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Prospective Reform UK candidates in one of the party's new electoral strongholds, who were previously blocked by the party's internal vetting processes, have been told to re-apply under what are described as a new set of "common sense" standards.

A post on July 4 by Reform UK's official East Thanet Facebook page stated the party has adopted a new set of vetting standards as of July 7, which are "more proportionate than before". They claim to give more weight to "individual freedom of expression" - despite following a slew of scandals involving Reform candidates posting racist content online.

In a call for candidates following the apparent overhaul of their vetting standards, the East Thanet Reform post states: "We're treating this as a blank slate. If you have previously failed vetting, you are strongly encouraged to reapply under the new standards…Priority will be given to re-vetting" - i.e. giving people previously rejected as unfit for office a second bite of the cherry.

The post adds: "An election can be called with little notice. By-elections are frequent events as councillors retire or stand down. It is important that all branches have prospective candidates lined up ready to go. With plans to contest every seat at every level we need credible candidates to step forward. If you feel you have the necessary skills, now is the time to apply."

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The apparent loosening in standards came on the same day that a councillor suspended by Reform UK appeared in court accused of making threats to kill his wife.

Daniel Taylor, who now stands as an independent on Kent County Council, had the party whip withdrawn last month after being arrested on June 1, Kent Online reported. The 37-year-old appeared at Folkestone Magistrates' Court last Friday (4th July) charged with three offences, all of which he denied, according to the outlet.

A senior Kent Labour source told Byline Times: "In the same week a suspended Reform councillor appeared in court accused of threatening to kill his girlfriend, it's deeply troubling that Reform has announced it is watering down its vetting processes and is even encouraging previously rejected applicants to reapply.

"Communities need to have confidence that political parties are putting forward candidates who are fit and proper to stand for public office. After repeated vetting failures, Reform should be tightening its standards - not lowering the bar even further."

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It comes after Reform MP James McMurdock resigned the party whip over the weekend, after the Sunday Times reported he took out £70,000 in Government loans in 2020, including "£50,000 for one business, JAM Financial Ltd, which had no employees and negligible assets until the Covid pandemic." Byline Times has previously reported on allegations that McMurdock lied about his working history.

Other examples of Reform UK representatives facing suspension in recent weeks for their behaviour or comments include - as covered by the the campaign group Hope Not Hate:

"RAF employee & Reform UK candidate Luke Shingler (Galley Common, Warwickshire CC), who announced just prior to the election that he would have to sit as an Independent instead because military rules prohibit him from joining any political organisations" - something vetting should have flagged up

"Nottinghamshire's Desmond Clarke (Newark West division, Notts CC) w...

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We typed 'woman' into Google News this morning: it gave us one woman beaten, another poisoned by an unlicensed botox clinic, several women pictured for an objectifying Daily Mail article about 'sex faces'… and an op-ed in the Spectator titled: 'Ofcom still isn't sure what a woman is'.

The latter involves some bloke called Toby complaining about how 'woman' isn't being used properly as a term, as he peddles his own agendas of transphobia and climate-scepticism (his view is that the press should sooner be questioning the climate crisis than the 'clear, scientific, biological definition of a woman'). Looking through this morning's headlines, poor lexicology is the least of women's problems. So fight your fights, Toby, but not in our name.

Eleven weeks on, it seems the Supreme Court ruling described by the British press as "historic" and a "vindication" for "feminism" has achieved quite a lot of nothing. We were told it would bring "clarity" to equality law and reduce male violence in single-sex spaces. In reality, the confusion wrought has seen a new misogyny law thrown out and the Labour women's conference postponed.

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Mathilda Mallinson

Toby says the definition of woman is now a "settled matter". Keir Starmer said "a woman is an adult female, and the court has made that absolutely clear". And so our first exercise on this week's Media Storm was trying to define an "adult female". But we couldn't pin down a biological criteria that comprehensively captures all cis women. Chromosomes, gonads, genitals, hormone levels, facial hair - someone always falls through the cracks.

The Independent's solution has been to equate "biologically-female" with "assigned-female-at-birth", but that doesn't hold up because transitioning people's biology changes, and so people born male may become biologically female.

Meanwhile, some cis women are born without ovaries, or with a rogue Y chromosome. Imane Khalif was born a woman, given a female birth certificate, and then deemed to have failed one of these modern "biology" readings. Does she now lose protection under UK equality law? If so, do not tell us that was done in our name.

