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In what Will Sommer at The Bulwark has described as the first time the "[Trump] administration has offered assistance to someone from Canada", the US State Department has intervened to reinstate the visa of Laura (Lauren) Chen, co-founder of an illegally funded media outlet aimed at reaching American audiences with Russian propaganda.

Chen, the Canadian founder of Tenet Media on YouTube – which provided a platform to several right-wing commentators including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and Dave Rubin – was exposed in 2024 for taking $10 million from staff at Russia's state broadcaster RT.

Russia Allegedly Spent $10 Million Funding US Media Company and its 'Superspreader' Creators to Push Pro-Kremlin Disinformation

One of the content creators was allegedly paid $400,000 a month for four weekly video productions

Pekka Kallioniemi

According to the indictment, two RT employees channelled money through a shell "investment" arrangement into Tenet, which then paid prominent American right-wing influencers to produce videos attacking Ukraine aid, praising Donald Trump and amplifying divisive domestic themes. Chen lost her US work status and returned to Canada after the scandal, but has now been allowed to re-enter the United States

According to Chen's recent posts on Instagram and X, her new visa was secured with assistance from officials in the Trump Administration, specifically Joe Rittenhouse, a senior adviser on consular affairs at the State Department, whom she thanked publicly by name.

Rittenhouse replied: "This Christmas, I'm so happy to help correct the wrongs of the past administration. Being able to bring Lauren and her family back for Christmas would not be possible without new Leadership at the White House, FBI, CBP, and State Department."

A few days earlier, in response to Secretary of State Marco Rubio's announcements of sanctions against five Europeans, Rittenhouse celebrated by reposting a GIF from the far-right British influencer Carl Benjamin, "You get what you fucking deserve!"

The Musk-Trump Alliance Is Back as the White House Wields Diplomatic Power to Defend Big Tech Profits

Presented as a defence of free speech, the Trump administration's visa sanctions on European regulators shield tech platform profits and undermine democratic regulation abroad

Caroline Orr Bueno

These sanctions – prompting EU condemnation – targeted the mastermind of the Digital Services Act, Thierry Breton, and four other individuals who work on detecting online hate speech, extremism and disinformation; Claree Melfod, the co-founder and leader of the Global Disinformation Index: Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon, the two CEOs of HateAid, which provides legal support for victims of online hate speech: and Imran Ahmed, founder of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

Rittenhouse, who retweets the far-right EDL founder Tommy Robinson, and regularly amplifies both Carl Benjamin and Tenet Media's Tim Pool, commented on the announcement of the ban – "inject into my veins… I love my job" – implying he was involved in the sanctions as well as welcoming back Tenet Media's co-founder.

The support for Russian paid for influencers spreading disinformation, compared to the US State Department's targeting of Europeans investigating it, could hardly be more stark.

Musk Aligns with Trump and Putin in Midterm Push

While Elon Musk's antipathy towards hate speech monitors and the Digital Services Act is commercially obvious – the European Commission fined X €120 million in December 2025 for breaching DSA transparency rules – his support for Russian propaganda channels is slightly more hidden.

The Tenet scheme sits alongside a wider Kremlin influence system overseen by Sergei Kiriyenko, first deputy head of the Presidential Administration.

With the demise of Sergey Prigozhin and his infamous troll farms, the Kreml...

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Keir Starmer's spokesman on Wednesday insisted that "all options are on the table" to stop Elon Musk's X site from generating "completely unacceptable" deepfake sexual images of children, but would not commit the UK Government to taking specific direct action against them.

Asked by Byline Times why the Government has not followed through on the Prime Minister's commitment at the end of last year to ban any apps producing such deep fakes, the Prime Minister's spokesman said that "we won't allow" the practice to continue, but would not commit to either implementing a ban, or to stop posting there.

"What we've seen on Grok is a disgrace," the spokesman said.

"It is completely unacceptable. No one should have to go through the ordeal, of seeing intimate deep flakes of themselves online, and we won't allow the proliferation of these demeaning images."

