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It's taken a long time but Keir Starmer's Government has finally admitted that Brexit has been a disaster for the UK.

"There is no doubt that the impact of Brexit has been severe and long-lasting", Rachel Reeves told Sky News, in her first big admission that leaving the EU has badly hit the UK economy.

This admission has been a long time coming. For years Labour's strategy has been to suggest that they could seize the "opportunities" of leaving the EU in order to "Make Brexit Work".

Yet with polls showing support for Brexit at all time lows, and support for "Mr Brexit" Nigel Farage at all time highs, Downing Street have decided to start linking the two.

The strategy has a double purpose. Not only do they hope that it will put the blame for the UK's faltering economy onto Farage, but they also hope that it will help pave the way for the tax rises that Reeves today explicitly stated will have to be introduced at her upcoming budget.

There are two big problems with this strategy. The first is that it is unclear how effective trying to blame a man for the UK's current economic stagnation, who has never been in Government before, rather than the two parties who were in charge of the country both before leaving the EU and since, will be. If Brexit is to blame for the economy then so are the two parties who voted it through and keep it in place.

UPDATE

'Stunned?' Farage's Admission He Knew Nathan Gill but Not His Kremlin Associates Does Not Stand Up to Scrutiny

Insiders have told Byline Times it is 'inconceivable' the Reform Leader did not know about his close aide's pro Russian statements

Peter Jukes

The second and bigger problem is that if Brexit has been such a disaster, which it has, then why is Keir Starmer's Government still so intent on continuing with it?

Since entering government the Prime Minister has repeatedly insisted that the UK will never rejoin the EU in his lifetime, while also ruling out any return to the European Customs Union or Single Market either.

There have been some slight but welcome tweaks to the UK's trading and regulatory relationship with the EU, with the overall trend under Starmer being a gradual shift towards a more pro-European and internationalist position. Reeves' comments today are undoubtedly a part of that shift.

Yet when it comes to making the sort of significant move back towards the EU that would actually make a meaningful difference to Britain's stagnant economy, Starmer remains firmly stuck in the Brexit mud.

Making Brexit Worse

This is particularly the case when you look at why Brexit has been such a disaster for the UK economy. On this the evidence is clear. By shutting off the UK from its main economic partners in Europe, Brexit put the breaks on British trade, while shifting the costs for this additional friction onto UK consumers. Most experts agree that one of the main reasons inflation remains so stubbornly high in the UK compared to most other European nations is because of the additional trade and Labour costs associated with being outside the EU.

The fall in the pound that followed Brexit, combined with the impact of depriving British companies of a skilled and relatively cheap European workforce, means that inflation in the UK is now significantly higher than it otherwise would have been. The result is that even now when forecasts suggest stronger economic growth in the UK in the years to come, most voters will continue to feel worse off because of ever-spiralling prices. The political beneficiary of this will inevitably be the same Reform UK leader the Government is now belatedly trying to shoulder with the blame for it.

Of course the obvious solution to this problem would be to remove those inflationary barriers, either through reversing Brexit altogether, or through negotiating re-entry into the Single Market and Cus...

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The recent investigations into Syria's "stolen children" have uncovered a bleak truth. Documents and testimonies indicate that children "disappeared" under Bashar al-Assad were hidden in so-called orphanages, including facilities run by the global charity SOS Children's Villages. Many were not orphans, but the sons and daughters of detainees and regime opponents.

The centres were used to extort and punish their families. Reporting by Lighthouse Reports, the Observer and the BBC details mothers denied answers, records altered, and children's identities changed. The Syria scandal demands answers, but what SOS truly needs is a reckoning with the very foundations of its model of care.

SOS is not a small organisation. It is a federation operating in more than 130 countries which presents itself as the world's largest provider of care for children without parental care. With revenues of €1.64 billion in 2023, the organisation operates with a level of power and influence comparable to some governments. That same year it claims to have provided "a range of care options" to about 69,000 children, while supporting 103,500 families to prevent separation, according to its own impact data.

At the heart of its system are the "villages", clusters of houses where one SOS "mother" cares for up to ten children. Marketed as "family-like care", these villages are essentially residential institutions. The idea is not new. A century ago, Barnardo's in the UK built "cottage homes" on the same model, later abandoned because children were stigmatised and segregated from community life. SOS has repeated this model for many decades on a global scale. With tens of thousands of children in its care, it holds enormous influence yet operates without democratic oversight.

