are all symptoms of a governing system that has lost its connection to us as human beings.

Whatever Steve Reed says and does the demand for more time and greater freedom are only likely to grow as supply of work is likely to decline, while AI takes his grip on the vociferous and politically crucial middle class jobs of people who live in swing seats, and work in professions like law and accountancy. Every technological revolution leads to fears over systemic and permanent net job losses, only to see new areas of work arise. The AI revolution looks like it could be different, with a structural decline in the demand for mental labour, as opposed to the physical labour job displacement of the past. The option to work less should be available to everyone, even as it becomes a fait accompli for many.

The savings and benefits of a four-day week to individuals and society are almost incalculable, from mental physical health and well-being, care, volunteering retraining, the lis...

Read our Monthly Magazine

And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

When Reform UK announced it would accept cryptocurrency donations through a payment processor called Radom, the decision was presented by the party as a breakthrough in the modernisation of political fundraising. But a Byline Times investigation reveals that Radom's origins lie deep within the same Silicon Valley networks that have bankrolled and built the technological infrastructure for President Donald Trump's political movement in the United States.

The company's leadership emerged from corporations and venture capital firms deeply connected to some of Trump's most prominent tech-world supporters. They include Peter Thiel, the billionaire who became MAGA's chief evangelist in Silicon Valley with over a dozen allies in Trump's second administration, and Larry Ellison, Oracle's controlling shareholder described by a Trump advisor as a "shadow president" behind Trump himself. Byline Times can also confirm that Amazon, a major pro-Trump donor controlled by Jeff Bezos, provided seed-funding to Radom.

Radom had already exerted its influence in the UK Parliament years before Farage's announcement, through an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) whose secretariat was run by an organisation advertising close relationships with pro-Trump tech giants including Oracle, Google and Microsoft.

Byline Times can reveal that the APPG's secretariat had not only received funding from Oracle, but at the time was dominated by Conservative Party politicians – including current Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch.

From Oracle to Radom: Silicon Valley's Republican Vanguard

Radom's founder and chief executive, Christopher Wilson, cut his teeth as a software engineer at Oracle, the technology giant controlled by Larry Ellison. Wilson worked at Oracle's Greater Dublin office from 2015 to 2017.

Oracle is not merely another Silicon Valley firm. Under Ellison's stewardship, it has become synonymous with a particular strain of pro-Trump, anti-regulatory conservatism rare among major tech companies.

Ellison has hosted fundraisers for Trump, donated substantial sums to Republican Party causes, and positioned himself as one of the President's most prominent backers. A decade ago, senior Oracle executives were hobnobbing with people in Trump's orbit shortly before the 2016 election. Oracle CEO Safra Catz and chief lobbyist Ken Glueck went on to join the Trump administration's transition teams.

Wilson's tenure at Oracle does not necessarily mean he shares Ellison's politics. But it situates Radom's technical leadership within a corporate environment closely entangled with Trump-aligned networks and narratives throughout the MAGA era.

EXCLUSIVE

Nigel Farage Paid by Trump Crypto Adviser Who Worked With Russia Operative Paul Manafort

The Reform UK leader received payment from David Bailey, who collaborated with the convicted fraudster behind the Trump-Russia influence scandal

Nafeez Ahmed

The Thiel Connection

The Trump network connections deepen when examining Radom's other co-founder. Mariel Yonnadam, the company's former chief technology officer from 2022 until 2025, previously worked as a front-end engineer from 2018 to 2019 at Faire, a San Francisco-based marketplace that has become one of Silicon Valley's most highly valued 'unicorn' start-ups.

Faire's meteoric rise was powered by a roster of venture capital investors that reads like a who's who of Trump-aligned tech finance. Among the most significant are Founders Fund, co-founded by Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist who spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention, joined Trump's presidential transition team, and has since incubated numerous hard-right political projects whilst providing intellectual scaffolding for tech nationalism. Another is Sequoia Capital, which in recent years has become increasingly associated with powerful Trump-supporting partne...