Producing sexual deepfakes of children is a crime in the UK.

However, Starmer's spokesman suggested that it was an issue for the independent media regulator Ofcom to deal with, in the first instance.

"X needs to deal with this urgently" they said.

"And Ofcom has our full backing to take enforcement action wherever firms are failing to protect UK users.

"It already has the power to issue fines of up to billions of pounds and even stop access to a site that is violating the law.

"And when it comes to keeping people safe online, all options remain on the table."

The Musk-Trump Alliance Is Back as the White House Wields Diplomatic Power to Defend Big Tech Profits

Presented as a defence of free speech, the Trump administration's visa sanctions on European regulators shield tech platform profits and undermine democratic regulation abroad

Caroline Orr Bueno

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has spoken repeatedly in the past about her passion for protecting children from sexual abuse, in relation to child grooming gangs.

However, her spokesman also failed to call for direct action against X.

He told reporters on Wednesday that "we are very clear that what is happening with those Grok deep fakes is absolutely disgusting, and there has to be something done to stop that."

However, he would not say what that something should be.

"I'm not about to announce policy here. We haven't sat down and thought about how we would go about that. But I don't want it there to be any doubt here in our condemnation of what is going on."

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Boris Johnson's Government acted in "blind panic" in signing a deal with the Duchy of Cornwall to lease an unusable radon gas filled prison in Dartmoor, which will needlessly cost taxpayers over £100m, a new Parliamentary report has found.

An investigation by the Commons Public Accounts Committee reveals for the first time the full scale of the contract to lease HMP Dartmoor and the repercussions for the taxpayer, before any remedial work to remove the radon gas can be undertaken. Radon gas is highly dangerous and can cause cancer.

In 2022 under Dominic Rabb, the justice secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, signed a deal with Prince William's Duchy of Cornwall, who own the prison.

Byline Times revealed in 2024 the existence of the deal which would bring in £1.5 million a year for the Prince.

But now MPs show the costs to the taxpayer are far higher. The contract from 2023 is for 10 years, bringing in a total of £15m for William plus another £25 million to cover security and rates. In addition, the ministry agreed to pay £68m from taxpayer funds for structural improvements to the prison. All this is before any remedial work to deal with the radon gas. The ministry had commissioned a report on the extent of the gas but signed the deal before it received its findings. The 10 year contract cannot be broken until 2033.

EXCLUSIVE

Reform Chairman Who Boasts of Expertise in Business 'Compliance' Had Ten Firms Struck off for Breaking Company Law

Exclusive: Paul Donaghy established at least 10 firms struck off by Companies House, according to official records

Josiah Mortimer

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Conservative chair of the committee, said:

"The issue of HMP Dartmoor is an absolute disgrace, from top to bottom. We heard claims that the leasing of this unusable building, known for years by HM Prison and Probation Service to be choked with radon gas with all the health risks that entailed, was sensible, driven by the need for prison places. Our Committee rejects this excuse outright.

"Dartmoor appears to the Committee a perfect example of a department reaching for a solution, any solution, in a blind panic and under pressure. This is, obviously, not how policy should be delivered. Government must now respond to us on what it has learned from this catastrophic failure, and how nothing like it will ever be allowed to happen again."

The report reveals that all remedial work to remove radon gas has been abandoned awaiting a report from the Health and Safety Executive. The ministry has still not decided what to do with the prison.

The report is also critical of another issue involving the ministry of justice dating back to previous successive Conservative governments– the reform and administration of the legal aid system made over a decade ago.

This restricted access to legal aid and at the same time previous governments failed to raise legal aid fees. As a result the legal aid became inaccessible for many of the most vulnerable – among the 24%of people who have no digital access including disabled people and people in housing debt.

Clifton-Brown said: "On legal aid, the reforms of a decade ago are now at serious risk of going down in history as an extinction event for the entitlement to access to legal advice in large parts of the country.