The Syria scandal is not the first time SOS has faced serious questions. In 2021 SOS commissioned independent reviews of historical abuse after allegations surfaced across the federation. The organisation issued apologies and pointed to stronger safeguarding, but survivors and whistleblowers continue to ask who has been held accountable and how decisions were made. The federation highlights reforms including a revised child safeguarding policy, a strengthened code of conduct and the creation of a global ombuds system. Yet these measures raise questions about whether they represent genuine cultural change or reactive crisis management.

How Trump's Gaza Peace Plan Could Quickly Crumble

The President's America-first, Palestine-last plan for Gaza risks collapsing under its own contradictions, argues Rana Sabbagh

Rana Sabbagh

The notion of the villages "family-like" care also falls apart under scrutiny. SOS villages are often built on the outskirts of towns, hidden behind walls and fences that cut children off from everyday community life. However well-intentioned, this segregation reinforces stigma and marks children and young people out as different. Inside the houses, a single adult is usually responsible for eight to ten children, and when one caregiver is stretched so thin, older children frequently take on the parenting of younger peers. Evidence shows it piles stress on children and harms their long-term outcomes. A recent review of studies comparing foster and residential care underline what practitioners already know: children thrive best in families rooted in their communities rather than in institutions by another name.

In my own research in Thailand, we interviewed children living in children's village settings, some run by SOS and some by the Government. Children described both the strengths and the strains of this model. They appreciated the stability of house mothers, but also spoke about the stigma of village life, feeling marked out at school as being different from their peers. Boys were separated at the age of 14 int...

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Having heard about my dear old party losing yet another set of marbles, this time deciding to ban journalists (including Byline Times) from its party conference this year, I felt it was my duty to provide some 'insider' coverage of what actually happened there.

So, what was the party trying to hide? For a start, the conference centre was very sparsely filled. At times you could literally hear wind wailing through it. The Manchester venue offers two conference halls next to each other, seating 2,000 people each, which can be, as in the past years, be put together around one stage. This year they were unused. A small auditorium with just 700 seats was prepared for the biggest event of the conference on Wednesday morning - the Leader's Speech.

In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher faced conference halls seating 3,000-4,000 at least, in Brighton, Blackpool and Bournemouth. In 1983, some 5,000 Conservative representatives descended on Blackpool. The scale has shrunk and so has the confidence.

Policy Vacuum

If the conference centre felt empty of people, so too did it of ideas. This is hardly surprising given there has not been any serious work done on policy for years.

Under Johnson, policy became fungible and vague. His slogan "Get Brexit Done" boxed the party into populist single issue politics with simple solutions, in contrast to the complex and hard policy work required for parties to win elections in true liberal democracies. There has already been academic work that explored this astonishing phenomenon. For example, in his essay "Conservative Party Statecraft and the Johnson Government," Hayton argued that Brexit was repurposed as the organising narrative at the expense of substantive governance and so it has proved.

Meanwhile, successive party leaders have seemed too scared to ditch immigration as our main obsession, despite its total irrelevance to the electorate's central concern: the state of the economy. If you ask leading economists to come up with the top ten reasons for Britain's economic problems, immigration will not feature in any of them. Some of the long-term weaknesses originate as far back as the global financial crisis of 2008. Some, like Brexit, are more recent. On that basis, the Conservatives could have used their superior economic experience to destroy Reform UK's platform completely. But they do not: the pull of far-right populism and the illusions of easy election gains are still far too powerful.

Past Glories

In the exhibitors' space at the Manchester conference, three of Margaret Thatcher's three outfits hang behind the glass like old skins, reminding the Party of its metamorphosis into something quite unrecognisable. Her success was built on hard-won policy victories, the result of long days (and nights) spent testing her ideas in argument with other politicians, economists, and experts.

Before launching her famous Monetarist Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) in 1980, Thatcher personally worked with the legendary economist Milton Friedman and her chief economic adviser Sir Alan Walters. She then forced it through against "wet" Conservatives such as Jim Prior and Ian Gilmour, who attacked the money-supply fixation in early-1981 debates.

