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Leaked US military papers seen by Byline Times suggest that Gaza's newly created Civil-Military Coordination Centre, now endorsed by the UN Security Council as part of Donald Trump's 20-point peace plan, will function more as a US Army command post than a humanitarian hub.

Presented publicly as the logistical nerve-centre of Gaza's reconstruction, the CMCC appears instead to weld military oversight to civilian governance. Its structure and leadership echo a forward headquarters rather than a neutral relief body, raising questions about who truly seeks to shape Gaza's future: aid agencies or an American-led security apparatus operating from inside Israel.

Humanitarian Hub or Military Mission?

Critics from a number of Palestinian advocacy organisations in London have said the CMCC promises false humanitarian and reconstruction proposals.

The leaked papers, given to the London-based conflict research charity Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), outline how the 20-point plan devised by Trump is to be implemented.

Chaired personally by the President, it promises to synchronise relief, stabilisation and rebuilding efforts under the slogan "Earn Trust with Actions." Based in a warehouse complex in Kiryat Gat, a short drive from Tel Aviv, this new "humanitarian" operation, inaugurated on 17 October 2025, is presented as the centrepiece of Gaza's post-war recovery.

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US Army Control

The documents show that the CMCC is led by the US Army Central Command (ARCENT) and overseen by an "Executive Committee" of American generals and civilian appointees.

The document identifies a list of military actors whose exact role in the CMCC is unclear, but who appear to hold operating roles on the ground. They include Yaniv Asor, a major-general in the Israel Defence Forces and newly appointed commander of its Southern Command. He has long served in frontline infantry and reconnaissance formations in Gaza and Lebanon.

His CMCC and US counterpart appears to be Brad Cooper, a US Navy vice-admiral, who has, since February 2024, served as deputy commander of United States Central Command (CENTCOM) and was nominated for its top job by the Trump administration in June 2025.

Further on the US side, appears to be "MG Drake", likely to be Aaron D. Drake, a senior officer in the the US Air Force nominated for Major General in mid-2025 and serving in senior defence-intelligence roles.

The list of senior military commanders is long indeed. Present is "RDML Sicola" or US Navy Rear Admiral Craig C. Sicola who serves as Vice Director, Strategy, Plans and Policy J5 for United States Central Command. Another flag-officer is "RADM Schlereth", or US Navy Rear Admiral Frank G. Schlereth, a Senior Defence Official/Defence Attaché to Israel. Other military advisors include Lt Gen Michael R. Fenzel, the US Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority and Rear Adm Adan G. Cruz, CENTCOM's J5 director.

The CMCC's documents are also notable for their language of logistics and chain of command. They describe a site "operating 24/7" where every participating country or organisation is assigned an office and an "LOE" (line of effort). It is framed under six priorities: Intelligence, Security, Humanitarian Assistance, Reconstruction, International Stabilisation, and Civil Governance, echoing the structural language of a military, rather than a humanitarian campaign

The leadership table for the Civil-Military Coordination Centre (CMCC) makes plain who is in charge and it is not aid agencies....

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Caroline Flack was 'tried by The Sun newspaper and found guilty' contributing to her mental health decline and suicide, as revealed in a new Disney+ docuseries led by her mother.

In Caroline Flack: Search for the Truth, the late Love Island host's inner circle challenge assumptions about a December 2019 incident involving the TV presenter and her boyfriend Lewis Burton - showing how a tabloid feeding frenzy turned a private crisis into a public spectacle.

The film follows her mother, Christine Flack, as she tries to understand how a daughter who was once reality TV's golden girl ended up dead at 40.

At the time of her death, Caroline was facing trial on one count of assault by beating, accused of smashing a lamp over Burton's head during an argument at her London flat. The documentary sets out how this version of events was dangerously misleading.

Photographs later splashed across the tabloids depicted a 'bloodbath' scene - but the blood was her own, from self-inflicted wounds that required 12 hours of treatment; while Burton's injuries were minor.

Christine's questions cut to the heart of the case. "What I'd like to understand is, was Caroline treated the same as everybody else - or was she treated differently?" she asks.