"Our report finds government remaining stubbornly uninterested in whether this is the case, but it must now wake up on this subject. If it refuses to, the Ministry of Justice should, frankly, consider changing its name to the Ministry of Justice (for Certain People). This might be more appropriate for a nation without a sustainable solution in the long-term to provide legal aid to the digitally-excluded quarter of the population who need it most."

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Like so much that Donald Trump has done since he returned to the White House, the US attack on Venezuela and capture of its President was shocking but not surprising.

It was shocking because of its flagrant violation of international and US law.

However, it was unsurprising, because Trump has for the past year signalled his aggressive intent towards Venezuela, while making clear in his recent National Security Strategy that he had a right to intervene anywhere in the Western hemisphere, regardless of legal constraints, under what he dubbed the "Donroe Doctrine".

And yet Trump's ruthless assertion of the Donroe Doctrine did somehow manage to take at least some by surprise. European leaders were not only blindsided in the sense that Trump had declined to offer even the elementary courtesy of forewarning close allies of the impending action to remove Nicolas Maduro from power.

The Musk-Trump Alliance Is Back as the White House Wields Diplomatic Power to Defend Big Tech Profits

Presented as a defence of free speech, the Trump administration's visa sanctions on European regulators shield tech platform profits and undermine democratic regulation abroad

Caroline Orr Bueno

Judging by their fumbling response, they appear not to have anticipated that the US President may have been serious when he laid claim to the western hemisphere as an exclusive US sphere of influence. The result is that Europe now finds itself plunged into a deep geopolitical crisis for which it appears entirely unprepared.

To be fair to Europe's leaders, Trump's action placed them in a near-impossible position. They have spent the past four years trying to rally global support for Ukraine on the basis that Russia's invasion was in breach of Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter which prohibits 'the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state'.

Now they face a choice between condemning the US action in Venezuela as a breach of international law, and thereby risking Trump's wrath, or backing his action and being branded hypocrites. Most have chosen to sit on the fence, with Sir Keir Starmer offering the most mealy-mouthed response of the lot.

This European pusillanimity is deeply worrying because Europe's own interests are directly threatened by the Donroe Doctrine. Sounding like a mob boss when speaking at Trump's press conference at the weekend, secretary of state Marco Rubio told the world that the message of the Venezuelan intervention was that when this president says he is serious about wanting something, he gets it.

The problem for Europe is that the one thing that this President covets above all is Greenland. Indeed, Trump has since reiterated his determination to annex Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally and EU member, insisting that America needs it for its national security.

Europe can no longer be under any illusion that Trump is anything other than deadly serious about acquiring Greenland. What's more, the US President has not ruled out using force if necessary. That leaves Europeans facing a desperate dilemma. If Trump was not deflected from attacking Venezuela by concern for international law, then he is unlikely to be deterred from seizing Greenland by pious declarations from European capitals.

On the other hand, if he did take Greenland by force – which would be far easier than capturing Maduro – then that would mark the end of NATO, with potentially disastrous consequences for European security.

Europe may thus soon find itself facing a choice: does it care more about preserving Danish sovereignty over Greenland, which it may not in any case be within its capabilities, or preserving what remains of the NATO alliance, which remains vital to maintaining security on its eastern flank from a hostile Russia?

This is not a choice that any European leader ever expected to have to fac...

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When the Trump administration recently announced visa sanctions against five Europeans involved in anti-hate and anti-disinformation work, the move was presented as a defence of the First Amendment in the face of alleged censorship by EU bureaucrats.

The more consequential story, however, is not about free speech but about money and power: who gets to regulate global tech platforms, who bears the cost of online harm, and who wins and loses when the United States takes sides in the global fight over tech regulation.

The beneficiaries of the Trump administration's unprecedented sanctions are not ordinary Americans whose voices were supposedly silenced. Instead, they are the same US tech companies and billionaire executives who have spent years lobbying against the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), donating to Trump-aligned political causes, and promoting a narrative that equates platform accountability with censorship.

What makes the sanctions decision so extraordinary is not only the alignment of interests but the escalation of a long-running battle between US tech platforms and foreign regulators. The Trump administration has effectively adopted the tech industry's worldview and used US diplomatic power to advance it — against America's own allies.

