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Mist gathers over a chalk stream at first light, the surface broken by rising mayflies. A barn owl drifts low over a hedgerow. These moments of quiet resilience are becoming rarer. One in six UK species is now at risk of extinction and average populations have fallen by 19% since 1970 - evidence of a deepening crisis in Britain's natural world.

Into this landscape steps Reform UK. Nigel Farage claims his party is the "voice of the people", promising a government that would defend British culture, identity and values. But behind the populist slogans and patriotic rhetoric lies a devastating agenda for nature that, according to conservation groups, risks accelerating the decline of already fragile ecosystems.

A recent YouGov poll found that 70% of adults surveyed in Great Britain want stronger environmental protections. Yet Reform UK, which says it is preparing for government, has no credible plans to reverse biodiversity loss, safeguard vital habitats or restore degraded ecosystems.

A Plan to Scrap the Foundations of Conservation

At the centre of Reform UK's policy platform is a pledge to scrap, "with immediate effect", more than 6,700 retained EU regulations - among them the Habitats Directive, the Birds Directive and long-standing water-pollution controls that form the backbone of Britain's environmental protections.

Removing these critical nature laws would ease restrictions on development and intensive agriculture, potentially opening the door to habitat destruction on a significant scale.

It would place some of Britain's most important protected areas at risk, including:

Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), which safeguard nationally important wildlife and geological features

Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), created to protect rare habitats and species of European significance

Special Protection Areas (SPAs), designated to conserve vulnerable and migratory bird populations

These protections underpin the survival of natural landscapes that still support the UK's remaining biodiversity strongholds.

'The 'Eco-Populist' Cost-Cutting Budget Rachel Reeves Should Really Deliver'

Only a radical approach to our broken privatised energy system can make British bill-payers genuinely better off, argues Donnachadh McCarthy

Donnachadh McCarthy

Fragile Habitats on the Front Line

Among the natural ecosystems most vulnerable to deregulation are chalk streams - a globally rare habitat found mostly in England - along with ancient woodlands, limestone pavement and coastal landscapes such as salt marshes and dune systems.

The UK's peatlands, which act as significant carbon sinks and support species like the golden plover and sundew, could also face renewed exploitation for peat cutting.

River systems, already under pressure from sewage discharges and agricultural run-off, would deteriorate further without enforceable clean-water standards.

Turning Farmland into a Biodiversity Battlefield

Reform UK's plans also target Agri-Environment Schemes (AES) - including the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), Countryside Stewardship (CS) and Landscape Recovery - which currently pay farmers to restore wetlands, maintain hedgerows and protect pollinators.

Scrapping environmental conditions tied to farm subsidies would effectively end these schemes. Natural England's most recent assessment found AES were boosting wildlife populations such as birds and butterflies, increasing landscape-scale biodiversity and improving water quality and flood resilience. All of this, campaigners say, would be lost under Reform UK.

Farage has additionally promised legislation to ban nature-conservation and rewilding projects on farmland deemed "productive", and to prevent Natural England - the Government's statutory adviser on the natural environment in England - from ...

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This week's budget provides a real opportunity for the UK to adopt an eco-populist approach to consumer energy bills.

This eco-populist energy system would be green, energy independent, secure, efficient, cheap for industry, eliminate fuel poverty and any extra costs would fall on the rich.

Yet how we currently structure energy bills penalises the poor, causes appalling fuel poverty, slows the green transition, is inefficient, dependent on fossil fuel imports, been sold to profiteering billionaires and is really expensive.

For a clean energy system, we need to stop using fossil gas boilers and cookers and close remaining gas power stations as fast as possible.

Therefore electricity prices must be cheaper than gas. Yet insanely successive governments have heaped nearly all of the costs of the green transition, social energy programmes and privatisation profits onto electricity bills, rather than onto taxation and fossil fuels.

The electricity price is now FOUR times higher per unit than gas ( 26.4p versus 6.3p).

The average electricity bill is £900 and gas £850, even though we use far more gas. This is 75% higher than 2020, largely due to gas inflation following the Ukrainian invasion.

A recent parliamentary report found that a staggering 13 million UK households do not turn the heating on due to cost. No wonder the UK suffers a tragic winter elderly death spike compared to other nations.