Caroline's agent, Louise Booth, describes how the presenter was commodified by the very newspapers that had once celebrated her: "We knew what the truth was but the newspapers, you can tell them until you are blue in the face. At this point, Caroline was worth more to them in print to be the villain than the hero that she was six months ago and she was hosting Love Island."

What Kind of World Am I Leaving For My Children?

With the number of hate crimes, including offences motivated by race and religion, recorded by the police in England and Wales rising for the first time in three years, Nikesh Shukla reflects on the conversations we all need to be having around racism and the rise of the far-right

Nikesh Shukla

Christine told the documentary that she feels "sad" and "mad" to think that "something as awful as this" was going on in Caroline's life and "she becomes not a person to the press, she's expendable".

Showbiz reporter and editor Paul Martin, who worked with Caroline for a number of years, describes the brutal mindset deployed by the tabloids: "Every time you put Caroline Flack in the newspapers they sold and, on the front page, a lot more."

The turning point, Christine believes, came with The Sun's New Year's Day splash in 2020 - 20 days after Caroline's arrest - under the editorship of Tony Gallagher.

"Over that Christmas Carrie seemed to be coping, and then on January the 1st this was the headline: FLACK'S BEDROOM BLOODBATH'," her mother recalls.

"And it was complete and utter shock. The way this story reads is that Caroline had hit her boyfriend with a lamp and that was his blood. And that is so far from the truth. That was Caroline's blood where she'd cut her wrists."

Friend Mollie Grosberg, who spent time with Caroline in her final weeks, is blunt about The Sun's decision to publish those images: "Every single person that was there, that let that go to print, should be ashamed of themselves, because as far as I'm concerned, that is one of the main reasons why she isn't here today."

In the film, Christine pushes Paul Martin to explain how such a graphic image could ever have been cleared for publication. He replies that it would have gone through layers of senior scrutiny.

"From experience, that would have gone through three lawyers, the editor, the news editor conference where you have plenty of very intelligent journalists who are very able to speak for themselves, in all newspapers, debating whether or not they should use it," he says.

When Christine asks whether anyone considered what effect this mig...

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Anyone who's seen Alison Klayman's 2019 documentary The Brink will remember the scenes where Steve Bannon and Nigel Farage sit together discussing a pan-European nationalist populist "Movement" - with Bannon calling Farage "the face" of Brexit while they talk about stitching together far-right parties across the EU. Bannon tells Farage that he'll "fund it somehow".

What those scenes didn't show is that the Brussels vehicle Bannon was about to claim as his own - The Movement - had actually been created out of Farage's network and that, in the background, Jeffrey Epstein was quietly helping Bannon plan, protect, and track his "European revolution".

Farage is not just a cameo, he is 'Mr Brexit' - the most famous and successful of Bannon's protégés apart from Donald Trump.

And Farage was wired into the legal shell of The Movement through his partner, Laure Ferrari, from day one - with an opaque dark money funding structure suggested by Epstein.

Farage's Partner Builds the Brussels Shell

Before Bannon ever announced his European project, a Brussels foundation with the same name already existed - built by individuals in Farage's world.

On 9 January 2017, according to the deed quoted by FOIA Research, a new foundation called Le Movement/The Movement was founded in Belgium with the aim to unite "populist and conservative movements in Europe", defending "national sovereignty", "effective national borders", the "fight against radical Islam", and "the defence of Israel as a sovereign state on its historic land".

It was registered by the right-wing Belgian lawyer Mischaël Modrikamen, his wife Yasmine Dehaene-Modrikamen, and Laure Ferrari, a protégé and aide to the then UK MEP Nigel Farage, who was fresh from his success in leading the Leave.EU campaign during the 2016 EU Referendum.

Ferrari had worked for Farage's UKIP, and then ran the Institute for Direct Democracy in Europe - a Farage-linked think tank later accused (alongside the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe) of diverting EU funds into UKIP campaigning.

Today, Ferrari is openly Farage's partner, so close to the Reform UK Leader that the house he said he had bought in his Clacton parliamentary constituency is actually owned by her.

Modrikamen told FOIA Research that he had circulated a memo about The Movement to like-minded parties, but nothing much happened until Farage told him that his long-term friend and ally, Cambridge Analytica co-founder and Breitbart CEO, Steve Bannon, wanted to meet.