Elon Musk Has Made X a Threat to Democracy and His War on the EU Proves It

Caroline Orr Bueno reports on how the billionaire X owner has turned Twitter into a tool for foreign interference which monetises and weaponises a global network of disinformation

Caroline Orr Bueno

Targeted Sanctions

The sanctioned individuals are not random Europeans expressing opinions about speech or content. They are people whose work has directly intersected with, supported, or strengthened enforcement of the EU's Digital Services Act — the most serious effort anywhere in the democratic world to impose transparency and risk-mitigation requirements on large online platforms.

They include Thierry Breton, the former European Commissioner for the Internal Market and a central architect and enforcer of the DSA; Imran Ahmed, founder and chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH); Eva Maria Kirschsieper and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, managing directors of HateAid; and Rashad Ali, a British counter-extremism expert whose work has focused on online radicalisation and Islamist and far-right propaganda.

Musk's framing – research as censorship and enforcement as oppression – has now been elevated from a CEO's grievance to US foreign policy.

Their work differs in scope, but it aligns in one crucial way: each has contributed — through regulation, research, or legal advocacy — to holding large tech platforms accountable for systemic harms.

That accountability is precisely what the DSA is designed to impose. The law does not ban political viewpoints or dictate acceptable opinions. Rather, it requires large platforms to assess systemic risks such as disinformation and extremism, curb illegal content, and provide transparency into how their systems shape public discourse. It also authorises fines of up to 6% of global annual revenue for non-compliance — amounts that can reach into the billions for companies such as X and Meta.

The Financial Stakes for Big Tech

For platforms whose profits depend on engagement-driven algorithms and minimal oversight, the DSA represents an existential threat to their business model.

Compliance with the DSA requires tech platforms to take steps such as expanding moderation teams, conducting internal audits, redesigning algorithmic systems, and meeting transparency obligations that make it harder to profit from a model that exports harm. More fundamentally, reducing the amplification of toxic but viral content risks lowering engagement — the metric that drives advertising revenue.

These risks help explain why tech companies and their tr...

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A Reform UK politician who boasts of skills in business 'compliance' has had at least ten companies struck-off for breaking company law.

Paul Donaghy, who stood for the North East Mayoral post and in the Washington & Gateshead South constituency last year, was previously a Conservative councillor until defecting to Reform UK in January 2023, where he remains the Washington & Gateshead South Chairman.

Companies House records suggest that he has established ten companies which have been struck off by the regulator for failing to submit legally-required documents including accounts.

Ten of the eleven companies registered in his name have been subject to 'compulsory strike off' – having been dissolved by the state for failing to file accounts or other crucial documents. It means he has repeatedly breached the Companies Act.

The ten dissolved firms are: QRF Events Media Limited, Impact Catering Newcastle Limited, Washi.com Ltd, Donaghy-Myers Enterprise Limited, QRF Events Limited, Jacob CCS Ltd, Avenger Gaming Technology Ltd, DCS Group North Limited, Jacob Cameron C-E-C Limited, Avenger Gaming Technology Ltd.

The only company which appears to currently be active – a consulting firm in his name – is now also late filing its returns.

Donaghy's online bio states: "Away from Paul's Political work he is currently operating as a consultant overseeing multiple locations, ensuring operational efficiency, compliance, and growth. His ability to manage budgets, develop strategies, and drive teams to success speaks to his sharp leadership acumen and his talent for inspiring action."

He is understood to be standing in Sunderland City Council in the May 2026 elections, where a third of the council is up for grabs.

holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED

While most the rest of the media seems to happy to give the handful of Reform MPs undue prominence, Byline Times is committed to tracking the activities of Nigel Farage's party when actually in power

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Reform has faced a slew of council scandals recently, many revealed by Byline Times' Reform Uncovered investigative project.

