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In last week's Channel 4 News and Verbatim exposé, which filmed senior Reform figures apparently encouraging foreign donations, the party's head of policy, James Orr, was caught on camera saying: "we just don't have British resident donors."

New Byline Times scrutiny of Reform's declared donations tests that claim against the record. Of the £17.09 million in donations and public funds recorded by the Electoral Commission for the second quarter (Q2) of 2026, Reform UK accounted for nearly a third – some £5.4 million, more than any other party.

Of that £5.4 million, just over 87% by value came from donors with links – through business interests or personal residence – to tax havens and comparable low-tax jurisdictions, or from people and companies based abroad. There is no suggestion of law-breaking through these donations.

Donors with tax-haven and offshore links alone account for 83% of Reform's Q2 income. A further handful of companies whose controlling shareholders or owners are based overseas takes the total to 87%.

Some of those donors appear in the Offshore Leaks database maintained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which holds records on more than 810,000 offshore companies, foundations and trusts drawn from the Pandora Papers, Paradise Papers, Bahamas Leaks, Panama Papers and Offshore Leaks investigations into people linked to using offshore entities. Inclusion in the database is not in itself an indication of wrongdoing, and offshore structures are used for purposes other than minimising tax bills.

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Among those featured, and the individual comprising the lion's share of Reform's Q2 income is Ben Delo, co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, who gave £4 million across two donations in April and May. Delo, who was convicted in the United States over anti-money-laundering failures at BitMEX and later pardoned by Donald Trump, had already given the party a substantial sum in the first quarter of 2026. The two tranches make him Reform's second most generous donor since 2019, behind fellow crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.

Delo is unlikely to be caught by the Government's £100,000 annual cap on donations from overseas voters, as he is reportedly in the process of moving back to the UK after a decade resident in Hong Kong.

Reform's second-largest donor in the quarter was the multi-millionaire businessman Bassim Haidar, who gave £192,000 between April and June, taking his total contributions to the party to nearly £700,000. Haidar's nationality is listed as Irish at Companies House.

He told the Telegraph in November 2024 that he had left Britain over what he described as a punitive tax regime, and that he would split his time between Greece and Dubai. He later told Byline Times that he planned to leave "sometime in the future, not determined yet" – and he remains listed at a London address and on the UK electoral register, the condition that makes his donations permissible in the first place.

Reform in Q2 also declared £14,157 from 'Investors in Private Capital Limited', which is ultimately owned by a company registered in the British Virgin Islands. The company previously donated £100,000 to Reform in 2025.

Two further corporate donors to have contributed this quarter have offshore parentage or dealings: BMJ Waste Ltd, which donated £50,000, is ultimately owned by a firm based in Cyprus, and Greybull Capital, which donated a further £14,000, has made use of holding companies in Jersey, though the firm says it has paid its UK tax. Greybull al...

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I listened with increasing outrage and disbelief as a series of Israeli figures, including the country's Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, accused the British Government of imposing trade restrictions on illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank for purely domestic political reasons. They alleged that the British Government's action is nothing more than virtue signalling, in order to appease the Labour Party's left wing in the run-up to the party's annual conference, to fend off an electoral challenge from the Green Party, and to win the support of pro-Palestinian voters, in the upcoming by-election in Keir Starmer's old seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

The charge is ludicrous on its surface, given that the UK was taking action in concert with eleven other countries, who presumably weren't at all motivated by concern for UK electoral politics. It's also deeply insulting, since it implies that the British Government has become so shallow that it is willing to take a decision of serious strategic importance for purely trivial domestic reasons.

But, most of all, it is nakedly hypocritical, because for decades the UK, far from bending the knee to its most progressive and pro-Palestinian voters, has actually repeatedly gone out of its way to appease pro-Israeli groups, and tacitly turned a blind eye to Israeli actions which would have earned far more robust Government censure, had they been committed by almost any other country.

I know of what I speak. In the late-1990s, I was the head of the Middle East Peace Process section in the UK Foreign Office, charged with overseeing efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including through trying to establish a two state solution. The big challenge of the time was to secure successful implementation of the Wye River Memorandum, an agreement brokered by President Bill Clinton in October 1998, requiring steady Israeli withdrawal from areas of the West Bank in return for stepped up security cooperation by the Palestinians to clamp down on terrorism.