Most people do not realise that the costs of social energy programmes are not paid for by taxes according to income, but are levied on electricity bills which are not.

What are all these extra levies and costs added to our bills?

The Real Energy Scandal The Media Won't Tell You About

Fossil fuel interests are colluding with billionaire-owned media companies to block the UK's transition towards a cheaper and greener future, argues Donnachadh McCarthy

Donnachadh McCarthy

The largest is the profit for the privatised electricity and gas national grids and suppliers. The Abu Dhabi and US billionaire owned National Grid plc made £5.3 billion in operating profits and the Australian owned National Gas Transmission plc made £600 million.

This equates to £198 per UK household and Unite just reported that National Grid plc profit margins were an extortionate 38%.

The combined profits of all the privatised parts of the energy market, including the supply and billing corporations are estimated by Unite to be £500 per household.

We also have to pay constraint payments, due to the failure of the National Grid to invest its profits in actually building the national grid and storage needed for the proliferating cheap green electricity providers.

Constraint payments pay providers to turn wind turbines off when the grid does not have the capacity to accept or store abundant production.

These balancing costs are about £53 but may rise to £200 by 2030, if they continue to fail to build the required infrastructure. The investment needed is about ten years of its profits.

The Warm Home Discount provides an inadequate grant of £150 to some low-income households and adds another £22 to bills.

The costs of the ECO home insulation scheme for low-income families to reduce gas heating bills is also paid from electricity bills rather than taxes. It adds £56/household.

A staggering £4.2 billion is now owed by households suffering from fuel poverty. £70 is added to bills to cover these debts. Therefore, the poor are paying to cover the bad debts of other poor people, rather than richer taxpayers.

It gets even more punitive for poorer people paying by standard credit, rather than by the direct debits usually used by the better off. They get charged an extra credit premium of £135 due to higher bad-debt risk.

The Gas Electricity Marginal Pricing subsidy adds another £65/year. This co...

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Reform UK's flagship Kent County council has been accused of "hurtling towards financial oblivion" after new financial documents released show that Nigel Farage's supposedly "cost-cutting" local authority has racked up a £46.5m budget overspend forecast for this financial year.

The overspend represents 3% of the overall budget and has increased by 66% in just three months - from £27.9m in the first quarter to £46.5m in the second. Reform was elected to lead the authority last May.

The council's own analysis describes the situation as "critical". In a report to Cabinet on November 19th, Reform deputy council leader Cllr Brian Collins and the council's corporate director of finance state: "The scale of the forecast overspend is unprecedented and represents a critical risk to the financial resilience of the authority."

"This situation demands immediate action. If not addressed in the current financial year, it will have a severe impact on our reserves and will impact our budget position for 2026/27."

Reform UK had issued a leaflet ahead of May's local elections which claimed the party would "reduce waste and cut your taxes" - complete with a smiling picture of Nigel Farage. The party went on to secure a hefty majority.

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It now appears almost certain that council tax will have to rise roughly in line with other councils also facing the strain.

Lib Dem opposition leader Cllr Antony Hook told Byline Times: "I think it will be close to 5%. The administration indicated as much in September."

"We still don't have a draft budget - usually we have one by November, but the administration won't present one until January, leaving very little time for scrutiny or improvements. But budget assumptions so far are based on a 5% council tax rise and an expected 1.5% increase in the council tax base."

That suggests that if the council tax rise is less than 5%, millions more pounds in cuts will have to be found.

"Even with those assumptions, the council still needs to find £46 million in cuts, and there's been no transparency about how," Cllr Hook added.

The figures show a £51m overspend on adult social care this year in the authority, often described as the largest in the country. Residential care services for older people are seeing a £22.4m overspend, and community-based services £16.3m.

It represents a 7.2% overspend in the department. Meanwhile, the council is set to miss its targets to find savings for adult social care spending by £20.9m this year.

The Reform-run council promised millions in social care savings "they knew they couldn't deliver," argues Cllr Hook.

The deficit in the council's schools budget also appears to be spiralling out of control. The deficit forecast for the schools budget this year is set to reach £133.4m, up from £97.5m last year.

