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

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

"This weekend, West London roared back to life for Notting Hill Carnival, Europe's largest street party. And what a party it was: Mas Bands paraded in outfits months in the making, every jewel and feather stitched or glued by hand; sound systems pumped out soul and ska, as revellers danced the days away to dancehall, dub, and drum and bass; smiles on their faces, children paraded hand in hand with their parents on the Sunday afternoon, all of them proud of their part in this extraordinary event.

Attracting visitors from around the world and generating almost £400m for our economy, Carnival is a celebration of sheer, unadulterated joy. Today, this festival of music, food and fashion is an unforgettable part of our country's cultural fabric. But it's more than that, too; born of protest and resistance, it's a symbol of our capital city's diversity, and a sign of how far we've come.

When the Carnival began in the 1950s, organisers hoped that it could unite a community torn apart by racist riots. In the decades since, generations of people from our Black and Caribbean communities have brought their own carnival traditions to the streets of Notting Hill, and the event has gone from strength to strength.

EXCLUSIVE

'These People Can't Stand What London Represents… It Makes a Mockery of their Entire Worldview'

Sadiq Khan, the Labour Mayor of London, addresses the increasing number of claims by those in the media and politics of the capital city's apparent decline

Sadiq Khan

Today, Carnival is the second largest street party in the world. It's a place where everyone is welcome, no matter their colour, creed, or culture. Just like the London I know, it's loud, proud - and people love it. It embodies the reason why so many choose to call our capital city home: our shared belief that, no matter who you are, you are loved and wanted here.

Wherever you go in the capital, that ethos of openness and inclusivity is impossible to ignore. Last month, I joined tens of thousands for Pride. At a time when many seek to turn back the clock on the freedoms which LGBT+ people have fought so hard for, Londoners stood defiant. Whether they were voguing with drag queens or dancing to Chaka Khan, their message was clear: faced with fear and division, love and solidarity will always win.

Carnival captures our city's indomitable spirit. As summer draws to a close, the success of this year's event is also yet more evidence that, when it comes to cultural clout, there's no match for London. In the last few months, millions have filled our sold-out stadiums and festivals to listen to some of the biggest names in music, swinging in time with Beyonce's country ballads and singing along to old Coldplay classics.

Over 500,000 came to London for the biggest Wimbledon ever, joining fans of cricket, netball, athletics, and Formula E for what has been a superb season of sport in the capital. And, in the last few weeks, City Hall's 'Summer Streets Fund' has seen thousands of Londoners flock to car-free al fresco hotspots to drink, dine and dance in the sun. From restaurants in Covent Garden and bars in Shoreditch to street markets in Leyton and DJ sets in Brixton, London has come alive.

I might be biased, but I think the case is clear: the greatest city in the world is better than ever. Speak to any of the Londoners who lined the streets of Notting Hill this weekend, and they'll tell you that our city's success story hasn't happened by accident. Today, London is thriving because of the vibrant, multicultural community we have built together. Because we believe that our diversity is a strength to be celebrated, not a weakness to be hidden.

ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE

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

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

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

The Labour Mayor of the North East has criticised the Government for holding power "too tightly in Westminster" as she claims that calls for powers to introduce a tourism levy have been blocked.

The Government's landmark English devolution bill has its first proper debate a week today (September 2) when Parliament returns from recess.

The bill promises to give every area in England a devolution deal by 2030 - handing more powers to local and mayoral authorities. But while welcoming the bill, Labour's elected North East Mayor, Kim McGuinness, suggests Rachel Reeves' Treasury is blocking moves to give them powers to introduce a small tourism levy, as is common in many European countries.

Tourism hotspots including Cornwall and Bath have recently written to the Treasury urging ministers to let them implement a fee for visitors to bolster local services.

In a foreword to a new report from the progressive think tank Compass, McGuinness writes: "There is a long way to go until we truly devolve power…Progress has been slow because as a nation our leaders haven't trusted local people."

The Labour mayor, who was elected in May 2024, adds: "I want to charge a visitor levy, a small fee to stay in hotels. It's a charge that's so mainstream across the rest of the world you barely notice it. Yet, despite widespread support amongst mayors, we're struggling to get this off the ground. Power, once again, is being held too tightly in Westminster."

She is calling for Keir Starmer's Government to go much further than its current devolution plans, giving mayoral authorities powers to control taxes in their areas.