The deal quickly began to unravel, as both sides accused the other of failing to deliver on their commitments. It eventually collapsed altogether when right-wing opposition in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, including elements of Prime Minister Netanyahu's own coalition, forced the dissolution of the Government.

Though both parties bore some responsibility for the agreement's failure, it was always a lopsided arrangement, because it imposed the most stringent requirements on the Palestinians, and failed to address many of their fundamental concerns, such as the right of return, or control of land and water in the West Bank. Many suspect Prime Minister Netanyahu never had any intention of allowing the agreement to succeed – a suspicion borne out by his boast years later that he had single-handedly destroyed the Oslo Accords, and his many actions since then to expand settlements in the West Bank.

Since the October 7 attacks, the number of Palestinian bodies held by Israeli state incommunicado has soared

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Yet, whenever we in the Foreign Office tried to get Downing Street to sign off on statements urging Israel to comply with its commitments, or criticising its breaches of the Agreement, we were repeatedly rebuffed by the team around the-then Prime Minister Tony Blair. We were always being told that it would not be "helpful", or was "not the right time"; or that "private engagement would be more productive." No such restrictions were imposed on our suggestions for public statements concerning alleged Palestinian shortcomings.

In the mid-2000s, I was head of the Foreign Office's Human Rights and Democracy Department, charged with overseeing UK policy on human rights abuses worldwide. Again, there was the same reluctance by British political leaders to publicly criticise Israel, even in the face of persistent...

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At what point do we stop asking politicians nicely? New Electoral Commission figures show political parties accepted £14.2 million in donations excluding public funds between April and June this year, compared with £8.2 million during the same period last year.

That is a staggering 74% increase in a single year.

And look at the sums involved. Between April and June alone, crypto billionaire Ben Delo gave another £4 million to Reform UK, having already given the party £4 million in January. Gary Lubner and Lord David Sainsbury each gave £650,000 to Labour, while entrepreneur Ali Mosawi gave £550,000.

Overall, Reform received £5.3 million in donations excluding public funds in just three months, Labour £3.6 million and the Conservatives £2.8 million.

These are astonishing sums, and the timing could hardly be more striking. Coming one day after the Government finally acknowledged that domestic mega-donations are a problem and promised to tackle them "at pace", we learn that £14.2 million poured into political parties in a single quarter, up 74% on the same period last year.

Big money in British politics isn't slowing down while Westminster works out what to do about it. It is accelerating.

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These are not normal political donations. They are sums that bear almost no relationship to the financial reality experienced by the overwhelming majority of people in this country.

We know Britain is facing a cost-of-living crisis. People are struggling with mortgages, rents, food and energy bills. Yet we maintain a political system in which the wealthiest people can exercise vastly more financial influence over our political parties than ordinary citizens could ever hope to.

And guess what? They don't necessarily have the same interests.

Someone worrying about their energy bill cannot donate £1 million, £4 million or £10 million to a political party. The tiny number of people who can inhabit a very different economic world, with potentially very different interests on tax, wealth, property, regulation and public spending.

If you can't afford the cost of living, you definitely can't afford the cost of politics.

The public gets it. Fair Vote UK polling found that 92% of voters support some form of cap on political donations.

But these figures reveal something else too. British politics is becoming an arms race for big money.

When one party raises millions from mega-donors, its opponents face pressure to find wealthy donors of their own. Each party can justify accepting enormous cheques because the other side is doing it. Nobody wants to disarm first.

The result is a political system becoming increasingly dependent on a tiny group of people rich enough to bankroll it. That is precisely why voluntary restraint will never solve this. We need rules that apply to everyone.

And the events of the past few days have shown just how urgent the wider question of political money has become. Reform UK is facing serious allegations following an undercover investigation that senior figures discussed ways an overseas backer could fund polling for the party and potentially route a £500,000 donation through a UK-based intermediary.

Reform denies wrongdoing and says it has taken no illegal money. Two senior figures have stepped down while the party investigates, and the allegations are being considered by the Electoral Commission and police.

Whatever those investigations ultimately conclude, the episode exposes the vulnerability of a political system awash with big money. Voters should not have to wonder who is really pay...