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Council officers originally expected to break even on the schools deficit by 2027-28 - but are now expecting a £125m deficit instead. Much of the surge relates to increased spending providing specialist provision to pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEND). The number of pupils requiring specialist support in the county has increased to 18,367, up from 17,209 last year.

Many of those are being sent to independent school placements, at an average cost of £55,727 per pupil, a figure which has also risen substantially over t...

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When President Donald Trump threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion over its edit of his speech from 6 January 2021, when thousands of rioters descended on the US Capitol building, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage immediately took to his show on GB News to defend the President.

Describing the BBC's edit of his speech as "totally outrageous" he told his viewers that "I spent a few minutes with him [the US President]… And his basic thought was, 'Is this how you treat your best ally in the world?' And I get it."

Six months earlier, under chandeliers and American flags at a Florida Republican fundraiser, Farage grinned for the cameras as he shook the hand of a convicted 6 January rioter - a man once photographed stealing Nancy Pelosi's lectern.

At the time, it was widely reported that Farage had missed PMQs to attend the event. Byline Times can reveal that the photo captured more than a moment. It marked the meeting point of two movements - Donald Trump's Project 2025 machine in the United States and a rising populist right in the UK.

The same pro-Trump political operative who arranged Farage's Florida appearance later brought his network to London, launching a new lobbying vehicle aimed at exporting Trump's evangelical Project 2025 agenda across the Atlantic, and working secretly to support Farage.

It was in March 2025, at a glitzy fundraising event hosted by the Florida Republican Party in Tallahassee, that Farage posed for a photograph shaking hands with a convicted 6 January 2021 rioter. The event - a Florida Republican 'Disruptors Dinner' fundraiser whose VIP tables sold for $25,000 apiece - featured the Reform UK leader as the man who delivered Brexit.

Seven months later he belatedly registered receiving a fee for the "speaking engagement" from a company called Imperial Independent Media LLC (IIM), operating from Washington but registered in Alaska. His parliamentary register shows three installments totalling £25,972.

By failing to declare the payment at the time, Farage had breached parliamentary rules. He conceded that his Florida visit should have been declared earlier and apologised for the "error".

By the time he disclosed the fees in October, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards had already opened a probe into the late registration.

The name of the paying company barely registered in Westminster. In Washington, however, it can be found in Justice Department files as the vehicle of a registered foreign agent - Zachary G. Freeman.

Byline Times can reveal that Farage's benefactor is a pro-Trump political lobbyist embedded in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 ecosystem - the US conservative plan to dismantle climate policy, rights for women and ethnic minorities, and democratic safeguards. He also has ties to evangelical groups in the US with a history of anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion activism - and appears to be working actively with Farage to bring this Project 2025-style ideology to Britain.

EXCLUSIVE

Farage's Trillion Pound Black Hole: The Real Cost of Reform UK's Mass Deportation Plan

Exclusive: Reform's plan, which it claims would net huge savings over the coming decades, would actually cost the UK about £70-90bn over the next ten years alone, new analysis of official statistics and forecasts suggests

Nafeez Ahmed

'The Next Prime Minister of Great Britain'

In the run-up to the 2024 US presidential election, Zachary Freeman worked with the Heritage Foundation's State Department planning team in Washington DC. The group's work fed into Project 2025.

Project 2025 was a 900-page policy manual produced by the Heritage Foundation under its 'Mandate for Leadership' series. The document set out how the incoming second Trump administration should radically reshape the federal state, replacing almost all civil servants wit...

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Former Green Party Leader, and Byline Times columnist Caroline Lucas has called for a new pact with the EU that could deliver abundant cheap, clean energy and reduce pollution dramatically, all while robustly tackling the climate crisis.

In a new campaign video, European Movement UK Co-President Caroline Lucas has urged the Government to work towards a new climate partnership with the European Union, warning that key environmental and energy challenges - including the climate crisis, nature restoration, dirty air and water, and high energy costs - "can't be fixed by one nation alone."

It comes as Britons brace for another winter of soaring gas and electricity prices, and as more than 80 countries push for a roadmap to quit fossil fuels at the UN's COP30 climate conference this week.