For our part, it seems counterintuitive to put the definition of womanhood to paper - we never felt the need to contemplate it before the media decided to lynch any MP who didn't have a "simple answer". Prescriptive definitions of what a 'woman' should be have never worked in women's interests. Indeed, the entire point of feminism has been challenging restrictive characteristics.

So, clarity? No. We have not been given that. "The implication that trans people are coming along and saying 'science is wrong' is a piece of propaganda," said our guest, LGBTQ+ activist, YouTuber metalhead and insect-enthusiast, Katy Montgomerie.

There's always an example of a woman who doesn't fit into your biological definition. It ends up being a philosophy problem

Katy Montgomerie, LGBTQ+ activist

How about the second point, that this ruling addresses male violence in single-sex spaces? Despite a lack of evidence of attacks by trans people in public toilets (we set our intern the task of finding them and she identified only one case involving a trans teenager from six years ago), rapes and sexual assaults are happening there. FOI requests on the topic have been almost flatly denied by police, but we managed to locate one dataset.

Gwent Police covers 600 square miles of rural Wales, and counted 134 recorded incidents of rape and assault in public toilets over five years. Women are being violated in toilets, but not by trans women. Are we seriously supposed to feel pacified b...

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Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the High Court today in support of direct action group Palestine Action's attempts to temporarily reverse the Government's bid to ban them as a terrorist organisation .

Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, asked the High Court to impose an interim suspension on the proscription ahead of a hearing later this month in which Palestine Action will attempt to argue that it was unlawful.

On Wednesday MPs voted overwhelmingly to proscribe Palestine Action, with 385 votes for and just 26 against.

The vote was in response to an action the organisation took which saw members break into an RAF base in Brize Norton, Oxfordshire and spray-paint Voyager planes that they claimed were destined for RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. The RAF has flown hundreds of surveillance missions over Gaza from RAF Akrotiri since 07 October 2023. Police claim the activists caused £7 million worth of damage to the planes.

The court heard that the attempt to proscribe Palestine Action was "absurd" and "an authoritarian abuse of power".

Raza Husain KC, for Ms Ammori told the court, "This is the first time in our history that a direct action civil disobedience group, which does not advocate for violence, has been sought to be proscribed as terrorists."

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The Law That Will Allow the UK Government to Ban Palestine Action

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He said "We ask you, in the first instance, to suspend until July 21 what we say is an ill-considered, discriminatory and authoritarian abuse of statutory power which is alien to the basic tradition of the common law and is contrary to the Human Rights Act."

The KC added that the Home Office "has still not sufficiently articulated or evidenced a national security reason that proscription should be brought into effect now".

The majority of protesters outside the court were there in support of Palestine Action, however there was a handful of pro-Israel protesters from the organisation Our Fight UK who held a banner reading "there is no genocide in Gaza".

One protester, an American called Sam, told Byline Times "I think what the government is trying to do is both absurd and outrageous, and they're trying to silence the movement in any way that they can, and that is because of the size of the movement."

He added "they can make it impossible for us to join Palestine action, but they cannot get rid of the idea of Palestine Action or the fact that people are going to take direct action against murderers".

If the proscription goes ahead, it will make it a crime to be a member of Palestine Action. Proscription would also make expressions of support for the group illegal, meaning demonstrations outside future court cases involving the group would be a crime.

Membership of a proscribed organisation carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. Proscribed groups include Islamic State and al Qaeda.

Another protester, who declined to give their name told Byline Times "I don't think it's terrorism, because they are not being harmful, they are not being violent. They are just trying to disrupt the war machine that is killing innocent Palestinian babies on a daily basis".

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Leading Lawyers Back Open Letter to Home Secretary Opposing Ban on Palestine Action

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Josiah Mortimer

He added "obviously they have broken some laws. They've done trespassing and stuff like that. That's as far as it goes, it doesn't constitute terrorism".

The protest is just one in a string of demonstrations in support of Palestine Action that have occurred since the announcement that Parliament would vote to proscribe the organisat...

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What do this sequence of numbers represent and do they matter: 4, 5, 6, 9, 72,121 and 411? The politically eagle eyed amongst you would know that these are the seats for the main parties and blocks in Parliament.

Let's go through the numbers to understand what if anything they mean and tell us. 411 is the number of Labour MPs. It's a very big number in parliamentary terms. It gives Labour a whopping majority 165, which means one thing and one thing only, that Labour is going to be in office until the polls give it a good enough excuse to call the next election, or by summer 2029 they simply run out of room.