Modrikamen recalls that at this lunch, "it clicked"; that he and Bannon "absolutely shared the same convictions", and that Bannon agreed to adopt the foundation as his Brussels hub.

Modrikamen told Reuters that the organisation would provide a pan-European "link between the Movement started by President DJ Trump in the USA and citizens and political movements in other countries, including the Brexit campaign".

So by the time The Brink cameras caught Bannon and Farage talking about a European "Movement", Farage's own circle had already built the corporate shell, and Farage himself had brokered the deal that handed it to Bannon.

This is the structure into which Jeffrey Epstein walked.

'Donors to My Revolution': Bannon Turns to Epstein

On 8 October 2017, a few weeks after Steve Bannon had left the White House as President Donald Trump's Chief of Staff, journalist Michael Wolff emailed Bannon asking: "How's it looking…?" From Connecticut, Bannon replied:

"I'm in CT with donors to my revolution now all day… can we meet tomorrow?"

Wolff proposed a meeting with the disgraced sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein - "JE leaves for Paris tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. Could meet before or tonight".

Over the next year, as Byline Times has reported in these pages, those contacts deepened.

Epstein became a pa...

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Reform UK is under investigation by the Information Commissioner for potentially breaking data protection law, after being accused of lying to the watchdog.

It follows a complaint from a voter who received unsolicited communications from Nigel Farage's party. Byline Times reader Charles Parkinson made a legally-binding subject access request - asking for what data the party held on him - to Reform UK on 27 March this year.

After receiving no response despite multiple follow-up emails, he took his complaint to Britain's official data watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office in June.

In October, the ICO replied to Parkinson's complaint, saying they'd been told by Reform UK that the party had attempted to contact him via email but was unable to reach his mailbox. The ICO officer said: "Attached…is a copy of the Reform Party's response to your complaint, which they have asked us to pass on to you due to their struggles in contacting you."

The ICO passed on a document apparently showing evidence Reform UK had tried to contact him. But the supposed email is dated 1 March 2025 - weeks before Parkinson had even contacted the party on 27 March.

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Parkinson has now escalated this matter within the ICO, requesting a review, on the basis that Reform UK appears to have misled the ICO - he alleges, to avoid discharging its legal obligations under the UK's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Parkinson told the ICO: "The attached is very clearly not an email and is instead a very poor attempt to pull the wool over your eyes. They very clearly did not try to contact me at all and failed to discharge their duties under GDPR."

He has accused Reform UK of fabricating evidence to mislead the ICO and dodge the law, describing it as "very clearly fraud."

Reform's Data Protection Officer told this outlet: "I would not have responded to Parkinson's DSAR because it is in my view abusive."

They quoted the email from Parkinson which stated: "Reform UK is a racist bigoted party with values reflective of the Nazi party. Reform has no place in British politics. You demonise vulnerable parts of society, much like the Nazis did with Jews and other marginalised groups."

Reform cited ICO guidance which says that a request may be "manifestly unfounded" if "the request is malicious in intent and is being used to harass an organisation with no real purpose other than to cause disruption."

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The spokesperson for Reform added: "I vigorously reject the 'allegations that Reform UK provided fabricated evidence to the ICO in response to a subject access request and erasure request made by a member of the public…' We would never do such a thing under any circumstances To accuse us of this over such a trifling DSAR is egregious and utterly ridiculous."

"I have wasted the best part of the day dealing with this and I have quite frankly had enough of individuals like Parkinson. Dreaming up conspiracy theories etc."

And they claimed Parkinson's allegations of fabricating evidence were "utter nonsense."

The issue of their supposed response to him being sent before he even made his claim would be "a case of cock up and not conspiracy." They claimed they in fact responded to him on June 20th. But they could not find evidence of the supposed March correspondence because: "I have no access to my former c...

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Campaigners against modern slavery and human trafficking have told Byline Times that the Government's new asylum and immigration proposals - including key legal changes to the ECHR and the Modern Slavery Act - are likely to worsen the conditions that lead to human-trafficking, labour and sexual exploitation and forced criminality. It could do so by making immigration status more precarious and access to support much more limited, they claim.

While Mahmood has framed the proposals as a moral imperative to fix a broken system, campaigners warn that they will only fuel further instability, fear, and division.