Read our Monthly Magazine

And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

If things were going well for Keir Starmer then he would have nothing to fear, and indeed much to benefit, from the return of a political big beast to Westminster like Andy Burnham.

If the Prime Minister had a clear plan for the country then the return of a rival, even one as determined to become Prime Minister as Burnham, would barely ruffle the feathers of those cooped up in Downing Street.

Previous Prime Ministers have acted differently.

When Boris Johnson, as London Mayor, announced his own return to Westminster, there was no attempt by David Cameron to block him from doing so, despite Johnson's own plans to become "world king" being well established.

Instead Cameron actively encouraged him to come back and then sought to use his talents in Government for the benefit of his own party and leadership.

Johnson proved to be an irritant, but he never seriously threatened Cameron's leadership for the simple reason that the then Prime Minister was in a position of strength.

Andy Burnham: These Dangerous, Alienating Times Call for Radical Change of Our Politics

From imposter syndrome and proportional representation, to fixing the fundamentals and the 'incestuous' Westminster media-political class – Labour's Greater Manchester Mayor believes the right can be defeated at the ballot box if bold changes to connect with the public and their day-to-day lives are made now

Hardeep Matharu

Of course Johnson did arguably end up playing a part in Cameron's downfall, backing the Brexit campaign which ultimately toppled him.

But that failure, just like the decision to accept Johnson back to Westminster, was ultimately in Cameron's hands. Had Cameron fought a better campaign, or even opted to remain in Downing Street post-referendum, then he could have remained as Prime Minister for years more to come.

The same cannot be now said of Starmer. His decision to block Burnham from becoming a an MP has been taken, not from a position of strength, but from a position of potentially irreversible weakness.

By blocking the Greater Manchester Mayor, he has made it all but impossible for Labour to cling on to their previously safe seat in Gorton and Denton, with Nigel Farage's Reform, or even potentially the Greens, poised to take it instead.

Either of these outcomes would severely weaken the Prime Minister's position and bring the point at which Labour MPs move against him to a head.

An Alternative Path

It didn't have to be this way. Had Starmer instead welcomed Burnham's return and then gone on to win the Gorton by-election together, then both the Prime Minister and the Labour party would have emerged in a stronger position.

He could then have offered Burnham a seat in the Cabinet, just as Cameron did with Johnson, and sought to hold him to his word of wanting to help the Government succeed. Had Burnham either refused, or then used his new position to undermine that Government then it would have been Burnham, rather than Starmer, whose position would have been weakened.

Of course such a path would have carried risks, but those risks could have been manageable. Instead the Prime Minister has chosen a path that looks all but certain to end in disaster for his Premiership

It may sound simplistic to the point of absurdity, but in politics winning comes from winning. It does not come from losing. If Labour loses the Gorton by-election, after blocking the man most likely to have won it, then no amount of Downing Street shenanigans are going to save Starmer from a concerted attempt to remove him as leader. The Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney, may feel that he has won a battle, but he now faces losing the wider war as a result.

These considerations may not worry those in Downing Street too much. Over the last few years it has become clear that the overwhelming priority of those around the Prime Minister is to pursu...

Read our Monthly Magazine

And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Prince Harry and Elizabeth Hurley, each giving evidence at the Royal Courts of Justice earlier this week, have alleged that the Mail tore apart relationships, drove its targets to paranoia, and made life miserable for anyone caught in its crosshairs.

The publisher did so, they claim, by illegally spying on them, publishing their secrets, and invading the privacy of their families, partners and closest friends.

It was a bruising opening week for the Mail, whose publisher, Associated Newspapers Limited, is defending itself against litigation brought by Prince Harry, Sadie Frost, Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Sir Simon Hughes, Baroness Doreen Lawrence and Elizabeth Hurley.