A big majority guarantees a party will stay in office but nothing else. The Conservatives had a big enough majority after 2019 and yet chaos ensued. They simply didn't have a plan for the country or how to govern it. They became rebellious and focused on plots and plans about who was next up to pretend that they were in charge.

If this all feels familiar after one year of a Labour Government with almost double the majority of the Conservatives that's because it's more a crisis of the whole political system than it is the personalities who happen to be trying to run it.

Whether Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, or Morgan McSweeney stay or not is now largely beside the point. Unless, and until, Labour develops a political analysis of the place of social democracy in the third decade of the 21st century, then changing the captain of the ship heading for the rocks is irrelevant - unless they drastically change direction.

The only difference will be that it won't take a year for the incompetence of any new leader to be exposed, but like Liz Truss, it's more likely to take months or even weeks.

121 is the Conservative seat total. Little needs to be said about the non-renewal of the Conservative brand under Kemi Badenoch. But like the existential crisis of social democracy, there is a crisis of centre right Christian style democracy the world over. The Conservative's show no sign, no inclination, and no ability to even begin to solve it.

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72 is a number of seats the Liberal Democrats hold. But honestly, despite some excellent new MPs in their ranks, has it made any difference to the country's political dialogue that their numbers have increased so dramatically?

Of course, smaller parties can struggle in terms of media profile, but as we will see below, numbers aren't everything. The Liberal Democrats are now a centre left Party representing a centre right electorate at a moment when post liberal sentiment is sharpening all the time.

The crisis of liberal democracy is as real as its social and Christian varieties. The vein hope of influence in a hung parliament is just that. What do the Liberal Democrats want influence to do and how?

Nine is the number of SNP representatives in parliament, down dramatically from their high points since 2015. Labour's failings mean they could recover both in Holyrood next May and at the next General Election. But the goal of independence is as far away as ever.

Once again, it hardly matters if they have one MP or 100, why do they want independence, and how can it be enacted economically, legally and electorally? Without clear answers what are they doing?

Six, or maybe seven now, with Zarah Sultana, is the number of independent MPs. These are the early tremors that could shake the foundations of our party system. But the politics here are complex and contradictory. Trying to build a coherent project that contains inherent big cultural differences in terms of traditionalism versus uber-identity liberalism is going to be tough if not...

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Economic crime, corruption and a lack of financial transparency could be costing the UK up to £350 billion a year, a new report suggests.

The All Party Parliamentary Groups on Anti-Corruption & Responsible Tax and Fair Banking report argues that recovering money lost in the system and preventing future losses could be the key to much-needed economic growth.

The report launch occurred on the same day as Rachel Reeves welfare cuts u-turn left the Government with a £5 billion hole in its economic plans.

The Clean Foundations for Growth report states that the UK is "both a destination and transit country for economic crime primarily via Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies" and recommends implementing a publicly accessible register of beneficial ownership for companies operating there as an interim measure.

It also urges the Government to "create a real deterrent to enabling tax dodging, pro-actively using existing powers and requiring tax advisers to register with a regulatory body".

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Pushback against transparency rules from British Overseas Territories - which operate as tax havens - is a major hurdle for the Government in implementing an anticorruption agenda.

In 2020, the UK Government ordered the Overseas Territories to introduce publicly accessible beneficial ownership registers.

The publication of the anti-corruption report came two days after the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Bermuda, Anguilla and Turks and Caicos missed a key deadline on implementing a register of beneficial ownership listed in the territories.

On 23 June, BVI also announced a new policy on access to beneficial ownership information. It would only allow access to information about companies registered there if the party requesting it had a credible reason to believe that someone with a 25% or higher stake in a firm has violated anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing or counter-weapons proliferation financing rules.

After BVI missed the register deadline, the UK Anticorruption Coalition (UKACC) - a collection of anticorruption NGOs - stated "far from moving towards increased transparency and shining a light on economic crimes and tax abuse, their plans would actively place journalists and civil society actors at legal and physical risk".

It added: "This is all the more concerning given that the BVI has recently been added to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list due to serious deficiencies in its anti-money laundering regime."

If a country, or territory, fails to act on corruption and economic crime while on the grey list it can be added to the FATF blacklist. Countries currently on the blacklist include Iran, North Korea and Myanmar.

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The UKACC added that if any Overseas Territory "continues to defy the will of the UK Parliament, the Government should be prepared to escalate its response".

"All legal and constitutional options should be on the table to ensure these commitments are delivered in full and without further delay," it stated.