A series of weekend press briefings from Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood set out what she calls "the most sweeping asylum reforms in modern times." The package, published on Monday, is based on the argument that "illegal migration is making this country a more divided place."

The reforms aim to cut the number of people seeking asylum through "tough" deterrence measures designed to reduce "pull factors," expand the Government's ability to deport refused applicants, and create a small number of "safe and legal" routes initially capped at "a few hundred" people - a fraction of the tens of thousands who currently apply for asylum annually.

Many of the measures would leave people in the UK for long periods on short, renewable permissions to stay, with repeated reassessments and no clear route to long-term security. The plans also involve reinterpretations of key protections in the European Convention on Human Rights and the Modern Slavery Act.

While publicly welcomed by figures including Kemi Badenoch, Nigel Farage, Richard Tice and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, the Danish-inspired model was condemned by multiple Labour MPs, charities and advocacy groups as cruel, short-sighted and performative.

"Everyone, regardless of where they are from and how they move, must be able to live in safety and with dignity," Sian Lea, Head of UK and European Advocacy at Anti-Slavery International, told Byline Times. "Instead of centring compassion, the UK Government is doubling down on harmful rhetoric and policies espoused by its predecessor."

Mahmood argues that the strict new rules will deter people from paying criminal gangs. But Anti-Slavery International has warned that an inadequate number of safe routes actually "increases the profitability of smuggling and people trafficking."

Maurice Glasman and Morgan McSweeney: The Bannon-Inspired 'Blue Labour' Lobby Behind Shabana Mahmood

A key supporter of the Home Secretary's hard line on asylum seekers is also an admirer of Trump's former campaign manager - one of Jeffrey Epstein's closest confidantes

Byline Times Team

Anti-Slavery International also warned that the reforms could pose specific risks for people affected by modern slavery - defined as exploitation "for personal or commercial gain," including trafficking, forced labour and debt bondage.

"We know that policies based on border security and enforcement create and exacerbate the conditions that perpetuate modern slavery," Lea said. "Precarious immigration status only pushes people further into the hands of exploiters by increasing fear of authorities and creating additional barriers to accessing work, education or other crucial support."

Asylum seekers in the UK are generally banned from working while their claims are processed, given around £7 per day and housed in Government accommodation such as asylum hotels. Labour-exploitation researchers argue this leaves people "in a state of limbo," often working in the "shadow" economy where they're highly vulnerable to abuse and dependent on "exploitative employers or landlords for survival." People working irregularly are often too afraid to report mistreatment for fear of immigratio...

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Health Secretary Wes Streeting's multi-billion spending programme to cut waiting lists, is so far failing to meet its aims and his plans to reform the NHS could end up repeating the failures of other large-scale projects like HS2, a report by MPs has warned.

A report published on Wednesday by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee is highly critical of how the £3.24 billion already spent by the Government on cutting waiting lists has failed to meet its own targets.

Instead waiting lists, until last month, have risen since Labour came to power and MPs blame the Government and NHS management for a flawed approach to improving care.

The report found that nearly 192,000 patients were waiting over a year for care by July 2025 - a length of wait which should have been eliminated by March.

For diagnostic tests, 22% of patients were on a waiting list for more than six weeks - against a target of five per cent by March 2025.

When it comes to treatment, only 59% of patients were treated within the statutory standard waiting time of 18 weeks, against a target of 92%.

Clive Betts MP, Labour Deputy Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: "Every unnecessary day that a patient spends on an NHS waiting list is both one of increased anxiety for that person's unresolved case, and if they are undiagnosed, a steady increasing of risk to their life.

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"Every penny of funding spent to put the NHS back on a pre-pandemic footing must be precisely targeted, or the system itself becomes an obstacle to proper care.

"Unfortunately, our report establishes that billions have been poured into the system over the past few years without the requisite focus on making sure that money does what it was intended for - improving outcomes for patients. The rollout of shiny new surgical hubs and diagnostic centres will only be superficially impressive if they are not used in the most productive way."

The report is also highly critical of the rush by Mr Streeting to reform the NHS - which involves abolishing NHS England and 50 per cent cuts to local health boards. There seems to be no paperwork on the strategy of how to do it. The report compares this to former Conservative leader Boris Johnson's failed plan to build 40 new NHS hospitals and its planning for the HS2 railway.