The claims allege widespread illegality at the publisher, arguing that the Mail's prolific use of private investigators known to use unlawful methods demonstrates that the publisher was illegally spying on its targets.

The claimants argue that private information about the lives of the claimants was obtained by listening in on voicemail messages and even live phone calls, and published in the newspaper – all to sell more papers and make the publisher more money.

The Mail's defence is that there is no direct evidence of illegality, arguing that journalists got hold of private information through friends and other associates of the claimants.

They also argue that the claims have been brought too late, and should have been brought years ago – despite the Mail's own heated denials of wrongdoing at the Leveson Inquiry – into the culture, practices and ethics of the press following the exposure of the phone-hacking scandal in 2011-12 – and since.

BREAKING

Daily Mail Trial: British People Say Press Standards Haven't Improved Since Phone Hacking Scandal

As the Daily Mail goes on trial for alleged lawbreaking, a new poll finds seven-in-ten voters demand independent regulation of the press

Byline Times Team

The Wider Picture

The summary of the claimants' case, published on Monday, threatens to suck other senior figures in the press into the litigation.

The current editor of The Sun, Victoria Newton, is alleged to have been a "habitual" user of unlawfully accessed information, while the editor of the Mail on Sunday, David Dillon, is alleged to have commissioned private investigators for criminal activity.

The findings in the case could have implications for the online and print news media more broadly. If it is found that yet another newspaper engaged in illegal behaviour, calls for the second part of the Leveson Inquiry are likely to intensify.

Hacked Off even came up once or twice during the course of evidence given by both Hurley and Prince Harry, with the Duke of Sussex generously praising the campaign for its "fantastic work".

"Hacking of my voicemails, landline tapping, blagging, obtaining itemised phone bills, hardwire tapping, and obtaining private flight information for my former girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, amongst other criminal methods… was deliberately undertaken with the purpose of publishing articles about me in the Mail newspapers because it made them money."

Witness Statement of Prince Harry

On Wednesday Prince Harry took to the witness stand and his witness statement, setting out his allegations in his own words, was published.

An object of relentless fascination to the press throughout the 2000s was Harry's romantic life. In his statement, he highlights an article entitled 'Harry's Older Woman', a piece which covered his relationship with a former girlfriend. He was 18 at the time.

At best, this was obsessive coverage of a teenager's relationship. But Harry alleges that it was published as a direct result of phone hacking or "blagging" – the use of impersonation to get someone's personal information. In other words, Harry's claim is that the Mail was actively and illegally spying on the private communications of a teenager and...

Read our Monthly Magazine

And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

British people believe standards in the UK press have not improved since the phone hacking scandal 15 years ago, with seven-in-ten voters demanding the industry be independently regulated for the first time, according to a new poll.

The survey conducted by pollsters Opinium for the Press Justice Project charity, found that 54% of those surveyed said press standards either haven't improved or have got worse over the past decade, with a further 71% saying the press should now be regulated by a body independent from the industry and politicians.

Voters want publications to be more accountable for inaccurate reporting. Seventy three percent of those surveyed said they believed press corrections should be published with the same size and prominence as the original misleading reporting.

Support for reforming the press could be found across supporters of all parties, according to the poll, including voters for Nigel Farage's Reform UK.

Of all the potential options for reforming the press, the most popular was for newspapers and their websites to be regulated by an independent statutory regulator, like Ofcom.

'A Victim All Over Again': The Mail Trial and the Murders of Stephen Lawrence and Daniel Morgan

Peter Jukes looks at how an ongoing High Court case plunges us back over thirty years to two murders in south-east London and to a nexus of corrupt police officers and private investigators

Peter Jukes

According to the poll, readers of the Metro (45%) the Daily Mail (38%), the Daily Express (37%), The Sun (35%), the Daily Telegraph (33%) and The Times (31%) all backed independent statutory regulation as their favoured option.

None of these papers are currently independently regulated.