In November, a Reform councillor in the party's flagship Kent council was accused of flouting transparency rules after refusing to declare his company on his register of interests or respond to questions about it from his constituent, prompting a formal complaint.

Kent County Council, which promised to "reduce waste and cut your taxes", is also set to raise bills on local taxpayers after presiding over a £46 million overspend.

The council is planning to shut down multiple council scrutiny committees as it struggles to fill posts after suspending nine of its own councillors, leaving the council in chaos, Byline Times revealed in November.

The party also recently reached out to opposition parties for help making cuts after a "desperate" search for savings fell short of identifying the millions of pounds in savings they promised.

Before the story broke of Nigel Farage's alleged racism as a schoolboy, this outlet found that his chosen Reform candidate for Mayor of Doncaster suggested Black Britons can't be English, claiming being E...

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Prime Minister Keir Starmer is reportedly planning to launch a major Government reset, next year, starting with a King's speech in May.

Few would dispute the need. Under current polling the party is on course for a historic routing at next year's local elections.

So far, Labour's response to the threat posed by Reform has been to harden its language and policy on migration, to frame human rights as impediments to tackling the issue, and to signal "toughness" at almost any cost.

The overwhelming logic behind this strategy has been the idea that Labour needs to chase Reform voters in order to survive.

However, new polling suggests the opposite could be true.

Research carried out by Survation for Compassion in Politics, and shared exclusively with Byline Times, shows that if Keir Starmer leaned into his stated values of compassion, tolerance and care, Labour could achieve a net gain of as many as 3.2 million votes at the next election. That is roughly one sixth of the turnout at the last general election and, on similar turnout next time, could be enough to overturn Reform's projected majority.

An electoral drubbing, in other words, is not inevitable. The votes are there. Labour is simply looking for them in the wrong direction.

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The biggest gains from this approach would not be from Reform, but from the progressive voters Labour is currently haemorrhaging. According to the polling, an estimated net 1.5 million voters say they would be more likely to switch from the Greens and 1.1 million from the Liberal Democrats were Starmer to be more clearly guided by compassion.

Labour is sitting on a vast pool of voters who broadly share its historic values but who no longer trust its leadership to stand up for them. That erosion of trust matters. Of respondents who currently expect to vote Labour, 50% say they would be more likely to do so if Starmer showed greater compassion. A further 1.5 million voters say they would consider switching to Labour if Keir Starmer came across as more sincere.

This is not just about rhetoric. It is about congruence.

What the polling exposes is something many Westminster commentators have missed. Despite the noise around Reform, Britain remains a predominantly progressive country. Using Survation's segmentation, developed with 38 Degrees, 54% of the electorate falls into what is described as the progressive majority.

These voters are diverse, but they are not incoherent. They include what are known as "open hearted collectivists", "guarded localists", "pragmatic youth", "rooted traditionalists" and "cosmopolitan optimists". They differ on tone and emphasis, but they share core commitments to fairness, dignity, decency and social responsibility.

Crucially, across the whole of this progressive majority, 44% say they would be more likely to vote Labour if Starmer backed more compassionate policies. Just 11% say they would be less likely.

This directly challenges the fatalism that has taken hold in Westminster, the idea that voters are inexorably moving rightwards, and that the only way to defeat the far right is to mimic its language or legitimise its framing. The evidence tells a different story.

As CEO of Compassion in Politics, I have spent years arguing that compassion is not an add on to politics, but a governing principle grounded in evidence, effectiveness and trust.

This polling makes that case in electoral terms. Failing to heed it does not just damage Labour's electoral prospects but also feeds the forces that would undermine democracy.

Adopting the rhetoric...

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When the Nathan Gill bribery story fist hit the headlines, Keir Starmer and his ministers dodged calls from MPs to launch a full enquiry into Russian interference in British politics. So, when the Government this week ordered an urgent review into foreign financial political interference, it came as a surprise to many.

However, there was one big snag: while aiming to consider "recent cases", it will not "consider previous allegations over interference in the Brexit referendum".