"Devolution cannot just be a tick box. It's not completed once a mayor is in place. We'll never see the true success of our regions without fiscal devolution. I'm not calling for it all at once, but small steps, including a visitor levy, would be a positive move to demonstrate the Government's commitment to a real dilution of power," McGuinness says.

She writes: "Mayors are using the powers we already have to deliver, but for us to make the difference that local people need, those in Westminster must go further. Ultimately, they must trust local people to know what's best for them."

The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill was introduced to the House of Commons in July, part of a manifesto pledge from Labour to move power outside of Westminster.

As Compass notes: "The bill brought the most wide-scale reform to local Government in England since the establishment of directly elected mayors in combined authorities outside of London in the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016."

The bill establishes 'Strategic Authorities' - larger, single-tier councils across England, serving populations of approximately 500,000 people.

It will grant mayors enhanced powers to accelerate housing delivery, and enables mayors to borrow for major projects and infrastructure. It will also provide the new strategic authorities more oversight of transport (including e-bike regulation), adult education, housing planning, local healthcare, and the development of local growth strategies.

A new Local Audit Office will help scrutinise council expenditure amid a collapse in local Government financial scrutiny since the coalition-era abolition of the Audit Commission.

BREAKING

First Past the Post to Be Scrapped for English Mayoral Elections in Bid to Reverse Conservative 'Gerrymandering'

The move reverses changes made by the last Conservative Government, which was accused of seeking to "stitch up" elections in its own favour

Josiah Mortimer

The bill's two most significant provisions, in Compass' view, are the restoration of the supplementary vote system for mayoral elections and the introduction of a 'community right to buy', giving communities first refusal to purchase local institutions ...

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

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

James Orr likes to present himself as a populist with esoteric tastes: cigars in the garden shed, bagpipes louder than Alastair Campbell's, bookshelves lined with Kant and Thucydides in their original languages. Interviews have had him, his blond hair swept back like a young Heseltine, talking about fox hunting, toxic femininity, the decline of British institutions, and the "spiteful technocratic metropolitan animus".

They have also found in him something more striking: a philosopher at the centre of the populist right, one who says that if Reform ever got to No 10, Nigel Farage would have to do "very unpopular things."

Orr is no longer just a don in Cambridge's Divinity Faculty. This 46-year-old is described as JD Vance's "intellectual mentor" and a recent guest at the now (in)famous barbecue in the Cotswolds that gathered Trump's running mate, Farage and a clutch of Conservative MPs. He is loyal to the project, calling Vance "the future of MAGA". He is also very much central to it.

Today, Orr sits as the UK chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation; chairman of the advisory board of the pro-Reform think tank(s) Resolute 1850 / Centre for a Better Britain; on the advisory board of the Prosperity Institute (aka the Brexit-backing Dubai-based group Legatum); and on the board of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (it sets out to "re-lay the foundations of our civilisation"). He also managed to find time to organise the Now and England event in June, which had shadow minister Robert Jenrick and one-time Reform MP Rupert Lowe on the ticket.

He's a man so busy that his list of publications includes a claimed 2022 book, Being and Eternity (Bloomsbury) that, three years on, seems yet to have gone to print. It might take some time.

But judging by what he has published and said, Orr's views are clearly absolute. He opposes abortion at every stage of pregnancy, including in cases of rape. He thinks the US Capitol riot of January 2021 was exaggerated by the "global left". He believes diversity weakens nations. He finds Britain's armed forces compromised by inclusive recruitment adverts. He admires American gun laws.

He also sees secularism as hollowing out "the human world of meaning, significance (and) transcendence". And Orr seeks certainty against this godless world. He's a man, in his own words, who stands "committed to the objective existence of the lawful regularities that order the world".

EXCLUSIVE

JD Vance's 'British Sherpa' Chairs Organisation Funded by Billionaires Urging a Second US Civil War

The man described as the Vice President's "philosopher king" is linked to a series of right-wing billionaires who have condemned democracy and called for a "limited dictatorship" in the US

Olly Haynes

Such a stance has won him full-page interviews in The Times and The Spectator, outlets eager for a philosophical gloss that offers more than the often inarticulate rump of the far-right. Politico has even called him the "English philosopher king".

Certainly, Orr is an attractive sell to a political strand that all too often seems limited to serving up reactionary anger and bigotry. Orr's unwavering belief in God and foundations offers a grounding on which to stack the warm beer and St. George flags.