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Britain's sole emergency communications link for sending nuclear retaliation orders to Trident missile submarines has been destroyed in a spectacular disaster unwittingly observed by hundreds of Yorkshire residents and passers-by. During a trial on Friday, the system was seen and filmed breaking up over Topcliffe, north of York, in clear view of travellers on the nearby A1 motorway.

The emergency system, called Low Frequency Fall Back or LFFB and codenamed SUNFLOWER, used a "blimp" style tethered balloon or aerostat (illustrated) to lift a 1,500 metre long radio antenna.

According to publicly available Army journals, Low Frequency Fall Back "was brought into service in 2003 to provide a high-powered LF radio system designed to operate through the atmospherically harsh conditions of a post-nuclear strike against the UK."

While being flown on Friday, the balloon was observed suddenly to start deflating, triggering the catastrophic destruction sequence seen below. The Ministry of Defence refused to answer a question from Byline Times as to whether hostile power "hybrid warfare" is suspected of bringing down the balloon. A spokesperson also refused to say whether debris has been recovered, or whether service personnel or others have been injured.

On Friday 4 September, strong gusty winds reported to exceed 50 miles an hour affected parts of the Pennines and Yorkshire, bringing down a tree in one area. Despite the weather news, the balloon was launched. Disaster struck at about 2.30 pm. A succession of images and videos posted to social media show its destruction in graphic detail (see panel). Members of an active Facebook group, North Yorkshire Weather Updates, posted notes and video records.

As multiple watchers' cameras panned and zoomed in, showing wind pressure, the balloon and tail fins appeared partially deflated, implying that its skin and gas balloon had been ruptured. The balloon began to spin on its tether, almost plunging into the ground in one image. Then the tether, which was also the emergency radio antenna, snapped. At first, the top part of the aerial, called a corona ring, remained attached. Then it appears to have fallen off.

About half an hour later, around 3 pm, the balloon was photographed still spinning and inflated while rapidly ascending over Thirsk. Over the next four hours, it appears to have continued to climb while being blown 12 miles east, finally exploding at an unknown high altitude over the edge of the North York Moors. Another Facebook user recorded the balloon wreckage falling into a farmer's field near Ampleforth.

After apparent puncturing, images show the balloon drifting east until the wreckage fell near Ampleforth (Facebook North Yorkshire Weather Updates group)

Available video does not show what caused the balloon to start deflating at about 2 pm on Friday. Its sudden destruction comes at the end of the week that NATO, Germany and the UK accused Russia of explosive drone attacks on Leipzig airport, and the UK Cabinet announced restarting Britain's "war book" emergency plans, previously abandoned in 2004.

According to a source with direct knowledge of Trident launch control procedures, speaking off the record, national fire control messages are sent by the Cabinet Office and naval headquarters twice a week, using VLF (very low frequency) radio, and following a two-person rule throughout. At the receiving end, only the submarine's weapons officer and their deputy are then permitted to open the safe containing decoding equipment and firing keys. If any other crew or the captain were to attempt to open the safe, marine guards are posted to disable them using baseball bats.

"The balloon would only be needed if all other failsafes have broken or been destroyed", the source added. "Testing is to find the weak link in rehearsal – not on the day of the crisis."

The primary Cabinet O...

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Restore Britain's pitch to would-be members is clear. If you believe in "free speech, and direct democracy — you're in the right place."

Unfortunately, that does not seem to apply to the running of the party itself.

Former Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe's party is now consistently hovering around 3% in the polls. That is substantial for a party that was only formally registered this March. In the Greater Manchester mayoral race it was biting at the heels of the Greens, securing nearly 9% of the vote.

The far-right upstart — which pushes for mass deportations, the return of the death penalty, burqa bans, and to "restore Christian values" — can no longer be dismissed as a mere social media trend. Even if X owner Elon Musk has played a major role in amplifying it.

But few have looked under the bonnet. How does Restore actually operate? Who is in control?

Byline Times has got hold of Restore Britain's constitution and other founding documents filed with the Electoral Commission, until recently unpublished and unseen. Set alongside legal filings at Companies House, they show what kind of operation this is.