The Right-to-Buy was designed in Keith Joseph's Centre for Policy Studies with Thatcher and her ministers seeing off Conservative rebel attempts to water it down

The "Big Bang", the deregulation of the financial services industry and opening the City of London to international banks in 1986 was driven by Nigel Lawson and Cecil Parkinson. Despite the City's protectionist resistance, who wanted to keep fixed commissions and single-capacity dealing, the Government backed the Bank of England's liberalisation timetable and abolished the cartelised rules in one stroke.

All that attracted the heavy-weight intellectual ...

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It took Nigel Farage more than two weeks to finally respond to Nathan Gill's conviction for eight counts of bribery for taking payments from a pro-Russian Ukrainian MP and close associate of one of Putin's closest allies, Viktor Medvedchuk.

Speaking on the campaign trail in Caerphilly for a forthcoming Senedd byelection, Farage said he was "stunned" that his close associate had taken bribes: "I'm the only one [in Reform] that really knew him, going back a long way."

Despite Farage's concession, after multiple denials from Reform UK, that he was close to Gill, the admission only raises more questions.

Farage's claim that he was the "only one" in Reform UK who knew Gill contradicts the information Byline Times has received from former MEPs that Gill and Tice worked closely together during the Brexit Party era.

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

Meanwhile, the Reform UK leader's denial that he knew anything about Gill's pro-Russian activities in Ukraine is even more problematic.

"I didn't know anything about it, all I knew was that he'd been to Ukraine," he told BBC Wales. "I told him not to go; he defied me and went. I was completely unaware of any statements that he made."

Byline Times has been told by various sources over the years that Farage has maintained a close interest in Ukraine's conflict with Russia, as the public record of his comments about it can attest.

At a plenary session of the EU Parliament on 16 September 2014, after the invasion of East Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, both Gill and Farage made nearly identical statements claiming an 'uprising' had overthrown the "democratically elected Pro-Russian President", Viktor Yanukovych, and criticising the EU for supporting the Maidan Revolution.

But Farage's ignorance of this particular set of pro-Russian influencers around Nathan Gill is even more specific and questionable.

Oleh Voloshyn, indicted as Gill's paymaster and loyal servant to Putin's close ally, Viktor Medvedchuk, was married to another employee of the pro-Russian media mogul's TV channels, Nadia Borodi.

Also known as Nadia Sass, Borodi worked as a presenter on Medvedchuk's Channel 112 and has been described as a "Russian propagandist" by the French investigative news site Desk Russie

On 12 December 2018, within six days of receiving his first bribe to spread pro-Kremlin messages, Nathan Gill addressed a plenary session of the EU Parliament about an EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. He specifically spoke up to criticise the Ukrainian government for threatening to ban Medvedchuk's TV stations Channel 112 and NewsOne for pro-Russian propaganda.

"The Ukrainian Government is in the process of banning the two biggest TV channels in the country, Channel 112 and NewsOne, and proper democratic procedures are being ignored four months before an election," he told the Parliament: "How can this be: that the President of Ukraine can potentially close down independent media just before an election?"

However, Gill did not declare that he was in the pay of Medvedchuk's associates, who filmed him on Medvedchuk's live station NewsOne.

As if that wasn't enough, Gill followed up his major parliamentary intervention with an interview with Channel 112 correspondent Nadia Borodi outside the media wall of the EU Parliament.

Wearing the same outfit, but without the microphone, Borodi snapped herself with Farage outside the European Parliament on what appears to be the same day.

She retweeted this image on X last year with the message: "I w...

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Days after Trump's excruciating readout of his phased intentions towards ending the war in Gaza and achieving a broader lasting peace in the Middle East - the long-term picture is still far from clear.

Arab officials are convinced the ceasefire is not yet a peace deal - and may never become one.

It's a negotiating process, fraught with pitfalls and seen by many as totally inadequate to the settling of the longest-running conflict in modern history.

Both Israel and Hamas, who have grudgingly signed the first phase of the initiative, have strong objections to many of Trump's declared aims in the 20-point peace plan.

For one thing, Trump did not consult Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose PLO is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, on the plan.

Arab leaders who met Trump in New York recently had to negotiate on his behalf.