Perhaps to ensure that the review does not go anywhere near Brexit, it is being led by Philp Rycroft, one of the handful of senior civil servants who spearheaded "getting Brexit done", with little regard to questions around its legitimacy.

Needless to say, he does not happen to have any relevant experience in either covert finance operations, nor national security. Having defended his Doctorate of Philosophy (DPhil) on the ever-pressing topic of church and community in XVIII-XIX century Yorkshire, he served as Permanent Secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) between October 2017 and March 2019.

Keir Starmer Is Setting a Trap for Nigel Farage With Foreign Interference Inquiry

As Reform opens the door to crypto donations, the Government is finally starting to take action against the threat of foreign financial interference in our politics, reports Adam Bienkov

Adam Bienkov

The excuse which a Labour Government minister used to justify staying away from the Russian covert operation around Brexit, echoed Boris Johnson's: Russian interference had no material impact on elections. However, that assumption is unproven.

According to US intelligence, the Kremlin spent over USD 300 million since 2014 to influence European politics via front companies and think tanks. For comparison, the total Brexit campaign spending was about £30 million. Carnegie adds that non-state actors may play a predominant role in such campaigns even when a government is ultimately behind them.

Foreign interference has a material impact on elections when the society is divided and voters are split on an issue around 50:50. In cases where the margins of voting counts are wide, it may not alter outcomes but it can still damage democratic integrity.

US intelligence and congressional inquiries showed that Russian interference in 2016 plausibly shifted sentiment in swing states because they were decided by tens of thousands of votes. The Hillary Clinton campaign is adamant that, according to their poll data, it was the Russian operation to disclose emails on 22 July 2016 which was the single factor that moved the election in Trump's favour.

In Romania and Moldova, courts and authorities explicitly concluded that Russian financial and cyber interference compromised electoral integrity to the point that outcomes were annulled or required extraordinary counter-measures.

Similarly in the UK, the Brexit referendum's two-point margin combined with unresolved questions of opaque funding, data-driven targeting and disinformation makes material impact plausible but untested because the Government refused to investigate.

For the past 15 years or more, the British electoral system has witnessed what some in the intelligence community called "the most successful Russian active measures operation against the UK". It comprised sustained and systematic Russian political interference through donations to political parties, via shell companies and foreign-born British passport holders, and other Putin proxies. I myself became an unwitting witness of this when, in 2010, a senior Russian diplomat in London looked for ways to channel funds into the Conservative Party.

In addition, Russian oligarchs based in the UK funded political thinktanks propagating specific narratives, employed relatives of politicians, and influenced influential politicians tho...

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Family members of the Palestine Action-affiliated hunger strikers have called on Justice Secretary David Lammy to meet with the strikers before any of them die.

Speaking at a press conference in Vauxhall on Thursday, the sisters of hunger strikers Kamran Ahmed and Teuta Hoxha and the next of kin of Qesser Zuhrah alleged ill treatment of their relatives by prison staff, and pleaded with the Government to agree to a meeting to negotiate over the hunger strikers' terms so that they can put an end to the strike.

29 Palestine Action-affiliated individuals are currently being held on remand for their alleged involvement in break-ins at a facility outside Bristol owned by the Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems and at RAF Brize Norton where military planes were sprayed with red paint.

Of these 29, seven are on hunger strike in five different prisons. Demands from the strikers include immediate bail,a lifting of the ban on Palestine Action, the closure of Elbit Systems on UK soil and the ability to communicate freely with family and supporters outside the prisons. Ministers have so far refused to meet with the strikers or their representatives to discuss their demands.

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Shahmina Alam, sister of Kamran Ahmed, a 28-year-old prisoner currently on day 39 of his hunger strike, stated that her brother: "saw the outpouring of videos from Gaza and the Palestinians being slaughtered; he couldn't look away […] it drove him to stand for humanity".

She said that her brother is committed to "the liberation of Palestine" and to "our rights in this country as a British citizen" as well as the rights to a fair trial and to not be censored. She claimed that because these had been denied he had taken the "most difficult decision to starve his body of nutrients".