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Let's start with the company itself. Restore Britain Ltd's certificate of incorporation, dated 12 June 2025, records it as a private company limited by shares. That is an unusual arrangement for a party, and the kind of set-up Reform UK had before it was "democratised" in 2025, as Nigel Farage would have it.

It is also the kind of arrangement Lowe himself appeared to criticise in Reform, branding it a party "led by the Messiah".

The company has issued one ordinary share ('£1 nominal'), carrying "full rights regarding voting, payment of dividends and distributions". It is held by the leader, founder and sole MP: Rupert Lowe.

Lowe was registered as a Person with Significant Control from the start, on all three grounds available: he controls 75% or more of the shares, 75% or more of the voting rights, and the right to appoint or remove a majority of directors. That position remains live and unchanged today.

The Companies House filings show Restore Britain Ltd is a company that Lowe owns outright.

Which makes what happened next hard to explain. The Articles of Association — the rulebook governing how a company is run — are headed "Private Company Limited by Guarantee", as are the versions handed to the Electoral Commission. A special resolution signed on 28 March (and filed with CH on 16 May 2026), adopts them on that basis.

A company cannot be both. There is no share capital in a guarantee company, and section 5 of the Companies Act 2006 bars a company limited by shares from converting into one limited by guarantee. So which is Restore? We asked. The party did not answer.

The resolution is signed by one person: "Member Name: Liam Mark Porter". But the register shows only Rupert Lowe as the sole member — the legal term for the owner of the shares.

He holds the single share, with no transfer or fresh allotment recorded since. Porter is a director, but not a corporate 'member'. On the face of it, the resolution adopting the current Articles was signed by someone who does not appear entitled to pass it.

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There are also two versions of the Articles in circulation. The set given to the Electoral Commission is headed "Adopted by Resolution of Members on 20 February 2026" — a date on which the company's only director was neither Lowe nor Porter.

The set at Companies House is dated 28 March, and is more detailed: it adds a clause barring the company from distributing income to its ...

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The Government has insisted that Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues to support electoral reform – and has committed to meeting MPs to review proposals for change.

The pledge came during the third reading of the Representation of the People Bill in the House of Commons on Wednesday evening.

It followed an amendment, backed by 193 MPs across parties, being ruled out of scope by the Deputy Speaker. It was not called during the debate on the Government's flagship Representation of the People Bill. That's despite backers arguing it was supported by more MPs than any other amendment tabled in this Parliament.

Ministers have instead offered talks on changing the voting system. Democracy Minister Florence Eshalomi told MPs that Andy Burnham "remains committed to electoral reform", while warning it was "premature to legislate now for one approach."

She has offered to meet MPs from across the House to work up "a strong proposal" and discuss next steps.

Fifteen MPs, eleven of them Labour, made the case for a National Commission on changing Westminster's First Past the Post voting system during the debate.

Following pressure from Labour MPs and progressive opposition parties in the debate, Minister Eshalomi said: "The Government's priority is a politics that works for all people in all places, not some people in some places. The Prime Minister remains committed to electoral reform as a way of supporting that objective.

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"However, we must be honest, this is a complex constitutional matter and it is premature to legislate now for one approach. I would be very happy to meet with many Members from across the House to hear their views, and look at how we can work on a strong proposal and discuss the next steps."

Outside Parliament, activists and representatives from Make Votes Matter, Compass and Unlock Democracy gathered behind a banner reading "Wake Up Westminster" and triggered 34 alarm clocks simultaneously – representing the 34% vote share that delivered Labour a landslide majority in 2024. They were joined by Labour MP Clive Lewis.

And on Thursday, representatives from Make Votes Matter and Compass were expected to deliver an open letter to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street, signed by more than 20,000 people, calling for a National Commission on Electoral Reform to design a new voting system for the UK.

Emma Harrison, CEO of Make Votes Matter, said: "Just last year, Andy Burnham described proportional representation as 'an idea whose time has come'. Now he has the opportunity to turn his longstanding commitment to fair votes into action.

"Our current voting system leaves millions without a voice in Parliament and allows entire communities to be ignored by Westminster. We already know that the Prime Minister is able to talk the talk: now he needs to show courage where it matters and actively push for this much needed change."