Clive Betts said: "Alarmingly, in the Government's approach to the absorption of NHSE and 50% cuts to local health boards, we are now seeing chilling echoes of past failures on HS2 and the New Hospital Programme."

The government will have to pay hundreds of millions of pounds for redundancies and it is not clear how this will be funded since the Treasury may not want to pay the bill.

MPs are also sceptical that digitalisation will solve everything. They say it should not be seen as a "cure all" for all its problems.

The report says: "While NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care have outlined an ambitious programme for future change, the current picture of performance for transformation is poor. The integration and sharing of digital records across the NHS is a key weakness and the NHS lacks some of the basics in IT connectivity, with General Practitioners, hospital trusts and consultants still working on different systems."

Some hospital trusts have bucked the national trend. Written evidence from Guys and St Thomas's NHS Trust in London to MPs show that a consultant-led initiative had cut waiting operation times from 61.5 weeks in June 2024 to 33.5 weeks in July this year - a reductio...

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The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) holds no human-rights risk assessments, ministerial approvals or internal guidance relating to British intelligence-sharing with Israel, despite there having been over 600 RAF intelligence-gathering flights over Gaza, Byline Times can reveal.

The disclosure, revealed through a Freedom of Information request by Byline Times, raises questions about whether the United Kingdom applied its own intelligence-sharing safeguards while operating over a warzone marked by mass civilian deaths and credible allegations of genocide.

Over 600 of RAF Shadow R1 intelligence-gathering missions have taken place over Gaza since late 2023, gathering signals and imagery during some of the most destructive phases of the conflict. Dozens more sub-contracted US company spy flights were also hired. The last flight took place on 10 October 2025.

Ministers claimed the flights were tied to hostage-recovery efforts. But the purpose and limits of the operations have never been made clear, and the UK has refused to confirm what intelligence was subsequently shared with Israel.

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Rules Broken?

Under Whitehall's own rules, any sharing of intelligence between states should trigger the Overseas Security and Justice Assistance framework (OJSA). Such a framework, introduced under the Conservative-led government in 2011, requires officials to assess the human-rights situation in any intelligence-sharing partner country, identify risks of complicity in abuses and consult ministers if those risks are serious.

As the government notes: "All organisations regularly involved in security and justice assistance should have a designated internal OSJA Lead, known to the FCDO, who can advise their personnel on the OSJA process and ensure consistency of application."

The UK's intelligence agencies told Parliament in 2024 that they take OSJA seriously, describing it as essential to preventing Britain from aiding torture, unlawful killings or other violations.

"Whenever possible," the Conservative government noted, "the UK promotes human rights compliance with those countries with which the Government works."

Yet when the FCDO was asked by Byline Times under the Freedom of Information Act for OSJA assessments relating to Israel since 2023, the FCDO responded that such "information (was) not held."

The department also said it held no ministerial submissions, no internal risk analyses and no guidance on applying OSJA to intelligence-sharing with Israel's security services.

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Oversight Breakdown

Britain's intelligence agencies have told Parliament they pause cooperation when foreign partners breach assurances, and that ministers must approve any higher-risk engagement. There is recent precedent: when the United States authorised the destruction of suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Pacific - a tactic the UK feared could lead to unlawful killings - Britain halted intelligence-sharing on counter-narcotics. Such breaks in cooperation are rare within an alliance that normally exchanges signals intelligence as routine....

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'Blue Labour' founder Lord Maurice Glasman – who reportedly met with Keir Starmer's Chief of Staff ahead of the Government's announcement of its tough new asylum policy – told Byline Times that Steve Bannon is one of the greatest politicians of our age, just months before the former Trump campaign manager was linked to Jeffrey Epstein.

Prior to the more recent revelations of the closeness of Epstein and Bannon, the Labour peer said that Donald Trump's former White House chief, Bannon, was one of the most important political figures of recent times because he had successfully built a nationalist working-class movement against mass immigration and globalisation in the United States.