Another major issue: Netanyahu made it clear he will never allow the creation of a Palestinian state and will not allow his forces to withdraw to pre-October 7 positions.

UPDATE

Family of Gaza Activist From Starmer's Constituency Criticises Him for Not Helping Flotilla Detainees

"The fact that his constituents and people from the country he is prime minister of were being held in Israeli prison, you think he would have something to say about it"

Olly Haynes

He also ignored Trump's instructions to stop bombing the Gaza Strip when the plan was unveiled.

The attacks continued, even when negotiators were putting the final touches to the first phase of the deal - Israeli withdrawal to agreed lines, the release of Israeli hostages and bodies in return for Palestinian prisoners.

For its part, Hamas, under intense pressure from Doha and Turkey, accepted the plan, but also let it be known it was deeply unhappy with the formula and needed further negotiation.

In short, this is a work in progress that could be derailed at any point.

In the long term, the plan aims to fully demilitarise Gaza and pave the way for the reconstruction and creation of a multi-billion-dollar riviera and eventual Palestinian self-governance under regional and US oversight.

But Arab countries are dismayed that there was only a token mention of Palestinian statehood, and no reference at all to Israel returning to its pre-1967 borders. They insist on a two-state solution while acknowledging in private that this will never happen.

"It will not look at all like the independent state we were promoting for years, living beside Israel", says one senior Arab official privy to the talks.

In the best case, it will be a small state, most possibly confederated with nearby Jordan.

To his credit, Trump is probably the only leader who could bring the different factions even this far.

He wants the war to end. He wants to consolidate Israel's battlefield gains and use them as a springboard toward a regional security and economic framework that permanently integrates Israel into the Middle East, widening the Abraham accords he launched in his first presidency.

He wants to save Israel from Netanyahu and his hardline policies in Gaza that have turned the world against the Jewish state.

EXCLUSIVE

Conservatives Accused of 'Trumpian' Tactics After Barring Second Byline Times Journalist From Conference

The National Union of Journalists described the bans as a threat to media freedom which "undermines the Conservative Party leader's repeated pledge to fight for free speech"

Josiah Mortimer

But his trademark inconsistency, does not fill either side with confidence. Nor does the plan, which was written as one Arab official puts it, with "intentional constructive ambiguity".

He has told Israel that he will not allow it to annex the West Bank.

But how long will that resolve last? And why did he not follow his predecessors, George Bush and Jimmy Carter, in ordering a settlement freeze ...

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Early on Friday, Kyiv came under a Russian missile-and-drone attack targeting the city's power grid and other infrastructure. The barrage, which began in the hours before dawn, sent loud explosions across the capital and caused widespread blackouts on the left bank, a large portion of the city that sits on the eastern side of the Dnipro River. The strikes left Kyiv's energy grid badly damaged after at least two combined heat and power facilities were targeted.

City officials reported that at least nine people have been wounded, five of whom were hospitalised, with no reported civilian fatalities. Following an attack of this scale, this is often an indicator of a successful Russian attack against infrastructure targets. Video and photos shared on social media showed at least one apartment building on fire. The result, according to Mayor Vladimir Klitschko, of debris from a downed drone.

The assault on Kyiv was part of a simultaneous wave of attacks on other Ukrainian cities. In the south, regional authorities in Zaporizhzhia reported that Russian drones struck populated areas and infrastructure, starting multiple fires. Three civilians were injured in those strikes, and officials later said a seven-year-old boy had been killed. In the central industrial city of Dnipro, residents also heard explosions throughout the night, and local media reported power outages in some neighbourhoods.

EXCLUSIVE

Winter Is Coming: Can Ukraine Keep the Lights On?

As temperatures fall and Putin's strikes on the grid escalate, Ukraine prepares for a winter of severe hardship, reports George Llewelyn from Kyiv

George Llewelyn

These assaults continue a pattern of Russia's targeting of Ukrainian energy facilities. Reporting in Bloomberg and Financial Times noted that last week's missile attack had hit several of Ukraine's main gas-production plants, wiping out up to sixty percent of Ukraine's gas production capability according to Serhii Koretskyi, the CEO of Naftogaz, the country's largest oil and gas producer. He described the attacks on October 3rd against facilities in Kharkiv and Poltava as the "most massive and aggressive attack since the full-scale invasion started."