In his 2019 book, The Mind of God and the Works of Nature, Orr argued that the very notion of natural law only makes sense within a theistic framing. "Metaphysical theism and nomic realism are indeed historically and conceptually conjoined philosophical positions," he wrote. His argument is rather dense, but his point simple. Science relies on the conviction that nature follows laws, but - he argues - unless those laws rest on divine ideas, they are just brute accidents.

"No God, no powers," he subsequently concluded.

In 2021, in his essay Divine Lawmaking: Powers and Kinds, Orr tu...

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

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

What an observer says about a situation often reveals more about themselves than the object of their commentary.

Such is the case with the latest annual global human rights report issued by the State Department earlier this month, which reveals far more about the US's changing priorities than anything about the actual state of human rights and democracy in the world.

Previous iterations of this report, mandated by Congress since 1978, aimed to provide an objective assessment of a country's performance against the benchmark of standards in the main international human rights conventions.

This year's report is a vastly scaled-back affair, with entire categories of abuse watered down or erased, and countries' reports cut by dozens of pages in many cases.

It is also nakedly partisan in its assessments, giving countries perceived to enjoy friendly relations with the Trump administration far softer treatment than those with which it is perceived to be in conflict.

According to the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, a coalition of former State Department officials opposed to the Trump administration's foreign assistance cuts and many of its other policies, "This is not an oversight; it is deliberate erasure."

Friends With Benefits

Amongst the countries coming in for softer treatment are El Salvador - whose authorities have cooperated closely with the Trump administration in receiving deported migrants from the US into the notoriously abusive CECOT prison, and Hungary, whose strongman leader, Viktor Orban, has formed a strong bond with Trump, and whose autocratic rule is seen as a role model for right wing conservatives in America.

For example, the 2023 report noted El Salvador's overcrowded prisons and reports of "arbitrary killings; enforced disappearance; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by security forces; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention," and more.

EXCLUSIVE

Trump Made 'Mistake of Historic Proportions' on Ukraine Says His Former Ambassador

The United States' former ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, tells Alexandra Hall Hall that she couldn't "in good conscience" execute the President's plans for the country

Alexandra Hall Hall

The 2024 report found "there were no credible reports of significant human rights abuses", celebrated that "reports of gang violence remained at historic low" thanks to mass arrests, and even commended the government for its "credible steps" to identify and punish officials guilty of abuses.

By contrast, elsewhere in Latin America, Brazil, whose leader, Lula da Silva, has repeatedly clashed with Trump over the treatment of former President and Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro, comes in for scathing criticism.

The 2024 report asserts that the human rights situation there has declined, with the government allegedly undermining freedom of speech and democratic debate, disproportionately targeting supporters of Bolsonaro, and failing to tackle reported abuses credibly.

It is no coincidence that Brazil-US relations are at their lowest level in decades, in the wake of Trump's decision to levy 50% tariffs on Brazil and impose sanctions on its main judges as punishment for Brazil's prosecution of Bolsonaro for attempting to overturn the result of the 2022 election. Ironically, the effect has been to boost popular support for Lula and accelerate Brazil's strategic pivot towards China.

Likewise, this year's executive summary for Hungary notes, "there were no significant changes" and "no credible reports of significant human rights abuses". Last year's report included extensive mention of "serious government corruption" and restrictions on media freedom.

The Alaska Summit: 'You Can't Negotiate With a Lion When Your Head Is Inside Its Jaws'

Denis Mikhailov, a Russian dissident lawyer now...

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

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Vladimir Putin's aim is restore the USSR and dominate Europe - Ukraine is but a step along the way

Putin's invasion of Ukraine caused European populist parties to row back on previously sympathetic attitudes to the Kremlin. As Donald Trump and Putin's aim of forcing Volodymyr Zelensky to cede 20% of Ukraine to Russia gets nearer achievement, expect Putin apologists to argue that Zelensky could have avoided the war by abandoning his NATO ambitions.

Nobody should believe them.

President Zelensky's aim to join NATO figured in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Russia had demanded that NATO allies sign a treaty ruling out any new members and naming Ukraine in particular, but it is absurd to claim that Ukraine was invaded to prevent it joining the alliance.

In response to the invasion of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership. Finland borders on Russia both by land and sea, and Sweden has a maritime border with Russia in the Baltic sea. But after an initially aggressive response, Putin said he saw no problem with these countries joining NATO.