The push for renewed cooperation is set out in full in A New Agenda for UK-EU Energy, Climate, and Environment Cooperation. It was authored by Lucas' European Movement UK - a cross-party pro-European organisation founded in 1949 to promote closer ties between Britain and the EU.

Britain's self-imposed exile from Europe's integrated systems is at the heart of Britain's soaring prices, the report shows, warning of "mounting evidence of divergence" in everything from energy trading to pesticide regulation.

The campaign group proposes a new "Energy, Climate and Environment Partnership" that would restore win-win cooperation without re-entering the single market.

Here's what they're proposing.

The Government Has Cut Air Pollution Funds to Councils by 99% as Illegal Levels of Pollution Shorten Lives

New data shows just £1.5 million was given to councils in England in the past year to tackle air pollution - down from a high of £225 million in 2021

Josiah Mortimer

Cheap, Clean Energy

One major focus is the fractured state of UK-EU energy cooperation. Since Brexit, the UK has been operating outside the EU's Internal Electricity Market (IEM), which streamlined the flow of electricity to the UK by automatically allocating it where it is cheapest and most needed. The upshot? UK energy prices are rocketing.

Energy UK, a trade association for the UK energy industry, says that being outside of the EU market is adding £120 million - £370 million to energy bills.

As part of Keir Starmer's 'Post-Brexit Reset' in May, the UK Government began negotiations to rejoin the IEM.

While this will likely involve financial contributions from the UK, European Movement UK argues that rejoining the IEM would reduce volatility and unlock more investment in offshore wind.

Modelling in the report suggests this could cut up to £13bn from the cost of building out North Sea infrastructure by 2050, a vast improvement on planning offshore grids in isolation which risks Britain falling behind its neighbours.

North Sea Powerhouse

Another key proposal is that the UK seek full membership of the North Seas Energy Cooperation (NSEC), a regional forum promoting the development of offshore wind power amongst ten North Sea countries. Britain currently retains observer status, excluded from key decisions and long-term planning. The report says that UK developers are currently unable to exert influence over the development's objectives or its potential impacts on marine life.

Lucas argues today that the UK should "play a full role in transforming the North Sea into Europe's clean energy powerhouse."

As stressed by RenewableUK, a trade association for the renewable energy industry, large-scale wind development is inherently cross-border. The UK therefore risks slower deployment without structured European cooperation. This report finds that reconnecting with EU mechanisms could cut up to £13 billion from the cost of meeting offshore wind targets by 2050.

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Nathan Gill, the former leader of Reform UK in Wales, and a trusted lieutenant of Nigel Farage,was sentenced to ten and a half years in prison on Friday, for the crime of taking bribes from Oleg Voloshyn, a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician, in order to repeat pro-Kremlin talking points in the European Parliament.

The case sheds a light on the extent the self-proclaimed "patriots" of the British far-right were prepared to go to help Ukrainian politicians who plotted to be installed as Moscow's new puppet government in Kiev.

While it was SO15, the Metropolitan Police's Counterterrorism Command, which glued together the evidence that was needed to secure successful prosecution, the actual credit should go to the FBI. It was the Americans, who actually extracted the evidence: WhatsApp messages from Voloshyn's phone, in which he discussed secretly paying Gill. That was in July 2021, when President Biden was in the White House and the Kremlin was preparing to invade Ukraine.

That timing is at the centre of the relationship of Voloshyn and Gill, in the context of Moscow's strategy between 2018 and 2020, when the offences took place.

EXCLUSIVE

'Thick as Thieves': Nathan Gill and Nigel Farage's Putin Problem

Far from being distant from the Reform UK Leader, insiders told Byline Times that the former MEP convicted of bribery was one of Farage's closest aides, while we reveal how Gill worked on the Kremlin's strategic plan to crush Ukrainian independence with 'Moscow's Man in Ukraine'

Peter Jukes

Emboldened by the UK voting to leave (and thus weaken) both the EU and our country, the objective the Kremlin has been pursuing for years, with Europe now preoccupied with its uncertain future and Britain set to face serious economic problems for a very long time, Putin had set his sights on Kiev.

The Kremlin was mobilising its military forces within its borders and taking to task its allies outside them to distract and divide European response for when the attack came.