Russia has launched frequent strikes on power plants and rail lines in recent weeks. Ukrainian leaders said such attacks were intended to sow chaos as winter approaches. Already facing a billion-dollar gas shortfall against winter readiness targets, the margins for energy production and storage are growing dangerously thin. Last winter, through creative patching and successful management of the grid, Ukraine managed to shield most of its cities from serious power outages, though blackouts in rural and frontline parts of the country lasted up to eighteen hours a day.

For weeks, Kyiv and its allies have noted that Moscow is renewing an "energy terrorism" campaign similar to those seen in past winters. This year, however, Russia has stepped up its aerial assaults by several orders of magnitude, launching an estimated nine times as many drones and missiles in the first nine months of 2025 than it did in the same period the previous year. Amid increasing scale attacks, Ukraine's rate of successful interception is dropping. According to Maxim Timchenko, CEO of DTEK, Ukraine's largest energy company, the attacks are becoming "more massive, more precise; definitely they are using AI… if they select a target and send 50, 60, 100 drones and missiles, then it's very difficult for our air defence to protect these facilities".

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The family of one of Keir Starmer's constituents who was detained by Israel after participating in the Global Sumud Flotilla has criticised the Prime Minister for not doing enough to support his constituents and the other British citizens attempting to deliver aid to Gaza.

The Global Sumud Flotilla is the latest attempt to break the blockade of Gaza which has been ongoing since 2007 and has been declared illegal by various UN experts and human rights groups.

The Flotilla saw 51 civilian vessels set sail carrying humanitarian aid, which they hoped to deliver to the people of Gaza who are currently enduring a famine induced by the Israeli bombardment and blockade. The blockade, which has intensified since October 7th 2023, includes a ban on fishing in Palestinian waters and massively restricts the entrance of food, medicine and basic supplies into Gaza.

All 51 of the vessels were intercepted and their crew detained in Israel. Nine of the boats arrived after the first 42 and their crew remains in prison.

The 500-strong crew included journalists, politicians, activists such as Greta Thunberg and celebrities such as actress Susan Sarandon. 13 British citizens were aboard the flotilla, including Ewa Jasiewicz, a British-Polish activist who lives in Keir Starmer's constituency of Holborn and St Pancras.

EXCLUSIVE

'Why I Joined the Gaza Aid Flotilla as a Journalist'

The relative lack of media interest in the drone attacks on the aid flotilla heading to Gaza says a lot about the warped priorities of Western journalism, argues Mathilda Mallinson

Mathilda Mallinson

Jasiewicz and the 13 other British citizens were detained by Israel before being deported to Istanbul. Ilona, Jasiewicz's sister, has criticised Keir Starmer, saying he "did not do enough".

She told Byline Times: "I was incredibly anxious and worried about the safety of Ewa and the other participants on the flotilla […] our local MP Keir Starmer didn't seem to do anything, didn't give any support to the flotilla participants, didn't ask questions of Israel and didn't check on the safety of people being held".

She added: "I think he should have been working to get the British delegation out and at least saying that the families were being supported and that they were trying to get in touch with the people from the delegation. I think it was very much overshadowed by the Manchester synagogue attack. That's very important, but obviously two things can be important at once. The fact that his constituents and people from the country he is prime minister of were being held in Israeli prison, you think he would have something to say about it".

Speaking to the Independent last week Ewa Jasiewicz said: "I don't understand why Starmer, and others who claim to represent values of decency and humanity, have a complete disregard for it when it comes to Palestinians. We've got a very serious problem in terms of a moral compass when it comes to public obligations towards prevention of genocide."

When asked about the arrest and detention of British activists in international waters a spokesperson for Keir Starmer said that "it is a matter for the Israeli government".

Ilona Jasiewicz said her sister Ewa joined the flotilla because "the Israeli blockade is illegal and that these boats are trying to break the blockade and take aid to Palestine. It was an international mission with people from all over the world to publicise the situation the Palestinian people are in, how desperate things are, and to give hope to them".

She added that Ewa is considering joining a future flotilla in another attempt to deliver aid to Gaza's starving population and that as a family member of a flotilla activist, she would like to see close monitoring of the flotillas by the Foreign Office and public pressure placed on Israel to ensure their safe passage.