Alam told the press conference that while her brother's ketone levels had previously stabilised, they are now rising rapidly to dangerous levels. She also said that his heart is giving in and that he is losing 0.5 kilograms in body weight each day.

She called on David Lammy to "please have this meeting" saying: "we haven't asked for much. Stop declining the meetings from MPs. If you don't want to speak to us, then at least speak to your colleagues. This is not about your politics, it is about the lives of eight individuals".

Medical professionals believe that all of the strikers are in imminent danger of death, or permanent, life-altering injuries including irreversible brain damage, as a result of the advanced stage of their strike.

Six of the strikers - Qesser Zuhrah, Amu Gib, Heba Muraisi, Jon Cink, Teuta Hoxha and Kamran Ahmed - have refused food for at least 39 days.

Three of the strikers, Heba Muraisi, Amu Gib and Qesser Zuhrah are on days 46 or 47 of their strike.

Martin Hurson, one of the IRA hunger strikers in the H-Block of Long Kesh prison, to whom the Palestine Action-affiliated strikers are increasingly being compared, died after 46 days of his hunger strike in 1981.

Ella Moulsdale, 21, the next of kin of Qesser Zuhrah - who has been held on remand in HMP Bronzefield since November 2024, and who is on day 47 of her hunger strike - told journalists of the "excruciating pain" Zuhrah is in.

Zuhrah was taken to hospital last night. Her supporters who protested outside HMP Bronzefield, including Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana, claim that she was denied access to emergency medical care for several hours.

Moulsdale told journalists: "[Qesser Zuhrah] was 19 when she was taken from us. She was just starting at university and she had her whole life ahead of her...

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A British academic and his Nigerian wife say the Home Office has "ruined Christmas" after refusing a visa for their cousin, a student of prosthetics and orthotics at a top-ranking university.

Dr James Pickering and his wife Chioma had booked a return flight for their eighteen-year-old cousin and had stated that they could financially sponsor her visit.

However, the Home Office denied the visa, saying that their cousin Chizaram had not provided evidence of an "ongoing and genuine relationship" with Pickering and his wife, which "damages the credibility of [your] application".

They added: "I am not satisfied that you will leave the UK at the end of the visit."

"Chizaram has never left Nigeria and never been on a plane, so we were really hoping she could have her first 'white Christmas' in the UK," said Pickering.

"We sent all the evidence we could - WhatsApp messages, call logs, bank statements, photos - really belts and braces - but they still refused the visa. My wife has spent days in tears. They've really ruined Christmas for us."

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In May the Home Office launched a crackdown on student visas from countries it deems "high-risk".

Whitehall officials claimed that students from Nigeria, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were more likely to overstay their visas and claim asylum. Official data at that time showed that people from those countries were the most likely to enter the UK on a work or study visa and then switch to the asylum system.

The cuts to international student visas were announced as part of a package of measures in the gGovernment's immigration white paper, which followed a series of losses to Reform in the local elections in May. Labour vowed to reduce overall immigration figures and tackle what former Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described as "abuses in the system".

Pickering and his wife have applied for five visas in the last year for members of their family in Nigeria to visit them in Britain for short stays. All of the visas have been denied. Each time their family members have reapplied, having addressed the original concerns set out in their decision letters, the department has raised new concerns which had not been addressed originally.

Last year a large number of family members were unable to attend the couple's wedding following repeated rejections. The family have only once managed to have a "particularly egregious refusal" overturned following intervention from their local MP Neil O'Brien.

"My wife Chioma is completely cut off from her family here," said Pickering. "It's difficult for her to maintain a relationship with those she loves, especially when the power and connection goes down. We just want to be able to spend time with her family."

Pickering believes that the recent increase in the use of AI to assess visa applications could be the cause of the repeated visa rejections.

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"I believe they approach applications looking to refuse them rather than trying to assess them fairly," said Pickering. "We sent through a hundred pages of evidence. At no point did they ask for more information and we have no right to appeal. It feels like they just bank on ...