Long Before the Onset of War

"Mobilisation and concentration of forces happen 'unnoticed… long before' the onset of war," wrote Soviet military theorist Georgii Isserson in the 1940s, a line later cited approvingly by Russian Chief of the General Staff and Deputy Minister of Defence Valery Gerasimov in his infamous 2013 article on modern warfare, showing how preparation for war is conducted through deception.

In Russia itself, the military completed the forward deployment of major formations along Ukraine's borders, including the 20th Guards Combined Arms Army in Voronezh and the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army near Rostov-on-Don, both placed in permanent positions facing Ukrainian territory.

From May 2018 onward, following the opening of the Kerch Bridge between Russia and the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula, Russian forces intensified inspections and delays of vessels bound for Mariupol and Berdyansk and progressively restricted Ukrainian access to the Sea of Azov.

In April 2019, the Kremlin introduced a simplified procedure for granting Russian citizenship to residents of the occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, and by mid-2020 more than 100,000 residents had received Russian passports.

In 2020, Ukrainian intelligence publicly assessed that Russia might attempt an operation to seize the North-Crimean Canal, while UN General Assembly resolution 75/29 the same year recorded the continued militarisation of Crimea and repeated closures of Black Sea and Azov Sea areas by Russian forces.

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Former UKIP and Brexit Party MEP Nathan Gill was sentenced at the Old Bailey on Friday to ten and a half years in prison, after pleading guilty to taking bribes to take part in a pro-Russian influence campaign.

Judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said the "corrosive damage to public life" caused by Gill's actions would be enduring.

"Your misconduct has ramifications far beyond personal honor which is now irretrievably damaged," she told Gill.

"It erodes public confidence in democracy when politicians succumb to financial inducement, the public can no longer rely on the veracity of political debate, which may be tainted by disinformation."

The sentence sets a clear legal benchmark - leaving the way clear for the UK Parliament to finally hold a much-needed inquiry into Kremlin meddling in domestic affairs.

In the UK, this inquiry cannot help but look at events surrounding the EU Referendum itself as a major intervention by the Kremlin.

Nathan Gill - one of Farage's closest confidantes in UKIP and the Brexit Party and a leading Reform UK figure in Wales - was convicted for eight counts of bribery, covering payments between December 2018 and July 2019 in return for statements and media interventions that reflected the Kremlin's line on Ukraine.

The bribes occurred during a turbulent period after Prime Minister Theresa May had called out Putin in Lord Mayor's Banquet speech in late 2017 - "we know what you're doing" - for election interference, information warfare, hybrid ops after the invasion of Eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.

The Kremlin had responded by attempting to assassinate the Russian defector Sergei Skripal in Salisbury with the deadly nerve agent Novichok, which ended up killing a local resident Dawn Sturgess.

Putin's exasperation at the Brexit stalemate in Parliament dominates his end of year press conference in Moscow, during which he complains that the "will of the people" is not being enacted, and making an explicit comparison with Donald Trump's election the same year: They don't want to recognise [Trump's] victory… It's the same in Britain: Brexit happened, but nobody wants to implement it."

"It is in this context of Brexit deadlock and mounting Anglo-Russian tensions that Gill starts receiving WhatsApp messages and payments from Oleg Voloshyn.

EXCLUSIVE

'Thick as Thieves': Nathan Gill and Nigel Farage's Putin Problem

Far from being distant from the Reform UK Leader, insiders told Byline Times that the former MEP convicted of bribery was one of Farage's closest aides, while we reveal how Gill worked on the Kremlin's strategic plan to crush Ukrainian independence with 'Moscow's Man in Ukraine'

Peter Jukes

Oleg Voloshyn and the Medvedchuk Network

Gill's conviction creates a documented, criminal link between a British Eurosceptic MEP and a pro-Kremlin influence channel.

However, what is often under-reported is how closely Gill's paymaster Oleg (Oleh) Voloshyn was connected to the most important Russian power networks around Viktor Medvedchuk, Dmitry Medvedev and, ultimately, Vladimir Putin.

On 20 January 2022, the US Treasury sanctioned Oleg (Oleh) Voloshyn as one of four pro-Kremlin Ukrainians "engaged in Russian government-directed influence activities" against Ukraine, working with Russian intelligence-linked actors. He is named in the press release.