Asked about Bannon's extreme views – such as those on Islam; his support for the AfD in Germany; and his claim during a far-right rally in France in 2018 that the crowd should "wear" accusations of racism, nativism, and xenophobia "as a badge of honour" – Glasman said "as the son of immigrants myself, I of course hate and disagree with these ideas".

"But, if we are to hold them off in Britain, we need a Blue Labour movement based on nationalist industrial revival," he added.

The release by the US House Oversight Committee of emails from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein has revealed that Steve Bannon was one of Epstein's most frequent visitors after his first conviction in 2008, but before his arrest in 2019 on suspicion of a much broader range of trafficking and sexual offences.

In emails and text messages, Bannon – whose War Room podcast had often platformed QAnon conspiracies that the Democratic Party is run by a paedophile ring – seemed unconcerned with Epstein's previous convictions, and planned with him how to fund and staff the extension of the 'Make America Great Again' movement to Europe.

'Blue Labour' & the Thiel Effect

The ideology of the 'Make America Great Again' movement has transformed politics in the United States – and is now flowing into the UK. Nafeez Ahmed and Peter Jukes investigate how this influence is being transmitted

Nafeez Ahmed

Epstein is documented as advising him on who to meet in Europe, planning his itinerary in Paris and Rome, and giving him advice on how to keep the financial structures opaque.

Among the topics discussed at that time were "Brexit" and the parliamentary tumult of Theresa May's premiership in 2018, when Bannon claimed he was liaising with Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, and Jacob Rees-Mogg on how to "overthrow" the Government.

Farage has been a friend of Bannon's since 2012, and in a now-deleted video in 2016, Farage thanked Bannon and his publishing outfit, Breitbart, following the Brexit vote: "Well done, Bannon. Well done, Breitbart. You've helped with this hugely."

Glasman told this newspaper he was introduced to Bannon by Nigel Farage at Trump's second inauguration in January, which he was invited to by Vice President JD Vance.

Both Glasman and Farage are regulars on GB News, the channel co-owned by Sir Paul Marshall, which has recently launched a US-based show. It consistently frames the UK as in need of 'saving' by Trump's America.

In a recent interview with the broadcaster, the President reiterated his threat to sue the BBC for $1 billion over the editing of his speech on January 6, 2021, in a Panorama broadcast more than a year ago.

At Trump's inauguration, Bannon took Glasman to a Trump rally, which the peer said had opened his eyes to the energy of the 'MAGA' movement. Glasman has since appeared on Bannon's War Room podcast. He said he spoke to Bannon for several months after the inauguration.

Glasman said he also talks regularly with Farage, whom he ranks alongside Bannon as one of the most influential political movers in this era. With his belief that the Labour Party under Keir Starmer is in the same state of terminal decline as the Conservativ...

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Labour must not seek to "Out-Farage Farage", the leader of Britain's trade union movement has warned, as Keir Starmer's Government faces a backlash from Labour MPs over its recent migration and asylum policies.

The Home Secretary on Monday unveiled a series of hardline plans to limit the rights of refugees seeking asylum in the UK, saying that the UK must not offer a "golden ticket" to those arriving here.

The plans, which include proposals to make asylum seekers wait up to 20 years for permanent residence in the UK, and a controversial pledge to seize the assets, including jewellery of those seeking refuge, have caused outrage among many Labour MPs

Labour MP for Stroud, Simon Opher, was among those who urged his party to "push back on the racist agenda of Reform rather than echo it".

This is a sentiment which is shared by Paul Nowak, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress.

Speaking to Byline Times in advance of the Government's latest plans, Nowak said: "I've been very clear in terms of Labour: I don't think you can out-Farage Farage."

Nigel Farage will "always up the ante further" on migration, he argues. "That doesn't mean the Government shouldn't have a values-based, sensible, fair approach to migration.

"But as soon as you start using their language, aping their rhetoric, I think that's a slippery slope…It's not where Labour wants to be politically or morally. And I don't think there's any electoral advantage in it either, because if that's what you want, you'll go and vote for Nigel Farage."

The TUC leader, who represents Britain's 5.5 million member-strong union movement, was speaking before this week's announcement from Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, where she pledged "the most sweeping reforms of the asylum system in modern times" and "a clear plan to make it less attractive for illegal migrants to come to Britain [and] make it easier to remove illegal migrants off British soil."