The Moscow line that expanding NATO is an assault on Russia's essential security interests has no corollary that countries which spurn NATO will be safe from Russian subversion or invasion. The nations at risk from Putin are at risk because of Putin's imperial ambitions in Europe, and will find no safety in declarations of neutrality or rejection of the EU or NATO.

Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 picked up where the annexation of Crimea left off in 2014 - reuniting Ukraine with Russia, and seeking to rebuild the USSR which had been dismembered after the fall of the Berlin wall, and humiliated by NATO.

Russia Sanctions Byline Times Journalists and Contributors for Exposing Putin's War Crimes

The Russian foreign ministry added multiple Byline Times and Byline TV contributors to its "stop list" following our award-winning investigations into the Putin regime

Adam Bienkov

Putin believes that Russians and Ukrainians - and Belarusians too, for that matter - are one people, which is part of the explanation for his attempts to take over Ukraine. Another key part, is his belief in their shared destiny as heirs to the legacy of Imperial Russia and to its more recent manifestation in the USSR. That legacy calls for the Russian family of nations to regain the power and prestige they once enjoyed in Europe and the world.

When Putin joined the KGB in 1975, the USSR's 15 Republics had a population of 250 million. It was a co-equal superpower to the US and outstripped China economically and militarily. Its military and economic position in Europe was reinforced by eastern European puppet states linked militarily to the USSR through the Warsaw Pact, and linked economically through Comecon.

The USSR was a global superpower with a European empire.

It was at a high point in Putin's career that all that was to change. The USSR lost control of the Warsaw Pact countries, and at the same time the USS fell apart, losing a quarter of its territory and nearly half its population.

The Real Story of the Trump-Putin Summit Is a US Oil Deal Hiding in Plain Sight

While no progress was made towards a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire, the Kremlin opened the door to a deal that could pour billions into its own war coffers

Zarina Zabrisky

Russia stepped into the shoes of the USSR, and fourteen other independent republics emerged, including Ukraine, the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Georgia, Moldova, and the central Asian republics of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Not just the USSR had disappeared, but much of the family of nations that had been imperial Russia.

Putin does not put this down to inevitable geopolitical evolution but rather to the US and its allies tricking the USSR in its dying days into allowing the reunificatio...

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

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Britain's broadcasting regulator is refusing to investigate GB News over comments about starving and shooting disabled benefit claimants, or another programme in which one of its presenters used the slur "tranny" to describe trans people.

An Ofcom bulletin released this week revealed that the regulator received 96 Ofcom complaints over the broadcast segment on benefit claimants in June.

GB News presenter Patrick Christys told viewers that "welfare needs to be cut" before asking the guest, purported comedian Lewis Schaffer, how he would "get them off their backside".

Schaffer replied: "Just starve them, that's what people have to do, that's what you've got to do to people, you can't just give people money."

He added: "What else can you do? Shoot them? I mean, I'd suggest that, but I think that's maybe a bit strong."

Christys responded: "Yeah, it's just not allowed these days."

Ofcom also revealed that it has decided against investigating a segment where former Loaded editor turned GB News presenter Martin Daubney used the slur "tranny" on 2nd July.

The presenter asked a guest: "I'm assuming the notion of dropping Winnie [Churchill on banknotes] to replace him with a tranny fills you full of repulsion?"

It comes after prominent former BBC and Channel 4 journalist Michael Crick accused Ofcom of letting GB News "get away with murder" during a debate on the channel on 14th August.

Crick called for the heads of Ofcom, Michael Grade and Melanie Dawes to be fired. He told the station: "I think it's outrageous the way Ofcom - and I've said this many times on your channel - lets you get away with murder."

"We all have to operate under Ofcom, who basically have gone to sleep on the job. They're incompetent. They've no longer got any decent leadership and they have changed the rules for channels like you without any public debate."

The journalist told the hosts: "You're a propaganda channel, not a news channel and Ofcom should have done something about this."

He also complained about the prominence of Reform on GB News.

Commenting on Ofcom's inaction over the spate of anti-disabled and anti-trans attacks on GB News, Richard Wilson, director of Stop Funding Hate, said: "Ofcom's repeated failure to do its job is putting disabled people and trans people at risk.

"Hate in our media leads to hate crime on our streets. Yet just when a robust and effective regulator is most needed, Ofcom's leadership seems to have effectively suspended the rules they are tasked with enforcing.