Speaking at last September's Labour Conference, Burnham said: "There's nothing more unstoppable, is there, than an idea whose time has come. And PR's time has definitely come… I'm here to endorse the call of Labour for a New Democracy for a National Commission to be set up in this parliament — and a manifesto commitment to a system of proportional representation to be introduced into Westminster elections in the next parliament."

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The amendment, tabled by Labour's Alex Sobel MP as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Fair Elections, was ruled out of scope of the Bill and not put to a vote.

It had been signed by 193 MPs over its lifeti...

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Nathan Cofnas's reinstatement at Ghent University last month has become a rallying point for a transatlantic network of Trump-supporting campaigners and media, seeking to rehabilitate discredited theories of racial hierarchy under the banner of academic freedom.

The US Government appeared to intervene directly on Cofnas' behalf, with the US Ambassador to Belgium, Bill White, posting: "After speaking with all parties… Ghent University and Nathan Cofnas have amicably reached an agreement to lift Mr Cofnas' suspension."

Cofnas said he personally thanked the ambassador, who "responded with great support which helped bring about a just outcome."

Tijl De Bie, Professor of AI at Ghent, opposed the disciplinary action taken against Cofnas but posted: "This is clearly blackmail by a foreign state and it is scandalous."

The academic Nathan Cofnas, who made accusations of plagiarism against Jason Arday, had become the topic of a debate over free speech and the limits of academic freedom after his university, Ghent University in Belgium, suspended him while it conducted an investigation. Arday resigned from Cambridge on 5 August 2026 and was found dead nine days later; his family said he had been the target of a "campaign of harassment".

Cofnas' reinstatement has been met with a mixed reaction from those who supported him keeping the position at Ghent.

The media's coverage of the academic's life was fuelled by the campaign of an established far-right network

Nafeez Ahmed

Those who support Cofnas' views on race science – he believes that black people are genetically inferior to white people – have treated his reinstatement as a validation of those views. Other academics who backed him purely on academic-freedom grounds are troubled by the manner of the Trump administration's intervention. A third group believed Cofnas should keep his position while regarding his work as pseudoscience that needs to be challenged robustly.

De Bie continued: "This 'victory' (if it is one – and that's not at all clear yet) is a defeat for academic freedom as a principle, and a victory for Cofnas' views and American imperialism."

Sasha Gusev, an associate professor of statistical genetics at Harvard Medical School, has said they strongly believe Cofnas should keep his post-doctoral position at Ghent, despite describing Cofnas' views as "gutter racism." They asked on X: "Why can't Cofnas' defenders honestly articulate the views that actually make him controversial?" Gusev highlights two sections from Cofnas' writing.

The first shows Cofnas effectively arguing for segregation. Cofnas wrote that "those who truly value diversity should favour the preservation of racial distinctions", suggesting "there must be some barriers set up between races in order for each one to express its own unique genius".

The other section highlighted by Gusev shows Cofnas rejecting academic-freedom protections for those he describes as "wokesters". Cofnas argued: "Critics may say that removing, or taking any other action against, the pseudoscholars would violate 'academic freedom.' But academic freedom doesn't mean that taxpayers have a moral obligation to (directly or indirectly) finance lifelong sinecures for political activists."

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On 27 August 2026, the same day Cofnas thanked the US embassy, he appeared on the Triggernometry podcast hosted by Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster. When asked what motivates him to tackle controversial topics despite pushback from all sides, Cofnas answered: "Ignoring natural group differences forces society to ...

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The coverage of Nigel Farage and Reform UK by BBC News in recent years has raised some disturbing concerns about the corporation's commitment to impartiality and its editorial standards.

The amount of airtime given to Reform (which has eight MPs in Parliament) and its leader is remarkable – on daily politics shows, news programmes, and, of course, Question Time, the party has been platformed to an extent that other parties such as the Liberal Democrats (71 MPs) and the Greens (five MPs), can only dream of.

The relationship between this and the role of influential figures within the broadcaster such as Sir Robbie Gibb – a non-executive director on the BBC Board, and a former Director of Communications for Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May – has been explored extensively in these pages.

Gibb – described by one former colleague as "an ideologically engaged operator", and referred to by former BBC presenter Emily Maitlis as an "active agent of the Conservative Party" – has a key role in overseeing impartiality.