In an interview with this outlet at the TUC's central London HQ, Congress House, last week, Paul Nowak said: "Lots of people care about migration, but lots of people care about the state of the NHS. Lots of people care about economic insecurity and the cost of living crisis as well. Farage has got nothing to say about those things. I think Labour should be talking about those things."

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'Nasty Brand of Politics'

He added that anti-migrant policies could backfire: "If you want to vote for that nasty brand of politics, you'll vote for the real deal, rather than the…imitators."

But Nowak saved most of his ire for Reform UK, noting the party's backing for mass deportations of migrants "echoes the National Front of the 1970s".

While Nowak is concerned by the rise of Reform - and the party's effect on political debate in the UK - does not believe their rise is unassailable.

"I don't think Nigel Farage in Number 10…is by any stretch inevitable." But the party is "poisoning the political discourse", he added.

"Our job is to expose the gap between what Reform says and what Reform does."

Asked how the union movement was engaging with the party, Nowak says: "We're very clear at the TUC: we won't platform Reform. What we will do is e...

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Private messages obtained from Jeffrey Epstein's communications archive and released by the House Oversight Committee show that months before his arrest, he had a direct line into President Donald Trump's inner circle during his first administration. The messages ramped up as his former chief strategist Steve Bannon was working to rehabilitate Epstein's public image in the hours leading up to the convicted sex offender's final arrest in July 2019.

Messages from March that year show Epstein passing Bannon detailed sensitive information about private tensions inside Trump's White House - including the President's frustrations with Vice President Mike Pence, his view that Mike Pompeo would be a better running mate, and a specific internal dispute in which Trump asked John Kelly and Jared Kushner to try to remove one another. The files confirm that Epstein had knowledge only available to the President, very senior advisors, family insiders, or someone with direct access to them. None of this was public at the time, but each element emerged months later through media reporting, indicating that Epstein had access to Trump's inner circle - a revelation which sits uneasily with Trump's claim to have cut him off years earlier.

The messages also show that around this time Bannon was helping the convicted sex offender - charged with operating a vast international sex trafficking ring involving underage girls - to prepare a documentary intended to relaunch his reputation. This included plans to film on Epstein's private Caribbean island, with the two men coordinating schedules until moments before Epstein was taken into federal custody. Just a week prior to his arrest, Epstein sent a message to Bannon appearing to show that he believed Trump was aware, or would be aware, of their ongoing relationship.

Alongside these exchanges, the archive places Epstein inside Bannon's wider political operations. In 2018, internal briefings on Bannon's efforts to build a European alliance of right-wing parties - which named Matteo Salvini, Viktor Orban and Nigel Farage - were circulated to Epstein as part of a shared email thread. Other messages show Epstein offering political guidance as Bannon followed the prosecution of Paul Manafort and discussed senior State Department figures and foreign diplomats.

Together, the communications show that Epstein remained in active political and strategic contact with one of the most influential figures of the Trump movement - with Donald Trump, according to Epstein, aware of the connection as it unfolded.

Epstein's Direct Line Into the Trump Inner Circle

On 12 March 2019, during a sequence of messages sent within minutes of each other, Epstein reported Donald Trump's private views about Vice President Mike Pence and other senior advisers.

At 14:46:08, Epstein wrote:

"Djt. Now really down on pence"

At 14:46:55, he added:

"thinks Pompeo would be better vp"

At 14:47:12:

"Says pence not really loyal"

And at 14:47:38:

"And yes he did ask Kelly to get rid of jared , and then jared to get rid of Kelly. Par for the course"

Bannon responded in real time, beginning at 14:46:31:

"How did u hear and why is he"

Two minutes later, at 14:50:06, he replied:

"This is why things f***ed up"

And at 14:50:17:

"Pompeo much better VP"

These details - including Trump's consideration of replacing Pence with Mike Pompeo and the President's internal manoeuvring between John Kelly and Jared Kushner - were not public at the time. They would have been known only to senior officials or individuals with direct access to them.

Taken together, the messages show Epstein receiving and sharing highly sensitive internal White House information within minutes, months before any of it surfaced publicly.

A message sent on 28 June 2019 shows Jeffrey Epstein appear...