Stephen Kinsella OBE, chair of the Press Justice Project, said: "Newspaper publishers often say they have 'cleaned up their act' since the appalling practices revealed by the phone hacking scandal, and argue there is no need for reform of press regulation.

"Every week, we at the Press Justice Project hear from people affected by wrongdoing in the press, which proves otherwise. These results show that the wider public shares our concerns. There is a clear public demand for independent press regulation that provides effective remedies when newspapers fail to uphold ethical standards.

"Press wrongdoing continues to affect people from all walks of life. Almost 15 years on from the phone hacking scandal, there is still an urgent need to protect the public from press abuse. The Press Justice Project shares the public's support for legislation that encourages industry compliance with independent and effective press regulation, in the interests of the victims of press wrongdoing we were established to assist."

EXCLUSIVE

Daily Mail High Court Trial Casts Shadow Over Lord Rothermere's Telegraph Bid

Allegations that the Mail engaged in phone hacking, landline tapping, burglaries, and the theft of medical records are threatening to derail its £500 million takeover of the Telegraph

Dan Evans

The findings come in the same week a High Court trial opened into alleged lawbreaking at the Daily Mail, including allegations of phone hacking, landline tapping, burglaries, and the theft of medical records.

More than 400 potential victims have been identified by the claimants' lawyers, after evidence was uncovered suggesting they were hacked and blagged by the Mail titles.

The claimants allege phone hacking and other unlawful practices stretching back decades.

ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE

Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.

PAY ANNUALLY – £44.75 A YEAR

PAY MONTHLY – £4.50 A MONTH

MORE OPTIONS

We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism....

Read our Monthly Magazine

And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

You did not dream the last fortnight: that really just happened. Fresh from illegally abducting a foreign head of state, the President of the United States turned his attention to seizing part of the territory of a close NATO ally while declaring economic war on those European allies who dared to object.

The Greenland fiasco not only represented the lowest point in UK-US relations in 70 years, it quite literally threatened to blow apart Europe's post-war geopolitical and security architecture.

Thankfully, Donald Trump has now – at last – confirmed that he will not invade Greenland. He also walked back his threats to impose fresh, punitive tariffs on the UK and other allies.

But these feel like temporary reprieves. Trump's presidency has three years to run and more instability surely awaits. The old world, with its reassuring alliances and certainties, no longer exists.

The new world brings fresh and urgent demands for the continent of Europe – in particular, the European country that, ten years ago, chose to leave the only trade bloc capable of rivalling the United States.

Engage, for one moment, in a small thought experiment. Imagine that we had not left the EU. That in 2016, we narrowly voted to remain, and then stumbled through the following ten years with our economic and geopolitical framework essentially unchanged.

Why Is the Government Really Refusing to Investigate Russian Interference in Brexit?

Keir Starmer's decision to exclude Russian interference in the 2016 EU referendum from his inquiry into foreign interference in our elections should ring alarm bells, argues Sergei Cristo

Sergei Cristo

Imagine the last decade of geopolitical turbulence, but where we were neither obsessing about tearing ourselves from our regional bloc, nor finding our way once we had.

Would Theresa May have debased herself to invite Trump on his first state visit to the UK, all for the comprehensive trade deal to mitigate Brexit's damage – a deal which never came? Would the UK's global voice and reputation have been stronger or weaker? Did our economy – pummelled by so many events out of our control – need the additional voluntary hit or not?

Imagine just the last year. Would Keir Starmer have had to prostrate himself before the new American king, offering an unprecedented second state visit, if the UK were not so weakened on the global stage by Brexit? Would Trump have still been able to get everything he wanted – pomp, prestige and royalty – without offering anything except, as it subsequently transpired, political and economic threats and personal insults.

Now imagine the last two weeks. When Trump issued his threats of tariffs for the crime of upholding Denmark's territorial integrity and Greenland's self-determination, all Starmer could do was protest the move and appeal to Trump's better nature. Compare that with the muscular responses of France and Germany, who resolved to respond in kind. They knew they could plausibly do so thanks to the power of the EU behind and alongside them. The UK could only act in isolation. Given the vast power imbalance against the US, that meant, in practice, failing to act at all.