"In doing so, they have enabled a surge of media hate which is causing grave harm in communities across Britain."

He added: "Ofcom's job is to protect the public, not act as an enabler. If it is no longer willing to do that job, then it's time for Parliament to step in."

A spokesperson for regulator Ofcom responded to the criticism, telling Byline Times: "All regulated broadcasters must comply with our broadcasting rules. We enforce these rules fairly and proportionately, acting independently and impartially at all times.

"Our Broadcasting Code takes account of the right to freedom of expression and enables broadcasters to take different editorial approaches to their services, including broadcasting from a particular stance or viewpoint, provided that they comply with the relevant rules."

Don't miss a story

SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES

They added that the regulator assesses each individual complaint and the programme as broadcast before they decide whether to investigate.

"The volume of complaints we receive does not determine our decision. Where we find a breach of our rules, we publish fully reasoned decisions based on the evidence. At all times, we take into account the fundamental importance of the right to freedom of expression," the spokesperson said.

On the comments about starving disabled people on Patrick Ch...

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

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

As anti-migrant protests continue to spread in England, the demonstrations are helping to bridge the gap between supposedly mainstream conservatives and extremist groups.

And by and large those politicians are either failing to distance themselves from these groups, or actively embracing the association.

The old 'cordon sanitaire' previously separating centre-right conservatives from the race-obsessed extreme right appears to be evaporating before our eyes - and it is the anti-migrant hotel protests which are providing the space for it to happen.

We look through some of the clearest examples of his below, in addition to our exclusive report in January on Nigel Farage posing with racist activists.

Don't miss a story

SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES

1. Reform Councillors with 'Neo-Nazi'

Five Reform councillors in Kent joined a 'stop the boats' protest in Maidstone at the weekend. They appeared in photographs with a man draped in a flag of the British Movement, described as 'one of the UK's longest-standing neo-Nazi organisations', as Kent Current reported.

The councillors were Oliver Bradshaw, Dean Burns, Amelia Randall, Garry Sturley and Pamela Williams. They posed with protesters including a heavily-tattooed man wrapped in a British Movement flag, who Byline Times can identify as former National Front activist, Mike Gott.

In some shots, Reform's councillors are smiling and giving double thumbs-up gestures alongside Gott - also known as Carl England - a man Hope Not Hate has dubbed a neo-Nazi.

As Kent Current reports, the British Movement - which his flag endorses - was founded in the late 1960s and is one of the most overtly neo-Nazi organisations in Britain. Its members have been convicted in recent years for offences including stockpiling weapons and preparing acts of terror. Gott has himself previously been sentenced to prison for possession of a knuckleduster (as is tattooed on his face), harassment, and assault by beating.

It is not clear whether the Reform councillors were aware of who Gott is.

Where Is the Political Leadership Against This Violent Far-Right Movement Terrorising Britain?

The silence of senior mainstream politicians and media organisations against the rise of a new well-organised far-right movement on Britain's streets is a disgrace, argues Adam Bienkov

Adam Bienkov

2. Robert Jenrick with Founder of Terror-Linked Fascist Group

Conservative shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick attended a demonstration organised by a neo-Nazi party and posted a picture of himself with the founder of a terror organisation.

Jenrick later posted pictures of himself with demonstrators, which included Eddy Butler, one of the original founders of neo-Nazi group Combat 18. The numerals in Combat 18 refer to the first and eighth letters of the alphabet, referencing the name of Adolf Hitler.

Monitoring group Stand Up to Racism reported: "Butler helped to establish Combat 18 as the security detail of the British National Party in the early 1990s.

"In January 2025, the Government designated Combat 18 as an alias of the Blood & Honour group, saying there are "reasonable grounds" to suspect it of "being involved in terrorist activities through promoting and encouraging terrorism, seeking to recruit people for that purpose and making funds available for the purposes of its terrorist activities"."

The protest was organised by Callum Barker of the far-right Homeland Party, who has posted images that reference the numerical code "1488". This code was invented by the US neo-Nazi terrorist David Lane, who was involved in the murder of a Jewish radio host in 1984.

3. Suella Braverman's Turning Point Ties

Last week, former Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman MP spoke at a large protest in Waterlooville against a Home Office plan to house asylum seekers in the town centre. It has n...