Speaking at a launch event for the report in Westminster - which was attended by anticorruption campaigners as well as representatives from banks and the lobby group for the City, UK Finance - Kathryn We...

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Conservative hardliners on immigration oversaw a large, uncontrolled rise in overseas skilled workers entering Britain while in charge of the Home Office between 2020 and 2024, a report by the House of Commons' Public Accounts Committee reveals today.

Successive Home Secretaries, Priti Patel and Suella Braverman, and Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, presided over new visa rules that recruited large numbers of workers without introducing sufficient safeguards.

These changes were extended by Patel in February 2022 to include care home workers following COVID, and continued under Braverman, who succeeded her under both Liz Truss' and Rishi Sunak's governments.

Jenrick, a vocal critic of unregulated immigration, served as Immigration Minister from October 2022 to December 2023 - the period when arrivals under the skilled worker scheme peaked, before falling in 2024.

The extension of the scheme to include care workers, introduced by Patel, accounted for 648,100 of the applications.

Chris Philp MP, Shadow Home Secretary, did not respond to questions about the Conservative record but told Byline Times: "Labour's first year in office has been a disaster. Over 20,000 people have crossed the Channel illegally already this year, the highest ever at this point. If this chaos continues, we're on track to hit 50,000 by the end of 2025."

A factual report from the Public Accounts Committee shows that, instead of an anticipated 360,000 arrivals under the scheme, the final number was 1.18 million - including dependents - a figure nearly ten times larger than the estimate of 148,000 migrants arriving by small boats between 2020 and 2024.

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Exploitation and Modern Slavery

The report is highly critical of the Home Office's handling of the scheme. Although applicants were required to obtain sponsorship from businesses, almost none of these businesses were vetted. Each civil servant was reportedly responsible for overseeing 1,600 firms, and 99% of applications were initially approved without scrutiny. In one case, 16 applications were linked to the same address.

As a result, MPs concluded that many of those arriving in the UK were exposed to exploitation. Some had paid large sums to agents in their countries of origin and were in debt on arrival; others had been trafficked. Around 5,000 used the visa route to claim asylum, while others who lost employment simply vanished. Some may have become victims of modern slavery.

The report notes that the Home Office did not monitor whether visa-holders left the UK once their visas expired.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Conservative MP and Chair of the Committee, said: "Our report finds that this speed [to open up new visas] came at a painfully high cost - to the safety of workers from the depredations of labour market abuses, and the integrity of the system from people not following the rules."

He continued:

There has long been mounting evidence of serious issues with the system, laid bare once again in our inquiry. And yet basic information, such as how many people on skilled worker visas have been modern slavery victims, and whether people leave the UK after their visas expire, seems to still not have been gathered by the Government

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Focus on Labour Exploitation, in its evidence to MPs, said: "Any immigration system which doesn't proactively include mechanisms which enable workers to report exploitation and ultimately leave an exploitative employer, without jeopardising their employment, accommodation and immigration status, has exploitation baked into its...

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Reform UK's Darren Grimes faces allegations of misleading voters after he claimed police had advised him not to hold local surgeries with his constituents - only for the police to tell Byline Times this was untrue.

One Durham resident contacted the new Reform UK Deputy Leader of Durham County Council and former GB News host, in order to request assistance in addressing parking problems in his ward.

He asked Grimes: "Can you confirm surgery dates and any public meetings where this [issue] will be covered?"

Grimes, a prominent activist, told the voter: "To be honest I am still figuring out how to go about that at this moment. The police have advised me not to conduct such events due to security concerns, which I do not want to do.

"I'll get back to you if [a Reform colleague] and I do get one set up."

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Grimes's claim that police advised him not to hold public meetings due to unspecified security concerns aroused the voter's suspicion.

The man challenged the excuse, pointing out that local politicians hold similar meetings without major issues. He told this paper that he felt the councillor was avoiding accountability to voters, so asked the Durham Police and Crime Commissioner (PPC) about it.

A senior PCC spokesperson for Joy Allen, Durham Police & Crime Commissioner, told the constituent: "The Police have not [their emphasis] advised councillors not to hold surgeries in the community. They would only do this in exceptional circumstances i.e. if there was a specific risk identified."

A spokesperson for Durham Constabulary confirmed this to Byline Times, saying: "No, we have not told councillors they should not hold in-person surgeries for security reasons."

The constituent believes Grimes' security concerns are a "lie" and that the councillor simply doesn't want to hold face-to-face meetings with voters. Grimes did not respond to a request for comment.