Never has the UK been so exposed. Even in 2016, in a more benign global environment, Brexit was a catastrophic error. Ten years later, it looks incalculably more damaging. Both Britain and the EU are weaker at a time they need collective strength more than ever. Brexit's only beneficiaries have been Russia, China and, as it turns out, an actively hostile United States.

Brexit Failures

Who, apart from Nigel Farage, would be advocating for Brexit right now if we were still in the EU? The verdict of voters would be overwhelming.

The power of the EU was something the UK considered to be a threat instead of what it was: an opportunity.

The bloc enables free nation states to pool some of their sovereignty a...

Read our Monthly Magazine

And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Head North by two Scousers, Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram, is the most original, interesting and important book by serving Labour politicians that I've read.

It was published in 2024 to a pitiful number of mainly patronising reviews in the London media – all of which missed the larger point of its call for a new constitution that enshrines a Basic Law, includes PR, and empowers Members of Parliament. A failure that perhaps confirms the authors' assertion that London has lost the plot and does not grasp how intolerable our system of government has become for the country as a whole.

Of the two, Burnham is well-known as a high-flying Labour politician, who entered Parliament in 2001, and rose swiftly to become a senior Cabinet member under Gordon Brown. When he tried to become Labour leader in 2015, he lost out to Jeremy Corbyn. A year later, he left Westminster altogether to become the first Mayor of Greater Manchester.

Rotheram is less well-known nationally, but his rise from being a bricklayer to becoming a Labour MP and then Mayor of Liverpool is also impressive.

The book opens with the two of them shaking hands in 2016 and pledging their joint determination to leave the House of Commons and seek election to the twin cities of England's north-west – where the novelty of elected mayors was about to become a reality for the first time.

The first half of the book is a dialogue between the two of them as they share the experience of their personal journeys close to the heart of power. Again and again, they are shocked to the point of being traumatised by the cold indifference of the centre to the legitimate needs of their communities.

From Hillsborough to COVID, they draw two personal conclusions from 20 years.

First, in a crisis "you have to speak to the soul of the place you are in".

Second, that the UK has "an unaccountable state that tries to divide and rule and foist decisions taken by a small cabal on millions". It prioritises private vested interests over the public interest while "Whitehall does not regard all people and places as equal".

Andy Burnham: These Dangerous, Alienating Times Call for Radical Change of Our Politics

From imposter syndrome and proportional representation, to fixing the fundamentals and the 'incestuous' Westminster media-political class – Labour's Greater Manchester Mayor believes the right can be defeated at the ballot box if bold changes to connect with the public and their day-to-day lives are made now

Hardeep Matharu

The way they share their account of experiencing the built-in failures of the British state is comparable to Rory Stewart's Politics on The Edge.

Stewart's is a more sustained blow-by-blow account of his journey, in his case through the ruins of the Conservative tradition. It culminates in his attempt to become Prime Minister and his humiliation. Whereas Burnham's takes off after his Westminster ambitions are crushed.

The second half of Head North sets out the way in which Burnham and Rotheram believe the country has to change.

They conclude by demanding a written constitution. They spell out the need for a proportional voting system; empowering Members of Parliament by the removal of the whipping system; a senate of the nations and regions to replace the House of Lords; full devolution; two equal paths in education; a Grenfell law for those in public housing; a Hillsborough law to impose a duty of candour on all public servants; and ecological sustainability.

Missing from their list of constitutional demands is the need for a justice system that works for regular people – something, however, that emerges vividly in their account.

Many others have proclaimed the need for systematic constitutional reform in the United Kingdom, going back to Charter 88 and beyond. Burnham's and Rotheram's call is unique in that it emerges from, and is rooted in, their ...