...

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GB News' new US-focused show is providing a regular platform for conspiracy theories - as well as the claim that the UK needs to be 'saved' by Donald Trump's America.

The Late Show Live launched on 22 September, broadcasting in the US, as well as on the UK channel and on YouTube.

Speaking at the American party to mark the launch of GB News in the US last month, its co-owner Sir Paul Marshall told the audience of 'Make America Great Again' allies and supporters: "We need you to come and save us. To rescue us… You are making America great again."

The right-wing millionaire added: "We need to make Britain great again… We need as many as possible of you… to appear on our channel, to tell the story of what you're doing to turn your country around." Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage, a GB News presenter, was the headline speaker at the party.

The new US show appears to be fulfilling Paul Marshall's wishes.

Content from the inaugural US show - which also aired in the UK - included frequent praise for Trump and his MAGA backers by the GB News hosts and guests - and vice versa, praise for GB News by MAGA figures.

The US launch raises questions about the media and political discourse GB News hopes to frame around the UK, from the perspective of American politics, and the extent to which such a project aims to help Farage's party, which is leading UK polls.

Both Turner and Leo have rejected man-made climate change, espoused anti-vaccine views, and appeared to cast doubt on the Coronavirus pandemic being real.

Turner's heavily pro-Trump commentary has previously included her saying "I think we've got such amazingly exciting times ahead" under the President, and on another occasion, "where Trump goes, hopefully the UK will follow".

Leo also has also praised Trump, called the climate crisis a "climate scam", and frequently uses far-right tropes about a so-called immigrant "invasion".

He has previously referred to pro-immigration politicians as "traitors" and said of the US President: "I think President Trump, in decades to come, will be remembered as one of the greatest US presidents in living history. He has shifted the Overton window on everything from mass deportations, from the trans debate, take your pick… I think his face should be carved into Mount Rushmore."

The first programme featured an exclusive interview with senior Trump advisor, former Fox News anchor and 2020 election result-denier Kari Lake, who - along with host Ben Leo - repeatedly castigated the UK on issues such as immigration, free speech, and the BBC licence fee, while calling for Reform UK's Leader Nigel Farage to become the next prime minister.

Subsequent shows cemented GB News' apparent Trumpian worldview.

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Night Two: Paracetamol Panic

On its second airing on 23 September, Turner backed Donald Trump's announcement urging pregnant women to stop taking Tylenol - the name for Paracetamol in the US - claiming, without firm evidence, that it caused autism.

She said: "I just find it astonishing when Wes Streeting comes out as our Health Secretary the morning after and just says this is wrong as though he has evidence… I imagine he hasn't even read their report by the time he went on breakfast telly this morning."

And she put forward claims that doctors would recommend Paracetamol on the basis that they do not like Donald Trump.

"The trouble is, if people go into the doctors and the doctors hate Donald Trump and they say 'I'm pregnant, should I take Paracetamol?' The doctors are going to say, yeah, take Paracetamol, don't listen to that Donald Trump", she claimed.

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"Social media is literally awash with people, pregnant women today on TikTok. I mean, it blows my mind, necking Tylenol just to say, you take this Donald Trump as they p...

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A second Byline Times journalist has been blocked from attending Conservative party conference, following our political editor Adam Bienkov's also being rejected.

Award-winning investigative journalist, and Byline Times journalis, David Hencke, was blocked from attending the conference, despite being a regular attendee for almost four decades.

Hencke, who exposed the 'Cash for Questions' scandal and was named Political Journalist of the Year at the 2012 British Journalism Awards, has attended most Conservative party conferences since 1987, working for many years as a Westminster lobby journalist for the Guardian, Tribune magazine and more recently Byline Times.

Despite his long record of attendance, the Conservative party failed to approve a pass for Hencke, leaving him hundreds of pounds out of pocket.

It comes after this outlet reported last month that the Conservative party, "whose leader Kemi Badenoch has repeatedly pledged to fight for free speech'" had banned Adam Bienkov from attending her party's annual conference" in Manchester.

Bienkov was also given no explanation for his rejection from the conference, but a Conservative official later told him the decision had been taken by "our media team".

The National Union of Journalists described the bans as a "worrying" threat to media freedom.