One Durham councillor, who asked not to be named, told this outlet: "I've never had that sort of advice from a police officer…When you're actually elected and you're just getting on with the job of being a councillor, there's much less concern over those things [than during elections]. So I'd be very surprised if the police had advised that surgery didn't take place.

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"They might have made some recommendations on how to do them safely. But yes, it's very unlikely that they would have advised not to do them."

The opposition councillor added: "He'd have somebody with him normally, and that's what we'd recommend any councillor did - not to do it on their own. That's the principal safeguarding measure. The police are fantastic when it comes to looking after the wellbeing of elected people. They're proactive."

Last week, Byline Times revealed that Grimes failed to list being a member of any political organisations on his register of interests, despite declaring on X that he is a member of the right-wing Free Speech Union last August - and being a member of Reform UK.

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Following Byline Times' story, Grimes' register of interests was updated to include his membership of Refo...

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Kemi Badenoch has been told to "show some backbone"and expel their London Assembly leader Susan Hall, after she joined the advisory board of a far-right group demanding the mass deportation of millions of people living legally in the UK.

In a post on social media, expelled ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe said that he was "absolutely delighted to have Susan Hall AM, Leader of the Conservative Group on the London Assembly and the party's 2024 London mayoral candidate, join our Restore Britain Advisory Board". He went on to call her a "proper campaigner with fantastic experience".

Lowe's new outfit claims that it is not a political party, but rather a "movement" aiming to "carpet-bomb the cancer of wokery", and that wants to entice members from any party it can "if they share our values and want to be part of a bottom-up movement that has the potential to transform Britain".

On the group's web page, it has pledged to "ban the burqa", "defund the BBC", "restore the death penalty", "deport all illegal migrants" and achieve "net negative immigration". The group goes much further than many political outfits that support reducing migration, wanting to actively see mass emigration by removing millions of legal residents of the country.

In the wake of grooming scandals, Lowe said earlier this year: "If whole [Pakistani] communities have to be deported, then so be it".

Lib Dem London spokesperson Luke Taylor MP Hall's backing for Restore Britain shows either her values "are out of step with the Conservative Party, or the Conservative Party has lurched even further to the right out of desperation."

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Challenged on Hall's far-right endorsement on Wednesday, a Conservative party spokesperson defended her, telling journalists Lowe "is an independent MP & his is a non-aligned, non-partisan movement".

In a statement to the London Centric Substack, Hall said: "I have yet to meet with any other [Restore Britain] board members to discuss policy, and as I understand it no policies have been voted on or supported. My engagement thus far has been one conversation with Rupert Lowe."

"I support those who migrate here with a view to integrate and help build our communities, and I do not support their deportation. However, I am deeply concerned about those who do not integrate, or who commit crimes, who should not be here."

However, Restore Britain's "net negative migration" policy would require "annual departure of legal migrants [to] at least double". This would almost certainly involve mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of legal migrants, a policy which has strong overlap with the British National Party or the National Front.

Lowe's project has already attracted a number of prominent individuals on the right, including Charlie Downes, a far-right political commentator who has praised Enoch Powell and spoken at anti-migrant demonstrations. Downes announced his joining on the Lotus Eaters podcast.

Restore Britain, which claims it wants to "end anti-white racism", has also received the public support of former UKIP MEP Steven Woolfe, racism-scandal historian David Starkey, and, seemingly, Elon Musk, who under Lowe's announcement of the project tweeted two Union Flag emojis.

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Xtremists

It's perhaps not surprising that Musk has decided to indicate his support for Lowe. The billionaire had previously suggested he should lead ...

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The shaky and fragile ceasefire between Israel, and its US partner and benefactor, and Iran, continues to hold for now.

However, while the world remains apprehensive about what many believe was a dangerous military gamble by both Tel Aviv and Washington in their recent attacks on Iran, events are unfolding just as planned by both countries following a decades' long plan by Washington and Tel Aviv neoconservatives.

In 1996 a policy document called A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, prepared by a study group led by American neoconservative Richard Perle, was presented to current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was also Prime Minister at the time.

The plan called for regime change in North Africa and the Middle East which involved the overthrow of seven countries to be replaced by friendlier regimes that were more pliable to Israeli and American plans for domination and regional hegemony.

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The plan was to target Iraq and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan before finishing off with Iran. The document argued that regime change was preferable to pursuing peace talks with the Arab world.