But there are others, closer to daily editorial decisions, who are also playing a key role in not sufficiently scrutinising hard-right narratives and potential wrongdoing – and I am sad to say that Chris Mason, BBC News' Political Editor, is part of this problem.

Fifteen years back, I shared a desk with Mason at BBC Westminster's Millbank office. I found him enthusiastic, engaging, and likeable. This was pre-Brexit, when the fissures in Britain's politics and society that the vote to leave the EU would create and widen, were still to come.

When Mason replaced Laura Kuenssberg as Political Editor, I had high hopes for him. Those have been dashed.

One recent, striking, example of why this is was his interview with Nigel Farage ahead of the annual Reform Conference in Birmingham in September.

It was conducted and broadcast before the undercover investigation reported by Channel 4 News was aired, showing Reform's Dan Dukes and James Orr, in discussions for polling favourable to Reform – later published in the Telegraph and The Times – funded by an American donor, contrary to UK electoral law.

The climate crisis can't be solved without a commitment to fighting injustice at the same time – Asad Rehman, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, sat down with Byline Times' Editor in Chief to explain why

Hardeep Matharu

The interview nevertheless took place in a wider context in which Farage's relationships with donors had already come under extensive scrutiny.

Particularly an undeclared £5 million gift in 2024 to Farage from a British-born but Thailand-based crypto-billionaire, Christopher Harborne, which is being investigated by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner. And the at least £500,000 worth of donations made to Reform by the mother of the convicted fraudster George Cottrell, which is being investigated by the Metropolitan Police.

In his interview with Chris Mason, Farage claimed that the £5 million had been given to him to pay for security – but he has not always maintained that line. He has also described it as "a personal unconditional gift", and said "frankly, it was given as a reward for campaigning for Brexit for 27 years". But Farage's statement was not challenged.

Part of what I found so remarkable was Mason's body language: he merely nodded along to Farage's narrative.

"The thing is, we live in a complainant society," Farage said. Mason lifted his head and nodded. "If you complain about me," Farage continued, "automatically that triggers an investigation." Mason nodded right back.

Nodding isn't quite a universal signal of agreement, and it is extremely widespread, but it has an accepted meaning in the UK as something many journalists use during interviews – especially with nervous, shy, or traumatised interviewees – to create a warm rapport and a trusting atmosphere. It is not usually used while ...

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There are moments that demand we remain measured, thoughtful and nuanced.

This isn't one of those moments.

Our communities are seething in righteous indignation and anger at the lynching of Professor Jason Arday.

We are raging – and we should be. And we must. But what's important is that we channel this anger constructively and honour the family of Jason Arday in the wake of his death, after failing to protect him in life.

The media hounded Jason to his death. I say it again: a racist media intent on their pound of flesh hounded Jason until it became unbearable for him.

We expect this from the usual right-wing offenders.

But other outlets and individuals masquerading as our allies jumped on the bandwagon. This, for me, was simply unforgivable. According to those who knew Jason, some have said that this might have been the catalyst that pushed him to the breaking point.

Wading through an avalanche of baseless lies, hate and opportunism online, he might have expected to find some allies. He didn't, or certainly not enough.

I'm proud that The Voice stood unequivocally with Professor Arday from the outset. He must have been broken to see other prominent voices from our community, however, condemning him.

At this point, let me make something clear: spare me the recycled talking points about "legitimate questions" regarding Jason Arday's academic credibility.

Facts speak louder than conjecture. Irresponsible editors know this too. It wasn't a mistake that they made in going after Jason. It was an editorial choice. Please understand this and recognise how the game is played. This wasn't a tragic accident. It was the result of a malicious and deliberate campaign.

Jason Arday qualified as a professor before Cambridge. He then successfully met the criteria to win the post at Cambridge. And that was when the campaign against him truly began. Not in July, but three years ago.

Despite Jason being targeted and held to a level of scrutiny that no White professor would ever face, he was cleared of plagiarism. And as I wrote previously, that should have been the end of it.

Because what we really had, in objective media terms, was a non-story.

The media's coverage of the academic's life was fuelled by the campaign of an established far-right network

Nafeez Ahmed

Except Nathan Cofnas, who has now been suspended from his current post, backed by a vile race-obsessed network of Epstein-linked eugenicists and financiers, had other ideas.