"We are concerned by reports that the Conservative Party has blocked Byline Times journalists from accessing its conference," Laura Davison, NUJ general secretary, said.

"This would continue a worrying trend of legitimate newsgatherers being denied access to political proceedings that are firmly in the public interest.

"It also undermines the Conservative Party leader's repeated pledge to fight for free speech and risks the impression of a party that is trying to evade press scrutiny.

"The Conservative Party should properly communicate and clarify the specific reasons for not granting these journalists access to its conference. Once again, the union calls on all political parties to uphold media freedom and democratic accountability."

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Veteran political reporter Hencke says he never received a notice of approval for his pass, nor received one in the post, despite applying well within the time frame and having attended the gathering for decades.

He had already booked a hotel for the conference through a scheme promoted by the Conservative party itself. Hencke has now been charged £400, as the booking scheme had a strict cancellation policy, which meant by the time it had become clear he had not been given a pass, it was too late to cancel.

Hencke told Byline Times: "I never got an official reply about whether I'd got a pass or not, and I wasn't going to go all the way up there and be turned away. So I cancelled the hotel" - and was charged in full.

"It's bloody outrageous. If I'd booked directly with the hotel, [cancellation] wouldn't have cost me anything, but through the booking system that was offering a reduction, I ended up paying a lot." He has put in a formal complaint.

Commenting on his apparent rejection from the conference, Hencke said he is "really furious."

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"I've had no reply. I've been going since 1987. [This time] I'd drawn attention to the fact that Adam Bienkov was rejected [so] I'm wondering whether it was indirect retaliation [for that]."

He added: "It's quite disgraceful really. There ...

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As a politics student in the late 1980s, the subject of the separation of powers in Western liberal democracies was imparted to eager students as an irrefutable and unbendable principle in the same way, I imagine, that the rules concerning the freezing point of water were taught to students of physics or the 'power rule for differentiation' was taught to maths undergraduates.

Separating the judiciary from the executive and legislature, we were taught, was a vital ingredient in providing a check on the potential excesses of power by a tyrannical individual or political organisation seeking to oppress or silence opponents.

The concept was simple: the executive drives the legal agenda, the legislature checks the legal agenda and the judiciary interprets it.

All three play a vital and dynamic role in the process of fair and proper law making - and, not just in the abstract - it was something that we have been able to witness in practice. Just look, or so we thought, at the American Model, where the Supreme Court and Congress have, over the decades, robustly applied the powers imparted in them by the American constitution to provide a healthy barrier to any demonstrations of presidential excess.

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The UK, though not quite so formulated as our American brethren, has also enjoyed a clear and cogent distinction between the roles played by the government, parliament and the judiciary.

In recent years, we've seen the UK Supreme Court judgements in a wide-range of profoundly important matters, ranging from the dispute about transgender women, to Boris Johnson's government's unlawful attempts to prorogue parliament; and, of course, in the decisions concerning the previous Conservative government's plans to deport illegal immigrants to Rwanda.

These rulings are never going to satisfy everyone, because, by definition, in a dispute there is always going to be the disappointed party who has their case dismissed - but, that is precisely why we have the process of judicial adjudication - and, anyone who has appeared in the Supreme Court, or read their Lordship's judgements will know that this is an austere and serious body populated by people of immense intellectual heft who, overwhelmingly, treat every case they are called upon to consider with great care and meticulous impartiality.

The idea that they are group of politically motivated liberals pursuing a political agenda designed to circumvent the will of the people, is absurd. Robert Jenrick - would be leader of the Conservative Party and Shadow Lord Chancellor's declaration that he would take back the power to appoint judges, leave the European Convention on Human Rights and scrap the Sentencing Council and place sentencing power into the hands of government Ministers, is a clear declaration that he intends to follow the lead of other populist right wing leaders around the world, by attempting to accumulate more power into the hands of the executive and emasculate the judiciary.

It's a brazen political move, fuelled by a populist desire to point the finger of blame for the failure of successive governments to improve the lives of ordinary people at a scapegoat who can't really publicly defend itself.

One only has to look at America under Donald Trump to see the direction of travel once a government, led by a narcissist with an authoritarian bent decides that he is more powerful than any court of law o...