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

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Russia has sanctioned multiple Byline Times journalists and contributors, following our award-winning exposes of Putin's crimes in Ukraine.

The Russian foreign ministry on Wednesday announced that six contributors to Byline Times and Byline TV have been added to its "stop list", banning them from ever entering the country.

The ministry said the inclusion of Byline's journalists was in retaliation for what it says were our "efforts to demonise our country [and] actively fabricate anti-Russia narratives to diminish Moscow's international influence".

Those included on the list were Byline Podcast editor and presenter Adrian Goldberg, former Byline TV editor Caolan Robertson and longstanding Byline contributors John Sweeney, Paul Conroy and Zarina Zabrisky, who they accuse of "collaborating" with Byline.

Sweeney, Conroy and Zabrisky fronted Byline TV's award-winning investigative documentary film Under Deadly Skies, which exposed Russia's war crimes against the Ukrainian people on the Eastern front.

The film uncovered evidence of Russia's use of white phosphorous and the torture of Ukrainians in Kherson.

Zabrisky's Byline Times investigation into Russia's use of 'human safari' drone attacks on Ukrainian citizens also led to an investigation by the United Nations' Independent International Commission of Inquiry, which confirmed our reporting that the Russian military had committed crimes against humanity

Under Deadly Skies was followed by another award-winning documentary on Russia's illegal actions in Ukraine, The Battle for Kyiv, which was also produced by Byline TV, and fronted by investigative journalist Oz Katerji.

The targeting of our journalists also follows a series of Byline Times' investigations into Russian interference in British politics. These include John Sweeney's exposes of security service concerns about relations between former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Evgeny Lebedev, the son of former KGB spy Alexander Lebedev.

The sanctioned Byline journalists are among 21 British citizens added to Russia's "stop list" which also includes other British media figures like Guardian journalist Rafael Behr and Daily Telegraph reporter David Blair as well as a series of other experts and commentators.

In its statement the Russian foreign ministry says the list is in response to "London's continued confrontational course" against the country, "including its efforts to demonise our country, actively fabricate anti-Russia narratives to diminish Moscow's international influence, and its ongoing supply of weapons to the neo-Nazi Kiev regime".

"The actions of these British propagandists are irresponsible" they state.

Byline Times Executive Editor Peter Jukes said the inclusion of so many Byline journalists and contributors on the list was a sign of the impact of our reporting on Russia.

"Byline Times is delighted to be recognised by the Kremlin for its fearless reporting of Russian war crimes. Whatever these 'stop orders' are supposed to mean, they won't stop our reporting", he said.

Reform UK's anti-trade union mayor of Greater Lincolnshire was invited to speak at a Unite union event, despite the party's opposition to trade unions and workers rights.

Former Conservative minister, turned Reform politician, Andrea Jenkyns, who insisted recently that "I don't like trade unions" and has opposed measures to increase workers' rights, was invited to attend the union's rally against the potential closure of Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery, a major employer in North Lincolnshire that is set to shut down after failing to find a new buyer.

Prax, the firm which owns the refinery, filed for insolvency in June this year, leading the UK Government to provide emergency funding and appoint insolvency practitioners to keep the refinery open whilst new buyers are sought. Over 600 jobs are at risk, and it now appears that there has been no luck in finding a new buyer.

Reform UK has seized on the potential closure and blamed it on Net Zero policies - namely high energy bills.

As well as Reform's Andrea Jenkyns, Conservative MP Martin Vickers also addressed the Unite rally at the site in July.

That's despite the Conservatives and Reform UK opposing Labour's landmark Employment Rights Bill which will meet unions' long-standing calls to repeal a raft of anti-union laws, ban nearly all zero hours contracts and give workers protections on day one of employment.

ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE

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

PAY ANNUALLY - £39.50 A YEAR

PAY MONTHLY - £3.75 A MONTH

MORE OPTIONS

We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.

Jenkyns told Jeremy Vine's show over the weekend: "I'll be honest with you, I don't like trade unions." She attacked the Employment Rights Bill, branding the new rights "ridiculous" and opposed Unite-backed calls for a wealth tax.

"You don't want workers to have power?" the Mirror's Kevin Maguire asked.

"I want workers to have rights, but it's got ridiculous now," Jenkyns replied, as reported by Left Foot Forward.