In a coordinated campaign, those intent on manifesting their ethno-supremacist ideas in academia made it their mission to target Jason because they viewed him as vulnerable.

When this was happening, our community should have closed ranks around Jason. We should have, but we didn't. And some actively threw him to the wolves.

Frankly, at this point it didn't matter what Jason had said about his past. This was obviously a smear campaign with racist motivations, clearly driven by an individual with White supremacist views and an axe to grind, backed by a network with serious clout and power.

It wasn't rocket science to see this malicious lynch mob clearly for what they were. But again, those of us in our communities who should have known better opted to serve their own prestige and proximity to power, rather than do the right thing.

And what have we since learned? The mob knew that Jason Arday had not committed plagiarism. So instead, they fixated and misrepresented other parts of his past.

But Jason did run marathons, as we have since learned. He did help to collectively raise large sums for charity. He did play semi-pro football.

At best, and I choose my words carefully here, there might have been some questions about past affiliations with other institutions.

But would the answers to these questions have pointed to something nefarious? Could the answer to those questions have become confused over time in t...

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Senior Reform UK figures, including Nigel Farage, have been filmed in an undercover investigation examining ways in which money originating from a seemingly wealthy American donor could benefit the party without its source appearing in public records, Channel 4 News revealed last night.

The investigation, conducted over almost a year by investigative journalism group Verbatim, used an undercover reporter posing as "William Lockwood", the British-educated son of a wealthy American businessman, and ultimately secured a meeting with Farage himself.

It was a compelling watch. Hidden-camera footage showed detailed discussions with senior Reform UK figures about financing more than £30,000 worth of opinion polling and, later, a proposed political donation of £500,000, before the supposed donor and his son put the funding arrangements directly to Farage.

The Reform UK leader thanked the pair after they outlined a proposed £500,000 donation arrangement under which the American father would provide the money while his British son would appear as the registered donor.

Channel 4 News said it had independently verified the footage.

Central to the investigation was James Orr, the Cambridge University theologian who rose to become Reform UK's head of policy and one of Nigel Farage's most influential advisers.

EXCLUSIVE

The world-renowned academic institution has nothing to say in response to a six-month investigation by Byline Times raising serious concerns about the safeguarding of students and foreign influence at Cambridge University. Why?

Nafeez Ahmed and Peter Jukes

The name Orr might already be familiar to Byline Times readers.

As far back as November 2021, Orr was named as a key figure in a series of Byline Times investigations that presciently probed an emerging far-right network at Cambridge linked to Palantir billionaire Peter Thiel. Orr was then found to have invited alt-right polemic Jordan Peterson and white supremacist author Charles Murray to speak at the University.

In August 2025, this correspondent examined his emergence as an intellectual figure on the populist right, including his relationship with US Vice President JD Vance and his views on immigration, abortion, diversity and American gun laws.

This April, Byline Times traced Orr's position in a transatlantic network connecting Reform with Vance, Thiel and GB News owner Sir Paul Marshall. The investigation also reported that former senior Conservative politicians Robert Jenrick, Danny Kruger and Suella Braverman, who subsequently joined Reform, had all been introduced to Vance by Orr.

Weeks later, Byline Times revealed that Orr had accepted the framing of a question based on the far-right "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory during an interview with the late American MAGA activist Charlie Kirk, while arguing for the reversal of decades of immigration.

And in July, James Bloodworth examined Orr's conception of democracy after the Reform policy chief asked an audience: "What is democracy, if not majoritarianism?" Orr contrasted the "will of the people" with judges and bureaucrats while criticising what he called "democratically unaccountable" technocratic procedures.

The following day, a six-month Byline Times investigation revealed how Orr had used Cambridge as a recruitment ground for a political network linked to Reform UK and Peter Thiel. University documents seen by this newspaper showed that Thiel had offered Cambridge a secret five-figure donation through Orr while he was being considered for an academic post. Cambridge subsequently commissioned Deloitte to investigate the financial issues surrounding the donation. It found no evidence of bribery, but identified weaknesses in internal controls that it said were putting university objectives "at risk".

In light of the footage, perhaps Cambridge University's response to Byline Times' previous reporting o...