Perle was formerly part of the Project for a New American Century which advocated for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, following the attack on New York's Twin Towers, on false claims of possessing weapons of mass destruction.

While Iraq did not have such weapons, the goals of overthrowing Saddam Hussein was completed leaving a more fragile, divided country in its wake.

Desire for regime change is particularly pertinent to current Middle East developments as there are also ongoing discussions in both Israel and the US about whether to implement regime change in Iran and to pursue nuclear talks, following Israeli and American attacks on Iran and its nuclear sites in June.

Netanyahu would prefer regime change while US President Donald Trump earlier appeared to be open to further talks with Iran until recently taking a harder line and also raising the possibility of regime change.

Any overthrow of the Iranian Government could fuel further chaos in a region already destabilised by Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

The Israeli premier and his extreme right-wing Government, comprising several ministers with criminal convictions and a fascist outlook, are succeeding in plans to destroy Gaza and ethnically cleanse its inhabitants just as outlined in an Israeli Intelligence Ministry plan produced just after Hamas' 7 October plan in 2023.

Meanwhile, the ethnic cleansing of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank, and the defacto annexation thereof, continues at an accelerated pace with current settlements expanding and new ones being planned.

This aligns with Netanyahu vowing to never recognise a Palestinian state. It also aligns with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee stating the US no longer endorses a two-state solution while continuing to supply weapons, billions in financial aid and uncritical political support to Israel.

UPDATE

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The broadcaster failed to inform listeners of Colonel Richard Kemp's connections to the IDF, despite an earlier rebuke from the Charity Commission, following an investigation by Byline Times

Iain Overton

Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians and their property continues on a daily basis with three Palestinians killed by settlers in the last week alone.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports there have been thousands of attacks by Israeli settlers and soldi...

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I would wager that most of the people currently hammering on their keyboards about the punishment that should be meted out to, in no particular order, the BBC, Bob Vylan and the organisers of Glastonbury, probably didn't actually catch the set by the London based punk/rap duo, in which, during the course of their performance they led the crowd in a chant of 'death, death to the IDF'.

Nevertheless, Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, was so outraged that she was prompted to the despatch box to declare that the comments were 'appalling and unacceptable,' and stating that the BBC had questions to answer over its decision to broadcast.

Head of Ofcom, Baroness Smith, seemed to agree with Nandy, and accused the group of 'definitely inciting racial hatred.' Meanwhile, Chris Philp, the Conservative Shadow Home Secretary, decided to wade in by linking the performance of the duo to the case of Lucy Connolly, the wife of Conservative Counsellor who was jailed for 31 months after pleading guilty to the offence of inciting racial hatred.

He also added his inevitable attack on the integrity of the BBC and the Prime Minister, saying about Bob Vylan, that 'he (sic), should be arrested and prosecuted immediately, ' and a failure to do so, would be a clear example of the 'two tier justice system under Kier Starmer.'

Not surprisingly, as a result of these expressions of outrage and opprobrium, Avon and Somerset Police have been inundated with people claiming that they were offended by Bob Vylan, and wished to make a complaint, leading to the appointment of a Detective Constable to investigate the matter with a view to possible criminal charges.

So, let's dissect some of these points - first, what crime, if any, have Bob Vylan potentially committed?

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As far as I can see, there can only be three potential avenues open for a prosecution and none of them would be particularly attractive to any would be prosecutor - first, is the possible offence of making a threat to kill contrary to S.16 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 - for someone to be guilty of this, they must have made a threat to kill, and I suppose, shouting 'death' to someone, might tick this box. However, they will need to have made the threat with the intention of that person believing that the threat would be carried out. The idea that over in Israel the IDF would have genuinely believed that a not particularly significant punk band and an audience of (I'm told) about 200 new age hippies were going to kill them, is a little far fetched.

The next potential charge might have been inciting a riot, contrary to the Public Order Act 1986. To fall foul of this, it would have to be proved that there was actual encouragement to riot or carry out some kind of public disorder. Again, no one is really going to accept that making a statement in the form of a chant, is an active call to riot.

This therefore only leaves the offence of inciting racial hatred as per the provisions, again, of the Public Order Act. Miss Connolly was convicted under S.19 of the Act, which is publishing or distributing written material likely to stir up racial hatred, which she did by posting a tweet in which she said:

"Mass deportation now. Set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care. While you're at it, take the treacherous government and politicians with them."

Any similar charge against Bob Vylan would have to be brought under s.18, of the Act which states:

(1)A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written materia...