Asked why Jenkyns and Vickers were invited to the July rally for Lindsey workers, a Unite spokesperson told Byline Times: "Unite's priority is always on defending the jobs, pay and conditions of its members. Local politicians from all political parties attended the rally on 24 July where the priority was saving jobs and keeping the oil refinery open.

'Unite has been crystal clear that the UK Government must use every resource available to protect jobs, skills, local communities, supply chains and the livelihoods of thousands of families that would be affected by a closure of Lindsey Oil refinery."

The union spokesperson added: "Unite has a longstanding campaign for a workers' transition in the oil and gas sector. Unite is not against net zero but we have been clear that it will not be achieved without serious investment in new jobs. If Lindsey is closed it will be the second refinery to go under this Labour government without a concrete plan for jobs."

Don't miss a story

SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES

They added that Unite has "warned ministers time after time" about the need for investment in the sector.

A report from the publication The Socialist of the rally states: "Unite, the main trade union at the site, organised a midday protest rally outside Grimsby Town Hall on 24 July, attended by around 250 workers. Unfortunately, the union invited local Tory MP Martin Vickers and newly elected Reform mayor of Greater Lincolnshire Andrea Jenkins to speak. Both blamed the inaction of the Labour government and "Net Zero religion" for the closure, which gained a certain echo from the crowd…

"Reform UK politicians are presenting themselves as fighting to save jobs, at the same time as Reform-led councils are themselves carrying out brutal cuts on our ...

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

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Hundreds of far-right activists are currently threatening to attack hotels full of vulnerable refugees, at events which have been attended and endorsed by opposition politicians.

These events, which have been partly organised by far-right and Neo-Nazi groups, have been repeatedly defended by prominent mainstream senior politicians, some of whom suggest that the inhabitants of the hotels pose a threat to their daughters.

Meanwhile an entirely innocent British black man and his family are living in fear of their lives after being falsely labelled a paedophile on a far-right website still used by Government ministers.

The above is not the storyline from a futuristic dystopian novel, but the current reality of life in Britain, where the rise of a new well-organised violent far-right is facing little serious opposition from mainstream politicians and media organisations.

EXCLUSIVE

Founders of 'Apolitical' Patrol Group in Bournemouth Include Asylum Hotel Activist and Reform Candidate

EXCLUSIVE: One leading 'Safeguard Force' figure previously expressed hope Reform would "set the world on fire" if elected. Another shared anti-migrant memes featuring weapons

Olly Haynes

In Downing Street, which is currently occupied by former human rights lawyer Keir Starmer, questions about this movement have so far been met with only mild opposition at best and outright complicity at worst. Pushed to condemn the mobs seeking to intimidate and target those placed inside asylum hotels, a spokesman for the Prime Minister insisted that people were "right to protest" in order to express their "legitimate concerns" about migration. Meanwhile an order issued by the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper instructed police officers to reveal the ethnicity and nationality of suspects, saying she wanted "more transparency" about those accused of serious crimes.

To see where this is all leading you only need to look at the case of the British musician Olajuwon Ayeni, who is currently living in fear for his life after being falsely labeled a paedophile.

A video of Ayeni playing with his white granddaughters, was shared with millions of people by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson, alongside the caption "Wtf is even going on here? Where are the parents?!"

Amid the uproar, Ayeni was suspended by his artist management company and then forced to retire to his home after facing violent threats on the street near his home in Redcar.

"We haven't gone outside at home, we just can't," Ayeni's partner Natalie told the Guardian.

"We were walking home from shops just streets from our house, and two lads passed us, spun round and said 'I hope you're not them off that video or we're coming back to slash you up'. It's just horrendous.

Robert Jenrick and the Conservative Party's Embrace of 'Blood and Soil' Nationalism

The British right is adopting an increasingly extreme form of ethnic identity politics, while failing to explain what the rest of us are supposed to be so worried about, argues Jonathan Portes

Jonathan Portes

"Someone was shouting 'paedophile' outside the house the other night, so I rang the police again but they say there's little they can do. It feels a matter of time before something bad happens. We tried to go out yesterday and had to come home."

That this kind of thing is now happening is not a coincidence. Over the past year there has been a concerted attempt by far-right activists and politicians to encourage what Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has described as "civil disobedience on a vast scale" across the country.

Yet what Farage describes as "civil disobedience" is in reality an extreme movement designed to deliberately whip up violence against not just asylum seekers and migrants, but anyone who is not white or British.

So far we have yet to see the return of the sort of widespread street violence tha...