In May 2025, the EU Council added Voloshyn to its sanctions list for "Russian hybrid threats", alongside Viktor Medvedchuk and media executive Artem Marchevskyi, describing how Medvedchuk, "through his associates Artem Marchevskyi and Oleg Voloshin", used media platforms to disseminate Russian state narratives and interfere in European politics.

Apart from his media activities, Voloshyn was an MP pro Russian political party 'For Life' led by Viktor Medvedchuk.

Medvedchu...

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The budget for local councils in England to tackle air pollution in their areas has plummeted from a high of £225 million a year to just £1.5 million in the last five years, according to new figures obtained by campaigners.

Mums for Lungs, a group of parent campaigners, had questioned a statement often repeated by Government figures - that they have provided £575m to local authorities to clean up the air.

A Government spokesperson told the Guardian in June: "We have already provided £575m to support local authorities to improve air quality and are developing a series of interventions to reduce emissions so that everyone's exposure to air pollution is reduced."

But the department has now revealed that this refers to Government grants to councils to tackle air pollution since 2016 - in other words, the Labour Government is taking credit for spending under the Conservatives, going back to the start of Theresa May's term.

The funding package came from Defra and the Department for Transport, via the 'Joint Air Quality Unit', to support the development and delivery of local plans for addressing toxic nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution.

But the funding allocated has collapsed over the past year. Mums for Lungs say it means it will take far longer for areas to meet requirements to cut emissions to within World Health Organisation guidelines.

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Mums for Lungs founder Jemima Hartshorn told this outlet: "Every time air pollution comes up [Government officials] say: 'we are spending £575m'.

"We wanted to understand what this number actually is. [It is] the Defra air quality fund that used to exist for local authorities was suspended in April 2024 and not replaced with any other fund."

While councils will be spending some of their own cash to tackle air pollution locally, she added: "Local authorities are scraping from their own reduced budgets."

Stark Numbers Revealed

Data received under the Freedom of Information Act from the environment department Defra shows the average grant provided to councils in England, under eight years of a Conservative Government to tackle air pollution from 2016/17 to 2023/24 was £71.8 million.

But this has now fallen to just £1.5 million under the Labour Government in 2024/25 - representing a 99.4% reduction in funding from a high of £225 million in 2020/21, suggesting the funding has run dry.

It could also suggest a move away from Government support for 'Clean Air Zones' which have been rolled out by some local authorities, including - most notably - by Sadiq Khan in Greater London. Labour leader Keir Starmer was critical of the plans to expand London's Ultra Low Emissions Zone, but it has since proven to be a public health success.

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A Defra spokesperson did not dispute the figures but told Byline Times: "Air pollution is a public health issue, and we are taking action to tackle it across the country.

"We have provided Local Authorities with £575 million since 2018 [sic] to improve air quality, and we continue to work with them to cut harmful emissions and reduce everyone's exposure to air pollution." (The 2018 figure actually appears to actually refer to 2016, according to the disclosures from the department seen by Byline Times.)

The department was asked via the Freedom of Information Act: "How much funding for local authorities [in England] to...

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GB News has been accused of downplaying or avoiding analysing the hundreds of mentions of President Donald in the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Media reform campaigners' analysis of the right-wing channel's output suggests its pundits and presenters have generally presented the Epstein allegations as a distraction, or a non-issue for the US President over recent days.

In recent days commentary on the channel about the story has ranged from "completely dismissing it to outright ignoring it," campaign group Stop Funding Hate has claimed.

That includes not mentioning the story on the day of the release in peak viewing hours (between 6:30am and 10pm), and the same the day after - when it was receiving blanket coverage from other broadcasters.

Of the 1,500 mentions of Donald Trump in the latest cache of Epstein documents released by Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, several have raised questions about how much the President knew of his late friend's sexual crimes. The President has denied all wrongdoing and said he cut off his relationship with Epstein long before becoming aware of any crimes.

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But in an email from Epstein in 2011, the deceased paedophile describes the US President as the "dog that hasn't barked" and claims Trump had "spent hours" at his home with one of Epstein's victims.

In another, Epstein said "of course" Trump "knew about the girls as he had asked Ghislaine to stop", referring to Epstein's long-time associate and girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, as the Guardian reported. The White House has insisted Trump was "not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever" and branded any supposed attempts to link Trump and Epstein as a "hoax" by the "liberal media."

GB News has strongly echoed these narratives over the past week. In the days that followed the release, the channel's commentators insisted there's "no evidence" linking Donald Trump to the supposed "Epstein nonsense."

We look through a sample of these broadcasts below.

Evening of Epstein-Trump revelations - 12th November US time

Late Show Live: Broadcast in the UK early AM on the 13th November.

GB News host Bev Turner asks: "What do you think 'the dog that doesn't bark' means?"

Greg Swenson (Chairman of Republicans Overseas UK) replies: "Nothing to it….If there was anything in the Epstein files, they would have come out in October 2024. You know, as you said, that they tried everything else. They, you know, fabricated a lot of lawfare against the President."

Turner hits out at The Guardian's reporting: "The Guardian [reports] 'He knew all about the girls. Epstein messages pile pressure on Trump'. That is The Guardian's interpretation. Probably not a coincidence that they're running this on the week that the BBC is at war with Donald Trump."

The BBC's supposed 'war with Donald Trump' was in fact two of the most senior BBC figures resigning and the corporation apologising for a clumsy edit of a Donald Trump speech, broadcast over a year ago - followed by belated threats by the President to sue the BBC for between $1bn and $5bn dollars.

EXCLUSIVE

'America Must Save Britain': MAGA-Mania and Conspiracy Theories Broadcast Nightly on GB News' New US Show

A new daily GB News programme broadcast from Washington features climate denial, vaccine misinformation, and non-stop praise for Donald Trump - as its hosts tell the American aud...

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More than 700,000 homes across the ten English councils now governed by Reform UK are projected to face medium or higher flood risk by the middle of the century, exclusive analysis of national modelling by Byline Times and Bylines Network shows.

That is roughly one in five households in the party's local strongholds - communities stretching from Lincolnshire's sinking coastline and Lancashire's Morecambe Bay to the Humber Estuary and the Thames-Medway delta in Kent.

The contradiction could hardly be sharper. While Reform rails against Net Zero targets and has pledged to scrap local climate-resilience programmes, its own councils sit in some of England's most flood-exposed zones.

Commenting on these findings, MPs, local councillors and major British environmental groups said that Reform UK's stance would be disastrous for voters in its own constituencies.

Olivia Blake MP, Chair of the new cross-party Climate and Nature Crisis Caucus in parliament consisting of Labour, Conservative and Green Party politicians, said: "It's cutting your nose off to spite your face. Reducing flood defence spending is not something that I would be encouraging any area to do when we've seen one-in-100 year flood events happening much, much more regularly up and down the country. They will face angry communities if they do not take the right actions on these issues." She condemned politicians who make climate and nature issues part of a "culture war".

Standing out in Aviva's Building Future Communities 2025 report are Lincolnshire for "severe exposure along England's east coast around the Wash", and Lancashire, where homes at risk around Morecambe Bay could rise by up to 34 percentage points by mid-century, stand out.

"Part of the district ward I represent in Lincoln has suffered flooding for three consecutive winters, with some residents forced to evacuate their homes in 2023" said Lincolnshire Councillor Christopher Martin of the Liberal Democrats. "This is a historic and recurring issue, disproportionately affecting one of the most deprived communities in the city."

According to Aviva's national analysis, based on the Environment Agency's National Assessment of Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk in England 2024, the number of English homes facing flood risk is expected to increase by around 27% - from 6.3 million today to 8 million by the 2050s.

Coastal exposure is intensifying fastest: 2.4 million properties at risk now climb to 3.2 million by mid-century as sea levels rise and storm surges strengthen. Surface-water flooding - when intense rain overwhelms drains and streets - is also accelerating, with the most exposed category forecast to grow by two-thirds.

Yet Reform's leadership continues to dismiss climate science as 'green hysteria'. Yet by the 2050s, climate-driven flooding across its ten authorities could impose average yearly damages of about £285 million - equivalent to roughly £7 billion in cumulative losses by 2050 if no new defences are built.

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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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